You all know my love for John Mayer by now, so this week’s song shouldn’t surprise you too much! My friend Deana passed along his rendition of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” to me recently. Being my favorite holiday song, and having my favorite musician sing it is a Christmas present in itself. Listen below and let me know what you think!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ureuzjaXx7k]
While being interviewed recently by Planet Verge about my blog and the benefit for To Write Love On Her Arms this coming Saturday, I was asked how I first became interested in TWLOHA. It’s something I’ve been talking about a lot lately and I thought I’d share my answer with you and the article that started it all below.
You aren’t just another girl writing about “must know” bands; you’re also involved with the organization, To Write Love On Her Arms. Can you tell us about how you first became interested in collaborating with TWLOHA?
I’m a huge Switchfoot fan and it was through them that I first heard about TWLOHA. I can’t exactly remember if it was at a show, or seeing Jon Foreman wearing their T-shirt in photos, but I was curious about the organization and did some research. I really liked the idea behind TWLOHA, presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide, and wrote about them for a paper in college.
From interviewing three girls in college struggling with depression and self-injury, I realized this was an issue that needed to be talked about. I pitched my article to a few of my internships, but for one reason or another they never ran the article. I was brainstorming with my friend Monica of The Jew Spot (who is hosting the benefit show with me) over the summer and we wanted to celebrate our blog anniversaries, but also raise money for a good cause and I suggested TWLOHA. In a way, this benefit is getting word out about the organization where my unpublished article failed.
You can read the rest of the Planet Verge interview with me here.
As for my article, I will post it in it’s entirety below. Submitted to my magazine writing class in December of 2006, I find it strikingly serendipitous that I was writing it just around this time three years ago, don’t you? Read below as I interview three girls who have struggled with depression and self-mutilation as well as a counselor at Rutgers and former TWLOHA staffer.
CUTTING
December 20, 2006
Paige* started cutting the summer of freshman year of high school. For Paige, cutting gave her control. While she typically used a razor, she said once she shattered a mirror and used that. “I hated myself. I liked cutting because I could control how much I bled,” she says.
Her depression began in middle school after her neighbor started raping her when she babysat for his little sister. In middle school Paige was depressed, stopped eating and had poor self esteem. She eventually went with a friend to her youth minister and told him about cutting and that she needed help. Paige’s youth minister accompanied her home to tell her parents, who were in shock. “No one really understands why you cut yourself. No one wants to say anything about it,” she said.
For many, cutting is a way to cope with inside pain or emotional pain, explained Marta Aizenman, a counselor with a practice in Princeton and director of the counseling and psychological services at the School of Environment and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University.
“When a person does not know what to do or how to cope what they are experiencing, their body becomes the vehicle to experience that. It’s similar to how a painter experiences painting. A person uses their body to express what they are feeling and what they are feeling is a lot of negative emotion,” Aizenman said.
While cutting tends to start in adolescents or earlier, it’s also frequently seen in high school and college.
Eventually Paige started counseling, but was reluctant. “I didn’t want to go at first,” she says. “It’s like you’re admitting you have a problem and you want to fix it on your own, not go to counseling.”
Therapy is often a major way to combat cutting. “Therapy is very important here because the result is something the person is feeling and those feelings are a result of something that happened in their life. If they find ways to cope, or process ways to cut they feel better,” Aizeman said. She says cutters should take alternative routes to cutting, such as go for a walk or find other ways to release tension.
While even today cutting isn’t talked about completely, there are organizations reaching out to help others deal with depression. One such organization came about rather unexpectedly, from an article written in Relevant Magazine by Jamie Tworkowski. His story was about one girl, Renee, and five days of her life before she went to a clinic for cutting. Lauren Ranzino, director of counseling and organizations for To Write Love On Her Arms talked of how it all began.
“Basically someone brought Renee to treatment. She was addicted to cutting, attempted suicide and was so bad to the point that they said, ‘We can’t take you, and we don’t have the facilities to take you, come back in five days.’ Jaime asked her if he could write about it in Relevant Magazine and he wrote her story, called To Write Love On Her Arms,” Ranzino said.
