Tag: Interview

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Interviews

Adam Lambert

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.

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Q&A

Which Jingle Ball Interview Do You Want to Read First?

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!

Which Jingle Ball Interview Do You Want to Read First?

Boys Like Girls
Jay Sean
Justin Bieber
Kris Allen
Other
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Interviews

The Ramblers

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.

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Interviews

Greg Holden

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Interviews

Train

They’ve sold millions of records worldwide, achieved the ever-coveted Grammy for award-winning song “Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)” and have ridden to the top of the Billboard charts for notable singles including “Meet Virginia” and “Calling All Angels.” Just yesterday Train released their fifth album, Save Me, San Francisco, bound to acquire similar success. First single off the album, “Hey, Soul Sister” is already climbing the charts and seems to be a hit amid fans old and young.

I spoke with guitarist Jimmy Stafford at the start of Train’s 28-city tour. He filled me in on Train’s latest release, embracing the Internet and a younger fan base and the reasons behind their longevity.

After 15 years together, Train continues to make their mark on the music scene. “We love this band. We’re like brothers. We have common goals and interests. We created this band and it’s our lives,” Stafford said. Read on to find out more.

How is Save Me, San Francisco different from your previous albums? Did taking time off help with the writing process?
I think it helped with a lot of things. We were pounding pretty hard for 10 years just going from album and then tour, right back into another album and another tour. I think we all needed a break. Sometimes you need to take a step back to realize what you’ve got. I think we did that. We all went and did our own thing for a few years. And, I think by doing that we all realized what we have here and what this band means to us and to our fans. I think we came back re-energized and feeling stronger about this than ever before. I think we recorded, in my opinion, our best album as a result. We’re all super fired up about everything right now.

What’s your songwriting process like? Did you go about it differently on Save Me, San Francisco?
Yeah, it actually was. It’s always a little bit different. The producers you work with, where the band’s at. This album, we worked with a lot of outside writers for the first time, which I think was a good thing. We ended up with a batch of really great songs to choose from and we also wrote as a band a lot. We just had so much material to choose from at the end of the day that we had to bring in some people to help go through it all and pick the best stuff. When you write a song it’s kind of like it’s your baby, you love them all and you don’t have the perspective of what’s good. So we brought in some great people, our A&R; guy and our management to help us go through everything. That way there are no egos involved. “Well, not enough of my songs made the record.” There was none of that. We wanted to make the best record we possibly could and I think we did that.

Tell me about latest single, “Hey, Soul Sister.”
Pat wrote that with a couple other guys. The story lyrically, I’ve heard Pat talk about this in interviews. He’s always heard of Burning Man. Somewhere in the Californian desert, they do it every year. It’s this whole city in the desert that gets built for a festival that happens every year. They build a huge man out of wood and at the end of the festival they burn it. Pat had never been to Burning Man, but he had an image in his head of what it must be like. All these beautiful women dancing around the fire. That was the imagery he conjured up when he was writing the lyrics to, “Hey, Soul Sister.” It’s a pretty big deal. Thousands and thousands of people go to it every year. People run around naked and I guess it’s a total crazy deal.

Are there any songs you’ve written over the years that hold more meaning to you now than when you first had written it?
That’s an interesting question. There’s a song off our first album called “I Am.” When we wrote it, it was probably one of the first songs we ever wrote together as band and it just seemed like a nice, cool song at the time. We don’t play it live every night, maybe once out of every 30 shows do we do that song, but we did it last night in Seattle. Every time we play that song, as I get older and have spent more years with this band, the lyrics in that song, “Am I the son I think I am/Am I the man I think I want to be,” there are some really nice lyrics that you can’t help . . . I find myself being a little introspective when we play that song.

In a previous interview Pat was talking about the album and said that the lyrics in many of the songs are, “about love in every way you can think about it.” Do you feel you have to be in love to write a love song? Does a song come out better when you’ve experienced it yourself?
I don’t think you have to be in love. As a matter of fact, I think probably some of the best love songs are breakup songs, songs that were written when people were going through really hard times in their life. Pat just happens to be in a really good, happy place in his life and it makes for some very positive songs with positive messages. I think it’s a good thing. We’ve always been a hopeful sort of band. Our lyrics always had a bit of hope into them.

It’s funny, Pat is the type of lyricist that writes lyrics that might mean something to him, and they might mean something completely different to you and I. His lyrics are very open to interpretation. A lot of times I’ll be playing a song every night live and I’ll think it means whatever I think it means to me and then Pat will tell me what it’s about and I’ll be like, “Really? You just ruined it for me!” That’s why I’m not really a big fan of music videos. I think they force a message on the viewer. They’re like, “Oh, I really didn’t want the song to be about that.”

The music industry has changed since you began 15 years ago. Bands can talk directly to fans on Twitter, have their music featured in TV shows. Do you feel it would have been easier if Train came out today?
I think it is easier in a lot of ways for people to reach out to a bigger fan base through MySpace and Facebook and Twitter. It’s been weird a little bit, being in the middle of that. We were a band before all that stuff was around and have had to adjust and crossover into that world. If you don’t change with the times you’re going to get left behind and I think we’re doing a pretty good job of it. Our record company and our management have really helped us move into that arena really nicely. They’ve redone our Web site, which looks great and they have gotten us into Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

We’re much more in touch with our fans than we were five years ago. It seems to be getting us a wider age range as well. It seems like a lot more kids, and I don’t know if it’s just the nature of the new single “Hey, Soul Sister.” I’m sure it’s partly that and partly that kids are all computer savvy these days. Everybody’s on MySpace and Facebook and if you’re not you’re not really hip as a band. You’ve got to be there. It’s just too big of a deal and there are too many people that can be reached through the Internet. I think it’s a really good, positive thing for us, and for new up-and-coming bands. You have to take advantage of that.

What do you feel is the reason to Train’s longevity?
I don’t know that there’s a secret to it. We just love doing what we do. We love this band and we love each other. Pat, Scott and I have been together for 15 years now. We all have the same goals and we want this band to succeed. It’s all about the music. We enjoy the music that we play, we love recording it and we love going out and playing it live. As long as our fans keep loving it too and keep coming out to see us play live, I don’t see why we’d ever stop doing it because it’s a pretty good job. We’re really fortunate to be able to do this, to do something that we love to do and have other people love it too. We just keep stretching, we keep trying to grow as human beings, as musicians and as songwriters and we keep trying to do what we love to do and people know that. People get the positive message that we’re trying to put out there and it has kept us around.

