Tag: Q&A

Vince Scheuerman

Post author By admin
Post date May 1, 2008

Being a writer myself, I’m always curious at how a musician goes about writing lyrics to a song and if those songs are better when inspired by real life situations (do you have to be sad to write a sad song? in love to write a love song?) or just fantasy. I chatted with Army of Me frontman Vince Scheuerman while he ran some errands to the Post Office in town before their show in East Stroudsburg, PA, about writing songs and performing, the struggles of being in a band and his dream collaboration (it might surprise you). Check back in a few days to read more interviews with the guys from Army of Me as well as listen to some MP3 files of those interviews. And if you haven’t yet, be sure to check them out on MySpace and catch a show when they’re in town!

How do you prepare for a tour?
The way we that we prepare for tour is about 30 minutes before the van is supposed to leave we pack our bags, frantically looking for enough socks to get us through a week and then we stuff everything that we can possibly fit into the van. Then we figure out a way to pack all of our equipment and merchandise. We have this system for packing our van because we haven’t been using a trailer. We took out the back two benches of our 15 passenger van, there’s not an inch of space in the back of the van and we all have our bags with clothes and stuff. We did not even practice and we left late, we do this every time. We say, “Okay, we’re leaving at this time” and then three hours later we’re still there and haven’t left.

As far as preparation for tour, we don’t really do that, with one exception. I do preparations for my voice. Because when you hit the road and you’re getting ready to sing full on, every night, if you go into it completely cold, you might have a rough time with it. Every day I try to sing a few songs, practice belting all the high notes.

What do you do on your days off?
Well, today I had the day off in D.C. and I spent it trying to fix a bunch of problems in my house. We got home at five or six in the morning, went to bed and I didn’t realize that there were some people coming to replace the carpets in our house, so they woke us up and we had to vacate the premises in the morning so that kind of sucked. When I got back last week we had another day off, the gas got shut off in my house so there was no hot water, no heat and no stove so I was trying to deal with those things.

It depends. If we’re in the middle of tour and have a day off you’ll maybe sleep late, catch up on emails, watch a movie, write music, something like that. If the tour is over and we have a couple weeks off, I’ll maybe try to find a job. I was working at a hardware store in my neighborhood, making a little bit of money, just trying to pay the bills.

Do you guys have any pre-show rituals?
Actually, this tour we started a new pre-show ritual, believe it or not. About three dates into the tour we realized things weren’t going well and the sound guy from The Used got us together and gave us all these pointers. He basically gave us the kick in the ass that we needed to get on stage every night and really bring it. The second night of the tour we were getting stuff thrown at us. I got hit by a lighter, cigarette buts, coins, and whatnot. There was stuff flying on stage the entire show. We were like, “Man, this really sucks. This crowd doesn’t like us, what are we doing?” We kind of got a new attitude which was to just come out on stage every night and really try to make the audience care. When you first get on stage, they might not give a shit because you’re not the band they came to see, but hopefully if you play your songs and you mean it and you are good then they will. So we kind of got our shit together so to speak and we’ve been playing a little bit better. One of the things we do is about an hour before the show we all get together and start warming up. Everyone’s playing their own thing. It’s a place you don’t want to be ‘cause everyone’s playing something different and it’s just noisy and it makes no sense. But it helps us get warmed up and come together.

The other night you crowd-surfed into the audience and another time you jumped off the balcony. How do you know if the crowd is going to catch you?
You don’t know if they’re going to catch you, I’ve gotten dropped. One time, not too long ago, there was a pretty big crowd, pretty packed and I thought for sure they would be able to hold me up and I kept going until my back hit the floor. The other night, we were in this club in Scranton, Pennsylvania called Tinks. I, in the moment, climbed up on the balcony and was looking down, thinking in my mind, “I really want to jump, but I don’t know if they’re going to catch me.” But I went for it and they caught me! That was very good because that would have been a long drop. I was maybe 10 feet up. It’d be hard to play shows with a broken neck.

It’s just one of those things, getting into music and wanting to connect with the audience too. One thing I like to do, and try to do at our shows is to break down the barrier between audience and stage. Sometimes there is a physical barricade, which I don’t like. I always liked when we used to play shows and there was no stage at all. We’d be standing there eyeball to eyeball with the audience and I always thought that was pretty cool. For me, music is about communication. I don’t want there to be a separation. Sometimes I’ll physically walk out into the audience and sing to try to make that connection.

What do you feel is the biggest struggle being in a band?
Trying to do what we’re doing and have a career at it. The odds are about the worst odds of any career you could ever possibly have. And the amount of work that you put into it is more than any job you would ever have or any career you could ever have. Sometimes you think to yourself, “What the hell am I doing with my life?” But then you think, “I can’t do anything else, or I don’t want to do anything else.”

It’s kind of a blessing and a curse because as an artist it’s really cool to have a gift, to express yourself and be able to sing, play music, write songs and reach people on an emotional level. But at the same time, you give up other things – your stability, being confident that you’re going to be able to pay your bills next month, or knowing what you’re going to be doing a year from now. This could all end tomorrow; I don’t know what’s going to happen. There’s no stability, there’s no guarantee over anything when you’re in music. It’s kind of like jumping off a cliff and you’re not quite sure if you have a parachute or not. I’m going to do this and not look back. And that’s how you have to do it. You can’t do this rationally. So many bands, they come and go. You hear about bands that were so amazing and no one ever knew about them. That can’t be the reason for success. Art and m
usic is about communication.
If you have that passion to do it, then that’s what you’re doing and it’s sort of a pure thing.

When will you consider that you made it as a band?
When we’re on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine then I’ll be like, “Yeah, I think we made it.” [laughs] In a sense we have made it. We put out a national record, been in stores, gotten on radio, gotten on MTV, all this really exciting stuff. At the same time, I don’t even know if I’m going to be able to pay my bills next week. I don’t know if you look at success as financial success to say that you’ve made it or you look at the fact that you have people who will die for your band. Even if it’s just a handful of people, that’s pretty cool too. You’ll meet kids that have tattoos of your band, and you’re like, “Holy shit, this must really mean something to somebody.” That’s really awesome. Then you’ll look at people like Dave Matthews who packs 15,000 people into an arena, well that’s pretty cool too. I don’t know. As long as I’m still doing what I’m doing and I’m happy and I’m playing music I want to play with my friends and we’re having a good time and we’re still touching people and connecting with people on an emotional level, I’m stoked.

What inspires you to keep writing, playing songs and touring?
Inspiration comes in different form. For right now, it’s all I really want to do; it’s all I know how to do. This is my life, this is what I do. I play music and I believe in my music. There’s not really a question in my mind of, “What are you going to do today?” I know what I’m going to do today, I’m going to play music and if I have a few minutes I’m going to try and write a song. As long as I feel that way I’m going to keep doing it. The day I wake up and I’m like, “I don’t want to do this anymore,” I’ll figure something out.

What musicians do you look up to?
I look up to different musicians for different reasons. I look up to Jeff Buckley for instance, because he was such a great singer, the beauty that he captured in music was so amazing, just breathtaking. When you put on his record Grace, it changes the temperature of the room that you’re in. The beauty that is captured in that music is just overwhelming. A band like Radiohead for pushing envelopes so much and changing what they do and really pushing, artistically, their limits. A band like U2, who have tackled big, important issues in their music. I love The Edge’s guitar sound, it’s so signature, he can play one note and you know its The Edge. Bono, I like his voice, but the things they talk about in their songs are deeper issues and that’s something I can connect with.

Are you guys working on a new album?
Not officially. We’re always writing new songs, but we haven’t begun a new album yet. I feel like the current record, Citizen, isn’t done. Our record still has a lot of life left in it. This record I really love so much and I’m really proud of the songs and the lyrics and what it says. We have that one song, “Going Through Changes” and the video, and it gets played on the radio. This record is more then just one song and I think there are a lot of people that haven’t heard it yet. I want to keep working this record for a little while and hopefully have more people check it out.

Do you feel you have to be depressed to write a sad song or in love to write a love song?
Different things inspire songs. I think if you’re sad it helps writing a song, to put what’s really happening when you’re sad into a song. Things that you might write in a song, since you’re feeling it, it might be easier [to write]. Since you’re feeling it you know how to express what it feels like. You don’t necessarily have to be sad to write a sad song or in love to write a love song. I tend to write about what’s happening in my life, what I’m going through, what I’m learning, how I’m growing, all those different things.

The experiences you write about, if they’re real, do they come out better in the songs?
No, not necessarily. In order to write a song you have to have experienced life. To be a compelling songwriter, you have to have experienced something. If you’ve never gone through anything hard in your life then you can’t really write good lyrics about going through something hard. Having had that experience of going through something hard, you don’t have to necessarily be sad at that moment to write because you know what it was like to feel like that, even if you’re not feeling like that at that time. So, to write a song about being in love, you have to have been in love at some point.

Are there any songs that you sing later and they lose meaning for you, either after singing them so much or if you’re at a different point in your life?
No, they don’t necessarily lose meaning. They’re always about what they’re about, but sometimes they take on new meanings when you go through other things. Sometimes I’ll be singing a song and I’ll be thinking about something else that’s going on in my life and I get into that aspect of the song, like its describing something else or I make up new meanings for what it is. Songs are cool like that; they can be interpretive in different ways.

Who would you want to collaborate with?
I always thought it’d be cool to collaborate with Rufus Wainwright. I love his music and his voice. I wouldn’t mind collaborating with Carrie Underwood on like, making a baby. [laughs] I have to be careful because I only get one shot at this. I have to figure out who my idea celebrity girl would be. Sienna Miller. She is so beautiful to me, I think she’s perfect. I don’t know anything about her personality though. I kind of live in a dream world. I’m an artist; I kind of live in an alternate reality sometimes.