A group of people, who now work for the organization, started selling shirts to raise money for Renee’s rehab, lead singer/guitarist Jon Foreman of Switchfoot being the first person to wear the shirt. Anberlin, Underoath, and Memoranda are some other bands that have also been wearing the shirts and involved in the Stop the Bleeding Tour, which brings music, counselors, and awareness to the issue of cutting. “The tour is more doing what we do everyday on the road so people can put a face to everything and talk to us in person and meet counselors in their area who come to the event,” Ranzino said.
To Write Love On Her Arms is mainly based out of their MySpace page, where people can leave comments and emails. “We don’t solicit people. We don’t go and try to find people necessarily. We’ll get emails written or messages on MySpace everyday. People come to us and don’t feel condemned or crazy. It’s a place to find hope, help and healing,” Ranzino says.
Ranzino feels part of the huge response to the organization is the anonymity of everything. “Remaining anonymous in the beginning is a v
ery serene thing because they don’t need to be found out by
their family. We want to know if they want to tell us, but we don’t force anything out of them.” In fact, in many instances, when Ranzino asks who else knows about the person’s cutting, no one else does. “It’s a very secretive thing and for anyone to come to us is an honor and a very unique place to be.”
To Write Love On Her Arms are not trained professionals or counselors and they make sure the people they’re reaching know this. “A lot of what I do is encourage them, tell them you’re not crazy if you go to a psychologist, they’re there to help us cope with things,” Ranzino said. While Ranzino says there are many different reasons as to why someone decides to cut themselves, she feels that at the core of it, people don’t have anyone to talk to about their problems.
This was the case for Emily.
While many events led Emily into experimenting with cutting, one of her reasons was a loss of feeling she had a confidant to tell things to. One of her friends was in treatment for nine months for cutting, depression, and post traumatic stress disorder and her close friends had been superficial and judgmental of that friend.
Emily began cutting when she was 15 years old and cut regularly, at least three or four times a week until July of her sophomore year when she was hospitalized for suicidal thoughts and her parents found out about her cutting. She suffered from anorexia as well, and cutting became a common routine if she didn’t live up to her ideal daily calorie intake. Since then, Emily has gone back to cutting in instances when she’s feeling intense emotions or is upset about making a bad decision. “Basically, if I can’t verbalize, or feel as though the feelings I feel are wrong or inappropriate, I cut.”
Currently, Emily works at a psych hospital and says many of the adolescents and adults she’s come in contact with have problems with self-mutilation. “It’s like people are crying for help, showing that we’re in pain and we need something, anything, and no one wants to talk about what can help us get through it. There is very little research in the psychology literature and people are so ashamed.”
However, Emily is no longer ashamed of cutting. “I don’t want my family to know that I’ve relapsed right now, because I feel like I’ve let them down and it scares them, the whole idea of hurting your own body intentionally. But with friends that I truly trust and with my therapists I am totally open with the fact that I have this maladaptive coping mechanism. It’s what I do. I want help, I want to stop again, but right now, it’s how I deal.”
The years of adolescence are often a hard adjustment for many girls. Confusion of changing bodies, sexual identity, and uncertainty may lead some to cutting. This was the case of Michelle**, 20, who started cutting in eighth grade. “A lot of it is tied up with development and sexuality, but I had been feeling depressed and unsure about myself and where I was going in life independently of that.” Luckily for Michelle, in ninth grade she found a group of friends who helped her feel less depressed and her cutting decreased. “Cutting became a way for me to calm down from specific stressful situations instead of a gesture of depression.”
However, as her academic pressures built up throughout high school she became more dependent on cutting to focus and get through long nights of work. “I would feel lots of anxiety about starting a paper or being able to finish all my work on time, and cutting myself would help me feel calmer about it all,” she says. Once she entered college she continued cutting, with more intense periods around finals, but she has decided to stop cutting.