Is there one thing you wish you were told about the music industry when you started?
I don’t know about that. The music industry has been pretty good to us along the way. It’s a business. I think when we first started out it took us a while to learn that. Record companies . . . it’s a business if you’re not doing your job you’re going to get fired. We’ve been with Columbia Records for every record from the beginning. They’re our family and I think they think of us as family too. We’ve had a really good ride with them. It’s worked out well for everybody I think.

Do you have a favorite track on Save Me, San Francisco?
That changes every day. I really like a song called “Breakfast In Bed.” That’s my favorite track today. That song is sexy. There’s a certain sexiness to it. “Marry Me,” the album closer, I can just see that song being played at everybody’s wedding next year. The new wedding song. I like them all, I feel like we’ve made our best album. There’s not a song on the record that I would take off.

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Interviews

Matt Hires

Singer-songwriter Matt Hires is making a name for himself. With catchy pop rock hooks and charming vocals people are starting to take notice. It can’t hurt that his music has been featured in popular shows like ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice.”

I met up with Hires after his memorable set opening for Tyrone Wells in New York. Taking the stage barefoot with his acoustic guitar, Hires captivated the room with his heartfelt lyrics and intimate performance. While songs including current single, “Honey, Let Me Sing You A Song” tell tales of a budding romance, others such as “Turn the Page” are more emotional and beg the listener to make his own interpretation.

Having released his debut album, Take Us To the Start, earlier this year, Hires filled me in on his songwriting process, collaborating with Sara Bareilles and the pros and cons of performing barefoot. Read on for more about Matt Hires and be sure to visit his MySpace and catch a show when he’s in town.

I have to ask, do you always play barefoot?
I do. Well, pretty much always. It’s just something I’ve always done since I started playing. There have been a couple shows where there has been some broken glass on the stage in some sketchy places. Or, if it’s an outside show with a black stage it’s really hot sometimes. So, there have been a few shows that I play with shoes on but most of them have been barefoot. There was this one when I was in my old band in Florida called Brer, before I started the solo thing. It was one of those rare cold days in Florida and it was an outside show. I was playing barefoot and there was a tack or something on the stage that I stepped on, but I didn’t realize I had stepped on because my feet were so cold. So, sometimes it hasn’t worked out.

Tell me about your album, Take Us To the Start. This is your first full record as a solo artist. What’s the difference recording as a solo artist vs. your experience as a band?
We [previous band, Brer] had an independent release, so we put it out ourselves. It was mostly just selling it at shows; it wasn’t distributed at all. The recording process with my solo record was much more of me and my producer. We were the creative minds behind it. It was much easier than when you’re working with four different people. The recording process with the full band was a lot more stressful I would say. There are times when you get into fights about things. I’m really happy with how that record turned out, but overall, recording my solo record was an easier process.

It was completely different because we were on a very limited budget with the band record and we only had a week to record the record. With my solo record we were recording it in my producer’s home studio and we had a couple of months to record so we could take our time with it to really make sure it turned out how I wanted it to be. They were definitely two completely different experiences.

You released an EP last year.
Yeah. Actually, when I was out in Los Angeles last summer recording the record I played a couple of shows at the Hotel Café out there. The EP was four live songs from those shows.

One of those songs was on “Grey’s Anatomy.”
None of the live songs were on there. We used the acoustic demos that we recorded in the studio. The way we recorded the record was, we would record the song acoustically first and then build on that with the band. We ended up using one of the acoustic demos on “Grey’s Anatomy” and one on “Private Practice” also.

Did you watch “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice” when your music was featured?
I did. With “Private Practice” I watched the whole episode. With “Grey’s Anatomy” my song was at the very beginning of the show so I didn’t actually watch the whole show. It was surreal for sure to hear. “Private Practice” was the first one. The song was in a pivotal emotional part of the episode so it was cool to be able to hear my song used in that emotional way. It was definitely surreal to know that thousands of people are watching this.

Have more people responded to you from your music on the shows?
Definitely. I’ve gotten fans from it. It’s very cool. I’m definitely a fan of music in TV shows.

Your first EP you were compared to John Mayer, Dave Matthews, Mat Kearney. Did you feel any pressure releasing your album to live up to those expectations?
Not really. I like those artists. I don’t necessarily listen to a lot of their stuff so I don’t think my music sounds like them. I didn’t feel any pressure from that.

How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard it before?
I have trouble answering that question. I just try to write solid songs that are as true to myself as much as possible. I feel like they’re influenced from where I’m from. A little Southern influence. There is some banjo on some songs. I love Tom Petty, who is another fellow Floridian. To describe my sound, my influences . . . I love Bob Dylan. I think a lot of influence comes from older folk stuff and also newer things. I try to write songs that have their roots in classic, older artists like that and try to do something new and relevant with that also.

I love the first single off the album, “Honey, Let Me Sing You A Song.” What’s the story behind it?
I wrote the song about a girl I was dating at the time who I had been friends with for a long time, but had a slow attraction that blossomed through that. That’s what the song is about.

Your songs are very personal. Do you ever hold back for fear the person you’re writing about could hear it?
Not that much. I will say some of the first songs that I wrote were maybe a little too personal. I started writing songs after my first real girlfriend broke up with me. I wrote one song that maybe wasn’t necessarily the nicest. The first show I played her parents were actually there and I was like, “Oh whatever, they’re not going to know it’s about her.” So, that didn’t go over too well. I learned to not be so personal.

What is your typical songwriting process?
I used to carry a voice recorder everywhere, but now my phone has a voice recorder on it so I just use that. I don’t have a set process. Sometimes I’m just sitting down with a guitar and strum a couple chords. Sometimes it’s just a line or concept that will come to me. Sometimes it’s the melody or any combination of those things. I try to just let it happen most of the time. My favorite part of songwriting is when it just happens, when a song will come to me and I’ll write it in half an hour. That’s not always the case; sometimes it takes more work than that.

You have a song on the album that you co-wrote with Sara Bareilles. How
is co-writing different than
writing a song on your own? Is the process different?
Yeah. I hadn’t done any co-writing at all until I started working with my producer. We were working on some stuff together and he had different friends come in. He has produced Sara’s record so he had Sara come in. It’s definitely different because we’re all sitting in a room and you have to open up to the other people. When you’re writing a song by yourself you can come up with the craziest stuff and it doesn’t matter because you’re by yourself. When you’re with other people it can be a little more intimidating at first. Sara is a great songwriter and everything just comes out really naturally for her. She was fun to work with. I’m really happy with the song we wrote together. She sang the background vocals on it on the record too. That was a good experience.