What do you love about music?
Initially, I started playing music for all the wrong reasons. When I was a teenager I thought it’d be cool to be famous, be a rock star, meet lots of girls and be rich, like all the guys on MTV. I think over time, growing up a bit, it’s not about that anymore. It’s kind of a search, in one sense, to find beauty, to find meaning, to express myself and to communicate with other people. Music, the way it makes you feel, there’s a certain power in music. It’s amazing. Music has had a big impact in my life. When you get to that place in music where you’re making music and you get that feeling, it’s a great feeling; it’s kind of like a drug in some sense. That glimpse of beauty, that glimpse of how it makes you feel, its a little taste of heaven. Ultimately, if we can communicate that feeling to other people and other people can have an experience that’s meaningful to them, to me that’s what it’s about. If our music can lift up somebody whose feeling pretty low, that’s really awesome and that’s what I hope our music can do.

Did you think growing up you’d be in a band, touring across the country?
No, never. Never thought I’d be in a band. I didn’t really get interested in pursuing music seriously until I was in college. I never thought this was going to happen, it was kind of a fluke that it did. A friend of mine that was in another band invited me to try out for his band to play guitar and I was like, “Dude, I’m awful at guitar. You don’t want me in your band; you don’t want me to bring your band down to that l

evel.” And he’s like, “No, man, we’re just having fun, its cool.” So I tried out for his band and I really liked it, and I fell in love with being in a band and from there I started this band with Dennis and the rest is history.

Tags Army of Me, Interview, On the Road, On Tour, Q&A, Vince Scheuerman

Interviews

The Used

Post author By admin
Post date April 27, 2008
3 Comments on The Used

As promised, here’s the first of many interviews to come from the “Get A Life” tour. My friend Wendy (concert photographer extraordinaire) and I were lucky enough to talk with Jeph on their infamous tour bus. Jeph chatted with us about touring, the truth about groupies and their upcoming album, which he says is “the record of records.” The interview is a bit long, so feel free to come back and read, it’s not going anywhere. Check back later this week for more interviews with Army of Me as well as MP3 format of the interviews!

What’s it like being on tour? How do you prepare for a headlining tour?
This one run right now, isn’t really a headlining tour. We wanted to hit a bunch of spots that we hadn’t been to yet. It’s kind of an out of the way, off set tour. We’re not hitting any major places. We’re going to the little guys and going around because we still have fans out there. I try to get all my stuff in order at home. Just make sure I don’t have anything left at home. For me, going on tour is more like going back home. I feel more at home on tour. I don’t feel as weird. Maybe it’s because the past eight years of my life have been on tour.

How long have you guys been together?
The band started, I want to say, the beginning of 2001. We had a different drummer for the first two records and he left. Dan, he’s our newest drummer, he just got here about a year ago, so he’s been with us for a year now. Yeah, originally it was four of us, again. We’re kind of all the other dropouts of all the other bands on the scene. We’re kind of the black sheep of the whole Utah Valley scene cause we’re not even from Salt Lake, we’re like an hour south of Utah Valley. We’re little town boys.

Even worse, not only are we the drop outs, we also would get kicked out of every show we’d play originally. Random things would happen, it was all just blaming it on us because we were the heavy band at the time. We were the outcast band, so no matter what Bert did, it was scary. Bert’s always been like that, unpredictable kind of dude.

You guys don’t get kicked out anymore, do you?
They do. We’ve been kicked out of places still. Quinn got kicked out of our CD release party, he was either pissing on the floor or he was breaking beer bottles on something. Yeah, things happen.

What do you love most about touring?
Being on tour I feel like I can get away from everything, like all my worries. Anything I have that’s been bugging me and bumming me out is gone, because what I’m doing right now I love. This is my favorite thing to do – be on tour and play music. We’re kind of finishing up a record right now on tour. Everything about it is great to me. Waking up in a new city and not knowing where I am for a couple hours, meeting new people, I love meeting people, even though I’m a little shy sometimes. I’m great with faces, horrible with names. I’ll remember kids I meet at one show for years. Not all the time, but if they change their hair, it’ll fuck with me.

Do you have a favorite city you’ve played?
It changes everywhere. Australia is a great, great crowd. Japan is always a great place to go. The kids there are insane. Every time we play there it’s the weirdest/best crowd. We just played Chile and that was the best show by far. It was our first time there and there were kids waiting at the airport. There were like 300 kids there. They were pulley too, like grabbing your arm, your clothes, your hair. It was pretty scary. Once we got to the venue, kids were waiting at the hotel with a big sign they made so you could see it from the hotel room. At all times there was at least 20-50 kids out front of the hotel. They opened the doors six hours before we played because there were 2,000 kids in the street trying to get into the venue. Loudest show we’d ever played. They were in there hours before we played, just waiting and pumped and screaming at everything, it was crazy. If you look up videos online of it, it’s insane.

How about the U.S.?
Utah’s always a great show, it’s going home. But hometown crowds are always the same thing, love/hate. Either people love you because you’re from Utah, it’s a pride thing or they hate you because they don’t think you deserved it, you didn’t work for it, you didn’t do anything for it. But we worked our asses off.

How do you deal with it?
You can’t really care what anybody thinks. At the end of it, it’s all about if you love what you’re doing and you’re doing a good job. If nobody likes your band and you’re happy with it, who cares, you’re happy with it. If you make 10 kids happy, those are 10 kids you just made happy, so cool.

What would you be doing if it wasn’t for the music?
I’m a traveler. I like traveling and going around and visiting. I would probably just save up and travel if I could. The lucky thing is I can actually travel being in a band, so it’s cool it works out. I take every country, every place I try to go out. There’s some scary places where you’re not supposed to really, so I don’t there as much, but I still try to. I’ve seen a little bit of everything, not every place all over the world. There are still so many places I still want to go to.

Do you have a favorite song you like to perform every night?
There’s a bunch. “Paralyzed” is my favorite to play. It’s like the danciest one. That one’s really fun to play, in the beginning of it me and Dan go into some little funk, getaway grove part. That’s the funnest part of my show, that little funk jam. That song is really fun to play too because it’s dancy. I’m kind of into dancy music, I grew up loving James Brown and stuff like that. It’s got that sort of a vibe, but not quite. I like heavy stuff too, ‘cause heavy stuff is always fun to play, “Pain” is kind of an in between, it’s got this grove/heavy to hit. There’s this really cool, tappy bass line in the second verse. You can’t really hear it recorded, but it’s so much fun to play for me.

Screaming songs are fun. I like the singy stuff. There’s a lot of bands lately that have overdone the singy/screamy stuff. Bert’s a really good singer. He’s very good at piano and he has an ear, he has a really good overview, he can hear something for a song and know the biggest picture. He can see the planet. When you’re writing a song you build the continents together. He can see the planet before the rest of the continents is built. Quinn’s really good at
that too. Me, I settle with p
ieces more and I’m not so good at seeing the giant picture of everything.

Do you all help out when writing the music?
Yeah, we’re open for anything. We’ll sit and we’ll jam songs out. If Quinn’s like, “That’s cool, but why don’t you try playing this note here instead of this one.” I’ll try it and most of the time it’s cool. Me and Dan will have a jam down and Quinn will play something over it and it’ll just be magic. It depends every time. There will be times it takes forever.

How do you know when a song’s a hit for you guys, or when it’s right?
You can just tell. There’s a feeling, like “Wow, this song’s great.” Right now, we have a song that doesn’t have any words to it, but it’s great, it’s my favorite song we’ve ever written by far. So I can’t wait to hear it with words. That usually makes or breaks songs. Usually, most of the time if the song is really, really cool, the words will probably wind up cool too.

What percentage have you guys been on tour/writing/in the studio this year?
We got off our last tour in November and we had a month off and we started writing in January. I went to visit some friends for a week, hanging out at home. After that we started jamming again, started writing, did that till the beginning of this tour, three months, two months of that and then we went straight to tour. The next album comes out the end of the month probably. This is going to be the record of records. I’m excited about it. I can’t wait to have the finished, because all I have is the bits and pieces, but I can’t wait for the ending, to finally hear it.

What makes it different from your other records?
We’re going to a different producer. The same guy has produced our last three records so they kind of have similar sounds almost. All of his sounds and all of the stuff that he uses, all of his equipment is the same so every time we record it kind of sounds the same, but its different songs, different feelings and different vibes. But we want it to be very different; we don’t want to be on the same path at all. We want to take a big left turn and switch everything up as much as we can, just to do something different, just to try something new because bands need to change, they need to mature. We’re not the same people we were seven or eight years ago, nobody is. Your surroundings make up who you are. Since we started as a band, every year it’s just changing constantly and changing it up. We want to show how much we changed in a good way. I think it’s very important for bands to do that. You can write songs that work, and whatever music that works, but to me you’re fake unless you’re really showing how you can change a person.

Do you guys record in L.A.?
Yeah, usually. This record we’ll probably record in L.A. as well. We’re trying to record it as fast as possible, we want it to take a month or less. We want to get to it and get it done, we want it to sound a little dirty, a little raw. The less we take worrying about details the better it’s going to sound in that sort of way. We’ll see how it sounds. It’s really hard to leave it as it is, leaving it as breathing as opposed to going back and tweaking it and making it perfect. If you just let it breathe and let it be as it is, it’s almost more difficult. That’s what the plans are, we’ll see how it works out.