“Taking the semester off and admitting this is a real problem in my life has dedicated me to that course of action. My boyfriend and the friends who know I cut are proud of me for this, and their support has been incredibly helpful. I’ve realized I can’t keep dealing with my emotions in such an indirect, self-destructive manner, and that cutting is preventing me from achieving the happiness and confidence that I want in my life. I know I can stop; I have always known that once I decided to stop I would stop.”
In order to change any behavior, including cutting, the person doing harm to herself has to want to change. While it is proven that counseling can help, the person has to decide, like Michelle, on her own that it is time to stop. With organizations such as TWLOHA and more women speaking out about their experiences cutting, society may be able to get over its fear of self-mutilation through spreading awareness and understanding.
*Wishes to use first name only
**Name changed upon request
Related Links:
• Two Year Blog Anniversary/Benefit Concert Saturday!
• You Sing, I Write + The Jew Spot Present A Benefit For TWLOHA
• You Sing, I Write Celebrates Two Years
• Why Benefit To Write Love On Her Arms?
I was backstage at the Jingle Ball concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City last Friday night, where Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Owl City, Boys Like Girls, and the other hot artists of 2009 performed. Before Justin sang “One Less Lonely Girl” and “One Time” for the screaming crowd, he beatboxed for press behind-the-scenes, professed his love for Beyoncé (multiple times!), and told us what he looks for in a girl. Check out the revealing Q+A!
Who is your favorite singer?
Beyoncé.
With all of your success, is there anything you’ve gone out and splurged on?
Not really. I buy a lot of candy.
What’s your New Year’s resolution?
My New Year’s resolution is…I’m going to stop eating as much candy.
You’re going on tour soon. What can a fan do to stand out from the crowd?
Be really loud. Be as loud as you can.
Who is your celebrity crush?
Beyoncé.
Have you ever had to deal with stage fright?
Not really.
What’s your favorite album of the year?
Blueprint 3.
What are some of your favorite songs from the year?
I liked “Use Somebody” [by Kings of Leon] and “Battlefield” by Jordin Sparks.
What has been the most misunderstood thing about you?
I don’t know. I think people have gotten their points pretty straight.
What’s the most important item to you?
Probably luggage because I travel so much.
Out of everything that has gone on this year for you, can you point to one highlight?
I got to go to Germany and I got to perform for 17,000 people.
How is it being in New York for the holidays?
It feels great. Being in New York for the holidays is great. The spirit here is fantastic and among that, being able to perform at Madison Square Garden is legendary. It’s going to be awesome.
You and Taylor Swift seem to be pretty close friends. Has she given you any advice about the industry?
Not really. When we talk, we talk about fun stuff.
What do you want for Christmas?
For Christmas I just want to go and see my family up in Canada.
Who’s an artist you’d like to work with?
Beyoncé.
What’s your favorite candy?
My favorite candy is Beyoncé.
What qualities do you look for in a girl?
I look for a girl that has a nice smile and pretty eyes and a girl that can make me laugh because I like to laugh.
What’s going on through your head when you’re onstage performing?
My fans usually.
You can read this interview, originally posted on Seventeen.com here.
Photo Credit: Wendy Hu
The music video for Boys Like Girls’ most recent single, “Two Is Better Than One,” featuring Taylor Swift, was just released last Friday. Have you seen it? I chatted with lead singer Martin Johnson (who also wrote the song), guitarist Paul DiGiovanni, and drummer John Keefe at New York radio station Z100’s Jingle Ball concert that very day and got the scoop on what it’s like working with Taylor Swift.
I just heard your duet with Taylor Swift and love it! How did that come about?
John: We saw her say something about us in The Wall Street Journal and our paths crossed.
Paul: She wrote something about us in the paper, and we saw it and got in contact and became friends. We finished up the whole song “Two Is Better Than One.” It was all produced and recorded and we wanted to make it a little bit better. We thought she would do a killer job on it and we just hit her up, and she said she’d do it and it was the coolest thing ever.
Have you found people to be receiving the new single well?
Martin: I just got told in the gifting lounge that one of the people had been to a wedding and the cover band was playing it as the wedding song. We are now a wedding band. [Laughs] I’m blown away. When people react to it and say, “That’s our song” or “That’s my song and that made me fall in love.” That’s really special.