Would you do it again? Any dream collaborations?
Yeah. Dream collaborations . . . Jakob Dylan would be cool. Tom Petty.

Do you have a certain song on the album that means more to you than others?
Well, the two that I’m the closest to would be “Honey, Let Me Sing You A Song” and “Turn the Page” which are the oldest songs on the album. I wrote them the longest time ago. Just because I’ve played them so many times and I’m really close to them. “Turn the Page” was one of those songs that came in half an hour and just came out of me one night.

Do you feel a song comes out better when it’s based on a personal experience?
Sometimes. And sometimes there are songs that just come out and I write them and figure out what they’re about later.

Do you remember the first song you ever wrote?
The first song I ever wrote was called, “Sunshine State Serenade” and it was a song about Florida.

Do you still play it?
I don’t really. I actually did play it at a show earlier this year in San Francisco. I don’t normally play it.

Do you remember when you realized you wanted to be a musician?
I guess it would have been when I was about 19 or so. I was going to a community college in Florida and I had started to play in Brer, the band I was in. I thought that I at least wanted to give it a shot and try and see if I could make a living out of it. Had to have the talk with the parents about the band and school. They were very supportive of me and it ended up working out, so that was good.

The music industry is so hard to break into. What’s your advice?
I don’t know. People email me on MySpace and Facebook and ask me for advice a lot. My experience was different than most because my A&R; person from Atlantic randomly heard some of my songs on MySpace and contacted me. I wasn’t actively pursuing or sending stuff to labels, which was pretty incredible. I didn’t go about it the typical way, if there is a typical way. My advice, from my experience, is just to be as good at your craft as you can be and play out in front of people as much as you can.

How are you different from all the musicians out there?
I don’t know if I’m different or not, that’s kind of subjective to the listener. I just try to write good, honest songs from my heart and write as well as I can and try to make music that people can enjoy and relate to.

Categories
Q&A

Poll of the Week: What Do You Want To Ask Train?

I’m psyched to be interviewing Train later this week for MarieClaire.com. I haven’t stopped listening to their latest single, “Hey, Soul Sister” since my friend Ally recommended it a few weeks ago. (Watch it below). Train has been around for 15 years and their hit songs range from the quirky “Meet Virginia” to the emotive “When I Look To the Sky.” Not to mention, they’ve sold over 4 million albums in the US alone. My bet is you’re more familiar with their music than you think.

When interviewing such a notable act, there is so much to ask. Often, too much for a mere 20-minute phoner. So, I want to know what you’re interested in reading. Obviously, their upcoming release, Save Me, San Francisco, is one of the topics, but I want to know what you want to learn. I’ll post a few subjects below, but feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments. Can’t wait to read some of your questions!

My question for this week is: What do you want to ask Train?

The story behind their latest album.
Their longevity as a band.
Inspiration behind the music.
Typical writing process.

Watch their latest music video for single, “Hey, Soul Sister” below.

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9/10172910001?isVid=1&publisherID=59121

Categories
Interviews

Eren Cannata

Introduced to music at an early age, Eren Cannata, grew up on tour with notable acts like the Beach Boys and Billy Joel. Quite the versatile musician and producer, Cannata was one of 24 students accepted into New York University’s Clive Davis Recorded Music program. Not to mention, the song he submitted for his application, “Part of Me” was selected for the “Dawson’s Creek” DVD in 2003.

Earlier this year, Cannata released his debut album, Blame It On the City. A diverse mix of emotional ballads and radio friendly tracks with catchy hooks and infectious melodies, Cannata is well on his way. I was lucky enough to sit down and chat with Cannata this past summer when he was opening for Ryan Cabrera. Filling me in on his songwriting process, the advice he has taken from the Beach Boys and Billy Joel and his latest project, E.K. Ink, Cannata proves that hard work and passion pay off.

“What it comes down to is that I’ll take any gig. I love my name being out there. I love playing music and I love being creative. And when people respect that I like doing that, it’s pretty infectious,” he said.

Read below for my interview with Eren and be sure to visit him on MySpace and catch a show when he’s in town.

You’ve helped produce many albums in the past. How was recording your album different as an artist vs. producer?
Well, my album I took a step back and didn’t produce it, I had my dad produce it. It was great. It allowed me to learn. It was cool too because I got to step back and be really honest with the music and be a songwriter more than anything else. And I do suggest that to a lot of people. I think all of my solo albums are going to be produced by someone else. There’s a nice thing about being a songwriter and stepping back and hearing your songs develop the way someone else hears them.

There are plenty of times where I write a song and I definitely can make it so sad where someone who is listening isn’t intrigued enough because I’m more intrigued about the song. An outside production will say, “Okay, well this is a really sad song, but we’re going to put a really fast drum beat together and see how that sounds.” “Blame It On the City” started out as a ballad. We were in a rehearsal for a show and the drummer was like, “Hey I’ve got this idea for the track.” And I thought it was neat.

That’s my favorite track on the album. What was the inspiration behind it? (Video below)
The whole bit about me is, I feel like I’m a no frills type of person and it’s silly that I write love songs in my friends eyes and in everybody’s eyes. “Blame It On the City” is about a friend of mine who was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. She was moving to India to try and solve her problems and the only thing I could possibly say to her as a good friend was, “Blame it on something else.” You’re blaming yourself and trying to fix it. Blame it on the laziness of urbanization. Just let it be. That’s what it’s about.

When life gets a little rocky, no matter where you are, it’s not just New York City. It can be in Austin, Texas, it can be LA, as laid-back as it is, you can blame it on LA for being too laid-back. Those feelings are worldwide feelings and everybody has them so I do think it does relate. When I say, “Blame it on Rome” I don’t mean Rome, I mean blame it on the phrase, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” That’s how I felt. Blame it on Rome. Okay, you’re just doing this because you’re in Rome. You don’t have to have people breathing down your throat scrutinizing what you do.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhFzfrtii30]

The first song you played tonight, “Other Side,” you have a line where you sing, “I still get embarrassed when I sing.” Is that true?
Yeah, it is. That used to be number six or seven in the set. Now it’s number one because I feel like I need to state, “I still get embarrassed when I sing” right off the bat. I’m extremely comfortable onstage, probably more comfortable onstage than I am right now. In any social setting I’m more comfortable onstage. When it comes down to it, it’s not like I’m writing poems. I’m writing about my life. I never come off and try to be arrogant and say, “This art that I’m doing, I’m doing it this way.” I’m writing little excerpts from my autobiography. Being onstage doesn’t make me feel that way, but singing about those things makes me feel a little embarrassed.