What is it about the music that keeps you going – going on tour, recording?
It’s hard. You kind of have to say goodbye to everything. You have to be willing to give up everything. Family, friends, relationships, anything really is all on hold until you’re done being in a band. It’s pretty difficult. It’s difficult on your mind, difficult on everything.

How do you deal with that?
Don’t think about it. I really have given everything for this band and I would do it all over again. I don’t regret anything. It is what it is and you have to take it as . . I think you have to be a bit crazy, maybe, to be on tour.

How many months is this tour?
Oh, this tour is pretty quick, it’s about a month and a half. Longest tour I’ve ever been on was two years. There were breaks in between, like a week break and then another week break, two months, three months later. The reality of it is we didn’t stop touring, which I don’t mind. I’m happy on a bus, I’m happy hanging out with these guys. I have some of my closest friends here; I have other ones of course. It’s weird when you go back home too because it’s almost like your friends start up where you left off, it’s like you didn’t miss out on anything. A lot of friends can’t handle it, but they figure it out. It’s weird to watch them grow up in a different way, seeing them get families and get married and stuff.

Is there anything you miss most about being on tour? Your bed maybe?
I like bunks. They’re dark. You close the thing, it’s completely silent . . . well, not really silent because usually Bert’s screaming in the hallway or something. But it’s comfortable, you get rocked to sleep every night. When I came home after touring for two years straight I couldn’t sleep. I had to turn a fan on because I had to have some kind of noise and still it wasn’t right. Now it’s easier because we don’t tour as much, but I actually get more depressed when I’m not on tour now.

What are you thinking about when you’re on stage?
It’s different every time, sometimes it’s random. It depends, you never know, sometimes you’ll be so into the show that you can’t think of anything but what’s going on. Sometimes I’ll think about random stuff, like I’ll be looking at the ground and I’ll see something and think about, “What the fuck do you think that is?” Your mind wanders. It sort of becomes less you’re actually playing the song to an action. You’re sort of in the mood and in the vibe and the song is sort of playing you, if that makes sense, a little bit hippie-ish. It’s like writing is the same way, the music is flowing through you. Sometimes I’ll think of something funny and I’ll start laughing.

What happens if you play a show and there’s no energy from the crowd, how does that affect you as a band?
Oh it kills it. The crowd is half the show. I put every little bit of my life into every show. I put everything into it. Like what I was saying before, not pay attention, but I’m still completely involved in the show. I’m not gonna just play and be like whatever, “Let’s just get this fucking show over.” If you look at a crowd and they’re just standing, staring at you, usually I have to close my eyes and be like, “I can’t look at these guys.”

Most of the crowd is here to see you, do you think it’s hard for the other bands?
Oh, yeah. It’s tough, starting out too. That’s how it was for us for years. Playing in front of people who’ve never heard us before. But you have to win the crowd over. That’s sort of fun, because it’s hard but at the end it’s like, “How many people did we win over. It’s like, fuck these guys, let’s win. Let’s show them what kind of band we are and what we’re made of.” It’s really fun. If you can get the crowd cheering by
the end of the show, it shows that you won.

We’ve played some hard tours, we’ve played Ozzfest once and we’re not the heavy band. We’re a little heavy, but we’re not like Ozzfest heavy. Nine in the morning playing shows, it’s really hard to get kids into the shows. But at the end of those shows, we won over the majority of the crowd. Except the guys who were still drunk and pissed off, maybe not those guys. Now they probably like us, so whatever.

Do you guys party a lot on tour?
There’s usually a party going on the bus. I’m very moderate myself, everything in moderation is good. I guess that depends what moderate means to somebody. There’s usually a party on the bus after the show. We’re all friends, hanging out.

Do you have any pre-show rituals?
We hug each other, we get in this big circle of hug and we just kind of pump each other up and get stoked and just talk about something really quick. Sort of like, bring our own vibe together, a togetherness vibe and then go play. It’s a little gay, a little hippie.

So I have to ask about the groupies . . . is it cool to sleep with the band?
Groupies are gross. Groupies are the girls that sleep with all the other band dudes. I’m not down with that. It’s hard to meet people on tour because they either like you because you’re in the band or they like you because they just saw you play a show or they like you because it’s cool. So it’s pretty hard to meet people on tour. Although touring is pretty lonely at the same time. A lot of our crowd is mid-younger age too so that wouldn’t work out. I try to meet and hang out with our fans as much as possible, because it’s cool to meet them and stuff. It’s weird when they just come to try to sleep with the band. It’s like, “You’re fuckin’ 17. You’re not old enough.” That’s why you usually have to ID check before you bring anybody on the bus usually, because we’ll go to jail.

Relationship-wise, if you guys have girls at home is it hard to stay loyal?
It’s weird, being lonely on tour is a hard thing to pass. No matter what, relationship or not, three months alone is three months of being alone. It’s not like three months and then you’re okay. It’s constant loneliness in a way. It really is what it is. You either have a girlfriend and deal with it or you don’t and you deal with it. My favorite phrase and saying is “it is what it is.” It stands for everything. You have to deal with it. It is hard. I’m not about to go date some groupie girl. That’s fuckin’ nasty. “Which band did you sleep with? Oh cool, you wanna hang out later.” I like making fun of the groupies. Which is very fun. Most of them are pretty stupid. I mean, to want to just sleep with band dudes to make points. What else do you have going on for you, what else is your life worth?

How do you know the difference between a groupie and a real fan?
It’s obvious. You didn’t really come to meet anybody, you came to sleep with somebody. It’s fun to mess with them. We bring them on the bus and tease them, but not let them know we’re teasing them. Its fun, it passes time.

Do they really exist? Do you recognize people?
Oh, yeah. It’s really hard too, meeting people. I consider life moments, sets of moments in your whole life. Because I’m not religious at all, I don’t believe in anything really like that. I believe in moments and that your whole life is sets of these things and each little moment you capture is great. Being on tour you have select moments with people because you’re not going to see that person again or those people again for months probably. You have a day to have a moment with somebody, and that’s pretty much it. It is what it is. But moments are a good thing, you can either share moments and hang out, or you can share moments with other people on the bus and hang out. That’s why I enjoy hanging out with people, I’m all about it.

I’ll hang out with fans, but it gets weird a little bit. You’ll hang out with fans and share a moment with those guys, you’ll be hanging out and they’re super cool and maybe you’ll go get a drink at Starbucks, you and five random kids. And then next time you come through town they get mad if you don’t, which is weird, it’s like, “Sorry, man.” To them it was a big moment, but for us, we’re trying to hang out and spend our time wisely. Next time we come through town, maybe we don’t have time, maybe we’re doing press or maybe we’re hanging out with somebody else and all of a sudden they’re offended because they’re waiting for months to hang out again. I feel bad about it. I’m an asshole. I’m pretty good because I remember fans faces. There’s a lot of ups and downs.

Are there ups and downs to having really close, loving and adoring fans?
Yes. There are three types of fans that I’ve noticed. There are the best ones, which are the loving fans, that love you so much for what you do and they just love to see you and come to your show. And that’s it. That’s all they want – to come to the show, see the show and be happy because they got to see a live concert of a band that they love. Those are the best fans by far because we’re writing music for them and we’re touring for them. They’re accepting of that.

Then there are the fans that just want to meet you because you’re in a band, and that’s okay. I don’t mind, I love meeting people. But, some of those fans get angry when they don’t meet all of you and they get angry when they only meet one of you and they start getting really mad at you because they only met one. They think it’s pointless that they even came to the show because they only met one of you.

Then there are the fans that want something of yours. Your hat, your shoes, your belt. And they get mad if you don’t give them something. Even the ones that want a lot from us, they’re still good people, they’re good fans. It’s just hard to please everybody.

How do you keep motivated each night for every show?
I love playing music. For me, it makes me happy to play a show. The vibe you get from playing a show I can’t really tell you what it feels like playing a show. It’s like telling a blind person what red apples look like, it’s sort of orange-ish. No matter what mood you’re in when you go play a show, you’ll probably be in a better mood. If you have a bad show it will probably put you in a bad mood too. But you’re still probably in a better mood then being in a real bad mood, if that makes sense. No matter what, it’s going to uplift you a little bit to a lot.

Do you guys have a musical background?
Yeah, it’s different for all of us. I think I know everybody’s background. Quinn’s dad was a drummer, so Quinn picked up music easily because his dad was a musician. I think they would jam together a little bit. Quinn’s naturally good at music. When we met him, he was the best guitar player we ever jammed with. This was back in the day, he was 17, I was blown away. He was just so good with what he did. I think the first thing he learned was Lynyrd Skynyrd’s song. The whole solo from one of those songs. I think it’s the “Freebird” solo. Bert is really good at piano, he started out playing piano and taking lessons I think. He can play trumpet too. His musical background is excellent. It comes f

rom piano. Piano is the best way to start. I wish my parents would have forced me to take piano lessons. My musical ear is sort of hazy sometimes, but piano solves that whole problem.

Dan, his whole family are musicians. His dad too, is a guitar player and Dan’s a drummer so he just jammed with his dad and played with his dad all the time. Dan is definitely the best drummer I’ve ever played with in my whole life. Honestly, he’s one of my favorite live drummers, which is incredible that he’s in our band now because we used to watch his band and just watch him. I’d never seen anybody hit like that, I’ve never seen anybody play like that. He uses these thick marching sticks, they’re huge. I’ve seen him playing and he’ll break one, and he’ll pull one out and he’ll bust the next one in half right in the middle. He’s crazy, he’s an excellent drummer.