How was working with Taylor Swift on the song?
Martin: It was amazing. She’s really such a nice girl. We had known her for a really long time and had been friends for a while. John played drums on Fearless and then she became the biggest star in the universe. It was like shooting for the stars asking her to sing on the record. We were so delighted and fortunate enough to have her on the record. It’s going to be fun to perform with her tonight.
You have been friends with Taylor Swift for a long time. Have you noticed a change in her?
Martin: No, she stayed the same the whole time. She’s the best.
John: Taylor Swift is the perfect human being. She’s great. She’s such a nice, whole-hearted sweet girl and the biggest super star in the world. My mom would be stoked if I brought her home.
Do you have plans for the New Year?
John: We’re going to Michigan to play a New Year’s show outside. It’s going to be awesome!
Watch the “Two Is Better Than One” music video below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E231TF4CzU0]
You can read this interview, originally posted on Seventeen.com here.
Photo Credit: Wendy Hu
Adam Lambert has been garnering much attention after his jaw-dropping performance at this year’s American Music Awards. Controversy aside, the American Idol runner up has graced the cover of Rolling Stone and was recently named one of “The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2009” by Barbara Walters.
At the end of the day, Adam Lambert is a true entertainer and his performances indicate this. Friday night at New York radio station Z100’s annual Jingle Ball concert, Lambert filled us in on his latest single, the album, For Your Entertainment, and one of his biggest fears.
Tell me about your new single, “Whataya Want From Me.”
Pink and Max Martin wrote the song together. And I believe that their initial intention was about a relationship and about being in a situation where you’re in a little bit over your head. You’re wondering, “What is it that you want from me?” But thank you for sticking around. And now it’s so appropriate, considering some of the recent controversy and ownership of different social groups and what I should be to other people. It is a great way for me to say, “What do you guys want from me?” I’m doing my best. The best lyric in the song is, “Yeah, I’m a freak but thanks for loving me, you’re doing it perfectly.”
With all the tracks you wrote for the album, For Your Entertainment, are there any songs that didn’t make the cut?
Pretty much everything is out there in one way or another. There are a certain amount of tracks on the standard release and then there are bonus tracks on iTunes and then there’s an international release with some extra songs. I’m really happy with the way it turned out. It’s all out there in some way or another.
What are your fears?
That people won’t want to buy the rest of my music. That people will stop being interested. I think that’s my biggest fear.
What’s your New Year’s resolution?
[My] New Year’s resolution is to continue being positive and try to live in the moment and enjoy this.
I’ve fully recuperated from the insanity that was Jingle Ball. I have to say, I didn’t realize just how crazy teen girls are for Justin Bieber until Friday night! Wish I remembered to bring my earplugs!
Last week’s poll I asked you which Jingle Ball artist you’re most interested in reading about. The results were a landslide between John Mayer and Taylor Swift. Unfortunately, they canceled their interviews Friday, but I did catch them live and will have a full report in the upcoming days.
While I didn’t get any exclusives with Mayer or Swift, I was in the press room for most of the night and got a few questions in for each band performing, including Boys Like Girls on their new single “Two Is Better Than One” featuring Taylor Swift as well as Jay Sean and the difference between his UK and US audiences. Let me know which artist you’re most interested in and I’ll transcribe it quickly and get it up for you on the blog!
We’re exactly one week away from the official two-year blog anniversary and benefit concert for To Write Love On Her Arms! I’m so excited to report that Chloe, Benefit Coordinator for TWLOHA, will be speaking next Saturday at Don Hills! TWLOHA Info and Merch will also be available.
Doors open 6pm. The event is at Don Hills, located at 511 Greenwich St. Have you RSVP’d yet? You can RSVP here on Facebook as well as purchase your tickets here.
Ms. Shira will be our special guest for the evening and will debut a song off her upcoming album. Additional performers include Hotspur, Love Automatic, Tor Miller Band and The Ramblers.
To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery. For more information, visit TWLOHA’s Web site here. See you there!
