Phillip Cope: The basic theme of that album was loss, and the inspiration behind that was that Laura and I have been through some rough times over the last few years, and we kind of wrote the album over a period of two years, off and on. So, most of the songs on there are based on some sort of reality that we went through, but at the same time, we tried to write in a way that hopefully is relatable to others. It’s not just ‘woe is us’ or something like that. Hopefully, it’s not just a dark, depressing album.
Laura Pleasants: No, I mean, I don’t think that it is. It covers different motifs and themes of loss, but that’s just lyrically. I mean, musically, it think it confronts both light and darkness. It uses both. But, musically, we didn’t…there wasn’t some huge game plan, you know? We just started writing. Generally when we write, it’s just like it’s natural to have your surroundings and your personal life to seep into what you’re doing.
DJ: So the evolution of your sound came naturally?
Phillip: It came naturally. We weren’t sitting around thinking of how to do something like that. It’s just what we wrote. It’s what came out.
Laura: And I think we wanted to. I mean, we’ve written so many records, you know? I think it’s important to step out of your comfort zone and try some new ideas.
Phillip: Try something new.
Laura: We’re influenced by all kinds of music. Rather than just repeat ourselves, we wanted to push it a little more.
DJ: That song ‘Low Tide’ even seems to have kind of a pop hook to it.
Phillip: Yeah. We’re not a pop band, but I think it’s okay to throw something catchy in there once in a while. We want to have some songs out there that do get stuck in your head, and that’s one of my favorite songs.
DJ: In what ways do you personally see Ultraviolet as different from earlier records?
Laura: I think it’s far more psychedelic and expansive in sound and atmosphere.
Phillip: It’s definitely the most layered record we’ve ever done. There’s a lot of a layers to it. There were a lot on Spiral Shadow, but I think we did on this one even more.
Laura: Yeah, it’s pretty dense.

Laura: Sure. Culturally, geographically, everyone’s a bit different, which makes it more interesting. Not everyone is super cookie-cutter, within the United States and abroad, depending on the region. Whether it’s fashion styles or just demeanor…
DJ: Is there anywhere you go where you’re like, ‘Those guys are crazy!’?
Phillip: [Laughs] Sure!
Laura: [Laughs] There’s some places, yeah!…I don’t know if I should be calling those people out…but there’s definitely some places where we’re like, ‘Damn, they drink!’ or ‘Damn, they’re crazy!’ or where they really get into it, you know? Certain pockets of the world.
DJ: Do you think that the attitude is different in other countries than it is in the United States?
Laura: Yes.
DJ: In what way?
Phillip: There seems to be, overall, more enthusiasm for heavier music.
Laura: Yeah, maybe more appreciative and just more enthusiastic in general.
DJ: Why do you think that is?
Laura: Americans are apathetic.
Phillip: Yeah.
DJ: But the US kind of created heavy music, or at the very least, the ‘rock and roll’ attitude. Why wouldn’t it be more popular here?
Phillip: I don’t think there’s an easy answer to that. That’s not something that the two of us could just answer. [Laughs] One thing about the US though, it seems like music is a little more disposable here. It seems like people just fly off and move to the next thing. It seems like maybe in Europe, and this is my take on it, but it seems like when people like a band, they kind of stick with that band for a while, and that’s nice to see. That’s happened with us for sure over there.
Laura: Yeah, there definitely is a fleeting nature to music-listening here. Kind of everywhere, but maybe more so in the States.

Laura: That could be a little bit of both. There’s two sides to that coin. I think it can be both good and bad. I think it’s great that I see more women involved in music now than I ever have, and that’s fantastic, and a lot of women have been getting recognition, and that’s good too, but at the same time, like…I mean, from my perspective, even though it is a female perspective, I still just look at music as music and playing in a band with other people as just…playing in a band with other people, you know? I don’t think of it as a gender role thing. That said, I think having women in heavy bands is a positive image for younger girls out there who may have been shy or scared to play or pick up a guitar, or just felt discouraged or something, because…I mean, I remember when I was growing up, there wasn’t a lot of women…There were some, but not many that I can really recall looking up to other than the really big ones like Blondie or Joan Jett or something. And then the 90′s alternative rock scene, there were lots of women there, which was cool to me as a young person.
DJ: In reading show reviews, write-ups, and the like for Kylesa, it seems that reviewers, and particularly male reviewers, put a lot of emphasis on the fact that you are a woman playing heavy music. Do you think that your sex affects the way that people interact with your music?
Laura: I think that is an individual perception. We try not to put that projection out there, but it’s obvious that there’s a woman in the band. That’s just obvious. But we’re not putting it out there.
Phillip: I see that. From my standpoint, I see that she’s pulled out a lot. These people don’t know who’s writing what, who’s doing what in the band, but a lot of times they just pull her out and attach whatever they think is cool about our record to her—
Laura: [Laughs]
Phillip: Well! I think honestly, they mean well, these people mean well, but at the same time, it’s kind of weird to just always assume, because we don’t say who is doing what in the band, writing-wise. That’s something that definitely happens. But, like everything that Laura said, I think it is important for younger women to have that role model, and she’s good in that respect, I think. So, on my end, it’s fine with me. I just let it go, because I see the bigger picture.

Robert Gomez: Well, that’s just an album of, basically, songs that are made from the poetry of Robert Olen Butler, taken from his book, Severance. So, I came across his book, got pretty into it, and the concept behind it, and I had been thinking about doing some sort of album where the words were not my words, but were someone else’s words, and it just seemed like a perfect fit. I talked to him about it and he was into it, and I just chose five of them and made songs out of them. So, that’s what it is.
MB: Sort of similar to Doug Burr’s The Shawl, where he put Psalms to music.
Robert: Yeah. It’s insanely difficult, at least, more difficult than I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be like, ‘Man, the words are done? That’s a huge part of it. A lot of the work is done!’ But, no, it’s even harder now.
MB: Did these songs use musical ideas that you had had around for a while, or were they all completely unique to this project?
Robert: It was all completely unique. I don’t think I’ll make another record that sounds like that record, because…it’s hard to realize how important the words are to the sound of the music. They really are. These pushed me in a whole direction that I just wasn’t…used to, for lack of a better word.

Robert: That was an improvised music project. I would have a different guest musician every week, but then our guest musician just kind of stayed on and became a permanent fixture. Jeremy Buller joined the band, so there’s three of us, Evan Jacobs, Jeremy Buller, and myself; and we just improvise music. Some people call them noise songs..So, it’s kind of like that. Improvised music, completely. We were doing that at Dan’s during Happy Hour. I dubbed it the ‘Green Hour,’ so we were the Green Hour Residency, and now that’s the name of the band, Green Hour Residency, even though the Green Hour Residency is no longer happening.
MB: So, is this band going to continue?
Robert: Yeah.
MB: Under that name, but playing regular shows?
Robert: Yeah. I think our next project might be with Jason Reimer of History at Our Disposal, who is in Dallas now. He had a concept for a thing called ‘the cell phone show,’ where people would text their images to a number, and then those images would be projected onto the stage, and the band would react to them and stuff like that, so…I kind of want to do that next. With him, he’s going to join as well.
MB: You also have a residency where you play Cuban music?
Robert: Well, every now and then. I have a Cuban band, and we play—
MB: What’s the story behind that?
Robert: I’ve just always loved Cuban music. It’s something I’ve studied and worked on and been in bands or whatever. It’s something I’ve had for a long time. Me and some like-minded musicians, we play Cuban music from the 30′s and 40′s, sometimes older styles. It’s more of a repertory band. We don’t do any modern music, and we don’t write any original music. We’re just playing old, classic things that people don’t really play around here.

Robert: I think it’s a great scene. I think it has improved over time. I think there were always a lot of good bands from Denton, but what we’re seeing, or at least what I’m seeing these days, is a lot more experimental music, more really just interesting music than there has been before. I don’t know why that is. Maybe because there’s really no record industry anymore, there’s no radio stations, no magazines. There’s none of the things that maybe influenced musicians at one time. Now it’s like a free-for-all, and, for some reason, I feel like this area of North Texas is just really creative and…kind of weird, you know? Sometimes weirder than Austin. They say ‘Keep Austin Weird,’ but Denton is truly weird. Always has been, but now even more so, I’d say.

Keith Latinen: It started as a solo project. Cathy and I, we had a band that was ending called Anna Flyaway, and we sort of read the writing on the wall that it was going…Actually, I started Empire! as a recording project so that I could get good enough to record for Anna Flyaway, but then, like I said, when we saw that it was breaking up, we just put more of our focus into that, and then decided to make it a full band, and then had a bunch of members, lost a bunch of members, and decided that was too much of a hassle. So, it’s just me and my wife now, and whenever we go on tour, we borrow whatever band we’re touring with, which is quite frequently Warren Franklin and Stewart. They’ve done like five tours or six tours with us or something like that. And we’ve had a lot of other repeat people as well. So, yeah. There’s no plans…we don’t really have any plans on getting permanent, full time members ever. It’s just going to be easier this way.
DJ: Since you don’t have a steady band, how do you teach your material to each crop of new members?
Keith: Usually…I have all of our songs tabbed out. All the bass, and Cathy’s parts, and what I’ll usually do is make a set list— I usually take too long to make a set list. Warren’s always like, ‘Where’s the set list? Where’s the set list?’ But, yeah, I send them a set list like a month in advance or something like that…OK, ideally a month in advance. [Laughs] Maybe two weeks in advance, but it depends on whether they know the songs or not. Anyway, i send them a set list, and then I get there the day before tour starts, we have one or two practices, and we go from there. I mean, I’ll be honest with you, it’s not an ideal way to start a band, but on the plus side, if I can go on tour, there’s almost always another band that I can go on tour with, so I don’t need to worry about other people’s schedules or something like that, so…Anyhow, some lineups have been better than others, but on the whole, I haven’t really had a bad lineup. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with a lot of amazing musicians. It’s also interesting because everybody has a little slightly different take on the band. So, we always sound a little bit different. Like, some drummers are more power drummers, some are more intimate drummers. It kind of changes the feel of the band every time. I mean, I have people, every time they see us, like, ‘Oh, last time I saw you with these people.’
DJ: How do you decide which songs you would like the band to learn, given that you will likely be limited to only those songs for the extent of the tour?
Keith: When I’m choosing a set list, there are two things that I try to keep in mind. One, I know that there are certain songs that people want to hear. It always bothered me— I would go to see my favorite bands and they wouldn’t play the songs— the classic, old songs that I wanted to hear. So, I try to do half of the set for them, and then try to throw in a couple that I want to play personally, and sometimes, happily, they’re one in the same. Sometimes, not as much, but…And it also depends, too, for example Joe, Stewart and Warren, who are touring with this particular leg of the tour, all three of them know a lot of songs. So, actually what happened, when we got together to practice, they were like, ‘Oh, let’s try this song’ and we played it, no problem. And also, like last night, someone requested a song, and we could play that, so we have a little bit stronger library. But, it’s really hard, and I feel like I have to explain, when somebody wants to request, like, ‘I’m really sorry, we can’t play that! There’s just no way.’ But, I also try…I don’t know how familiar people are with our discography, but it’s ridiculously large. It has so many splits and stuff like that. So, I also try to pick a balanced amount from— I don’t want to lean too heavily on our full-length, or not play something on our full-length, etc etc. So, yeah, I guess there’s a lot to take in when we make a set list.