That song especially, is about being with someone where I’m not sure her intentions are right. I need a little reassurance that you’re going to be mine. I keep writing period pieces of what’s going on in my life and they seem to be framed and put into songs and they turn into these big productions when I have to sing them. That song, obviously at a certain point captures how I feel still to this day.

I ask this a lot, because writing is like a diary entry. Do you ever hold back because you’re afraid that person is going to hear it?
It’s sad to say, but I do hold back. I do hold back unfortunately, but it’s not a bad thing. The things that I do hold back are things that I wind up writing about later and I usually get a lot of time. In retrospect, sometimes they really affect me even more, so sometimes it works for the better. After an argument with somebody, I can’t write about how much I hate them. I just can’t do that, especially because I play a lot of shows and they can be there. The thing that comes out of it, which is really good, is that I never forget a moment. Moments that really affect me, I don’t forget. There is something that burns a mark into who I am. I don’t have any regret of anything that I’ve ever done and that’s what I try to write about, period art pieces and things that are going on with me.

You pretty much grew up on tour with your dad while he was playing saxophone for Billy Joel and the Beach Boys. How has that affected your music?
Billy Joel, songwriting alone, just listening to the way he makes stories and poses questions and the way he sings . . . he never had a great voice. I never believed he had a great voice, nobody around him believed he had a great voice. He just had an amazing thing to write about and he always came up with those things. “Piano Man” oh God, why didn’t I think of that? One after another, that’s what I learned from him; the simplicity of ideas. You don’t have to be so complicated, you don’t have to say many words; you just have to be like, “I believe this. This is really cool. Okay, I’m going to write about it.”

As far as the Beach Boys, I spent most time on tour with the Beach Boys. My dad went to the Beach Boys when I was doing music, that’s when I really understood. Honestly, it blew my mind. Carl Wilson was a mentor of mine. May he rest in peace, but he was someone who would take me into his dressing room and teach me how to warm up my voice. He’d be like, “Hey I’m going to sing ‘Good Vibrations’ or ‘God Only Knows,’ I want you to sing the top harmony.” Every concert “God Only Knows” came on or “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” I wa
s standing right next to him
onstage just being like, “Man I want to be like him one day.”

The cool thing about him was, he was like,“ You can. There is nothing stopping you. You’re a good person. If you’re a good person, you try really hard and you put your heart into what you’re writing and what you’re doing, you’re going to be fine.” I learned probably most of my valuable lessons from Carl Wilson. He was the glue that kept the Beach Boys together.

Do you remember the moment you decided you want to be involved in music the rest of your life?
There probably is. My dad and I have a recording studio out in Long Island and its called Cove City Sound Studios and that’s where I learned a lot of my musicianship. Obviously, I wasn’t allowed to play onstage on tour. I did play saxophone and tambourine a ton of a lot. My dad taught me saxophone and would be like, “Play this with me.” But really, I played tambourine for both tours. I wasn’t the shining member of the band.

My dad has a studio and a lot of great artists have come — from JLo to Celine Dion to ‘N Sync. There is a moment where my first band that I ever had, I thought I was serious. The name of our original band was Loose Cannon. We stayed up until 1 in the morning — wild — for 12-year-olds. We went there and my dad’s like, “I’m going to record your first original song.” And the drummer’s mom called the studio and cursed out my dad. My dad and I had no idea, because that’s the lifestyle. There was a moment there where me and the guitarist, who is still doing music, we’re the only two of our original band still doing music. There was a moment there that we talked about it, saying, “I don’t care what our parents say. This is what we want to do. How does nobody understand that?”

What’s your songwriting process like?
It’s neither here or there. It’s a weird process for me. I have my Blackberry notes filled with random song lyrics. Whether I go back to them and read them or not, is a different story. The song I played tonight, “All My Friends Moved to Brooklyn,” I wrote that while in Brooklyn on the train. Coming back from the train, I’m like “This sucks! I hate Brooklyn.”

I sometimes write lyrics down. I feel like, because of Carl Wilson I’m a real melody based person. I try and keep it really simple, but memorable. Sometimes lyrics come first, sometimes melody, sometimes a guitar part. But, really what it comes down to is that the song comes first. I never think I have a song written until I sit down and play a song. Sometimes I’ll go, “Man, that lyric is really cool. I’m going to write that down.” I’ll put it in my phone, on a piece of paper, I have my notebook. That being said, it doesn’t mean very much. Sometimes those things are never looked at. What it really comes down to is if something sticks with me. I wrote down “All My Friends Moved to Brooklyn” in my phone and when it came down that I really wanted to write something like that, I remembered all the lyrics without looking in my phone. So that said I should write that song. It’s an arbitrary process that just comes together. I try to write every day, but six days a week it’s pretty terrible or I just don’t even think about it.

You’ve produced a lot of tracks for upcoming bands.
I actually just worked on this project for Interscope Records. A girl named Soshy. What it comes down to is that I’ll take any gig. I love my name being out there. I love playing music and I love being creative. And when people respect that I like doing that, it’s pretty infectious. I have a project coming up called E.K. Ink. The engineer for Jim Beans and Timbaland is the K, and I’m the E. It’s a really unique project we have going on. Its half pop-rock, half hip-hop, half electro. It’s half everything. It definitely does not skip any beat that you can possibly ask for. So we do that. He works at the studio and he worked for Ashanti. Ashanti came into the studio and I was like, “You have to put Koil on the session.” Jim Beanz, who is Timbaland’s production guy, was doing the production and was like, “Hey, you want to work for me?” And then Koil was gone. One thing led to another, and now he’s doing all this crazy stuff.

That being said, I’m playing guitar on Timbaland beats, going down to Philly where his studio is and playing bass. It’s a lot of fun because it’s great to step out of the artist world and be someone that someone isn’t like, “Oh, it’s got to be this if it needs to be hit.” When I play something, they’re like, “Oh my gosh it’s live music!” They’re so psyched that I’m playing it live. It makes me feel good, but at the same time it’s really good to be in a position where you can wow them a little bit. It works out.