Orianthi has had quite the year. After performing with Carrie Underwood at the Grammy’s, she sparked Michael Jackson’s interest, having him invite her to audition for his upcoming tour. Unfortunately, the tour never happened, but Orianthi has been making a name for herself ever since.
I sat down with Ori yesterday before her performance at Best Buy in New York’s Union Square where she filled me in on working with Jackson, jamming with one of her idols, Carlos Santana, and her most recent chart-topping single, “According To You.” Stay tuned for my interview in the upcoming weeks and video of her performance.
Orianthi will be performing at 4 p.m. today at Jingle Ball’s pre-show at Hammerstein Ballroom, but if you can’t make that give her single, “According To You” a listen below.
I’ll be covering Jingle Ball tonight and have access to the press room for artist interviews. Tonight’s lineup includes: John Mayer, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, The Fray, Jordan Sparks, Kris Allen, Boys Like Girls, Pitbull, Owl City, Jay Sean, Ke$ha and more. For more information on the artists, photos, and videos click here. Be sure to follow me tonight on Twitter as I update you on the night’s festivities!
What better way to celebrate the holidays than to purchase a CD and attend a show where all the proceeds are donated to a worthy cause? A Holiday Benefit, vol. 3 does just that. Comprised of 12 tracks from some of New York City’s finest emerging artists, all the proceeds made will be donated to 826NYC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6-18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.
I’ve been covering the annual benefit show the past two years and it’s always a great night of music by talented New York musicians. This year will be no different. The charity CD release party is set for December 16th at Pianos and will feature performances from Bess Rogers, Bryan Dunn, Casey Shea, Paula Valstein, Emily Easterly, Chris Cubeta, Martin Rivas, Chris Abad, Misty Boyce, Ruby Rivers, Benjamin Wagner and Emily Zuzik.
Watch the video for “Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You,” a collaboration between the artists featured on A Holiday Benefit, Vol. 3 below. You can preview and buy the album on CD baby here. And be sure to catch the performers live at Pianos next Wednesday at 8pm!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fNA0_bTo-4]
Related Links:
• A Holiday Benefit Concert Recap
• A Holiday Benefit Concert
• December 1st Holiday Benefit Concert
• A Family Holiday Album to Benefit Young Writers
The Ramblers have been playing the New York music scene in various formation since 2007. While the members met performing at venues throughout New York including Rockwood Music Hall, singer Jeremiah Birnbaum said, “It’s always been a band of friends.” I sat down with the quartet after their impressive set at Joe’s Pub where they filled me in on how they first discovered the blues, the New York music scene and being invited to open for Levon Helm.
Made up of singer-songwriter-guitarist Jeremiah Birnbaum, singer-pianist Scott Stein, bassist Shawn Setaro and drummer Steve Purcell, The Ramblers are hard to place into one genre. Mixing roots, rock, jazz, blues and country, each song is new and unexpected. After witnessing them live, is evident that music is their passion.
“I don’t want to speak for all of us, but you make these little sacrifices for the music that you really love. Everybody in this room has struggled to make it work and made sacrifices to make it work. I think if you’re really true to yourself, that’s when the good things start to happen,” Birnbaum said.
Currently in the studio working on their next album, The Ramblers have partnered with Pledge Music, where fans and music lovers help fund the album. For more information on how you can help click here. Read below for more on The Ramblers.
I really like how you alternate singing between Jeremiah and Scott on each track.
Jeremiah: Conceptually, a lot of what we’re trying to do right now comes out of my love of Sam and Dave. There’s a tradition in soul music of dual lead vocalists. It’s interesting because we try really hard to separate this from our solo stuff. I think we’ve managed to succeed in that and there’s a lot of good chemistry, a lot of give and take and the energy flows well. I think the dual lead vocal thing is a pretty neat trick that we have up our sleeves. We’re sort of setting the scene. I’ll generally start and finish the set and we’ll trade off on things in between. But, Scott is singing on everything if I’m singing the lead and I’m singing on everything if he’s singing the lead.