Keith: We are recording in the first week of April. It’s way overdue. It’s been a weight on my chest trying to get that. What ended up happening actually, in the end, was…We had all of these splits that we had made commitments to, and I really wanted to make sure that those were done, so, last year I got like 80% of them all the way. I just went and recorded enough. That would be enough for a full-length, but it was divvied on all of these splits, and then…like I said, I wanted to have that off of my chest when I went in for the full-length. But, really what it is, because we run the label as well, we don’t have as much time to write as we’d like to, and obviously we’re one of those bands that, if we have something, we write for it. So, all I did this year was like, ‘This is going to happen,’ and then I just booked recording time. That way, I have to do it. So, at this point, we don’t have all of the songs written. We’re sort of close. I’m a little bit stressed, but I think of that as a good thing as well. It pressures you to do it. In April, we’re recording with Ed Rose, so we’re really excited for that.
DJ: Are you playing any of these new songs on this tour?
Keith: No. The last time I think I played a song…it had actually been recorded, but hadn’t been released, and actually, at this point it still isn’t released…it was a while ago. I just feel like we have such a large discography anyway, and people want to hear something that they already know, or if they don’t already know it, they can get it. I feel that sometimes there’s these things, where like, bands can play a song live…like for example, I remember the Get Up Kids played that ‘Hannah Hold On’ song live, and I thought, ‘Oh, this is an amazing song!’ But when it got to the record finally, you know, it came out later or whatever, it wasn’t how I remembered. Or it could have been exactly how they played it, but, you know, you kind of build something up in your mind. It’s better if you just cut those expectations. Just, ‘Here’s some new material. It’s out right now.’ I guess if something was coming out in a couple weeks or something, but…right now, I don’t feel like it’s ready yet.
DJ: How do you balance running the Count Your Lucky Stars label with writing and touring for Empire! Empire!?
Keith: I mean, it’s really difficult. My wife and I both run the record label, and she’s also in the band with me, but most people know that she doesn’t tour as often. She has a full-time job as well, so she doesn’t tour as often as we’d both like, but that was the compromise we made to, you know, keep this working. She still goes on tour, but she’ll go on the…like, we went to the UK last year, so she got to go to that. It was a special tour. But, it’s difficult. The band suffers way more than the label suffers, which is another reason why the full-length isn’t out yet. I mean, the band is mine, and so if we have to make sacrifices, I’ll make them my sacrifices, because I don’t feel like another band on my label should have to make a sacrifice. But, it’s difficult, and she…When I’m gone on tour, she has to do everything that I can’t do, which is a lot of things, like physically packing orders, which takes hours on end…it’s difficult. We recently got interns, which is amazing, and they have made our lives a million times easier, so that definitely helps with that strain, too. When I’m gone on tour, she’ll still have interns to come help out as well. This summer, once the full-length comes out, we’re going to be doing some very long tours, so she’s going to unfortunately have her hands full with that.

Keith: I don’t know that I’ve thought about it that far in advance. It’s sort of an open-ended thing where, like…you know, I’m 30, and at some point we’re going to be starting a family and stuff like that, so…that’s on the horizon, and maybe the band will end then, maybe it won’t. Maybe, if things are going well, we’ll keep doing the band. I guess I like leaving it open-ended, where if it makes sense to keep doing it and we love what we’re doing, we’ll keep doing it, but if it doesn’t make sense for us and our personal lives then…then it’ll end. All things come to an end, and I’m not saying that, you know, there’s an end date, but I guess it’s closer on the horizon than it was when I started doing this band. I think that age brings that sort of perspective. This band— I mean, I’ve never been in a band this long. We’ve been a band since 2007, 2006…2006, yeah. That’s an exceptionally long time for a band…which always cracks me up, because I feel like, if we broke up— Well, I read this bio on Mineral, right? And it says they were a band for ‘five short years’ or something like that. I think that’s an incredibly long time for a band. So, I don’t really understand when people are like, ‘in their short time.’ I’d be curious to see, if we broke up now, if like, ‘in their short time together’ and all this, or whatever, but…I don’t know. I mean, I guess ideally, when I started the band I never saw an end in sight, and I wanted to keep going, but I don’t think that’s a very realistic view of things…but, that’s youth and not realizing that there are other things in life as well, so…that’s a long answer….
DJ: But at least one more full-length and tour?
Keith: At the very least. I mean, I see at least one or two full-lengths at the very least, and, being open-ended, it could go for a lot longer. But, yeah, at the very least, a full-length, a lot of touring— we’re going to Australia this year, and maybe Japan. We’ve got a couple of splits that have already been recorded that will be coming out this year. We’ve got some plans for an EP after the full-length. Just staying busy. Maybe a little bit too busy I guess, but, I don’t know, I think I need that pressure. But, again, the label is more and more demanding as well, so…At one point, when we started the label, the two were mutually beneficial to each other. So, I would go on tour, I would meet all of these great bands, and we became friends with them and were fortunate enough to be able to work with them and put out their records, and luckily enough, they both have grown. But, now it’s sort of like…you’ve seen two trees that grow out of the same spot. They get tangled and bump into each other, and are inhibited a little bit, so that one outgrows the other. So, I don’t know what will happen with that either. I guess I’m okay with that. I’m okay with open-ended things, so…

Nevada: Mike left. So I asked Beth in hopes that we could get some shit together for a show in a week. Beth and I have been playing improv stuff for a while. He has also been to several Bludded Head shows, so it was a easy fit. Ryan was added because Darcy was talking about taking off. It was actually the idea of Justin Lemons for Ryan to come in. Ryan played a 5 string bass for a few practices then got his electric upright. We were doing a recording with at the time. I’m really enjoying this lineup. It is going to change in June. It will be constantly rotating kinda like the Zanzibar Snails. It’s easier to operate that way.

Nevada: Songwriting process has been incredibly quick. There is a lot of crying, backstabbing and screaming. I will come in with a stupid riff, then you just run it through the meat grinder and see what comes out. The songs will also write themselves the longer that we play them out.

Nevada: Yes, we are recording at the end of the month at Eagle Audio with Britt [Robisheaux]. I’m really looking forward to it. I want to record all the different lineups so there is something to look back on.

Terrence: Yes I live in Baltimore and André and Steven live in Chicago. Well, we had been a band for about five years before I moved, so after I moved it was just trading ideas via files. We had a few collaborative projects to finish up like with Christoph Heemann and Mamiffer. So for the new album we definitely needed to regroup to practice and go over ideas. The files got us rough drafts. The studio is a big instrument to us too. There is a lot of improvisation written in to the band, so it is never really the same song or set twice. But for the new record we had a lot of songs we wrote with parts, they make interesting challenges for us since a lot of our earlier material are these more gradual drones.

Terrence: We used to improvise everything but we have a lot of structure written in now. Especially on “Return to Annihilation”, the new record, and the songs we did for you guys we had some parts instead of just droning but live the parts really developed. We like there to be some life to what we do. Plus we want to challenge ourselves.

Terrence: Yeah, some bands. ABSU! I mean come on! But True Widow and Vulgar Fashion were on our radar. Plus Cerulean Giallo and Filth were great when we played there. You guys have something special.

Matthew: Well, think of it this way. It’s too long. It’s 60 minutes— basically, it was the constraints of the cassette. Like, ‘How long…’— We wanted to put out a cassette, OK? Well, I guess vinyl kind of lends itself to, you know, 45 minutes, if you want it to sound good. 60 minutes…I’m not sure what the different amounts were, but 60 minutes was one of them, and I was like…I’ve got enough to fill it, and I think it sort of…I call it a ‘double-EP’ because it’s sort of book ended on each side, so it’s like— And I know that most people aren’t going to listen to it that way anyway, so it’s like, we’re really in that sort of short-attention-span…No one’s ever going to, at least in my mind, no one’s going to listen to it all the way through. Like, you know, these people that demand like, ‘Buhhhh, I made a “Grand Statement” album! You have to sit through it and fucking, get stoned! Feel it and shit!! Experience!’ I understand that people are probably going to maybe listen to the whole thing a couple of times, maybe find, ‘Oh, I put this one song on my playlist on my phone,’ or something, you know? But the tape is a cool format to tell people that it’s this. It’s not like each side has a name or something, but if you just tell people that it is, like, ‘Yeah, it’s a fucking double-EP,’ then they’re like, ‘Oh. Wow, really?’ Instead of being like, ‘It’s an over-long, 60 minute album.’
DJ: Why do you think it is that people have such a short attention span for music today?
Matthew: Because you can get anything. People just have so much music now, it’s retarded. I mean, I do. I have terabytes of music, shit I’ll never hear, you know? So, you just throw that in the pile. Then, people just pick and choose, or maybe hit random, maybe throw ‘Oh, my new records I got on download from wherever, or my friend’s hard drive,’ and then you just hear it on random. That’s just the way.
DJ: So, just overexposure to technology?
Matthew: I think so.
DJ: People used to listen to long albums before these technologies were available.
Matthew: Yeah. And the weed wasn’t even as good. [Laughs] Damn. I think there are bands that sort of demand that, and it works, and people know. But that’s sort of the thing, and I don’t mean it to sound like you have to tell people what to think, but I mean, there is sort of a thing, like, ‘This is like this kind of thing, so I’m supposed to do this for it,’ you know? So, I’m kind of…I think generally, though, there’s just so much shit flying at you all day long, you know? You get on…people have all that Spotify, all that shit. I don’t really understand that, but we have a hundred million songs, and people probably just hit ‘Random’ or ‘If you like this…’ and just keep playing some shit. I don’t know. Plus, who knows. Maybe not everybody cares about music like I do. [Laughs]
DJ: You can imagine people sitting in their offices tuning out music all day long, ‘listening’ to thousands of songs, and then having no idea which song is which.
Matthew: Yeah. I mean, I guess the radio sort of was that way, but, it’s weird, we’re…in all facets of media, you have your Netflix thing that has like 300 movies, and you’re just sitting there scrolling, like, ‘Oh man, there’s nothing!’ It’s weird, because there’ll be things where you could never find this one…like, there’s all of these Italian movies on there right now. Some old like, Mario Bava movies that are like…that you could get, but they weren’t easily acquired, and now they’re all on Netflix, and so you’re just, you’ve looked for this thing— it’s kind of similar to records. Some records, you’d just die. You had to have this thing, and you’d pay a hundred dollars for it, and now you can just search and in like a minute and a half, you have it. It kind of cheapens it, but it’s like, you can have all that shit. It’s all available. I don’t know, it makes you wonder. It makes you kind of think to a degree, like, what’s the point of even releasing shit, you know? But it’s, you know, I think you kind of have to. I think that people…people pay attention more. If you’re just playing a lot of shit and you don’t have a release, it’s like you’re just some fucking…whatever.
DJ: Some people will just release their music on Bandcamp, but I think, at least from people that I know, that if you don’t also have a physical release, people will take you less seriously.
Matthew: Right, and I think that’s the whole model for Pour Le Corps. It’s like, I think they press like 100 or 200 cassettes, and the idea is that they’re cheap enough that if you bring them to a show, it’s 5 bucks, and they get a download, too. You know, those people might not go to Bandcamp and buy your shit for 5 bucks, but they’ll buy a cassette, and they don’t even have a cassette player! They just put it up on their mantel, like, ‘Oh, look at that tiny artwork! It’s so cool.’ But, you know, that’s the way it is.
DJ: How did you get involved with Pour Le Corps?
Matthew: I had known Shawn, sort of in passing, from years ago. He played in The Theater Fire…one of the guys who plays in eyes, wings [and many other things]…They’re the label, they’re kind of like the flagship band. It’s the guy that runs the label and his girlfriend…she’s not in the band, but…Their guy that plays drums, sings, does some other shit, this guy I’ve known for 10 or 12 years or something, so it’s kind of just like…I played a show. ‘Hey, you wanna play a show?’ ‘Yeah.’ And then they were like, ‘Hey, we’ll put something’— It wasn’t really like, ‘Hey man, let’s meet and have a deal and sit and talk about it,’ you know? It’s like, ‘Yeah, we’d like to put something out.’ I mean, it was kind of crazy that they even…I mean, they’re sort of doing it more on the real than other people, in a way. They actually do a little PR and you know, they work it, they’re working towards something, so, that’s kind of cool. But, yeah, maybe a year and a half ago was the first kind of ‘Yeah, man, we should do something.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, whatever, it’s a tape thing.’ I didn’t even think anything of it, and then over time I started working it together, and not to downplay, but at the time I was like, ‘Well, it’s better than nothing.’ But, actually, I really like the people a lot. It was the first time that I’ve ever put out anything that I didn’t have to do the artwork for, so, that was fucking awesome. She does really— they have kind of a cohesive, like all of the designs, you can tell that it’s the same label. They have a design scheme, because one person does all of the artwork, so it’s kind of a cool…you know, 4AD, all those old labels who did that, but…I don’t know. It’s interesting. We’ll see what happens.