How would you rather someone hear you first? Live or on the record?
It’s a difficult situation. I feel like I’ve really grown as a writer. My album, I really love and truly believe in it, but at the same time I’m really tired of playing those songs. But, I’m opening for Ryan [Cabrera] tonight, and he’s been playing “On the Way Down” since 2003. I’ve asked him how he does it and he’s like, “If people like it, you’ve got to do it.” What it comes down to is, I would love for people to hear me live first. But, chances are people in South Dakota aren’t going to see me live first. So, there’s only one way they can hear me: MySpace, or buy the album on iTunes or however they get it. The album is in stores, but I don’t think people are doing that unfortunately.

Talking to Ryan, he’s the same way. There’s this type of in the box recording that you have to do for people that don’t understand music like that. There’s a difference from the Brooklyn indie-rock and the pop rock that sells records. It’s difficult for every artist; I’m not going to say it’s just difficult for me. Ryan is an amazing singer and guitar player, but he has to hold back because they want three minutes and 25 seconds of that. I can do eight minutes and 45 seconds, but I can’t do that, so I keep it short to three minutes and 45 seconds.

You can see your passion onstage while performing. You’re constantly smiling and dancing throughout the set.
I never really hold back live. I have no problem calling people out in the audience. I have no problem really loving it being up there.

Do you feel you have to be in love to write a love song or depressed to write a sad song?
No, no, no, no, no, no! You know when you go to the emergency room and they ask you on a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being the smiley face? You don’t have to be at a 1 or at a 10 to write a song. You can be at a three. Sometimes 3 can be worried. It doesn’t have to be sad. You don’t have to be in the extreme of emotions to write that. You have to feel an emotion strongly. Sometimes I feel 5 really strongly. I feel really mediocre right now; this is what I’m going to write about. I’m not crying that my friends moved to Brooklyn, but it makes me sad, I don’t want to talk about it. I like to chit-chat, and that’s what it comes down to. I talk about the things that are going on.

Do you feel a song comes out better when it really happened to you?
Always. 100%. I never really make anything up. That’s something I envy Billy Joel about. He writes songs about fictional characters and events and things that happened. I’m not yet successful in doing that. Maybe one day. I should learn piano.

For more on Eren and his projects visit E.K. Ink and MySpace.

Categories
Interviews

Jer Coons

If you haven’t heard of Jer Coons just yet, you will soon. While comparisons to notable singer-songwriters like Jason Mraz abound, Coons has that uniqueness that allows him to standout in today’s music scene. From having his current single featured on Hollister’s in-store play list to being the third most popular Vermont musician on MySpace, not to mention opening for Colin Hays of Men At Work this summer, Coons is well on his way.

I chatted with Jer while he was in Michigan for a few days before gearing up for his album release and fall tour. Talking candidly about his music, latest album and writing process, Coons’ said, “As a songwriter, there is nothing more exciting than hearing a song come together the way you heard it in your head. I just want people to feel like they know me through my music. ” And that they will. Read my complete interview below and be sure to pick up a copy of his debut album, Speak, in stores Tuesday, September 29.

Was the recording process for Speak everything you thought it’d be?
Yeah. It was the first time that I was able to record with a band. Everything else was an amalgamation of me trying to play every instrument or having my friends come in and play on a track after I already started the foundation of things. This was the first attempt that I had gotten the band together from the ground floor. It’s a group of guys from Vermont who are incredible musicians and they bring a musicality and authenticity that I really wouldn’t be able to find with people of my own level of experience. They’re absolutely phenomenal.

So, what I did was basically brought these nascent ideas for songs to them at the ground floor and we just worked through them. We let the songs themselves evolve to a point that we felt like we’d been playing them for years before we had recorded them, even though it was condensed into a period of about a month and a half of pre-production.

What’s your typical songwriting process?
The songwriting process, for better or worse, is entirely autobiographical. I can’t really write about something that I haven’t gone through. The downfall as a cynical industry person is that I couldn’t really manufacture something. But, the benefit as a human and as a listener is that I can’t manufacture something so people seem to respond to it because it’s honest. I think if there’s ever a crunch time and I’m forced to go down to the wire and make something up, I don’t have it in me. I think that that’s actually good and I feel excited about that because if there’s ever a time that I have to fake it, I think I’m going to throw in the towel and call it a day ’cause no one wants to hear that.

Do you feel a song comes out better when it really happens to you?
Yeah. It’s definitely everything that’s happened to me. I’ve written dumb songs that aren’t actually things that I play for people and try to create something out of nothing and I don’t think they come out that good. People are smarter than a lot of artists give them credit for, fans especially. Even if people want to dismiss the younger crowd, like 14-year-old-girls, people are like, “They listen to Jonas Brothers, they can’t know what’s going on.” As much as people don’t think they get it, they get it. They’re some of the most perceptive listeners in music, but they’re also some of the most dismissive because if they’ve heard it, they’ve heard it. And they can tell when you’re being honest or when it was just written in a laboratory somewhere.

Your songs are very personal. Are you afraid to reveal too much?
People have their own interpretations of things. I hope that there is enough metaphor and enough ambiguity to make people not read it entirely at face value. Certainly there are songs that people are able to. But, you can’t even think about it as terms as a songwriter. I’m writing purely for therapy and to capture the phrase, lyric or melody that I have in my head exactly as I hear it. Every time I have an idea it pops into my head really quickly and I’m afraid I’m going to forget exactly how I said it. It’s always a struggle to write it down really quickly. I have all these little scraps of paper in my pockets. Some ideas are awful and some ideas may have some quality to it, but I never know until I’ve given it some time. Maybe a week later or two weeks later, I’ll be driving in my car and I’ll be humming a tune and then go grab a guitar and try to flush it out and realize maybe there’s some redeemable quality.

Your first single, “Legs” became pretty popular after being played at Hollister.
That was a total fluke and usually when things are discovered by people there rarely is “an overnight success.” There are always factors that came together in the same way, rarely is it one thing. But, the Hollister thing just came together randomly and it happens to be an audience that is very receptive to my type of music. The target market of Hollister has some overlap with Jer Coons fans apparently. I think it’s a testament to the song, and also I don’t know if this is specifically Hollister consumers, but apparently they’re not lazy. People were willing to put in the effort of looking up artist and song information and taking the time to check me out online and devour the content I have on YouTube. I’m psyched that people cared enough about it to check it out.