Me, my musical background’s weird because nobody in my family is a musician. I’m kind of the black sheep, my dad’s the black sheep of his family and so in a way, being a musician, kind of makes me the black sheep, even though I’m not. I picked up music, because my best friend growing up played guitar, and we always looked up to these other little, local bands that were awful, but great at same time. I was into weird music when I was a kid and I always liked bass stuff and for me bass was a calling almost. I picked up bass because he played guitar and it felt like that’s what I should play anyway. I’ll never regret that. I love bass, it’s my favorite. It was probably a good decision.

Check out The Used on MySpace to hear some of their songs and for current tour dates.

Tags Interview, On the Road, On Tour, Q&A, The Used

Q&A

Interviews with Martin Smith of Delirious? and Will Anderson of Sparky’s Flaw

Post author By admin
Post date April 16, 2008
2 Comments on Interviews with Martin Smith of Delirious? and Will Anderson of Sparky’s Flaw

Both of these interviews have been transcribed in earlier posts, but I thought you might want to listen to them as well. I talked to Martin Smith back in January, just before he and some of his singer/songwriter friends got together to write some songs of which all the proceeds made will be donated to charity. Listen here as he explains his project, Compassionart. Visit the website to learn more about it!

My next interview is with Will Anderson, frontman of Virginia-based band Sparky’s Flaw. (Think a mix of Maroon 5 and The Fray.) He and two of the other band members are in their last year of college, touring Thursdays – Sundays and recording their debut full-length album between winter and spring breaks. Listen to the interview here and check out their website to hear music and get info on upcoming shows.

Some more exciting news! I’ll be going on tour this weekend with Army of Me and the “Get A Life” tour featuring The Used, Straylight Run and Street Drum Corps. I’m not sure if I’ll really have any computer access . . . but I’ll try to update my blog sometime next week to let you know how it went! Feel free to leave questions/things you want to know about in the comments!

Tags Delirious?, Interview, Martin Smith, Parachute, Q&A, Sparky's Flaw, Will Anderson

Interviews

Lost Tricks

Post author By admin
Post date April 8, 2008

Starting out with $2,000 and the hopes to buy a motorcycle on eBay, Trevor Oswalt’s original plan soon changed when someone else bought it seconds before his purchase. Instead, he bought an Mbox and the rest is history. Trev took some time out Friday for a phone interview with me explaining the history of Lost Tricks (which he explains as piano driven, indie-pop rock), the inspiration behind his music, and the new EP, Keep It Together. Stay tuned later this week for two tracks from the EP! And be sure to check them out on MySpace or their website.

For the full interview in MP3 format click here.

For more on Lost Tricks, check out their MySpace and website above. I’ll be posting two tracks from their latest EP later this week too.

I’m curious to know if you all like listening to the live interview instead of reading the transcription, or both. If so, leave me a comment or an email at atreuter@gmail.com. Thanks!

Tags Interview, Lost Tricks, Q&A

Q&A

Sia Interview on mp3

Post author By admin
Post date March 25, 2008

I know I have been slacking lately on my blog posts. So hopefully I’ll make it up to you with the second part of my interview with Sia live on mp3 for you to listen to! Special thanks to my tech-savvy friends, Tom, Joel and Dan for making this possible! Listen to my phone interview with Sia here.

Lots of exciting things are coming up and I promise to update my blog more! Look back later this week for a concert review of Ingrid Michaelson and The Hotel Cafe Tour as well as some album reviews and interviews in the upcoming weeks! Thanks again for reading and for all your comments! 🙂

Tags Interview, Listen, Q&A, Sia

Q&A

Sia Interview Featured on Rolling Stone

Post author By admin
Post date March 5, 2008
2 Comments on Sia Interview Featured on Rolling Stone

You read it correctly! Part of my interview with Sia is featured in this week’s Rock & Roll Daily blog on rollingstone.com. You can check it out here. Feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think!

Tags Interview, Q&A, Rolling Stone, Sia

Interviews

Sia

Post author By admin
Post date March 3, 2008
4 Comments on Sia

I love interviewing bands, hence why I started this blog in the first place. But what I love most is how, despite often asking very similar questions to each band, some musicians can be incredibly refreshing and give very unexpected answers. Australian singer-songwriter Sia Furler is a breath of fresh air in the music industry. Her quirky answers during my phone interview with her and infectious laugh throughout made it such a delight to talk to her. (Read on to find out what I mean!)

You can find the full interview with Sia below or listen to part of my phone interview here. In addition, you can read my write-up featured on Rolling Stone‘s Rock & Roll Daily blog here. Feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think! In the meantime, check out this stream of her performing on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. For Windows. For Quicktime. She’s playing a sold-out concert at Webster Hall in NYC Saturday, March 8. I’ll be covering the show, so keep on the look-out for a full review sometime next week!

I love the colorful album artwork. Did you design it all yourself?
Well, we started out, me and my friend Eric [Spring]. I’ve been doing Apple Art on the computer for the website. I started for fun at airports when I couldn’t get wireless Internet to surf crap gossip websites. I decided to start for fun, matching art for the song titles because I felt we need a reason to sell C.D.’s. People just don’t buy music unless there’s something in the packaging that’s worth having. I thought it would be fun to do pictures, make flashcards for every song. Halfway through, because I’m an incredibly lazy fucker, I got tired of doing it, so then we engineered a competition for the fans, like 20,000 fans. It had to be cohesive with the cover, so we gave them the cover, which I did with my friend Eric in the Le Parc Suite hotel after breakfast in Los Angelis. A lot of people don’t really notice that on the cover art work there is someone who is being rained on, who is really having a bad day with a big frown. And then there is another person who is smiling but has no arms and legs. That’s what I meant when I said, some people have real problems and they’re not complaining.

How did you choose the title for your album?
We would make jokes about it all the time. During recording people would come in and complain about, I don’t know, like their coffee bang ditter or traffic, or that their cleaner didn’t do something. And I’d say, “Some people have real problems.” Like, they’re waiting for a lung or they don’t have a mum. When anyone would say a really, stupid, rich person’s complaint then we literally would say, “Yeah, some people have real problems” and it would be hilarious and it just stuck. I thought it would be a funny name for an album. And then I thought people would ask me about it a lot and if I were to get rich and successful I would remember to not turn into an asshole. But I am one, so it didn’t work. [Laughs] No it’s working.

Did you go in having a concept for your album?
No. I just wanted to make an album that didn’t really sound like it belonged to any particular era. I just wanted it to be . . . not really fashionable or anything. I wanted to make an album that had good songs and was recorded mainly live. That’s all. I had about 48 songs, ‘cause it had been a long time since I had put out my last record and I’ve been writing so much. So I just gave them to Jimmy [Hogarth] who was the producer and I said, “Could you choose the best songs?” He came back with 18 and then we ran out of money between 14 or 15 so we just ended up with those ones and then we chose the best out of those. The ones we were most attracted to, sexually [laughs] and that was it.

I don’t really have as much involvement in it. I like to just write the songs and then once I’ve written them and recorded them, when I’m in the studio I’ll know if I really hate a sound that someone uses. I like to trust all the musicians, all of them are awesome. Generally, they bring their own great thing. Jimmy has good taste and I trust him. I only really listen to them when I’m writing them and then when I’m recording them…I didn’t even listen to the mixes. I didn’t have any headphones so I listened to them through my Mac speakers and I thought they sounded good. There was only one thing that Jimmy sent me that I went back on. The horns were too jazzy and I didn’t like it. We had to redo the horns. I wanted them to be like a marching band. But that’s all, that’s the only thing we had to redo.

Do you have a favorite song on the album?
“Academia” is my favorite and then I like singing “You Have Been Loved,” it’s a good song to sing live. But yeah, I think “Academia” is my favorite and I like “Buttons” too.

I love the lyrics on “Academia.”
Thanks! That was like a vomit song. You know, when you just literally pick up a pen and they just go “bleup.” That took five minutes to write and then we researched it just to make sure all the words are right.

And you recorded that song with Beck, right? How was working with him?
Yeah. It was good. He came out for the day. I had a day where I gathered all of my friends to help me sing backing vocals. ‘Cause I wanted a big choir-y sound on “Death By Chocolate.” And then he came down and I asked him if he would sing on “Academia.” I had already asked him in an email but I asked him again because he hadn’t responded so I asked him in person. I was like, “Do you hate it? Do you want to do it?” and he said sure. That was a bit of a treat. But really, he’s just being really supportive. He’s doing me a favor. When people like you ask me about it and then you write about it and when people Google Beck, my name comes up. So he’s basically doing me a big favor.

What is your writing process like?
I write everyday. It used to be much more loose. I write with people, I can’t really write by myself. I mean I can, but it’s not as fun. I like to be part of a team. Mid-day we usually schedule one or two songs with different writers. Sometimes I have an idea and I just write it down and remember it, like one sentence and then I can build a song around that. Normally it happens while I’m in a room with another writer and it’s been scheduled, but it’s different every time. Normally the chorus comes first and then the music gets the feeling of the song from me and it just comes out and if it doesn’t come out then we move on and we start a different kind of song.

How do you feel this album is different from your previous albums?
I guess I’m in a better mood. I wasn’t in a good mood the last album. And this album I’m in a much better mood and I think that’s reflected in the times. And it’s hairier. A lot hairier. [Laughs] It needs a haircut actually.