Matthew: I think that there’s always this…I moved to Denton in ’96, so I kind of saw the end of the space-rock and the end of the fucking…whatever, Brutal Juice, heavier bands, ‘post-grunge’ or whatever the fuck you want to call it, and then going into even some of the stuff that I had played in, where it was like, maybe a little bit of that post-rock shit that was going on, or space rock. So, it fluctuates. It goes in waves. I feel like Denton has always been this place where everybody says is like Hands Across America, everybody loves everybody, but it’s so small and such a bubble that there’s a weird thing, like ‘Man, this guy!’ It’s kind of fucked. It should be…And there was little periods where…The one thing about Denton is that you can meet all of the people in all of the bands, and be friends with the people that are in the different kinds of bands, and that’s cool, and people will support you to a degree, but then, it’s a different story when you talk about who goes to support that shit here. There’s no…I mean, I don’t know. I think that it’s in an upswing, just generally this area. I think that there’s potential, always, but I’ve seen some interesting bands, kind of younger bands and…I wonder how I could play with their crowd. [Laughs] Or, I wonder how I can get on their shows. There’s a definite thing— I had to leave here because I felt too old to be in Denton. You get to a certain point and you’re just like, ‘Fuck. There’s no girls here that are going to date me, because I’m fucking creepy now…I could go to Dan’s and talk about the old days, going touring or something, with old people.’
DJ: You can talk about country music.
Matthew: Yeah, or I could still go to Rubber Gloves and slowly die, and just keep dying, you know what I mean? So then I moved to Austin and I didn’t even play music. It was kind of like…I mean, I tried a little bit, but it was just kind of…I did other shit. But, I think it’s a good time for things in that it’s generally…There are little pockets of things that happen, of course the— I only went to that place once, but the House of Tinnitus. All the little house show things that come in an upswing, and it’s like a thing. More people will go to a house show here than anything else, because no one has money here because there’s no economy in this town for shit— I mean, I guess there’s more strip malls and shit here now, but, you know what I mean? But, it’s the same as it ever was, dude. I’ve been coming back around here for so long. I have some friends who never left here. My friend Peter’s been living here for almost 20 years. People love it because there’s a thing about it, and I think that there are more things that are getting it out into the world, but it’s such a weird world within itself that there’s kind of infighting for no reason. I feel like there’s never been a label that really fucking did it. Like, Athens had a few things that made it more…I mean, because Denton has some bands that are, whatever, indie-world popular, but there’s not like…I don’t know the right way to describe it. There’s just not a definitive thing. Things almost happen, but then…and that’s what I said, it goes in waves. You have just dismal periods of shit and nothing going on, where you can just drink yourself to sleep every day, depressed.

Matthew: Uh, shit, you know…I’ll see how far this little pressing, putting out this little cassette…it’s probably not going very far. But, that’s fine. I’ve been in the thing where you fucking live the dream and you’re going to like, ‘We’re going to tour and blahblah!’ You can just beat yourself to death with that shit, so…I would like to do some things, but smarter than before, because I’m fucking old. So, it’s like, I don’t know, man, I have a few friends that I can probably book some things with, but as far as— I mean, I know you have to, but there’s no point in doing it when you’re that small. If you’re that small, and you don’t have a network or a style or a thing that’s going to really…like, I think you can be a fucking certain style of music, and just pick up, and the kids will support it. You can just email some people, and that’s a cool, grassroots thing. I mean, it’s kind of always been that way, though. The hardcore scene was always like that shit, but, I’ve been in too many situations in past where I’ve tried it, and you just lose your ass, and so the only way I really tour is to calculate it and do it in a different way. But, then again, you kind of have to do some of that shit if you’re still kind of living the dream a little bit. Go one place and come back, you know? So, I’ve been talking to some people. I have a few things tentative for SXSW, like day show things, and I’m playing the 35 Denton thing. I mean, there was a weird period where I kind of stopped getting— That’s another thing about here. You go in waves where people are just like, ‘Hey, we want YOU on this show!’ and you can overbook yourself, because you’re like, ‘I’ll just say yes all the time!’ And then, all of the sudden, you just don’t hear shit from anybody, you know? I’m kind of coming out of that. I mean, I didn’t care, because it was like running into a wall. Just doing the same, just playing the show and it being like, ‘Yeah, man, you’re playing last on a Tuesday!’ and you’re like, ‘Why?’ So everybody can leave kind of shit, you know? I have enough things in the works. I want to do another, put something together. I don’t know if it’ll be another cassette thing, who knows. Just keep doing something, because it’s really like, at this point, it’s kind of for me. It would be dumb for to say that I don’t— because everybody who is a creative person to a degree wants to fucking show the world your little thing that you do, but ultimately, I don’t know. I don’t have any delusions, maybe, like I used to. [Laughs] But, I think that you can always try and just get better.

Warren Jackson Hearne: When I first came to Denton I had come from Missoula, Montana which had a real varied and vibrant scene at the end of the 90′s. Denton made me feel completely at home because of that. There’s nothing worse than going to a town and everybody sounds alike. In my twelve years (off and on) I’ve lived here, that has never been the case. I’ve always met and seen bands that don’t really seem to care what anyone thinks about them or if people even are into what they are doing creatively. This encourages an interesting energy in a small town and under the right cohesion can create a great music scene. I know that a lot of cities wish they had the Denton energy and the Denton spirit, but it just isn’t the norm. There is also a better camaraderie in this town, where in other big music towns it just seems to be a huge competition. Fortunately for the Denton music scene those people usually move elsewhere.

Warren: Tex Bosley and Dan Dockrill were in a previous incarnation of the Gloomadeers with me and I loved playing music with both of them. Zach Landreneau had offered to be a hired gun with that band as well, but since the band was traditionally a band of acoustic instruments and his rig was through a laptop, I turned him down. He was perfect for this project though. For bass I had Ryan Williams in mind and fortunately he wasn’t too busy. When it was time to add a trumpet player the guys had played with Mike Shields before and Matt Moore was recommended by him for the tenor sax spot.
There are many differences between Le Leek and other acts before. I really had only one rule for the Gloomadeers was that it was to be an all acoustic band. Also, traditionally the main melodic instrument was the violin; of course in Le Leek we rely on the trumpet and tenor.
The main difference for me is that while Le Leek is structured, there is room for improv. Maybe that is why a lot of people site us as a jazz band, which I don’t see as completely true. We have a foot in jazz, but we have a lot of feet between us.

Warren: When we first talked about producing “Eleutheros!” the only way that made sense to us was to record it live. It brought a level of spontaneity that we felt would be lost if doing it one track by track. The core of the album was done at Echo Lab live, including vocals which was a nice experiment for me. More or less, we took around three takes of the ten songs then mixed them at Zach’s Wire Tree Media. We also did some over-dubbing there as well, so the record wasn’t completely “live.”
Justin Collins was an obvious choice for me to track the record, because I had worked with him previously. He’s recorded everything I’ve done in Denton in fact. He was the engineer on the first Spitfire Tumbleweeds album, the only other time I’d worked at the Echo Lab. That put a bug in me to take a group out there to play my music. We did all ten tracks, multiple takes, in one day. Writing, rehearsing, recording, and packaging ten songs I believe for anyone is a great achievement in itself. It is the first record I’ve ever made that I’ve been satisfied with. As long as we can keep traveling with it and people listen to it I’ll be content, though to make that happen is sometimes a struggle.

Dawn McCarthy: I was searching for what to call Faun Fables, because we’re always asked, ‘What’s your genre?’ and there was something theatrical in what we’re doing, yet it wasn’t a…presentational approach, per se, although we have done some straight-up theater things, actual shows with scripts, and we have done some puppet things in the past, but I think that we both feel a connection to the idea of playing music and performing it, digging into it in a way that kind of goes into some other dimensions, rather than just singing it. So, letting ourselves be channels for whatever the song needs to come through. I definitely feel strongly about the muse as something as something coming through me, and I’m just grateful for it, and enjoying it while it’s there, and try not to hold on to it, and when it moves on to something else, so be it.
Nils Frykdahl: A lot of our material has some element of storytelling in it.
Dawn: Characters…atmospheres
Nils: There’s characters, or there’s a whole situation, and it’s an excerpt from that—
Dawn: I just wanted to emphasize that it was music, basically, but to have some kind of theatrical place in there, to leave room for that. We’ve kept it really flexible over the years. Sometimes the shows are entirely musical, and sometimes there’s quite a bit of spoken stuff, we’ve had some dances and different things. We’ve had other people that we collaborated with. I wanted to come up with a term that would just…that would be vast enough for that, so, instead of ‘storytelling’ it’s ‘songtelling.’
Nils: Whereas ‘folk’ or ‘folk music,’ that’s misleading. We draw on folk elements, but we’re not doing a ‘folk revival’ thing.
Dawn: Yeah, the ‘folk revival’ people have a problem with us. It’s too strange for them! [Laughs]

Nils: That’s a big one. There’s probably a lot of reasons…
Dawn: Yeah. It’s like, ‘Why like chicken and dumplings versus a good pizza?’ I think there’s something very resonant in a lot of folklore for us. If I could just kind of guess a little further, to analyze it, I would say that…I really love things that have an elemental resonance to them— meaning that there’s something of the fiber of life that’s in there, and not that I’m a traditionalist or someone who is just into old-fashioned things, but it’s more like…stuff where you can kind of hear some of that old structural stuff that we all draw upon continuously. The stuff that gets reinvented again and again. I think that the stories there really draw me into it. The folklore, the feel of it…what would you say, Nils?
Nils: Just from a musical point of view, from the view of harmony, rhythm, musical form, all of those things, in various kinds of traditional music and music from around the world, tend to be what the modern music is based on, but often have…a lot of elements that have been innovated in wonderful ways, and of course we’re not doing any sort of strict ‘traditional approach’ to anything, but we do take inspiration from sources that…Aesthetics are real. You know, every decade that comes along has its branches of aesthetics that push people’s thought in different ways, and I think there are things that have been lost in the…emphasis, starting in the 20th century and accelerating into the 21st century, the emphasis on the new, on the modern, on innovation, and a forgetting, almost as a matter of course, a forgetting of what happened yesterday. And so, to do the opposite, and to pull from some forgotten corners of tradition has an element of fire to it, which is part of what innovation is all about in the first place. So, when you grab something like that, it’s not necessarily being anti-modernist. I certainly consider myself a modernist in a lot of ways. But, also anti-modernist, in that there is a lot to be thrown up against that board into which we’re sort of ramming our heads, in the modern world, and one way we can do that successfully is through art, through aesthetics. We can’t actually live in the past, but we can learn from it and feel elements from it, and one of the most immediate ways that we can feel from it is through our musical vocabulary.
Dawn: I think I can also add that there’s really a pagan quality to folkloric material that we both respond to a lot. That’s kind of a simple way of saying just what we’ve been saying, but…Yeah, if I had to bring it down to a few things, there’s kind of a magic, an Earth magic…
DJ: As though modern styles are less natural…?
Dawn: It’s more man-made focused, kind of, man looking at itself in the mirror, as opposed to man being part of a bigger picture in nature.

Dawn: Gosh, we’ve just had a couple of really difficult days, with the heat and some really long drives. It’s…you know, children love rhythm, so when the tour flow really kicks in, it gets quite easy with them, you know? And they like seeing new things. It’s really fun when we show them stuff. We’re an act that definitely loves to experience the places we go to. We try, if there’s any time off at all, a couple hours here, there, we try to see things around town and go to museums, take hikes, walks, whatever seems interesting in the town. But, I think the transitions are always difficult for kids. The first…about the first week is tricky, because they’re like, ‘Where are we?’ It depends what age, too.
Nils: ‘Are we going home?’ I’m like, ‘No, we’re heading east.’
Dawn: Every time we’ve travelled with them, it’s been different, because they’re at different stages, so we just have to keep open and on our feet about it, and be flexible and see what’s needed.
Nils: Mostly it works really well. The trickiest thing, as far as the ‘showbiz’ angle is concerned, is getting that time when— and they’re young enough. They’re 2 and approaching 4, and just getting that time at the end of the day, when they start to melt down, and they want to be put to bed by Mom, and if that happens right when we’re supposed to be hitting the stage, that can be tricky, so we try to figure that out. And, of course, we’re moving and going through time changes, so, it’s a little complicated.
Dawn: They’re doing very well considering it, but having just some of that open time…We’ve both got various songwriting, lyric-writing, song-finishing we want to be doing right now, and there’s some other things going on, but, before when we would tour, we could take those long drives and just think about this stuff or work on writing…There’s not that free time now. So, writing really has to happen in these little spurts and in the cracks and nooks and little bits here and there, but because you haven’t been able to have that kind of ongoing flow, when you do have a window for it, it really comes out. Also, they’re really feeding you in such an incredible way that it’s OK that you’re not able to indulge in the kind of writing and time you had before. There’s moments where I definitely feel like, ‘Oh, I’m not able to be the ‘professional’ that I would like to be able to be, but, so be it!’ But mostly, I wanted to be a mom and I really take it on as this incredible adventure, and it’s making me a bigger person, a better person, so it’s like, ‘So be it!’