You’re the third most popular Vermont artist on MySpace after Phish and Grace Potter.
It’s exciting. Vermont has been very good to me. I’m proud to be born and raised Vermonter. I hope to call it my home my whole life, though my ideal reality is splitting time between Vermont and New York City. I think that’s the best of both worlds. I would love to have a presence in New York without feeling like I have to work in New York to sustain just a closet. The Vermont music scene has been very supportive to me. I love them for it and I hope the feeling is mutual.

The beauty of Vermont — there’s a huge music scene. People love music and the arts and they’re very supportive. It’s a combination, it’s big fish small pond sort of thing versus a community like Nashville or LA where there is so much white noise from all the competition that it’s really difficult to make an impact. [In LA and Nashville] there are so many places where the attention is diverted and there are so many venues and bands that it’s tough to make an impact on that level.

Growing up in Vermont, how much has the music scene structured you and your music?
The Vermont music culture is very conducive to jam bands. I think the geography, relaxed state of mind and community — everyone appreciates nature and that makes a lot of jam bands want to play in Vermont. I started to really get into songwriting. I played electric guitar first and switched to acoustic guitar my sophomore year of high school. In a hilarious way, that was almost me being rebellious by rebelling against a less structured type of music
and going into a world like
pop music that is so constricting and almost the antithesis of that. I have a huge respect and admiration for jam bands. I think it was a response to it being so saturated in my area, to play a type of music that’s not as accepted as a different type of music. I got really fascinated with something that was not formulaic, but that there were rules you had to follow. In a way, I love to try and break convention and fit within the constraints of a song structure and say something unique and do something different that has me laughing because I did it my own way.

Your biography is very different from the typical band bio. (Read Jer’s bio here.)
If anything, it’s just poking fun at the nature of things. I was thinking about the industry in general and always get asked how is my “brand” defined? I’m like, it’s not really a brand, it’s me being myself and I’m sort of ridiculous person for better or worse. Honestly, I try and be just Jer. I might put out a record called Just Jer, which is terrible and it may not be commercially successful at all [laughs].

[The bio is] pretty much recognizing that I’m one of a huge number of people trying to do exactly the same thing in terms of the public’s perception. Singer-songwriters are obviously a dime a dozen. The difference between my music and my approach to the whole game is that I’m not trying too hard and I don’t take myself too seriously. People have been responding really well because my songs seem really honest and personal. My bio is just totally tongue in cheek and my type of humor. I try and have every aspect of what I do represent who am instead of who someone thinks that I should be.

How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard it?
It is acoustic pop music, unabashedly pop and a little hint of soul and country. I really do listen to tons of different music; I’ll have Thelonious Monk at one minute and then the Jonas Brothers, but not actually seriously listening to them. It’s definitely a range. Luckily, I was in an environment growing up and musical family that listened to a whole lot of different stuff. Everything from country to, there was church music at some point and I think every little thing you hear is an additive. You start to explore different types of music and I think it comes across in my songs subtly. I listen to a lot of different things and then try to channel that sound that is myself and that is a byproduct of all these different genres.

What was the inspiration behind your first single, “Legs?”
That is a song that is completely autobiographical. I’ll let listeners take their own interpretation and weave the storyline. I will say that it’s exactly what you think it is. It’s about appreciating the little things. It’s about the tiny details of someone that you seem to latch onto, the subtleties that seem to be lost to other people and that’s “the scars on your legs” line. The writing process for it was no different than any other songs. The right number of factors came together to make it resonate with people and people have really latched onto it. Hilariously, they say something has legs; I like to say the song might have legs. Hopefully it can take off. People who have heard it so far at Hollister seem to latch onto the lyrics. It’s just like a diary entry. Everyone has been through that, or if they haven’t, the second they go through it, they’re like, “Oh man, I know what you’re talking about.” It is what it is.

Is there one song on the album that’s a particular favorite or means the most to you?
In terms of songs that are closest to my heart, I don’t know that they’re my favorite, but in terms of ones that mean the most to me, I think it’s a tie between “Film Called Life” and “The Only Trace,” which are the ballads of the record. Those are two songs that were almost difficult to release to people because they were so revealing and also two songs, as a result, that I don’t play live as much. It’s a big hurdle to leap over to get to a point where it’s cool to be that intimate. Those ones are definitely close to home.

In terms of songs I like to play live, I think “Speak” is one of the most fun songs ever because there’s a harmonized guitar part and the beat that my drummer Jeff helps flush out and the bass line that appears from my bass player, it just makes you shake your ass. I’m very excited to get a song like that. We didn’t have any idea about track listing, but the second we recorded that we were like, “Okay, yeah, that’s going to be the first song.”

You were just on tour this summer with Colin Hay from Men At Work, how was that?
It was awesome. He’s massively successfully. I had been covering “Land Down Under” since the eighth grade. I actually randomly have the same booking agent as Colin Hay, so I was lucky enough to get those dates, totally on a whim. So I’m like, “Wait, Colin Hay? The Colin Hay?” I’ve been covering his songs since I was eight, I think I own some royalties. I rightfully got a little freaked out and excited. With any expectations that you have as a fan of anyone, especially on that level, the dude’s sold 30 million records. I was apprehensive about meeting him, because I had no idea what he’d be like. There’s that fear of meeting someone famous because they’re not gonna be all that you hope they would be.

I was so lucky and so excited when I met him. The first night we played together he just walked right into my dressing room and introduces himself. He was so cool, so down to earth and just genuinely nice. He clearly cared and that was the most encouraging thing ever. The shows were great, there was a super supportive crowd and he killed it every night so I was just excited to warm up the crowd for him.

What did you learn from watching him perform every night?
I guess the biggest thing was he is very honest with his stage presence and his self awareness. He was really good, his banter was awesome with the crowd. I think the one thing I took away was . . . the idea that fame or success gets to people’s heads is universal and he pretty much squashed that. That was my biggest fear. Just seeing that you can totally be at that level and be the coolest guy ever was really, really comforting for me. That certainly is something you fear losing as other things come into play.

For more on Jer Coons, be sure to visit him on MySpace and purchase his debut album Tuesday!