I was curio
us about your song “Lentil.”
Did that title confuse you? [Laughs] It was a dog called Lentil, that was the first dog I ever fostered and I couldn’t take him with me back to London because he didn’t have the right rabies shots and it was in Australia. I had to go back to London to work and I had to leave him in Australia and I felt so bad because I loved him so much. I found him a really good home and he’s so happy now. I see him every summer. He’s a good boy.

In “Playground” you sing, “I don’t want to grow old/Bring me all the toys you can find.” I feel everyone can relate to that, is that a fear of yours, growing old?
Totally. Yeah, and also I just don’t want to stop having fun. I think it’s a decision to grow old. I saw my mum made a decision and she just got old over night. It was like she made a decision and it was like, “Why are you doing that?” She just reversed that decision. She came to New York for Christmas, where I live now. And while she was here she reversed that decision and I’m so glad. But yeah, I just don’t want to make that decision to grow old.

How are you staying young?
A lot of dancing, shopping, hanging out with good people. Dancing, more dancing. Singing a lot, good dating, a lot of good dating. Making stuff, fun stuff, crafting.

Were you originally a back-up singer for Jamiroquai?
No. I mean I was. I went down there and recorded some stuff and he paid me and everything. But then he said my voice was too distinctive and he never used any of it. It’s probably for the best. He was really nice to me when I was first starting out as a singer and he actually gave me a bunch of money to help me pay my bills. He was gonna start a record label and wanted me to sign to it but it never happened. And we never saw each other ever again.

And you’ve sang for Zero 7 too. How do you feel all these experiences and people have influenced you and your music throughout the years?
Well, a lot because I don’t listen to music. When I’m surrounded by those friends and musicians they play music constantly. So I guess I’m heavily influenced by whatever they’re listening to at the time. And of course by dynamics, band dynamics and friendships and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, I can’t do that anymore because I’m getting busy with the solo stuff so I’m not doing the next Zero 7 album. That’s sad because that was the best fun and I think my best work has been with them. But maybe one day we’ll be able to do some more. It would be nice.

Over the past 10 years, you’ve progressed so much. Do you feel your fans have changed at all?
No, I feel like they’ve stayed the same, but then maybe they’ve grown slightly. Like its’ expanded, like they’ve told their mums. [Laughs] That’s what I think. I know I have a loyal fan base because a lot of them have been on the message board for five years. But yeah, I think it has definitely gotten bigger.

How is your tour going?
It’s been amazing, people are so nice! They’re giving me gifts. They pass me notes while I’m on stage. I love it! It’s been really good audience participation. Like, sometimes there will be a note that says, “Could you dedicate the next song to blah, blah from blah, blah. We danced our wedding to this song.” It’s so nice. Other notes would just be like, “Show us your tits.” I’ve gotten presents; someone gave me a handmade scarf the other day. Other people gave me the most amazing toiletries and smelly bath things. Someone gave me so much beautiful essential oils. Another bunch of people gave me awesome joke presents, like silly masks, whoopee cushions, and suspenders. I think they all seem to know what I like, which is really weird. Nobody has given me a present that I’m not into. I’m becoming a really good receiver! [Laughs]

What was your inspiration behind Some People Have Real Problems?
It’s a long time coming. It was like four years of accumulated experiences. One of the songs didn’t make the last record another one was a song that didn’t make a Zero 7 record. One of them was one I was writing as a pop song for some other pop star. When I thought maybe my solo career was over, I started thinking I would try and write pop songs for big stars. Like Shakira and Paris and Britney. In the end, we realized I was going to make another solo record and so I collected all the songs I had been writing. There’s a few B-sides that we didn’t use and didn’t put on the album. It was a pretty simple process for me anyway. Probably not for all those poor fuckers at the management company and the record label and everyone who’s working their asses off to do the other stuff that I don’t even know about.

My life is so abstract. Like my life right now, I’ve done seven interviews before you and everyone’s been asking me, “So, you’re really blowing up right now. Your face is everywhere, how does it feel?” And I’m like, that is hilarious to me because that is so abstract. I have no awareness of it because my days are exactly the same. Every day I get off the tour bus in new city. I get into a hotel room, I take a shower, I get into bed and I do, like five hours of interviews, and then I get into a taxi and go to the venue, do a sound check. If it’s not catered at the venue I maybe will get to go around the venue to the closest restaurant to get some dinner and then come back to the venue, do the show, get back in the tour bus, drive overnight, wake up in a new city and do it all exactly the same all over again.

Yesterday was my first day off in 2 ½ weeks and I went on a mission to buy my love interest some underpants alone. I was like, I need a mission. I was so grateful for the mission because I actually left the hotel room even though I was still tired. I’m working really hard. But I was so grateful. I’m in Chicago and I left the hotel and went for a walk and it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t been for a walk or outside with real people, like humanity, not just working or in a venue or in a hotel room or in a taxi or in a tour bus for 2 ½ weeks. I went into a Starbucks to get a coffee because normally my manager will bring me a coffee while I do interviews or whatever. I don’t even do the normal stuff that normal people do, like stand at a bus stop with people, what I would normally do in real life.

It’s been so surreal. It’s so funny, because I go into a Starbucks yesterday and nobody recognizes me. I’ve been recognized once in Starbucks. I’ve still got jet-eye so nobody ever recognizes me if I’m walking on the streets. All the posters are down now, that was for the first week of the release, they had posters all over the streets in the cities or whatever. Now I’m doing all this promo and it’s in the papers the days before I get to the city that I’m getting to. But I don’t even get a chance to read any newspapers or anything like that, you know. It’s totally abstract to me, just totally surreal. I have no awareness
because my life is me, in a hotel room with the shits. [Laughs] It’s so funny because I’m sure people think it’s really glamorous, like I must be living the fucking high life right now, doing the shows, traveling every night. It’s a lot of hard work. It’s just working hard. I guess that’s why the success is happening now.

Do you think your song, “Breathe Me,” being featured on Six Feet Under’s final episode was part of this success?
Oh absolutely. That laid the foundation for sure. Because I had a very small fan base in America thanks to Zero 7. But yeah, I think that really launched my solo career, absolutely. I have a lot to thank that music supervisor of Six Feet Under for.

What do you think you’d be doing right now if it wasn’t for your solo career?
I’d probably be making another record with Zero 7 or I’d be a dog rescuer, or video director. Yeah, I might be a filmmaker or something like that.

How would you explain your album to someone who’s never heard it before?
I have a standard response. I say its easy listening, just because it keeps people’s expectations low. You can’t really go wrong if you say that to someone. It is pretty easy listening. You either like my voice or you don’t. It’s definitely an acquired taste, but if you like it your generally gonna like it. It’s not going to offend you; it’s pretty middle of the road. It’s not really trying to be anything…its just doing its thing, existing. I think that’s normally what I say. Or I tell people its thrash metal if I want to confuse people. [Laughs]

What’s the most rock-star thing you’ve ever done?
It’s probably spending a lot of money on my dogs. On spending a lot of money having them looked after while I’m on tour and then having them flown to New York from LA at the end of the tour. I guess that’s pretty privileged. If you’re talking about getting drunk and hurling on a celebrity, like that kind of rock-star gossip, I haven’t really got any of those for you. I have a cache of successful friends, but I’ve never vomited on any of them or gotten pregnant from any of them.

Amy Winehouse or Britney Spears?
Whose baby would I like to have? [Laughs] Well, I’m rooting for both of them. I care about Amy. I care about her because I am a fan and I’ve met her a couple of times and I kind of stalk her. I’ve got her phone number and whenever I listen to her album and I love it I text her and say, “I’m listening to it again, it’s so good!” Or when I saw those pictures of her after they’d been in a fight and I felt really sad about it I sent her a text saying that I cared about her, and I wished her lots of love. She never responds. I know she gets them though because her manager told me. She doesn’t really respond to anyone, she doesn’t do email. If I had Britney Spears’ number I’d do the same for her. I care about people in pain, you know? You’ve got to be a careless person not to care about people in pain. I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs. I had total nervous breakdown when I was making the last album. The reason I care and that I write to Amy is that I can identify with people in pain, I guess. One of my fans told me he was in pain on the message boards recently and I gave him my phone number. I was like; “If you’re going to hurt yourself just call me.” I don’t know. I’m rooting for both of them. I don’t want to see anyone in pain. I don’t know about ridiculing people in the press, its mean and it’s dangerous.

Who’s the coolest famous person you’ve ever met?
Probably Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders. About seven years ago, I had a hit in the UK that went to number 10 and I was on this show called, Top of the Pops. She was on the show that night as well and she introduced herself to me and she just gave me a lot of great advice. She said don’t read press. If you believe the good, you believe the bad and there will be bad, it will suck you up. I’m a huge fan. I’ve met a lot of people that I admire. I’ve met Annie Lennox, Stevie Wonder, Ryan Gosling, Beck is a friend of mine. People who I’ve respected and I adored growing up and even more recently, people whose art I respect. It happens, its more and more common especially since I moved to L.A. for three years, it’s crawling with celebs.

Speaking of Beck, you’ve collaborated with him and Giovanni Ribisi on your album, how did those collaborations come about?
Well, Beck I met through Nigel Godrich, who produces all of Beck’s albums and Radiohead and Air and who was actually an original member of Zero 7. Then he got the Radiohead gig and he got really busy with that. I met him through the Zero 7 bunch. And then Nigel introduced me to Beck about five/six years ago. Giovanni is Beck’s brother-in-law. So I met him through Beck.