Will Johnson: We’ve been working on it. We’re not finished with it yet. We’ve got a little bit more tracking to do in March, but we’ve got about ten songs tracked for it. We worked on it back in December, and so, we’ll continue with it in March, and hopefully be able to wrap it up around the summertime.
DJ: How is it coming so far?
Matt Pence: It’s been coming together great. We invited Scott Solter to help us make this record, like the last one. He helped us with Candidate Waltz. Scott has worked with John Vanderslice, the Mountain Goats, tons of other artists. He’s amazing. He’s just an incredibly creative force, like a force of nature. It felt like we…you know, it’s nice to get somebody who’s a strong enough personality to really effect change upon us, because we’ve made a lot of different records— we’ve made a lot of records up to this point, but we’ve also covered a lot of ground. It’s just nice to involve a third party that you really respect, so that we’re all, for a lack of a better word, showing off for Scott. Like, ‘Man, I could really do this cool thing! Check out this thing I do!’ It’s, after you’ve established a relationship over the years, we know each other so well that, I don’t know, it’s kind of nice to have a new personality around to shake things up. It’s been really fun.
Scott Danbom: Yeah, he doesn’t try to reinvent the band. He just tries to bring out the stuff that’s already there in a new, creative way.
Will: Yeah. It’s good to have an extra set of ears and opinions, because we’ve been playing together for 74 years straight. [Laughs] No, it is kind of nice to have somebody come into a room and suggest new ways to arrange the furniture, in a manner of speaking, and Solter embodies exactly that type of personality that we trust.
Matt: We have a lot in common with Scott, but we also have a lot of differences, so it’s really cool. He has some musical common ground with Scott and Mark that he and I don’t share, for sure, and I know he’s got some— he’s got a different relationship to each one of us, so it’s cool to see him work with Scott Danbom and sort of like, emphasize an ambient thing that I wouldn’t try to emphasize, because I just don’t share the same love of certain kinds of music. So, it’s really cool to be able to work on that level, that he shares common ground with each of us that’s unique.
DJ: What sort of new sounds is he pushing you towards? How is this record going to be different from previous releases?
Scott: It’s got different songs.
Will: It’s hard to say, because it’s not fully tracked yet, and it’s not mixed, but, you know, from the first two weeks of tracking in December, I’d say there’s a rawness to it, whereas I think Candidate Waltz had a very catchy, sort of pop-type feel to it. This has a little bit more of a rock thing going on, and it’s got a little more paint splattered on it, so to speak. Yeah…it may have more songs for the dudes than the ladies. It’s hard to say. [Laughs] There’s more guy songs on this record, probably.
Scott: There’s more…the Crazy Horse thing more than it is maybe the Ween. It’s…I don’t know. That’s a bad—
Mark Hedman: Did you say it’s Crazy Horse or Ween?
Scott: Not Ween! Not Ween! I was thinking…yeah, the pop songs on Candidate Waltz can be more ‘70s…
Will: Yeah, things that are more tightly wrapped. This has a more ‘in the room’ feel to it.
Matt: I think this album…on one level, it hearkens back to Redo the Stacks, and on another level, it’s new material that people won’t be expecting to hear. I think there’s a whole part of the band that people haven’t heard yet that’ll be part of this album, but it also refers directly to some of the most spirited recordings we’ve ever made. So, I think it will actually be new to people, but it will be familiar at the same time.
Scott: There’s some new feelings in this album already. It’s new, and so, you kind of have to…Some of the new territory can be kind of…scary, like, ‘What’s going to happen here!?’
Will: It’s scary fun.
Scott: The tension kind of helps you manifest, to try to dig a little deeper.
DJ: How have you managed to keep your creative momentum for so long, when most bands would have fizzled out by now?
Will: I have to say, and this may change, but to this point that hasn’t really been an issue during the writing process. Usually, I have a pretty good idea of, at least, where I’d like to suggest we go sonically with each new record, and as we were stating a while ago, with the last record and with this record, having Scott along is something new for us, and it definitely adds a real spark of energy in the studio. In places where we might get comfortable or fall into old habits, he’s provided a new sense of life, as far as recording goes. But, a lot of the time, some of the new territory I might want to work on, just as far as making notes about what we want to do when we get to the studio, a lot of that starts on the 4-track process. It can be something as simple as just a new effects pedal or something, and me abusing it incessantly on every song, or me singing vocals through the pickup of an acoustic guitar, or whatever. It can inspire certain elements that hopefully we can carry over into the studio, and once everybody kind of gets their hands on it, that’s when the record starts to take its own direction, and become a new thing, and a very exciting thing for us, fortunately.
Scott: I think, the older we get, we all take experiences, not that we’ve learned as a band, but the other stuff we do, all of the other people we play with, and all of the stuff Matt records, and we all kind of grow in this, so even when we’re spaced, we all can take those influenced and put them back. I think what’s interesting now is that we’ve been a band for so long, now we can almost go back to what kind of inspired us, maybe, in the early years, in the first three or four years, and that can kind of reinvent itself, too. You can be like, ‘Oh yeah! Remember that feeling?’ I don’t think we even fully explored what was going on there. I mean, maybe, to the listener, they’ll be like, ‘Oh, yeah, that definitely sounds similar’ or ‘This is definitely Centro-matic’ or ‘This is Will Johnson’ or ‘This is a South San Gabriel thing,’ or whatever. I think it’s always evolving and collating. I think the greatest asset to Will’s songwriting, and thus his bands, is that we can always sound like ourselves, but also invent a bunch of new territory. That’s always been a big strength. That’s what I like.

Will: My friend David Bazan kind of encouraged me to do it about three or four years ago. He has been doing these tours for a handful of years, and I went to a couple of those shows early on and really enjoyed the dynamic that it presents, and that it places everybody on neutral turf, you know, in a private residence. It definitely encourages friendships and connections and conversations, and behavior that you don’t always see at the local rock club, a public space. It definitely breaks down some barriers, obviously sonically, and, you know, you’re strolling into a completely unfamiliar place and unpacking your guitar and playing music, but, in so many ways, I’ve enjoyed that it seems to hearken back to the way that I think that humans entertained each other in the earliest days. So, really, between Bazan kind of encouraging me to try it, and a friend, our former manager Bob Andrews, I tried it a few years ago and I really enjoyed it, and I’ve done a couple since. It’s a fun place to try out comedy material and tell stories, and to fall on your face as far as that goes. Of course, the crowd can sort of participate in some ways that they can’t always at a rock show. So, at any rate, I enjoy it for those reasons.

Will: I’ve been a baseball fan since I was five or six, I suppose, and as I got older, I really became interested in the history of the game, and how it paralleled with the history of our country, and then I decided five or six years ago that I just— I had just moved to a place on my own, and didn’t have much to hang on the walls, so I started messing around with acrylic paints, just painting players that I personally wanted to pay tribute to, involving a lot of text. Kind of painting out their story. Many of them are pretty under the radar players, not exactly household names. It became a means of paying a modest tribute, and also stuff to hang on the walls. So, that’s kind of how and why I got started a few years ago, and then it morphed into, ‘Well, I want to paint a bunch of players from the 1970s, with sketchy facial hair and drug problems,’ and then ‘Now I want to paint weirder stories,’ and things like that. It just kind of depends. I’m still figuring it out as I go.

Mike Bruno: What happened was, I recorded a solo album with Paul [Christian]. He recorded it, and then we decided to move to Philly together and started playing shows, and then, just pretty much all of our best friends, and that’s pretty much housemates, we would just play together. So, it just turned into sort of a ‘family band,’ and from there it became less of a songwriting project and more just like an exploration, sonically. Just having the basic framework of a song and then pulling it together between us all, basically.
DJ: What attracted you to Philadelphia?
Mike: For me personally, I moved there because it’s cheap. But, also, Philly’s got kind of a gloomy thing going on, which is attractive to me. Sort of like Providence, RI has going on, too. That’s also attractive. But, yeah, I like a lot of things coming out of there, in general. It’s a darker scene sometimes, and that’s good. What about you guys?
Paul Christian: It’s cheap. At least it’s not New Jersey.

Mike: Mostly fairy tales and folk tales. I like how dark they can be, while also like, appearing in a storytelling to children nature…it’s sort of what drives me to create what I do. Musically, probably somewhere between Black Sabbath and the Incredible String Band or Donovan.
Paul: I started playing guitar because I was into metal…or getting into metal because I was into guitar, but I’m really attracted to more visual music lately, and stuff that doesn’t…fit, you know, into a grid.
Mike: Yeah, on that note, things that don’t fit coming together to fit tends to like, twist the nob in all the right ways.

Mike: I want to make an album that is…each song is like a chapter in a collection of folk tales, and it’s going to be less singing, more spoken word. If we do it, that’s what I want to do next. Also, maybe attach illustrations, make it a really visual, storytelling experience, but with music.

Will Kapinos: I was in band called Jetscreamer, in Denton, for a number of years…about 8 years. There were a couple of different versions of it, but the most well-known version of it lasted about 8 years. I was in the band with my ex-wife, ex-girlfriend, and then when we split, the band split up, and…I don’t know. I joined another band called The Make Believers for about a year and a half, but I just really wanted to…I really had the need to do my own thing. It was kind of an experiment to see what it would be like to play as a solo act, which I had never done before. I had always been in bands, and I decided to do something that was kind of a one-man band type thing, because I didn’t want to just be a solo, acoustic guitar, singer-songwriter type person. I wanted to do something that had a little bit fuller sound. So, that started in about 2009, in earnest. You know, booking gigs as Dim Locator, and I tell this story all the time, but Dim Locator, I took the name of it from an old Birthday Party song, which was Nick Cave’s first band, in the 80’s. Just, in my opinion, one of the greatest bands of all time. I mean, that stuff is like classical music to me. The song ‘The Dim Locator’ was actually written by Rowland S. Howard, who was the guitarist in The Birthday Party, and it’s just the coolest song ever, and, I don’t know, I just always liked the name. I think I started using it as an avatar on a message board, and then I liked the name so much, and other people seemed to like it, so I just kept it as a solo act. And I always liked that it has kind of an oppressive feel to it, you know? So, I’ve always kind of liked that.
DJ: How did you develop your set-up to be different from the usual one-man band or singer-songwriter?
Will: Well, basically, most of it is the electric, slide guitar, distorted, and I have an electronic drum set up that I play with my feet, and that’s all there is to it. But, I’m able to get…I wanted something with rhythm to it, and other people did too, actually. The real inspiration was when I was playing some gigs with Captured! by Robots, and, that’s…I don’t know if you know much about them, but that’s the ultimate one-man band, because it’s one guy with a whole band of robots that he built. So, my first couple of gigs were opening up for him, and he’s a real friendly dude. His name is JBOT, and JBOT was telling me, ‘Man, I really like your stuff. I really like that blues, slide-guitar, Texas stuff that you do, but I kind of want to hear a rhythm to it,’ because I didn’t have anything going on, and I said, ‘Well, JBOT, do you have any extra, you know, drum-monkey-robots lying around that I can use?’ And he said, ‘No, listen. What you need to do is, you do the research, you build your own drum-monkey. Figure out how to do it.’ And then, you know, because he has a robot that’s a gigantic— a big, stuffed monkey that bangs cymbals together. So, he’s like, ‘No, you build your own drum monkey. You can do it.’ And then we just joked about how, if I built my own drum-monkey, we’d be on the phone with each other all the time, asking, ‘Okay, what’s going on with your robot now? Let’s try to figure this out.’ But, I never built my own drum-monkey. I just kind of built my own little stomp-machine that does a bass drum and a crash cymbal, so…It’s good enough for me. It’s more akin to…I don’t know if you’ve heard of Bob Log III. He was my initial inspiration. He was in a kind of postmodern, avant-garde electric slide guitar blues band called Doo Rag, and he went solo, and he just…you know, he’s got the kick drum, and various drum machines, so…I don’t know, he’s kind of the sci-fi hillbilly character, and I’ve always liked that, so that’s kind of what I was wanting to go for. I don’t really know if that comes across. I’m more of just kind of…that was my initial thing, but now it’s just evolved to, you know…I just concentrate more on the lyrical content, and just trying to write good songs, right now. It’s not so much stomping hillbilly-type stuff anymore.