Categories
Interviews

Better Than Ezra

No strangers to the music scene, Better Than Ezra have been performing and recording for the past 20 years. While the band admits that it’s their engaging live show more than their record sales that have helped their longevity, latest release, Paper Empire, may change that. Their sixth studio album is a solid album with moving singles, “Just One Day” and “Absolutely Still,” bound for radio airplay.

In perhaps the busiest (and hottest) Starbucks in New York City, I met up with the members of Better Than Ezra, singer-songwriter Kevin Griffin, bassist Tom Drummond and newest member, drummer Michael Jerome. BTE talked to me about their latest release, communicating with fans, and their live show:

“We really enjoy performing live and you can’t fake that sort of thing. We just have a good time; we try to mix it up every night,” Drummond said. “I’ve been told by fans that a lot of them come to the show for the in-between song banter as much as the actual songs. That’s just who we’ve become over the years. We truly enjoy playing our songs, performing every night and playing live music and I think that’s a big reason why we’re still here.”

How is Paper Empire different from your previous albums?
Kevin: I think every Better Than Ezra album is different because we’re a band that has always put our influences into our music and you can always hear what we’re listening to when you hear a Better Than Ezra album, for better or for worse. Also, a lot of it was done long distance. I’d have a part and send it to Tom, he’d put bass on it and Michael would come in and play drums. It was really using the Interweb, the Internet machine to do a lot of the album. The bulk of the album was done face to face. New influences, different recording process and this was the first time that we had a lot of different players come and play. On a couple of songs, I just told some of my favorite guitarists that I work with what I wanted. So, I got to sit back and produce a song and not have to beat myself up playing a part that a friend of mine could play a lot better and a lot quicker.

You’ve written songs for many artists including Howie Day, David Cook, Blondie. How do you differentiate writing a song for another artist vs. Better Than Ezra? Do you ever wish you kept a song for yourself?
Kevin: That’s interesting. Sometimes it’s easy writing a David Cook song. I know that a song like “Avalanche” is never going to be on a Better Than Ezra album. It’s too David Cook. There’s a song I wrote with Joshua Radin for his last album, (also featured in movie “Adam”) that just wasn’t going to be a Better Than Ezra song. But then there are the ones like, maybe “Collide” for Howie Day, which could have been a Better Than Ezra song, but at the time we were unsigned. We didn’t have any money to put it out and I just think, “Here’s this 22-year-old kid whose got Epic Records behind him, he needs this ballad.” I know they’re going to put all that machinery and pump it behind him.

It takes a lot of belief to get a ballad to happen. A lot of times with a band like us, you need more of an up-tempo song that’s more received as a no brainer by radio people, so you have to make a hard decision like that. There are plenty of times when I’ve got from my band, “Thanks for giving ‘Collide’ away Kevin.” And I’d be like, “Yeah, I know. Sorry.” Most of the time, it’s pretty clear cut, but then there are some songs on this new album, like “Just One Day,” the new single that I wrote with Jeremy Lister. Warner Brothers did a terrible job of promoting that song and I called him up and said, “Hey, we both know that Warner Brothers did a terrible job with your EP. I’d love if Better Than Ezra could do a version of it, change it up and hopefully give it another chance to give it the life we think it should.” That’s happened with a few different co-writers.

I actually wanted to ask you about “Just One Day.” It’s my favorite song on the album. What is the inspiration behind it?
Kevin: It’s in part, just about losing people in your life. I kept coming back to our original guitarist, Joel Rundell, who committed suicide. It was almost 20 years ago. I had never written a song about it and as I was working on the lyrics for “Just One Day,” I kept thinking about Joel and all these things and other people. As you get older you start to lose different people in your life.

It’s basically about all the unresolved things that you have between you. Not only the good things, but the bad things too. It’s saying, if you had one day to spend with them, letting go of the resentment that maybe you have about the way you acted in a relationship or maybe the way you think they did. More, it’s a celebration of a fantasy that you have a moment to share with that person you loved. What I think makes it different than other songs that approach the subject, is that it’s not just about the good, it’s about the bad too. Too many people let resentment and past things really hound them. Carrie Fischer said it best about resentment, “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” If you had one day to get rid of that, what would you do?

Do you ever hold back when songwriting? Are you ever afraid someone in the audience will hear and make the connection that the song is about them?
Kevin: I don’t know.

Tom: I’ve always wondered that too actually, Kevin.

Kevin: Really? You know what; I guess I’d only be concerned if that song was about something really bad that someone did. But more times than not, I do have songs that people know are about them on every album. It was girlfriends usually. A song called, “Cry In the Sun” was about this great summer romance as a counselor at a camp in North Carolina. That was on our first album. “Under You” was about moving to LA with another girlfriend. There hasn’t been that many. There have been three serious girlfriends. It was about being broke and eating Ramen noodles and barely staying alive, barely being able to survive. And those people know that. More times than not though, people make a song into whatever they think it is anyway. I’ve had people very happy or very miffed that they think a certain song is about them and I’m like, “It has nothing to do with you.”

Better Than Ezra has been around for 20 years now. Have you noticed a change in your fans over the years?
Tom: I think certainly, we’ve been a band that has been able to have our fans grow with us. Every time we put out a new record, I feel like we get some new fans that come along too. In fact, some of the people are starting to bring their kids. That’s how long we’ve been around I guess. It’s really cool because if the parents are that into the band and they start bringing their young kids
to the show, they truly love
the band. As far as teens go, I think every time you have a new single, that’s who you’re hoping to get. They’re the obvious record downloading crowd so that’s who you’re shooting for. But also, you can’t alienate the crowd you’ve brought with you for 20 years. You have to be true to them too, so that’s what we try to do.

Kevin: This tour, having been off the road for two years, a few times I’ve come off stage and Tom has said, “Man, this is the first time I’ve really noticed that our crowd has gotten a lot older.” It’s a new thing to us too. The experience of being a band, we’ve been around a long time. We have a lot of new fans and that’s refreshing, but I’d say the meat of it are our fans who were fans in the 90s when we started off. It’s just a transition, it’s cool though. These people really support us and feel like we’re part of their lives and come to us and say, “Man, when you play that song it reminds me of me and my girlfriend. We were taking a road trip across the country. I don’t want to bug you about that.” I’m like, “You are not bugging me when you say something like that. That’s the ultimate goal for a musician. To have their song be a part of someone else’s life, like your favorite songs are a part of yours.” It’s fun, but there definitely has been a noticeable change in our demographic.