Working with them is always really fun. They’re really nice and really supportive. Any time I’ve ever asked them for help they’ve helped me. The thing is I’m opposed to thinking that everything is competition and that we should all be helping each other. I asked Amy Winehouse to do a collaboration and she said, “No way.” And I was like, “Why not?” And she said, “I’m intimidated by you. I’ve been listening to you since I was a teenager.” I was totally shocked because she’s my favorite contemporary voice. Her and Lauryn Hill. I just think that’s shocking to me and because we sound so different. I was just shocked.

Who else would you want to collaborate with?
Jeff Buckley, Elvis [Costello], Barr, this artist called Barr, I love him, he’s like a poet. Har Mar Superstar.

What was your favorite album when you were 14?
When I was 14 . . . I was like 11 or something when I first got into Terence Trent Darby and the Bangles. That was the first record I ever bought, the Bangles’ “Manic Monday.” I was listening to Soul II Soul when I was 15 and Malcolm McLaren.

What’s on your current playlist?
I don’t really listen to music; I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t have a playlist. I have a playlist that I made to deejay to this stand-in in Hollywood once. That has on it “The Macarena,” Billy Joel, “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” “Candy,” “Madness”, “On the Wings of a Dove,” Blondie, “Hanging on the Telephone”, Joe Jackson, “Steppin’ Out.” Just fun, dancing around songs really. I dance a lot. If you go to my website, siamusic.net, you can see me dancing. I love to dance. I’m a big dancer, a big fan of the dance.

When do you think you’ll know when its time to retire?
I don’t know if I’m really that keen on getting a whole bunch of plastic surgery and anything like that. I think I’m just gonna do it for another couple of albums and then I’m gonna start doing movies, like directing movies. I’m writing one at the moment called Sister, which I want to direct in the next four years or something. But I think I should concentrate on the singing while it’s happening and ju
st develop those movie projects.

So do you see yourself directing huge movies or more underground?
I think a nice fine line between indie and Hollywood blockbuster.

For more info. on Sia or for future tour dates, be sure to check out Sia’s website or herMySpace

Tags Interview, Q&A, Sia, Sia Furler

Q&A

Q&A with Kris Roe of the Ataris: Part 2

Post author By admin
Post date February 25, 2008
1 Comment on Q&A with Kris Roe of the Ataris: Part 2

As promised, part two of my Q&A; with Kris Roe. If you haven’t yet, check out the Ataris’ MySpace, which Kris runs personally, for the latest tour dates and music. And be on the look out for a new album in the near future!

On this tour, are you just playing the whole Blue Skies album?
I’m playing our whole Blue Skies album from start to finish and then I also play a handful of songs from our other records at the end. Time permitting; I usually play four or five of our other most well known songs at the end. “So Long, Astoria” and “In This Diary” are usually always in the set and the other three I just toy with what people are drunkenly shouting at me or what I feel like playing.

Why did you decide Blue Skies?
Well, it was beyond the five, six year anniversary of that album, and almost the 10 year anniversary of that album and I think that was the album that, other than So Long, Astoria, got most of our core fan base into our band. We usually played the majority of songs from So Long, Astoria over the years and Blue Skies we played like the four, five most known songs. There was the other half of that album that we never played since we recorded. And that’s the same way probably with a lot of bands. You record an album, you play the best four or five songs and the rest are just album tracks. So, I just thought it was a fun challenge to go out and do something like that. And also, I feel it would bring a little bit more interest to the show to people that wouldn’t necessarily just come out and see me play acoustic. Maybe they’d be like, “Wow, that’s kinda cool he’s doing a whole record and playing a few other songs.”

I think that the majority of the album people are always singing along with. For me, there are some songs that were later on the album and were just kind of filler. I think that’s why that album did so well. We kind of back loaded the album. The strongest songs are the first five or six songs. There are a couple of strong songs later on the album. But for the most part, that’s why we put those songs towards the end of the record, because we wanted to make the strongest record from the beginning because most people only listen to the first five songs of an album anyway and then the diehards listen to the rest. I think people know most of the songs, but I don’t expect them to know every one. If they do, they’re usually creepy or too much of a fan. No not, really. But you know what I mean.

How would you describe your fan base? Has it changed a lot over the years?
It definitely changes throughout time because music changes. I think it depends. I think to sum it up, we have this core fan base and those are the kids that really come out, the kids that have been listening to the band for so long and they kind of grow with you. And then we have the people that discovered our band on So Long, Astoria when they heard “In This Diary” and then “Boys of Summer” and that’s cool too. But those are the people, I think, that usually have a shorter attention span. This is just a guess off of what I have seen. Because, I think the radio public are more on to the next thing because they love the current single and that’s fine, but that’s how it is where I grew up. In Indiana people just discovered shit off of MTV and the radio unfortunately. For me, a lot of my friends, we were kind of the kids who seeked things out, discovered bands and just stayed with them. Those are the kids that really stick around. Once we get a new album out and we have a song that’s on the radio or MTV you’ll notice a new resurgence of new fans. Right now, it’s kind of mid time between records and I’m not really out supporting anything, I’m just out doing this for fun. So it’s usually the diehards. The people that really love your band and your music and know the songs.

80% of the people that come to these Blue Skies shows are not the kids who are more apt to yell for “Boys of Summer.” There are those nights. When you play a college town you assume that will be more of the thing because that was more their era. I think the kids that come to these shows; they were into the band before that. I love just as much the kids that got into our band because of that song than the other ones. I think it’s equal. I try to make sure to play some songs from that record at the end. I think those are two of our most popular records and I really try to make a fair set if I have time.

Do you have a favorite song to perform?
I think the best song in our band’s history is the song “Fast Times at Drop-Out High.” That was an older song that I feel stood throughout the history of our band and doesn’t feel dated to me today. There are some songs you write and a month or two later after you record them, you’re like, “That feels really dated” and it’s something you don’t ever want to play again. And then there are some songs that stick throughout. Pretty much everything I play in my set I feel happy playing. There are a couple songs that I’d rather not play and are slightly dated, but I want to make the people who paid happy and give them a set that’s good for them. There are some songs I sing, either love songs from the past that I don’t believe a word I’m singing anymore that I’m just singing so people want to sing along and hear it and there are some songs that I still believe like the day I wrote it. But, that’s the good thing about being a songwriter. You move on and your songs stay frozen in time and you just gotta live with that.

Do you remember how to play everything and all of the lyrics?
No. [Laughs] But I give it a shot. Most of the stuff. I have a handful of songs beyond the Blue Skies album that I can choose from every night within reason. If someone is yelling out something that is rare, I’ll sometimes take the challenge. Sometimes I fail miserably. Like, last night I think I failed miserably on a couple.

You’ve been doing this so long, what inspires you to keep going?
Hands down, it’s the only thing that I really enjoy doing. I take photos, I like doing that. I have some other interests. For right now music is the only thing that I know and the one thing I want to continue doing. That’s pretty much it. I’m a really driven person, but I think when you get something that you know, it’s like if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It’s true. Just keep moving forward and try to do as much as you can.

Can you tell us about your photography skills?
Skills, I don’t know. I just take photos of things that I like and strike me. Overall, my general photography is stuff that’s kind of sad but beautiful at the same time. Growing up in the Midwest you have all this worn down beauty. You have these old factories but you also have a side to it that’s kind of tragic but beautiful and that’s the thing I come across in my photos. I just became a photographer by accident. I stole my old roommate’s camera because I needed to take photos for a record because we had a deadline and the guy that was doing the photos flaked out. And after I was like, “Well, shit, I can do this.” So I always feel weird saying I’m a photographer because there are so many people that go to school and do this for a living and for me it’s just something I do. I think anybody, if you have a good eye, you can take photos. Anybody can write a song. It’s all in here. [pointing to heart]
It’s all trial and error really. For me, it’s like guitar; I never read a book of fuckin’ tablature or chords in my life. I just hear it and go. Look at the Ramones, look at painting, or photography, or anything, it’s all in here.

Are you working on a new album?
Not currently. Planning to do a new album, but probably later in the year. I’ve written some rough ideas of songs, but for the most part, that area is just getting started. I’ll probably be doing this touring off and on throughout the summer just to have some money so when I do go in the studio I’ll have some money put aside to pay the bills. I think it will be my hope to realistically get in the studio by late summer now. I think by then I will have tapped every market I can actually play. After this tour and South America and Japan we’re going to try to book Europe and Canada and I think after that, the only thing I can really do is go in the studio. It’s really hard to go beyond that when you’re just doing a solo tour. We used to play Australia a lot, but I think to go down there and do a tour by myself I’m not sure I can do that by myself. But, who knows.

Welcome the Night is a little deeper and darker than So Long, Astoria. What was going on in your life when you wrote it?
I agree with part of that. I think So Long, Astoria has a lot of really personal songs but I think the biggest difference is that album [So Long, Astoria] was a bit more uplifting and positive and optimistic and Welcome the Night was not necessarily self-loathing or anything, but it was more self questioning. That was just because I wasn’t really happy with my life at the time and I was just trying to find a place in my life where I was content and happy. That album was kind of a cathartic process of me questioning myself and trying to find that place in my life. So, that’s what I was doing. Kind of like therapy, that album was. I think where I am at now, writing is a little back towards where I was when I was writing So Long, Astoria. I think your writing reflects where you are in your life. I’ve kind of come around full circle again.

How did your fans respond to that?
I really expected, overall, to be a split kind of thing. I just wrote what I know and I always like to change it up and do things that are different and daring. I think that I really expected half of the people to get it and really pay attention and the other half to be like, “What the fuck?” and that’s good ‘cause unless you shake shit up, then you’re selling yourself short. I think art is about people questioning and people not understanding it. I think it would be more of a tragedy if people just listened to it and got it the first time they heard it. Things that are easily palpable for me are things that fall to the way side and is the art and music that you’re going to forget 10 years from now. I think that was an album that needs to grow on people. The people that really paid attention to it, I think they got it and the other ones weren’t supposed to get it.