Will: I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been here…a pretty long time now. I’m almost embarrassed to say it, but you know, I’ve been living here almost 20 years now, and I’ve been really heavily involved in whatever music scene has been going on the whole time, and it changes every year. Every year it’s different. It’s different people…So, it really has a life force to it that keeps it fresh and keeps it evolving, and I’ve always found it really fascinating.
DJ: What do you think is behind that? What do you think keeps it fresh?
Will: I just think new blood, and new ideas…Denton’s kind of a transient town, so people move here to go to school and to play in bands and stuff, and then move on, and then more people move in. So, that’s the main thing. Denton has always been a really good place to experiment and kind of hone your craft. It’s not really so great as far as like, wanting to get…you know, get famous, or get into the real music industry machine, but I think that might be changing a little bit, especially with the 35 festival. The identity…that may change. We’ll have to see. But it used to be like, people would get their start in Denton, and then they generally move on to New York or Austin, you know, to…to get signed by record labels and put out records and tour and stuff. All that stuff. I mean, now, with like True Widow and Pinkish Black, I mean, they’re doing as good as anybody locally has done in a long time, and they haven’t had to move— even though that’s Dallas and Fort Worth, not so much Denton, but still, I spend equal time in all three places, so I kind of consider it all one thing, even though I probably shouldn’t. Denton, to me, has its own flavor, and Fort Worth and Dallas have their own flavors, too, but Denton is kind of the…I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s the warmest and cuddliest, as far as what you’re wanting to do, I think. Dallas is a little more cutthroat than Denton or Fort Worth would be. Just a little bit, though. It’s a big city, so I think that’s to be expected.

Will: Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that a lot myself lately. I feel like I’m kind of at a crossroads in some ways. I’m planning on digging my heels in and getting an album done this year, because I’ve just been dragging my feet on it for so long, but I’d like to get a good, solid album that represents…mainly, me as a songwriter and stuff…but I do plan on getting that finished this year, just to have it done. I don’t know if it’s going to lead me anywhere, or get me signed or anything, but I don’t really care about that. I just want to get it done so I can have my record, and I can…have it documented. I’ve done some experimenting with playing with some other people this year, and I enjoyed it, and other people seemed to enjoy it, too…It’s always been my goal to have my own band again, you know, so it would be really cool to have like…I’d like to be part of a band where I’m the singer and the writer and the star, you know? That’d be cool, but I don’t know if it’s going to happen or not. But something like that might happen. It would be cool to have a Dim Locator band situation, but we’ll see. I’ve been kind of feeling the need to, maybe, get the record out, get these songs done, and then move on with it. Move on from the one-man band act. One of the most interesting gigs I played this year was opening up for a guy called Dent May, and I got booked on the gig because for years he was a solo act, but, kind of unexpectedly— he put out a record on Animal Collective’s label, Paw Tracks, but when he showed up for the gig, he had a full band behind him, and it was great, man. It sounded like New Order meets The Beach Boys, and it was really cool, and the band was really swinging, and he just got his buddies to learn the songs and go on tour this year to do his new record, and I find that pretty inspiring, and the guy really changed his sound into something that worked well as a band, and was original, so…I don’t know, that dude is pretty inspirational to me, I think. I want to do something like that.

Zac Traeger: We have some…not all of our…We definitely have material that focuses on that, and yeah, it is, I’d say, mildly intentional, but we also have some dark material.
Sam Chown: We didn’t play any of it last night.
Zac: Yeah. I think, generally, it’s kind of a trend right now for things to be dark and…yeah, just to lean on that side of the spectrum…
Sam: Yeah, a few things: One, like Zac said, we do have material, stuff even on the new album, where it’s very tribal and like…it’s still really colorful, like, if I were to draw analogies in terms of the colors we’re making from the music, there’s still like, green and all that kind of stuff, even in the black and the brown. There’s some pretty dark moments…Brandon from Cerulean Giallo told me last night that he really liked my falsetto vocals, because it brings a positive vibe. That’s what he said.
Zac: Yeah, he said that to me as well.
Sam: I was like, ‘Cool, I never really thought of it that way.’ And the third thing is, I always made a point of…with the music we make, I don’t want to be a part of what’s trendy, or has been trendy for the past few years, which is like…nothing against any of these bands. I’m not saying I don’t like them, but I just don’t want to do it, because they’re doing it. Like Crystal Castles, for example. Just, in terms of their sound pallette or their patches or like…everything. I just wanted to do something that was different. Something warmer, I think is a better word.
Zac: It’s something that we try to exert live as well…yeah, I don’t want to be a shit-talker of modern music or whatever, but there are a lot of bands I see where they’re…they look like they could be there or not be there. They’re kind of apathetic, like ‘I’ve got a guitar. I’m playing. It’s fine. Everything’s OK.’ But, yeah, I think it goes along with that, that we’re always trying to connect with the audience in, maybe— it is a positive way. We want people to have a good time, but, I think the main idea is for people to have an experience, or have an emotional reaction, which is, I think, the goal of any kind of art form. You want people to feel…something, and I usually feel something when I watch artists who…you know, they care. They’re generating a vibe, and then everybody else can connect with it, so…yeah, there’s times when we really want to generate movement in the audience, and a positive vibe, and everyone to have fun and a good time, but I think it just really boils down to wanting to generate an experience, or an emotional reaction.

Zac: Yes.
MB: What’s the story on that?
Zac: It’s done. We’re almost to the point of signing a contract with a label to put it out. We…regardless of what label it is, probably May is going to be the release time. We’ll tour a whole bunch. We’ll hopefully be done with at least another EP or record by the time that one gets put out…Lots of touring, which is what we want to do.
MB: What was the recording process like?
Zac: Recording is always difficult with us. It’s just because we both care a lot. Sam and I will both yell at each other over things no one in the world cares about, or will ever. Things that nobody will ever notice. We definitely get a little emotional about it, but I think it’s just because we care.
MB: How do you feel about it now? Everything worked out?
Zac: I think it’s great.
Sam: I mean, it’s a huge learning experience, because there’s so many things that, now that I’ve done an album that way, I wouldn’t do it that way again. For example— or just, things that I was naive about that now I’m less naive about. For example, how to track vocals by myself, at home, which is what I did. I engineered myself, with the vocals. Just learning about, like…you want the wave to be a certain level. You don’t want it to be this thin little thing. Just, like, basic, 101 shit that…that’s just one example of many. Things that I’m like, ‘Oh, well, I’ll never record it like that again.’ Or, I don’t know, I’m really a little bit of a nutcase with—
Zac: Options.
Sam: Options, definitely. I’m a nutcase with options. It’s just my personality in general. I see all of these options, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know what to do!’ With vocal takes or amp takes where I’m playing with delay pedals on my vocals, or just being a perfectionist with getting the drums…taking these drum takes and like, making it flow…I’m very…I want every beat to be exactly…I’m very particular about feel. I’m not one of these guys that’s like, ‘I want the drums to be quantized and perfect and stiff!’ That’s not me. However, I do want…I’m very in touch with like, the drums need to flow this way because it makes me feel this way. If it doesn’t, if there’s like an off moment or whatever, then we’ve gotta…it’s like…lots of fine-tuning, basically.
Zac: Puzzle-solving. There’s like 32 vocal takes, and then when we pick the vocal take, there’s like 16 delay options, and we have to sit and figure out, ‘Oh, there’s this vocal take. Does this delay option match? What is the double going to be? Ah! Is there a harmony? Oh my god!’ and then all the sudden…nobody’s shedding tears in the studio, but gets intense at times. As well as the way I track keyboards, we’ll track live together, because it’s the only way we can do it, and then, since in every song my right hand is playing the keyboard where I’ve made all the samples, so in any given song there’s 61 or more, maybe over 100 samples in my right hand. Sometimes they’re on the Moog in my left hand as well. With every one of those samples, then once we nail a take, I’ll go back and I’ll run each one of those samples through different amp setups to make sure that it feels live, because I think the problem with a lot of electronic music is that it can feel really…clean.
Sam: Which, I think we succeeded with this record. It feels live, even though it’s heavily mixed and treated and edited and lots of thought has gone into it, but it feels live, which, maybe the demo didn’t.
Zac: Yeah.
Sam: More sterile.

Zac: So, the place is called the Museum of Human Achievement. We have 12 artist studios, a gallery, a venue…It’s a really large warehouse. It used to be a sex toy factory. It’s something that I saw…after touring a bunch, we really loved playing all of these DIY spots around the country, in places where there’s a great audience, people are getting fed, and people are there…the thing I’m really interested in, just like I was saying in the other one, is how you create a space where people are most open to feeling an emotional reaction, where they’re going because it’s important to experience something, and I think that’s a really interesting puzzle to solve, of how to make a space where people feel confident and comfortable in going to see bands they’ve never seen before, and open to feeling…something about those bands, and that’s something that I think Austin can lack at times, because there’s so many venues and so many clubs. On any given night, there’s 40 to 50 shows. There’s so many options, but a lot of those options are bars, and a lot of it is— and there’s nothing wrong with that, but a lot of it is a thing where you’re going to see friends, which, I love going to see friends play, or you’re even just going to see friends who are at that show, but your goal isn’t to go experience something or to really open yourself up to whatever it is somebody is presenting, be it art, music, film…it might be more like socializing or having some drinks or whatever, so…it’s an experiment. It’s like seeing how you can do that a little differently.
MB: How does the Austin music scene compare to it’s reputation?
Sam: I feel like it’s…there was a while there where I was not happy about it. Maybe…a couple years ago, year and a half ago, where I was just like, I don’t know…’There’s only a couple bands that I really love, or a couple of bands that I’m really feeling right now, or that reflect how I feel, as this moment.’ And now, I feel much more positive. I feel like there’s— maybe I changed as a person, or maybe there are more bands that exist that I connect with or something, but I’m happier with it. I feel like there’s a good couple handfuls of bands that I really like, at this point.
Zac: Yeah, as far as being the ‘Live Music Capital of the World,’ somebody else said to me just a week ago that it’s not the ‘Live Music Capital of the World,’ it’s the ‘Live Music Festival Capital of the World,’ which might be a little more correct. I mean, there’s so many venues and so many shows any given night of the week…as far as reputation…See, I don’t know if other people perceive Austin as a place where it’s generating lots of original, world-changing music, or if they’re perceiving Austin as a place that has lots of music.
Sam: Which, I think option #2. That’s reality.
Zac: Yeah, that’s the reality.
Sam: Lots of dudes playing guitars. I’m not against that. That’s just the fact of the matter. Lots of dudes playing guitars.
Zac: I’m mildly…I’m like a 3 out of 10 against it.
Sam: Okay, to tell you the truth, I’m not all about it. A little too much of it. I’d rather have more like, innovative people doing things that are different, but…yeah. I mean, that’s why we moved to Austin, because we saw a pocket, like a musical void…just like, there’s no band that’s doing…that, whatever it is that we do. I can’t really explain it in like, a genre or whatever, but there weren’t really many other bands that did that thing, so…it just made sense. Whereas LA or New York, there’s probably…in general, as many or more bands, right? So, more bands that are sythesize-based, or…yeah, I just feel like we came to the right place at the right time.