Social media has a huge role on getting bands noticed today. You use Twitter to hide tickets to the show and backstage passes for fans. That wasn’t around when you first started.
Tom: You’re right. The whole industry has changed, I think four or five times since we’ve been a band. Bands that have the ability to exist for longer than five years, which is generally the lifespan of a band, they’re the bands that are business savvy and they’re hip to the new ways. You have to be able to evolve or you dissolve. You have to be hip to MySpace and Twitter and Snagglepus.com — that’s the one we’re gonna start.

All the bands that have had longevity, you talk about the Rolling Stones, or anybody like that, they’ve always been on top of their game as far as the business side of things go. We pride ourselves on the fact that not that many bands can stay around as long as we have. It takes consistent songwriting, consistent live shows. It takes having an exciting, fun, live show, which I think is one of the key elements that’s missing in a lot of current bands. It takes all of those things plus being on top of your business to make it and be around for this long.

Kevin: You know, I think this is true. We’ve managed to stay around when a lot of our contemporaries who started with us when we did and sold a lot more albums than us. We’ve been able to stick around because of our live show at the end of the day. Growing up in the south and starting off as a bar band, then a band with a college circuit, you really had to be good to be asked back. We had bands that mentored us who were really just great performers. When people come see our show, they leave having a great time. Those other bands who were our contemporaries, just weren’t good live. They were shoegazers and that just couldn’t cut it. All the great artists put a lot of effort into trying to be the best they can be live. And that’s what we’ve done. I like to think that’s part of the reason for our longevity.

You have a very energetic live show. What’s going through your head while you’re performing?
Tom: I think the honest truth to that is that we really enjoy performing live and you can’t fake that sort of thing. We just have a good time; we try to mix it up every night. Kevin is one of the funniest people I know; he is witty, which is fun. It’s different every night. I’ve been told by fans that a lot of them come to the show for the in-between song banter as much as the actual songs. That’s just who we’ve become over the years. We truly enjoy playing our songs, performing every night and playing live music and I think that’s a big reason why we’re still here.

Kevin: I agree with Tom. We have a lot of fun doing what we do. Having Michael in the band, there’s a big part of Michael that’s a ham. He likes to ham it up.

Michael: Honey ham.

Kevin: He’s more of a honey baked ham. I’m more of a Boar’s Head smoked ham. Tom is more, what would you say you’re like?

Tom: [Laughing]. Why are we talking about ham?

Kevin: Then sometimes you’re onstage and you’re just playing and in your mind is a million . . . like, “Did I put that dark shirt in with the whites when I left the house? ‘Cause my clothes are screwed if I did.” And then Tom’s looking at me playing because I missed the lyric of the song. More times than not, you’re paying attention.

Michael: Being the new guy you take in a lot of new information and you’re trying to realize what has been done for the past 12, 15 years and you’re trying to emit that. The songs, the performance. You’re trying to appease fans that have grown to love what they’ve been watching for the last 15 years and what they’ve seen and what they’ve listened to from recordings and so on. I’m conscious of that. I’m a fan myself. So, if I fall in love with a band and their music, I don’t want it to change usually.

Tom: You get fans who just stare at you the whole show.

Michael: And I love it. The folded arms and the Simon’s out there that are just waiting and the comments you get. The really cool, kind comments that come from a lot of people and a lot of them consist of, “Well, I didn’t want to like you. I was ready to hate you.” For me, playing live is very enjoyable and making records is enjoyable, but it’s also a conscious effort to stay present when I’m playing. I tend to watch the show myself. I start having fun and I forget that I’m actually helping to make the show be what it is.

Tom: It’s a tricky situation because the fact that Travis [McNabb, former drummer now in Sugarland] was in the band for most of what the visibility of the band has been for the last 10 years or maybe a little longer, 12 years. We had to really pick the right guy to come in and not only be able play the parts well, but also fit in personality wise. We tend to go out and meet fans after the show and we could have very easily found somebody who was like, “I’m not doing that.” It’s been a really good fit.

Kevin: Our first couple shows at House of Blues in New Orleans, we have these fans, these two girls who are at every show and I didn’t see them. Normally they’re right in front of Tom, but I didn’t see them. We did two shows in a row and I didn’t see them at either show. Apparently, they were in the back by the bar and they were crying nonstop the whole show.

Michael: I just have to say, these particular girls, they’ve seen hundreds of shows. This was probably the first time they ever stood back side of the show instead of front and center in front of Tom or Kevin. After the show, I hear that they’ve been over in the back side crying, folded arms and they just refused. It was two or three shows later, they still hadn’t come up. I think we were in Baton Rouge and I went and talked to one of them. Folded arms, didn’t want to crack a smile. I tried to pour on the ch

arm and really didn’t know it was them, but ever since that they’ve been letting me know how much they appreciated someone that they didn’t want to like coming in and sharing all this stuff. It was kind of funny to me, but it was also . . . that meant a lot and it makes a difference.

Tom: It just goes to prove that people are really hesitant to change in all aspects of life. Sometimes, if you just let go a little bit, you’ll find that really good things can come out of that. Evolve or dissolve.

You’ve survived the industry for 20 years. What is your advice to aspiring musicians who look up to you and want longevity like Better Than Ezra?
Tom: Currently, the technology that exists today is so different than when we started. There are so many great ways to write and produce your own music now and get it out there for people that before maybe would have never heard because you never got it into the hands of the right person at the right company. Now, you can do it yourself. You just can’t be lazy. Teach yourself about the music business and if you’re behind what you do, you can make it happen.

Kevin: When we started, unless you were in a music center, you really felt like you were in the provinces. You were so dislocated from what was going on. With the accessibility and the immediacy of the Internet, to get your music out where it is being heard by people who make a difference in the business and the ability to record yourself with GarageBand or Logic or Ableton or Pro Tools and make great sounded recordings for very little money. It’s all at your fingertips. It’s about how savvy you want to be, how hard you want to work. At the end of the day, it’s not only the person who is talented, but it’s equal parts talent and then hard work, great work ethic. There are so many good bands and musicians who were way more talented than us and maybe more talented than most of your favorite bands, they just didn’t have everything it takes. The get up and go, the drive, the savvy – you have to have all of that. Don’t think it’s just about chasing some muse through a meadow. It’s about capturing that muse, destroying anything that was good about it to begin with, selling it out, commercializing it and packaging it.