Scott: When I started in the band I brought in a song, “Hard To Love,” which I had written on my own. I wasn’t anticipating being the lead vocalist, I was just a harmony vocalist, but I really wanted to sing that one. There were always two vocalists in the band, so it just seemed to be a natural fit for me to be an alternate vocalist. The first song we wrote together was, “Leave A Letter Behind.” When we play it live or as a duo we would just alternate verses because it was fun to do. I think that it just naturally lent itself to me and Jeremiah splitting it or dividing vocals.
It’s hard to place your music in one genre. One song you wrote in New Orleans and I definitely got that vibe. Other songs have that 60s rock ‘n’ roll sound and the last number felt a little country and twangy.
Shawn: You should have been here right before the set. We were trying to figure out cues to give the lighting person. We were giving one or two word descriptions of the song and it was, rock, country, up-tempo hillbilly. So that’s right. There are different feels. Some are more upbeat country-ish things even bordering on blues or soul. All in the roots world, but from different corners of that.
Scott: I think it’s interesting, what we’re doing. A lot of this music is joined together. Some people might not think of country music and soul music as similar, but they really are on certain levels. A lot of it is from listening to Levon Helm, The Band and a lot of other artists.
Jeremiah: A lot of the Stax Memphis music.
Scott: There is cross over material too. There are recordings of Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers doing Stax songs in their repertoire but it sounds like a country song and it works perfectly.
Shawn: The famous Ray Charles Modern Sounds In Country and Western record.
Scott: I was also thinking of his performance of “Ring of Fire.” He makes it a Ray Charles song.
You were invited to perform at Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble. How did that happen?
Jeremiah: We got real lucky. I work at a venue called Banjo Jim’s. It’s one of the greatest music venues I’ve ever known. We had booked a show there on a Monday night at 7 or 8pm. Scott wasn’t even in the band, but he wound up sitting in. In February of 2008 we had this gig and it was a great show and it just so happened that the guy that booked for Levon Helm was there and was knocked out by us and just asked us if we wanted to open up for Levon Helm. We were like, “Yes, please!” We built up to that show with a lot of other shows in New York, which really started cementing what we were doing at the time. We did that show and went on tour last summer, which was really fun.
How involved is everyone in the songwriting process?
Scott: All the new stuff has been in one instance or another, co-written by me and Jeremiah. Jeremiah and to a certain extent John, our former drummer, were writing together. What happened in terms of songwriting was that I wrote with Jeremiah and started contributing a couple songs of my own. What we realized when we needed to find new players was, here we have this band that has a name for itself and 90% of the material was either Jeremiah’s or mine. It was like, “We have enough material to keep this thing going.” And it made sense, so we did.
Shawn: That’s an interesting thing from an outsider’s perspective. How the songs are being written is in the process of changing. It used to be that there was a batch of tunes that were exclusively Jeremiah’s. And now there’s another batch of songs that are exclusively Scott’s or co-written. It’s bringing a different feel to the band. It’s interesting to be in the middle of a situation that’s changing from moment to moment.
I know bands hate the question “describe your music” but you’re so versatile. How would you describe it to someone who has never heard you before?
Scott: I think the roots rock thing is all encompassing. I know people don’t like categories, but you do have to describe your music. Everybody has influences. When people have trouble naming influences, that to me is a red flag that they don’t know what they’re doing.
Jeremiah: I think we’re like Jim Croce backed with Booker T. & the M.G.’s
Shawn: To speak to Scott’s point, there a
re a lot of commonalities betwe
en different music that are broadly categorized as American root music. Soul, R&B;, country, singer-songwriter. When you actually sit down and play them and listen to them and spend time with them you’ll discover commonalities. And I think that’s the ground from which these songs operate.
How do The Ramblers stand out from every band in New York?
Steve: We’re down home roots rock music. We are the real deal.
Scott: I don’t think about it too much. There are other bands that are doing the roots thing. I think it’s cool that we have a broad palate to work from. I think there’s a unique combination of influences. Everybody sounds like somebody. As long as you’re not completely aping one act or another, you’re doing fine.