Aaron Mollet: You can look at it one of two ways: one, for that total element of control, or the final step of a process, like, growing up playing music with friends, not really writing much of my own, and then starting to write a little bit with a group, and playing other people’s music in a group, and then being in a group like with Gavin and having 50/50 input on everything, and then…I guess it’s just that. It feels like this is the final step of artistic progression, you know?
MB: So, is this where you want to be right now?
Aaron: Yeah, for sure, because my job right now is really mobile. That was what, I think, started to scare me towards the end of playing with Florene. It was nothing, never any ill will at all, it was always just like, ‘What if I get a job offer on the East Coast and I have to move?’ and I don’t want to like…in the same way you maybe feel bad about dragging a significant other along, you know what I mean? Like, in your own life, as far as having to drop everything…It was really appealing to me, basically, to have a project that was at my hip, no matter what life presented itself. Like, what we did was very centered here in Denton, and even to move to Dallas, even living in Oak Cliff it would be hard to do that. So, it allows for all that, and I just kind of had to grow up and get real jobs and shit like that. [Laughs] And that’s another thing, honestly, since it’s mainly samples and just stuff that’s right here in front of me, it’s stuff that I can flip and work on for an hour, as opposed to having to have a three or four hour block to set up all of the gear, and get everyone’s schedules put together and everything…so, I work a lot on it, but I’m able to do it— like I said, I probably work every night, an hour. Maybe six nights a week or something. If you start adding that up, it’s like, ‘Wow, this is a lot of work!’ But it fits my schedule.
MB: What is your songwriting process? Where do you source your sounds from?
Aaron: Recently, I think it’s been…because you know I lived with Paul and Joel [of Sleep Whale] for a year. There’s actually— and I’ll make fun of Joel and stuff, because the first time we played, the first sample that you hear on loop, it’s just a cello playing, and that’s all because, while Joel was practicing cello at the house, I set my little portable recorder outside of his door and recorded like 20 minutes of cello from him. It’s really been a lot of that ‘found sound’ stuff, because I have this little portable recorder that I can just take anywhere. There’s like a ‘snare drum’ or a clap in one of the songs, the last one, that is just keys being dropped on the table. Just being able to capture that and manipulate it. Just whatever I can find. I mean, I occassionaly use— I love old synthesizers, and if I can get a really great synth tone out of the computer, I do it. And that’s why I use that, too, to add realness to the tones, so you can have layers of synths, and that’s the real layer of it. Yeah, I guess that’s it.

Aaron: I do. I do in some senses. It’s completely different…musically. Like, my concentration in Dallas is…not playing out. It’s staying home and working. Honestly, from a musician’s standpoint, it seems like it would be negative. ‘Well, you have no venues to play in!’ Well, when I play live, it’s sort of like a special thing for me, so it’s a ‘once every three months’ deal, know what I mean? So, actually, what it does, playing out, even preparing for something like this, takes days, and you could look at it one way, like that’s working on a different part of your craft, or you could look at it as ‘That’s a couple of days where I could have been just writing,’ or doing whatever, you know? So, that’s one thing, since there’s not that much. But another thing is, a lot of people have moved to Dallas recently. I keep running into all of these nice people, and it does kind of feel like there’s a lot of clubs, new clubs, that are good venues and good stages, and a couple of solid groups of people who are doing cool things on their own, to the point where it feels kind of like a blank canvas. It’s this monstrous city, and it’s gorgeous, and in most ways it’s a great place to live, but it doesn’t really have a music scene. But, now at least the infrastructure’s there, maybe. I don’t know, but, at least it’s fun, because…couple of people who play music, but also people from all the kind of artistic genres, like ‘artist artists,’ in the sense of visual or whatever they might be. Video. A lot of video artists in Dallas right now, seems like. A lot of really good DJs, like these kids, Track Meet is their group name, and they’ll throw parties. They take it to the old school, original idea of being DJs, where you not only would play music, but you threw parties, and your whole goal was to get people to get there and have a whole shitload of fun, and they do that, and that’s really cool. But they’re also tuned in to electronic music as a whole. They’re not…they’re aficionados. They know their shit, and so they’ll throw shows, mixed with talented DJs, and so they’re able to bring like…I mean, Jesus, we had like…I went and saw DJ Rashad, and that was a show that they booked, and he is just this legendary Chicago DJ, like basically…specifically juke, but just legendary, and they booked him at some place on Lower Greenville, last minute, and so, because of those dudes, and because people are doing something cool, you got the chance to see that, so…yeah, there are enough people, and they’re doing enough cool things to keep me occupied.

Aaron: Yeah, actually…I think. It’s always hard, because I’m always…I’m never able to compile enough material, but I finally went back and listened to the first set of stuff that I did, and it was this collection of African vocal samples. That’s the first thing that people remember that I did, and so it was really heavily based on these vocal samples, and once I sat down not too long ago and listened to them all, I was like, ‘You know, these actually do sound like something together.’ That’s always been my problem with this project— having a group of four or five pieces that will work together. And I listened to it, and I sent it to Paul North, and Kevin O’Neill of Power Animal, who have that kind of thing, and I haven’t heard for sure, but we might put out that first collection of stuff with them, and that would be fun because, like I said, I lived with Paul for a year, so…there’s that. That’s pretty much it, other than just trying to play out more, and trying to do these like, mixed gigs, because it’s harder too…I don’t feel like I fit with a rock band that much, but I don’t feel like a DJ either, just trying to do that mixture of shows where you can have DJs and you can have live acts that are electronic, and they can kind of blend together. Doing more of that. Playing out more. Doing stuff like this. You know, that kind of stuff.

Jesse Beaman: A plus for being a one man band is that nothing holds me back from practicing, writing, performing or touring. I always feel my music is really honest when I play alone. I’m sort of a lone wolf so creating alone is natural to me; it feels good.
All my tours have made me a more confident musician. Now I can imagine being a band leader or possibly being in another band. However, touring and performing as a solo act is like a spiritual experience to me and I need that.
A definite con of being a one man band is that when things go wrong live…which has happened before but not often, it can be rough on me with no one there to take over…like a guitarist who can just fiddle around while I fix things.
Also sometimes playing my music alone reminds me of how much of a lone wolf I really am which can be sad sometimes. When I get great news about something like a tour in Europe or performing on a big show, I don’t really have any band members to celebrate with. I just sort of pat myself on the back and move on.
It’s a challenge to implement some of my idea’s live. I’m beginning to think additional musicians could help me bring my vision to fruition.

Jesse: My tours seem to get better and better every time I go out.
On my early tours, the touring experience was really intense because I started touring when I was 21. Once I was on the road, I sort of realized I was still pretty young to just travel all over the country performing alone. I used to tour by myself, driving, performing and everything else. I once did a 40 show tour and drove 9,000 miles. I don’t go out alone anymore. I always have help with me now.
Lately the tours seem more relaxing, less stressful, and natural for me to be on the road. It feels really good to have people show up to my shows even overseas in Europe. My first time in Europe, I had people tell me they came to see me perform and they’ve been listening to my music on the internet for awhile. It was surreal.

Jesse: I’m approaching this new record differently; it will not be as much of a solo effort. I’m including my voice and I’m going to have people on strings and hopefully on horns.
I don’t want to disappoint anybody or turn anyone off to my past recordings, but I don’t think my vision was fully expressed on my previous recordings. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy some of my recordings but I have higher expectations for this record as far as sound quality and ideas. I have made a lot of EP’s but never really put them in stores and currently only sell two of them on my online store.
Pinmusik (German record/net-label) will release my new recording along with a release on my own recently created record label, Little Wolf. I also have plans to put it on vinyl.
MB: What aspect of recording are you the most apprehensive about?
Jesse: For many years what got me nervous in the studio was time limit and release date. Most bands set up all at once and run through their songs a few times. Then they go back one by one and track their parts indivually. I think that would be a more fun studio experience.
For me I have to do each individual instrument and build the recording which takes a lot of time. I’ve had days where I’ve tracked drums, piano, and guitar all in one session which can be exhausting. After hours of recordings, sometimes I still don’t achieve the sound I’m hoping for.
Luckily, I’m not too worried on time limit for this recording. I have the studio booked for more time than I have ever had. I start recording in January and the goal is to finish it in February. I have yet to put a release date on it but I’m thinking spring 2013 before my next tour.

Ashley Cromeens: Nothing at all.
Grant Ring: Transcendence.
Ashley: Oh yeah? That’s deep. Way to go, buddy! Yeah, I don’t know, it’s the only thing that makes me not worry, you know? It’s like meditating or something. It clears your head. I don’t ever think about anything. I guess the moment you think about stuff is when you start messing up. If I started thinking about bills I needed to pay or something, I don’t think I’d do well. So ya, I don’t think that I think about anything. Maybe like, what’s the next words? I can’t remember words well.
Grant: This is a song. [laughs]
Ashley: So not much I guess. We’re pretty serious. We’re pretty deep. [laughs]

Ashley: Sometimes when it does something funny. Like it’ll change course or something.
Grant: It’s tricky.
Ashley: Like a squirrel. An ADD squirrel. Occasionally you’re just like “Ohhhhh, that’s moving East now.”
Grant: I’m always distracted by lasers. Always. That’s why I like them so much.
Ashley: It takes focus off of us.
Grant: It just kind of goes whooosh.
Ashley: I like going to shows when there’s something that puts you in a trance. I get kind of bored with just watching rock shows. It’s kind of fun adding lasers. I know it’s kind of silly sounding, but it’s something new to look at, you know?
DJ: True. I think a lot of bands maybe neglect the more theatrical aspects of performing.
Grant: Not to say that the rock thing isn’t good.
Ashley: Nah, I always thought it was more pure and the way to go like, “Ya, this is raw, this is pure, this is what we are”, and now I’m just like…
Grant: You can be anything.
Ashley: I like to be entertained by things now. Backup dancers that have moves together and bow ties. That’s just fun to watch, you know? Backup dancers. That’s the key. You know, those moves, they’re like. [dances]
They’re all spinning and bow ties and it’s weird, and you just don’t see that on a local level. That’s more of like a Bieber level, you know? But it’s fun when you just go to Rubber Gloves one night and all of a sudden, it’s like “What the hell are these guys doing? This is weird”.

Ashley: Ya, we’ve got about 10-13 songs that we’re working with that we’re going to record soon in the next hopefully couple of months and then I think we maybe wanna do a tape release, we’ve talked about it. Do a little cassette tape release.
DJ: Why a cassette over another format?
Ashley: I don’t know, because I like them. And my car has a cassette player deck. That’s good. It doesn’t work right now, but I’ll get that fixed. When you’re rolling in a ’99 Corolla, sometimes you just wanna play some tapes. [laughs]
I don’t know, it’s fun because you can rewind and it’s like [makes tape noise] until it stops and then you know where it is. You have to work at it, you can’t just skip.
Grant: You break your favorite tape, that’s always great.