What is your typical writing process like?
Laziness. No, I’m really bad. I keep a little journal. Usually I write the most when I’m just sitting in my car because I don’t let myself get distracted. When I’m just driving around the country I’ll get a piece of scrap paper and I’ll just write my thoughts and later I’ll put it altogether and try and make it into songs. I write a lot of free verse and poetry and things and put it all together and make it into something. It’s changed throughout the years. Before, in earlier albums, I used to write more in a format and start with the actual verse, chorus, verse, chorus. Later, as we went along, I started writing differently. Now, it’s a little different, more disjointed, but it comes together after the fact. Musically, I usually come up with a melody or music part in my head and I’ll jot it down. I put the two together at the end.

Have you ever been afraid to give away too much of yourself in your music?
The only time I was ever afraid of that was when I didn’t want to dispel too many things that would scare the shit out of my mother and father or my ex. There was one point when I finally realized that as a writer, I think your only duty is really to say everything you need to say despite what some people might read or see. After writing that last album, the immediate response I got from a lot of my fans was, “Are you okay?” And I’m like, “Yeah, ‘cause I wrote it two years ago and if you were to ask me then I would have been like, no I’m not.” Today, yeah, it is a thought. But you really can’t give into that. You really have to keep pushing it and write everything despite the consequences or that’d be your biggest mistake.

How would you explain your music to someone who has never heard it before?
I think we’re a band that has something to offer everyone. I feel it’s really personal stories. I try to write things that I feel everyone can relate to but that are brutally honest and really try to put my whole heart out there, sometimes to my disadvantage. Definitely, when you do that, you get a lot of the creepy people that are like, “Oh my God!” asking me all these questions. It’s like you don’t know me, but you know me. It’s kind of weird. I want to be known as a storyteller or the singer/songwriter type artist. That, I would portray to someone who had never heard us.

Tags Interview, Kris Roe, Q&A, The Ataris

Interviews

The Ataris

In a way, I feel like I grew up while listening to the Ataris. Everyone has that one album they remember listening to like it was yesterday. That album for me was So Long, Astoria. The entire album was the anthem to my senior year of high school – you know, that tumultuous time of having no clue what you want to do with the rest of your life and the thought of becoming an adult causes more anguish than anything else. Okay, maybe that’s being a little too dramatic. But come on, “Being grown up isn’t half as fun as growing up/These are the best days of our lives/The only thing that matters is just following your heart/And eventually you’ll finally get it right.” Those lines from “In This Diary” were my motto just five years ago and I’d like to think they still are today.

Kris was nice enough to sit down with me last Friday before his show at Maxwell’s in Hoboken and talk to me about the Ataris, the state of the music industry and his current acoustic tour, among many things. I’m going to break up the interview into two posts because it’s way too long for just one and you guys really should read the entire thing. He’s not only a good interview, but an amazing musician to see live so be sure to check out his MySpace and see when he’ll be playing your city!

How is the tour going so far?
Well, hands down, this has probably been the most crazy, cursed tour I’ve ever been on, at least the beginning of this part of the tour. I did a small run on the West Coast and those dates went amazing. But the first four shows of this tour, two got canceled due to the fact that the shows were double booked and two got canceled due to winter storms. But, as of last night, that was the first show of the tour and it ended up going really well and tonight’s show is nearly sold out so I think the curse is coming to an end finally so that’s good.

I saw on your MySpace the massive bulletins, “Please repost tour dates.” Do your fans request certain places to play?
In the years I’ve been touring, you make a note of where you actually can play and draw people. This tour was pretty much all booked by me off of our MySpace. I made a kind of, rough routing and then I went over it and started filling in the gaps. Usually when you’re booking the tour you start with the weekends and get the good cities where you know you’ll draw good on the weekends. For instance, I know Hoboken has to be a weekend and Long Island and other parts of New Jersey are usually some of our stronger markets. I wanted to make sure that our strongest markets I put on a weekend. A Monday is a Monday no matter where it is. It’s usually your weakest night and you just try and fill up the dates. I try not to take any days off. It’s usually 50 some odd dates with no days off and then I go to South America and Japan on the same tour. It’s definitely a lot of fun and it’s the best thing I could be doing. There’s no overhead hardly on these shows. Just a hotel room and gas every night. Me out traveling in my car. It’s a good way to make a living I would say.

Have you always been a very DIY type of band?
I think this band was kind of founded on that belief that you just gotta do everything yourself. No one’s going to do it for you. There’s so many bands out there that the harder you work at it, the better the shows are going to be and I think that’s pretty much how this band started getting to people, our C.D.’s got into people’s hands. We just toured enough that finally we were probably halfway through our second tour ever, right when our Blue Skies album came out and at that point we started realizing it went from 50 people at the shows to 300 people at the shows and we didn’t do anything different other than keep going to the same areas and get in the van and people would come out and see us. Just continue that kind of mindset and it really works.

Do you think it’s been word of mouth?
Oh, yeah. When we started there wasn’t that mentality, there was no MySpace, there was no Facebook or any of those places where you could just get on and promote it like that. It was all word of mouth. It was you go out and play a show and they’re like, “Hey, we saw this good band play last night. Go out and check them out next time they’re through.” And you trade phone numbers with other bands and are like, “Hey, there’s a place that books bands in Albuquerque or in Phoenix.” Now it’s easy because you put up a bulletin and are like, “Hey, I need a show in St. Louis.” And somebody emails you and says, “Hey, I book shows here.”

Also, I keep a list of all the people who have booked good shows for me in the past and now I have good contacts and most of them stay current and you write them back and say, “Hey, can you book me on the next tour?” But we have a good booking agent; he books some of the biggest bands in rock music. But the thing is he’s got so many bands I didn’t want to trouble him and ask him, “Hey, will you book an acoustic tour for me?” He books the Ataris and I was like, I can do this myself and I just wanted to see if I could do it. First time I did it and it went well. He actually emailed me the other day and said, “Man, I gotta compliment you on your booking” and jokingly said, “if you ever need a job as an agent, you know where to call.” And I was like, “Sorry, I hate dealing and haggling with people, I’ll leave that to you.” I just want to go out and play. Anything to get a show, I’ll do it.

Do you take fans requests?
For the most part, if it’s something valid I will. I’ve done some weird things. I played this guy and girl’s wedding once and that was great. An endless bar and their mom paid me $1,000 to play a wedding and paid for all my travel. It was like, “Alright I’ll do that. Sure.” I’m probably more reasonable than any band. If you had a reasonable request and could meet the guarantee of the tour, pay the costs, I’ll play anywhere I don’t really care. I mean I’m not a whore or anything, but I’ll definitely do anything within reason as long as there will be people there and it fits into the current routing of the tour.

You guys have been together since, what, 1994?
I think our first real tour, when we really put ourselves on the map was more like 1997 or 1998. I’ve been recording songs myself since, the first Ataris album. All the demos were just me and a drum machine and I’d give that to bands we’d see. Through that we got a record deal and put out three independent records. Probably about halfway through our second record, Blue Skies is when people started actually taking notice. I think for our first record when it was out, nobody paid attention. Once we got out there and really started touring, at that point, ’97, ’98 that’s when people actually started coming out to see us.

That’s been 10 years. Have you seen a huge change in the music industry since when you started?

/>Oh, for sure. There are two things you notice. Obviously, when we started, the Internet was beginning, but it wasn’t a prominent factor. Now, it’s over saturated. There are so many bands. Anyone and there brother can record music and put music out. B. Like I said, booking shows is so much easier. There’s pros and cons of it. I think that it was better for rock bands then on some levels because it was so much easier to make an impact. Now, if you put an album out there are 10 other bands that are just as good as you that have an album out too so it’s harder to make headway and really get your name out there. Whereas then, there weren’t as many bands doing it. But, at the same time, it’s easier to do it now. I don’t know. I try to change with the times. I’m just utilizing the tools I know I have compared to back then when I didn’t have them.

So, over the past 10 years, have you ever had to have a day job?
I’ve worked so many odd jobs. Literally, I can go down a list. I’ve worked restaurants, I’ve worked at a factory, I worked in an adult bookstore for six months, I worked at a K-Mart, Taco Bell. I’ve done it all. That was like from 15-20. I think about 22 or 23 was the last time I had a real job outside of this band. So I feel very blessed that I’ve been able to spend nearly seven, eight years of my life job free other than the music. There are definitely times now and in the last four years that have been a struggle. The one thing that I will say about the music industry is that it is very inconsistent. There might be six months where you make a lot of income and then the next six months it’s very slow. So that’s why, right now, if I’m out and I stay touring and stay busy I’m able to pay all my bills, but if I’m not, then I might as well work an odd job, because you’re sitting around at home and you’re not making any money when you’re sitting around at home.

I read on Wikipedia that you sold an old drum set to pay for rent.
First off, never believe anything you read on Wikipedia because that’s the most inaccurate account of anything. When I first started dating my girlfriend, her mom wikipedia’d me and there was stuff on there that I went on Wikipedia and changed myself. I was like, “Holy shit, your mom wikipedia’d me? And now she thinks I’m a drug addict or this or that because I wrote one thing in a song.” Wikipedia is so fucked. Some other Internet sources are fine, but Wikipedia is a joke. I’m sorry. And you notice that because you start doing a bunch of interviews and everyone gets their questions from Wikipedia. And you’re like, “This is so easy.” So me and John one night, we were like, “Let’s go on Wikipedia and change it because we’ve got like 20 interviews in one day coming up next week.” And we changed it and wrote shit that wasn’t true to see if they’d ask us based on that and it was totally, probably 5 out of 10 interviews were like, “So, I heard you were once a drug dealer in Columbia.” And we were like, “Yeah, I lived in Bogotá for five years of my life and I dealt smack and lived down there, and yeah, I lived in a hut.”