Shawn: I can’t say I know every act in New York, but I think you can tell from the reactions tonight, there aren’t that many groups that really engage people in having a good, solid time. Through rocking out and mellower things, it’s a show you’ll feel like you had a really good time when you watch the people rock out. It’s not absolutely unique, but I think it’s pretty rare. It’s not the yearnings of a tortured soul or overly theatrical to the point of being ridiculous, it’s something you feel good about.
How did you all get into blues?
Jeremiah: For me, it was me and Ben in the Maplewood Library listening to Eric Clapton. We would hang out at the record section at the library, talking about guitars and what guitars were cool. When I was a kid my mom always let me listen to her records. There was Albert King. I got into blues because that’s what my mom loved to listen to, that’s what I started listening to. A lot of it was listening to the old K-Rock back in the 80s and 90s. The late night, Allison Steele, The Nightbird. She was a really great D.J. here in New York. I really got deeply into blues a number of years back, and started playing guitar a lot. That’s how I got into it, because of records and friends of mine who saw my interest and turned me onto all this.
Scott: I didn’t grow up listening to any rock and roll. I discovered it on my own. I was blessed to have a piano teacher, a guy named Pat Pace, who was a local legend in Akron. Once I started listening to the radio I found that I was able to pick off blues licks from whatever I heard. So, I went to my teacher and said I’d like to try some jazz and I continued to work with him.
Once I got into high school I really came into jazz. I was listening to Bill Evans, who was my favorite pianist. I was also picking up Muddy Waters and B.B. King records, even though they weren’t piano players per say, they had piano players and I was learning a lot of the language there. It was a couple of albums. In my grandfather’s house it was a copy of The Allman Brothers’ Brothers and Sisters. Just listening to the solo on “Jelly Jelly,” the piano solo and organ solo killed. I wanted to get deeper and deeper into music.
I played some songs for a family friend of ours who is a composer. He said the best thing you can do is, the bands that you like, find out who their influences are and listen to them. What you do is you realize that the blues, in its most basic form, is at the root of so much of our popular music. Certainly jazz and rock ‘n’ roll, but to an extent, country music and blues have very similar origins musically. By becoming more aware of the sources of music that I like I became much more heavily indebted to the blues in terms of my piano style. It kind of ballooned from there. I was hooked.
Shawn: Similar deal to the last third of Scott’s answer. You like some music and you figure out where that came from, through interviews, when people would do cover songs. Eric Clapton makes a lot more sense once I heard Albert King. It was like a light bulb went off and I was like, “Oh! That’s where that comes from.” Initially from other rock bands of the day and classic rock bands and tracing the lineage back from that
Steve: I probably got into the blues through jazz. When I started playing drums that was the genre of music I was listening to the most. And, a lot of jazz stems from the blues.
What’s the biggest struggle for an up-and-coming band?
Scott: Rent.
Jeremiah: I was gonna go for paying our bar tabs.
Scott: Touché. Certainly in New York there are many more opportunities. There are many more people covering the music scene and who are into it. It is a lot of competition too. There are so many bands in New York. Regardless of how many are good and know what they’re doing, you’re still competing for attention and space. We’re all holding down day jobs of one sort of another. How much time do you devote to it? I think there’s definitely a struggle with anyone in New York City unless they’re really successful financially. You have to find a balance between the time that you spend with what’s going to make you your money and what’s artistically fulfilling. If you’re lucky, that gets to be the same thing but it takes an awful lot of work to get there.
Jeremiah: Its little steps. The last year I’ve felt, on my own personal level, I’m doing more. I played music four nights this week. Scott did too. Shawn has another band that he works for and Steve teaches music to kids. I don’t want to speak for all of us, but you make these little sacrifices for the music that you really love because you’re working on getting it going. Thank God, we’ve been lucky enough to have some really awesome successes and people digging our music and we’ve worked incredibly hard for that. I wake up every day and I’m really grateful. Everybody in this room has struggled to make it work and made sacrifices to make it work. I think if you’re really true to yourself, that’s when the good things start to happen. If you’re always compromising then you get into that habit. I want it to be right, whatever we’re doing.