Brian Evans: People breaking each other’s noses. That’s pretty extreme. And fucking loving it!
DJ: Loving their nose being broken?
Brian: Yeah, dudes coming up to us after the show, ‘Dude, my nose is broken!’ ‘Oh, I’m so sorry…’ ‘No! It was fucking AWESOME! I can’t wait to tell all of my friends!’ Street cred, man. And really, that’s just one example.
DJ: Do you enjoy when people get violent?
Brian: No, no…
Justin Pearson: No, I broke someone’s nose. I didn’t mean to break his nose, but I did.
DJ: …How?
Justin: I punched him. I didn’t think I was going to break it, but I just wanted him to stop what he was doing. I’m not into violence—
Michael Crain: No, not at all.
Justin: I mean, I think that there’s a time and a place for it, and I think there is…I wouldn’t say ‘progressive violence,’ but there’s justified violence, and I mean if we can avoid it, I’d say let’s avoid it, you know? And we could have avoided that at that time, but it was…a kind of a bit more complex situation, I think. But, no, I think that we’re all definitely not into violence— especially at a show, I mean, it doesn’t make sense. We’re supposed to be there on common grounds, you know? But there are times when we will play with bands that are not…well, their fans are not typically accepting of us, and can be…at least aggressive, you know?
Michael: Verbally. But, yeah, I mean, it’s art. It’s our art, you know?
Justin: It only takes a half an hour. If they don’t like it, they can just…I mean, I’ve sat through a lot of half an hours of shit that I don’t like, so…but, you know, people react, and whatever.
DJ: Some people definitely associate enjoying heavy or aggressive music with being violent at shows…
Justin: But that whole nihilistic kind of feel for stuff kind of stops with the Panteras and things like that. I mean— and I don’t want to call anyone out that’s part of our…I would say culture or community, but, you know, I think…I understand the aggressiveness. It’s relevant or justified to some extent, but at the same time, it’s like, I think you can really— there is a line. Once you cross it, it doesn’t need to happen. I think that it limits people, you know, based on size and gender and things of that nature, from enjoying the show. I think that that’s not cool.
Michael: It’s just that traditionally this kind of music has that history of violence. A history of violence. I mean, Justin and I are old enough to have been to some pretty…some pretty epic shows back in the old days of Southern California, when Suicidal Tendencies and shit like that, where every show was a fucking bloodbath, for no reason. I mean, I’ve seen some pretty horrendous shit happen at shows…
Justin: I’ve been to shows where people have died. Not any of my bands, but…
Michael: It was like…I don’t know how that tradition started, I don’t…you know, it’s not as bad as it used to be in Southern California, at shows, but I remember outside of the Country Club, I saw skinheads make a guy eat glass. It was so unnecessarily violent. Any shit like that happens at our— nothing like that happens at our shows, but if it did, we would put a fucking stop to it right away. None of us are down with people getting hurt from groups of guys. That shit…yeah, it ain’t gonna happen.
Justin: I mean, when I was growing up, at like 12 or 13, there was a skinhead issue in San Diego, and that was kind of what it came down to. It was even…even the SHARP skinheads were just there to be violent, you know? I think that was part of their culture, and it wasn’t part of the punks’…we were down for the more progressive stuff, but, it’s mellowed out. I don’t think it’s really an issue anymore, thankfully.
Brian: Music is an emotional outlet. Can we agree on that?
DJ: Sure.
Brian: And aggressive music is an aggressive emotion, and I personally used to go to therapy, and I quit it when I started playing drums every day, and I don’t need therapy anymore…I don’t think—
Michael and Justin: [Laughing]
Brian: OK, maybe I do! These guys know me better than I do sometimes. But, I think that aggressive quality to the music, where it’s a great outlet for me, and a healthy outlet of expression for me— I don’t have to, you know, punch holes in my wall or just…when someone cuts me off on the freeway I don’t get all road-ragey, because I have this outlet. But other people take that aggressive outlet and use it to fuck people up, because— a lot of music comes from a place of pain, I’m not saying all of it does, but a lot of it does, and I can definitely tell you that I go through a cascade of emotions, similar to when you take a hit of LSD. It’s out of your system pretty quickly. I don’t do LSD, but I know this, and it starts a cascade of chemicals in your brain that just keeps going. It’s very similar to music.
Justin: Yeah, most aggression is like you’re kind of gone for a minute. After you rationalize it…
Brian: Yeah, people just have a hair-trigger sometimes. We just want to have a good time, man, I think I can speak for everyone on that. Violence is not cool.
Michael: But that’s exactly what we’re doing. This is…this is leading into something that’s important to talk about. It’s like, this is our art. I don’t know what any of us would be doing if we weren’t doing this, because this saves my life. I wouldn’t be alive if I wasn’t playing music. I would have self-destructed a long time ago. And so, I think for the listener, maybe someone who doesn’t play an instrument or have a creative outlet, they’re obviously going to hone in on it. They’re going to pick up on it, and that’s just how they react. This is aggressive music, ‘Fuck yeah! I’m gonna fuck shit up!’ or whatever, but for us, this is just it.
Brian: But, I do want to say that if two dudes want to break each other’s noses and feel great about it, this is a free country, and they should be able to do that, as long as they both want to do it.
Justin: I think it’s an interesting thing, though, talking about aggression in music, because you can reference Antony and the Johnsons, that song ‘Cut The World,’ and, you know, sonically it’s not aggressive at all. It’s very…it’s a very beautiful song, but it is so fucking evil. Like, when I watched the video, man, I got a tear. I was like, ‘I can relate to that for sure.’ And it definitely ties in with issues that I can…I feel like I can understand, or at least sympathize with, like gender issues and things of that nature, and the workforce…and so, I think for people to go like, ‘All punk is aggressive!’ and all other forms of music and art are not, I think that that’s…I think that people who are aware of what’s happening in the world are reflecting that, and it’s art, and what you create, be it music or a painter or an architect, whatever you want to pick. A writer, anything.
Michael: That’s a good fucking song and video, by the way.
DJ: Do you ever worry that that artistic reaction gets lost in translation?
Justin: Yeah, I think it’s not really our goal to like, spell it out, you know? We’ll do it for ourselves, and if people react to it how they react to it, that’s how it is, I guess. Once we’re done with it, we wash our hands of it, like, ‘Oh, we did that. That was us.’

Michael: Typically, I’ll come up with some riffs, or some parts, and then assemble it or whatever— maybe I’ll come up with what I think is a whole completed song, or not. Generally just parts. For the record we just did, and even the one before that, Gabe and I would get together, and Thor was around, so the three of us would get together and we’d just work it out. For the last one, Brian and I would get together a lot. I’m used to writing with the drums, guitar and drums. It kind of helps. It’s different, I think, and then Thor will come in and it’ll get even better and tougher, and then Justin will hear it and be like, ‘Okay, let’s…maybe this, this…’ and Justin will have his say and change stuff, and write lyrics. I don’t know, I think that’s kind of the process.
Brian: Yes, it’s a pretty simple equation. It’s like jamming, just for fun. Taking the parts that sound good and trying to make them in some kind of uniform order that we come up with, and then totally scrapping that once we either meet with the producer, or think about it longer, and…and not over-thinking it either. Just, you know, jamming, and it turns into a song. It’s really almost improv that turns into repetition of that improv that turns into a song. Is that fair to say?
Michael: Yeah. Just playing, really.
DJ: How does your upcoming album differ from your most recent one?
Justin: A lot more effort.
Michael: Absolutely.
Justin: I mean, we put a lot of effort into it— not that we didn’t put effort into the first one, but it was rushed, and I think then we were just starting, and now we’ve kind of figured out our own skin. It’s just a more well-rounded album.
DJ: When is the new album coming out?
Justin: We’re still dealing with a contract and stuff, so we’re not really sure on the release date, but we’re probably looking at four or five months away.
DJ: What’s it going to be called?
Justin: YPLL.

Michael: The album, and touring it a lot. Start working on new stuff, too.
Justin: A lot of it probably depends on how the election turns out. Things like that, I think, will probably influence our band for the next couple of years.
DJ: How do you mean?
Justin: Oh, I don’t know, socially? I think it affects the world. Unfortunately, America is the pig of the world, so what happens here kind of seeps through the borders, into other countries. I think that the world reacts in a certain way, making things copacetic or not copacetic depending on how things are here. I don’t know, it’s pretty…I mean, I feel like it’s a pretty pivotal time, but I guess it is every four years. Yeah, I think it will affect…certain things about how we react to society and the world at large.
DJ: And that’s going to change the band, or the writing, or what?
Justin: Well, like he said, we’ll be touring and stuff, and think, like, going around the world as a band from the United States can definitely have a different effect depending on…
Michael: How we’re received…
Justin: Sure. People hate Americans in certain countries. Or love Americans, I suppose, but I think it can affect what we do on a level— on a physical level, like going out and playing, or even writing, that will definitely affect the way we write and what we write about.
Michael: Definitely lyrically. For sure.
Thor Dickey: Look at the Reagan era. There was a lot of good music made then.
Michael: Some of the best! Some of the best, for sure.
Justin: I think people got soft— people are soft, now. You look at the 80′s, and you look at like, what Reaganomics brought to art, I mean, people were fucking furious, you know? That was like, when you could really identify with direct action. I mean, there were obvious other waves, you know, like the Weather Underground and things like that that came previous to it, but musically, and more artistically, the 80′s…it was like hardcore, you know? And now people are just kind of lazy.
DJ: So, from what you’re saying, you could say that bad times socially might actually make your art even better.
Justin: I also feel like the positive stuff also creates good art, too. I mean, I don’t want a negative, crappy world, you know? Maybe if we could alleviate all of the things that we’re fighting for socially, we would write more positive, or more outwardly positive music? Or happier music, I suppose? But, at the same time, once we get to that point, the world will influence us in some direction. I don’t know what it is. Maybe we’ll have longer ‘jams’ or something, you know? It’s just hard to speculate on something like that. It could be…
Michael: It would also just be more accessible to people. Fans, music lovers, it would be easier for them. Like he was saying, if everything shifts in a positive direction, then it gets positive for everybody— more jobs, more money going around, people able to buy cool stuff, go to cool shows, travel. I can definitely understand that. But, a lot of the writing is not only from what’s going on today in society, but also inward, you know, turmoil. Inward stuff. I mean I, and Thor also, he does really…like, folk, right?
Thor: I don’t know…like dark country…
Michael: Yeah, it’s fucking cool, and I also do acoustic stuff, and Justin obviously has been in a million bands. So, we’re always expressing ourselves, and we won’t ever stop, and this band is definitely just one particular direction, one vehicle, for expressing ourselves. It’s definitely the funnest, as opposed to acoustic, for me. Getting to play with your band, loud, it’s fucking awesome, but it’s definitely an important vehicle for us to be honest and to be who we are.
DJ: I’m guessing none of you are going to be voting for Mitt Romney in this election, are you?
Brian: That’s a good guess!
Michael: No.
Justin: I mean, I think that the system is rotten to the core, but the point is there are really important things, one of them women’s reproductive rights. That’s definitely steered me in the way I voted, you know? But, it’s still a façade of what a democracy is. We don’t really have a proper democracy, so it is…it’s interesting. And the thing is, if people are going to get let down by what the outcome of this election is, they’re not going to go out into the streets and change that. That’s sad in itself, because in the past, that’s been part of human nature. Now it’s not. We’re on lock down, you know? Which is, going back to the Occupy movement, that was something that came out of nowhere, and it…people say it’s gone or it’s dissipated or whatever, but that concept and that spark of hope, or inspiration, definitely affected the world. And I think that, who knows, maybe there’ll be another version of that. I hope so, if we need it.
DJ: It’s sometimes difficult convincing people that it’s worth it to vote when there is such a lack of options…
Justin: I totally agree. But, I mean, I don’t know…It’s pretty crazy hearing a candidate just outwardly saying the most absurd stuff, like talking about a huge portion of the American population being lazy. And that guy can still maybe win? That half of this country is going to be like, ‘Oh, it’s cool, he called us lazy, but let’s still vote for him!’ You know, I think people just need to get their fucking ass handed to them at that point, and they’re not. That in itself is a pretty interesting thing.
Michael: I don’t think it will be like the 60′s again. Or the revolution. I don’t think that will ever happen again. In the 60′s, I think the government got scared, because people were standing up and uniting and being like, ‘Nope! Fuck you! We’re down to bleed if we have to, for our rights and for equality.’ I don’t know if that will ever happen again.
DJ: Yeah, once they start deploying drone surveillance aircraft over here, it will be harder and harder to organize like that.
Michael: Like he said, we’re pretty well on lock-down. There’s federal supermaxes in this country that you’ve never heard of, where they will put you and you will never see anybody again, and it’s scary. Look at what they did! Look what they got away with in the 60′s. Murder! Black Panther Party, everyone. They just fucking killed them.
Justin: But one thing, I think— and this may come off negative, and it’s not. I think it’s a very positive thing, but I think change comes one funeral at a time, and we’re going to weed out the older mindset and we’re going to be like, ‘Okay people, now we’re going to progress.’ Younger people typically are a bit more open, and little bit more left and accepting of things. It’s like same-sex marriage, it’s like that’s the same sort of thing that we were dealing with with interracial relationships, and that was illegal, you know? It’s kind of crazy to think about that kind of shit.
Michael: Change is good. We could definitely use it.
Justin: Real change.
Michael: Yeah. But the arts, I think the arts help. Art can definitely influence people also. I’m sure if Justin Bieber was like, ‘Hey everybody! Fuck this!’ something would happen, but is that ever going to happen? No, of course not. But it would be rad if it did.