I am resourceful and within reason, when I’m sitting around at home, everything is expendable when it comes to material possessions. I’ve sold all kinds of shit on my eBay. For me, I’ve got a lot of things and I keep everything and I’d rather a fan to have it then for me to have it. But I don’t play drums regularly and so I never sold a drum set. I’ve sold like old lyrics I’ve had and art photography, and old guitar equipment. But, for me, if I don’t need it and I’m not using it and it’s sitting in my closet, I’d rather one of our fans to have it and be stoked on it. So, yeah, whatever. Mortgage. It’s a hard thing.

You guys broke away from Columbia and have your own label now, right?
Quite a while ago. We did our last album, Welcome the Night, on this label Sanctuary and then about five months after we put that album out the label folded and they basically decided that they weren’t going to put any future records out from anyone. There were a lot of good bands on the label like Morrissey, Tegan and Sara, the last one they released was the girl from the Cranberries, her solo album. After that they said they were just going to keep her back catalog and not put anything else out. Currently, we’re basically just waiting to record some songs and then we’ll start deciding where we’re going to put it out. We have label interests, but not until we have some songs to play for them can we really decide what we’re going to do.

We have our own label imprint on our last album. But in this market, it’s not something I would expect to pursue. I wouldn’t want to have a label per say. You can put your imprint or whatever you want to call it. That was pretty much the extent of it. It was strictly in case we wanted to exercise that option really.

A lot of bands are breaking away from the major labels. Do you think that’s the future?
I think on some levels it is. Unless you’re a band that can exist by selling records through the big conglomerates like Wal-Mart and places like that. Those are really the only places that people buy full records I feel. Independent record stores don’t make enough of a dent in it anymore. People buy the song on iTunes that’s a single or they’ll download the record for free. Unless you’re like a pop, R&B;, hip-hop or country artist. If you’re a rock band, you probably sell a small fraction of what you would have sold six years ago. A band like the Foo Fighters who would win a Grammy, they would sell like, maybe 800,000 of a record now, where six years ago would probably be a double platinum album which would be a couple million. That’s just the changing market if you’re a rock band. I think you just have to change with it and realize that’s how it goes.

They’re actually talking about lowering the number it takes to have a gold record. Now, currently, it’s 500,000 for a gold record and a million for platinum. Within this coming year I think it’s going to lower in half, like 250 or something for gold and then platinum is going to be like 6, 7, 8 I don’t know. That’s pretty crazy because for the size of our country, I mean, based on other countries, a gold record in the UK, it’s a small country, but it’s less than 100,000. It’s changed a lot. It’s really put a dent in the music industry. On some levels, I think that’s good because it really shakes shit up and I’m all for that, but if you’re a real starving musician and you’re trying to support yourself on your art, it kinda fucks you really bad.

For part two of the interview, to read about the upcoming album and Kris’ typical writing process as well as the change in the Ataris’ fan base over the years, click here.

Tags Interview, Kris Roe, Q&A, The Ataris

Q&A

Interview From the Vault: Kristopher Roe of The Ataris

Post author By admin
Post date February 14, 2008
2 Comments on Interview From the Vault: Kristopher Roe of The Ataris

Just about two years ago I interviewed lead singer/songwriter/guitarist Kristopher Roe of The Ataris when they performed for the first time in over a year at Rutgers for Springfest. Live bands, food, and games in a carnival type setting on Livingston Campus is the typical Springfest setting. Kris opened up to me about the renovated band, their future album, Welcome the Night (which came out in February of 2007) and playing for a college crowd. Be sure to catch their show Friday, February 15 at Maxwell’s in Hoboken with Army of Me. For more info on future tour dates or to hear some of their latest songs check them out on MySpace.

When was the last time you performed?
October of 2004, we played our last show in Florida, some random show we flew down to do for Halloween. I just remember it was one of those things that we didn’t know if it would be our last show as that band was. It was me, John, Mike and our old drummer Chris. It came at a point where the band felt like it was very limited. What we did on our last record I felt was the best that band could do.

I didn’t feel like it represented me anymore and I didn’t enjoy playing music with our drummer anymore. He really wanted different things than me. He wanted to be the hugest rock band in the world, whereas I just wanted to get in a van and play shows with my friends and have fun. I didn’t really feel like we had a friendship bond anymore. And our bass player went off the deep end and got involved in things that I wasn’t so proud of. I hated seeing my friends succumb to those things, and it’s like tough love. I had to be like, “This band’s here for you if you want it, but you’ve got to sort your life out first.” A year went by and I never talked to him, so obviously he chose the other elements over me and over this band, and it happens.

John and I started playing music with a few of our friends out here in New York where he lives and we recorded a bunch of demos and from that the band took its own shape. After we had the five-piece going, our friend Angus (who played cello) and our friend Bob (who played keys) and we were like, well with the three guitars it sounds atmospheric and is very full and special but it still needed more layers. I wanted to have a certain sound and I knew when we all played together – the seven of us – it really just clicked and I felt the chemistry and that was what we were looking for. When we recorded the record we recorded it all live, we all got in a room together, all seven of us, and we played and recorded. The only thing that was over dubbed was the vocals so pretty much how we sound on the record is how we sound live. It’s an honest representation of what we sound like now, which was what we were going for.

What is to be expected of your new album, Welcome the Night? Is the sound similar to your previous record?
It’s completely different. At first it sounds like a different band. Musically its way more um, I don’t really know. There are seven people in the band, there’s three guitars, cello, keyboards, and we got a new drummer and a new bass player. It’s very atmospheric, it’s more dreamy, spacey, it’s like a big wall of sound. It’s more akin to all the British bands, like Radiohead, Muse, Snow Patrol, and Doves. We came to a point where I don’t really feel the music we were creating was the music I listen to and the music that I wanted to represent me. I think that we just kind of had to step outside ourselves and be like, “What do we really want to do and what do we feel feels really honest?” We just started writing a bunch of songs and eventually after two years off with a year of writing, rehearsing, and recording, the record just kind of wrote itself.

Where do you get inspiration for your songs?
Lyrically, this album is like a story about questioning yourself. There’s a lot of existentialist thought in it, about how in life there is so much more out there. It’s me questioning myself, asking what is out there in this world and what is beyond this world. The title of the album is Welcome the Night and it’s based on this concept that to me, everything in this earth and this planet is like, we are in transit and everything prior to our lives and after our lives is darkness. Welcome the Night is me thinking of the time where there’s not going to be me having to question myself and what my purpose in life is and that there is something better beyond this life.

Is there any venue or audience that you hated playing for?
Hated playing for? Oh good, I usually get the other one. I hate playing radio festivals. That’s the worst. It sucks! Usually, for the most part it’s always at these dumb, Clear Channel type amphitheater type venues where a lot of people are just sitting down with no atmosphere whatsoever. You’re playing outdoors during the day probably and there’s just no vibe. It’s too open and there’s just no feeling whatsoever. Too much hate, man. I can’t get on a tangent.

Usually it’s all pretty good, as long as people keep an open mind and don’t like to shout for stupid songs. Occasionally, you’ll get the one random punker guy. I’ve learned to ignore them. Back in the early days I would get kind of irate and get stupid. I broke my hand getting in a fight with a kid because he threw some shit at me, and I never did that shit ever again. Just don’t let people get to you. One time in Australia I got pegged in the head with a bottle and I was like fuck it, I’m just gonna keep playing because I knew it was the night of some Australian soccer championship. I knew it was some crazy, pissed off soccer fan and I knew he could kick me to shreds. So I was, like, “I’m just gonna deal with it.” If you don’t call attention to it, usually people will just go on about their business.

How is it playing for a student crowd?
Playing colleges is always a good opportunity to bring your music to people that sometimes wouldn’t often get the chance to hear it. Because usually when you’re so absorbed with studying and probably a lot of partying I would assume as well, the music seems to take a secondary position in your life. Where a nerd like me, all I do is listen to music and pretty much sleep in all day and play music.

Is it a lot different from Warped Tour and headlining shows?
Yeah, I just feel the crowds are a little bit more narrow-minded [at Warped Tour]. I think that Warped Tour is more of a young audience and they already have their mind made up a bit more, whereas colleges are a little bit more collective and willing to listen to more different and daring things.

Do you choose the songs you play based on your audience?
Well for this tour, there are two songs we play in the set because we know people would be bummed if we didn’t play them. Two older songs we’ve been playing for a while that we reinvented in a way with this band that I think come across different so that we still like them. If you play a song a million times you also have to realize that some people will be hearing them for the first time ever. So you might be sick of it and it might not mean anything to you lyrically anymore, but to somebody else it might. I try to be 25% compromise, 75% just us being honest to ourselves and doing what we feel is best. So, overall I think the main thing we stick to is we try to play a set that is comprised of songs
that are lyrically relevant in this point in our lives and try to get more of the story telling of The Ataris across. Nothing that is really too silly because there is some stuff that I wrote when I was way younger and it’s just not really me anymore. We do half new and half old. The old songs I feel had a lot more to say and still fit alongside the new songs we do.

Tags Blast From the Past, Interview, Kris Roe, Q&A, The Ataris