Andrew: Yeah, modern classical music, especially Penderecki and Stravinsky, has had a huge influence on our writing. From a guitar perspective, it’s expanded the palette of chords that I feel can fit within the context of our sound; we now rely alot on large block chords that are so dissonant as to almost lose their sense of melody, which I really like.
MW: Do you have any significant nonmetal influences?
Andrew: We all love jazz, so that’s probably the largest non-metal influence on our music. Other artists like Scott Walker, Diamanda Galas, Tom Waits, King Crimson, Björk, The Flaming Lips, among others, all have effected our music.

Andrew: That’s certainly something we’ve thought about integrating into our sound. Hopefully we can experiment with that on the next album, but there is definitely a project we’ve been talking of doing after that which will probably use a variety of different instruments. However, for the interim I am comfortable with sticking to guitar, bass and drums. Imposing that limitation on ourselves makes things more challenging, especially when we are looking to recreate a sound that is not easily replicated by that setup.

Andrew: We have a few shows coming up, including one Dec. 15 at Rubber Gloves, but outside of that we’re going to keep writing for our next album, called “Ghost Chorus Among Old Ruins”. We have two songs completed and several more in the offing, so hopefully we can finish writing by the summer and release it in the winter. Once that comes out, we plan on doing some extensive touring.

Dominic Rabalais: Definitely, for the most part, my friends. Just awesome stuff that my friends are doing…pretty much my friends.
MB: What inspires you to create the style of music that you make?
Dominic: When I started performing…the first band I was ever in was just a straight instrumental, like…it was me and my brother, and we just pressed play on tracks, and then my brother played synth and did effects on the tracks and stuff like that, and I just jumped around around and high-five’d people. That was my entire role. And then I learned how to play guitar and be in a rock band, but…I don’t know, it was kind of just like, “All right, this would be fucking rad. Let’s do this.’ and then we were like, ‘All right, now we’re playing a show. What do we do? I guess I’ll high-five people and spray Silly String out of my pants and climb on shit.’

Dominic: I really like just thinking about like awesome concepts to go…just the relationship between a song and video, you know, visual imagery. Most of the time, when I make a music video, I consider it super important that it’s super short, because this is the Internet age, right? No one has time to watch a five minute music video. But also, I feel like…I don’t know, it’s kind of an awesome way to, you know, you release an album and stuff like that, and especially with the Internet age, it’s like, you release an album, but people don’t really— unless they’re really into you, they’re not going to go to your bandcamp page and stream your album or whatever, so it’s an awesome way to be like, “Hey! We exist as a band, we’re still doing awesome stuff in between tours and recording more albums and stuff!” and it kind of gives people who saw you something like a mid-way point. It takes less emotional attachment to watch a music video than to get real deep on an album, or something like that.
MB: And you make the music videos yourself?
Dominic: Yeah, me and my friends. Yeah, all the costumes and stuff I make, and the concepts and stuff are pretty much mine and my friends.

Dominic: That no matter how hard they try to fuck up the world, we’re still having an awesome time!

Jennifer Seman: I think, really, it started two years ago. Justin Lemons and I kind of formed this band, really more of a recording project, called The Rayzor Ranch Davidians, and we did play one show— we played a benefit. This was before you moved back—
Mike Forbes: Oh, yeah.
Jennifer: We both played bass, I think—
Michael Seman: And Luke sat on stage in the midst of everyone.
Jennifer: And Luke sat on stage behind us and just kind of watched us. So, we would record these songs, because Justin had gotten these different mikes that he wanted to try out, and I had started to write on piano, and so, he wanted to record, to, you know, experiment as a recording engineer with those things, and so, I think that’s how it started. He was like, ‘Jen, could you just come over, I want to try out these mikes.’ And then, I would play these songs, and then it kind of took on a life of its own, and then we just invited other people to come sit in, like Ryan Williams and James Kerr, and David Saylor of course.
Michael: And Justin played, too.
Jennifer: And Justin played guitar on some things. So, that was a couple years ago, and then we didn’t know at first if we would maybe put that out as a record, or a 7″ or something, and it just kind of never happened, because we just started incorporating that music into what we were doing. And then Mike Forbes moved back to Denton from Chicago—
Mike: From San Francisco.
Jennifer: From San Francisco! Okay. And then started playing with us again, and then we started working on other songs with piano, and then the songs that were recorded for this session were all kind of created also in Justin’s living room, but with saxophone, clarinet, and then…
Michael: Where was it all recorded? Because “Seventeen” was recorded at our old place, some of it was recorded at Justin’s place…wasn’t some of it recorded at our place? Or, wait, was that the Built to Spill thing?
Jennifer: That was the Built to Spill cover that we did for 35 Denton. That was recorded in our home.
Michael: And we also recorded at the Echo Lab. We could have re-recorded everything at the Echo Lab, which in hindsight would have been a thousand million times easier, but the vibe of it is more what we wanted, with the different feelings…It’s a much more place-specific record, in that it’s all over the place. You get the feeling you’re in Denton, whereas Denton’s Dreaming was all done at the Echo Lab, almost, and you kind of lose that tapestry of place you get by recording in different places. In fact, in one song, “Butterflies,” if you listen really close, you can hear a party break out while we were recording it— literally in the next room. I was watching them starting to pour drinks, and I was just like, ‘Oh…’
Jennifer: I think you can hear someone pop the top of a beer at some point.
Mike: Oh, that was the session over at Justin’s house! That was when everybody came to hang out.
Jennifer: Yeah! It was so much fun!
Michael: It was a lot of fun. You can hear birds on it…
Jennifer: And Millie, their dog, would scuffle through the room…
Michael: You can hear all kinds of stuff.
Jennifer: But I love that kind of stuff. I think that it’s…yeah. Like, you can hear wind chimes outside, you can hear these things in the background, and I think it’s cool.

Jennifer: That song…That’s interesting, because I wrote that song after reading A Woman in Berlin. It’s about a journalist in World War II, she lived in Berlin, and at the end of the war when the Russians came and occupied Berlin, and basically…I don’t know, Michael and I have talked about this, but they just basically got revenge. The Russians came in after World War II, and Germany had lost, and they basically just raped their way through the city, literally, systematically. And so, this journalist was there, and she— It’s great, because she was part of this kind of elite group that didn’t really believe Germany was going to fail. They held on, they had this kind of crazy life, and they never believed it. Then when it happened, they still didn’t believe it, and so as they Russians came in, they didn’t leave. Also, you know, this was their home. So, I saw the movie, and the movie is actually really great, and it’s not as grotesque as you would think. It’s not exploitative at all. But, I read the book, and there’s this part in the book where her fiancé goes off to fight. He’s a Nazi, and goes off to fight at the very beginning, and there’s a scene at the very beginning where he says, ‘You’ll never forget me.’ And he comes back at the very end, and she’s had to make all of these accommodations, basically to survive. She kind of chose a Russian officer to sleep with…she just liked to control, and she made the choice to just save herself and get food, and then he finds out about it. He comes back, and he had found out about it, and they really don’t say anything, and he comes into this room and he starts…he smashes a chair and a table, and then she starts doing the same thing, and they basically just fucking destroy this room that they’re in, and that’s…the very long-winded explanation of where that song came from. I think I just lifted words out of that.
Michael: “Quicklime” is about partying with pro golfers. I wanted to give that balance. But, there is also the headspace, because I did all of the electronic stuff on my laptop…but, even with that, I played the air conditioner in my old apartment. On “The Weight of Sunshine is Immense,” I found out that if you lean on it, because basically the entire apartment was falling apart, and if you leaned on it you could get different frequencies going, and it was pretty neat, so I recorded that and sampled it, and then put that into the laptop, so it was like actually taking apart these sounds and moving it into the laptop, so it was even more like closed space…
DJ: Even the album artwork seems to suggest close spaces, with the three of you ascending those wooden stairs alone, in that tight space…
Michael: Oh yeah, that’s true…
DJ: It seems like some of the other tracks have almost a religious quality to them, like the chanting on “Tloque Nahuaque.”
Jenny: Yeah, that was taken from…I took a class last summer in New Mexico on faith healing, which is one of the things that I study, and the chant, they were leading us in all of these different rituals, and we learned about them, and that was one of the chants that the guy that was leading us was doing. That was just taken from…I recorded a lot of that stuff, and actually, that’s what that’s from, so…those are Nahuatl words, and they mean…I think some of the songs, like “Butterflies” is about— I think I was reading, it’s based on Gabriel García Márquez. I was reading One Hundred Years of Solitude and there’s this part with all the butterflies, and so, I was kind of just taking from different Latin American things that I was inspired by. There was a Pablo Neruda poem, I think…I’m making myself sound very literate, I think, when I’m not really, but…
DJ: How did you approach the arrangements? Some of the songs seem very tense, getting very quiet before exploding out in huge sound…
Jenny: Well, for “War Love Song,” that one came out of that recording project, The Rayzor Ranch Davidians, and it was just going to be that really, really short song, just the little piano part and then me singing something and then ending, and then David and Justin went on top of that and did this crazy Geistheistler…craziness on top of it, and then I didn’t think, or we didn’t think that that would ever be something we could do live, and then we just…did. So, we tried to do exactly what— I thought we would rearrange it, but I love that, because it’s so pretty and so many of those things…so many things that I write are kind of delicate and pretty, but then, that’s not really what I’m like, so…
Michael: No, she’s horribly violent…
Jenny: I’m a horribly violent person.
DJ: It comes through.
Jenny: And I think the opposite thing happened also, like with “Mexico,” on the record it’s different, and we wanted to do it, and then Mike pretty much rearranged that one to make it much thicker and heavier live.
Mike: Oh, that song. Well, whenever I heard Jen play it when we were rehearsing it, I felt like there was a lot of unexploited tension in it, so we added some heavier bass parts and made it a little more rock, rather than nice and soft.
Jennifer: Instead of nice and soft and kind of mysterious folk, which, I always like when things are different on records from how they are live. I mean, it’s also nice when they’re similar, but for me, when I see artists or bands, I think it’s cool to see how they may reinvent or do something differently live.
Mike: Exactly.
Jennifer: Even like “Butterflies,” I think I wrote that one and then Mike just picked up that piano line, and it just sounded good as just that, playing that together, and made it a really cool song where it was just kind of okay otherwise. I don’t know [Laughs].

Mike: Good question!
Michael: Eh…we’re Shiny Around the Edges! Why do something easy and quick when you can do something way more complicated and expensive?
DJ: I remember when you did the music video for “Quicklime” with the yarn and the accident…
Jennifer: The accident happened, yeah…
Michael: That ended up being one of the most expensive single things we’ve done as a band.
Mike: The cost of the yarn alone…
Michael: The cost of the yarn, the emergency room visit…
Mike: Oh, right! [Laughs]
Jennifer: It’s one of my proudest moments, though, and you’ll appreciate this, to look down and see blood all over yourself…I was not scared. Everyone was horrified, and I looked around and was like, ‘You guys!’ They still have to get me pictures—
Mike: Every musician is proud of bleeding! I’ve had several bands where they’ll bleed all over their instrument and afterwards come up like, ‘Hey, look at this! Badass!’
Jennifer: And they’ll take pictures of it! But, how this happened, we were talking with Chad Withers about doing a video, and then, it was like a random conversation…I was reading this book on faith healing rituals, and I was interested in this one, the ‘Seven Knots’ ritual, which I hadn’t read before, so I was just interrupting the conversation, like, ‘Oh, let me tell you about this thing!’ And then Chad was like, ‘That could be a film!’ It started out as this idea…these knots in this ritual represent worries that a person has, worries or fears, whatever, and you tie knots and then you bury the thing. We started researching where this came from, and we found all this other history in Germany, 17th century Germany, there was a virgin called ‘Our Lady the Undoer of Knots,’ and we got really interested in it and started developing this idea, and then it was going to be this idea, and then at the end we’ll do “Summer Waltz.” It’ll be in this house, Kevin Roden’s house, and then we’ll all go outside and we’ll do the waltz. But, as filming goes, we were just really ambitious with what we wanted to get done, and by the end— it was Daylight Savings time, and we didn’t take into account it was Daylight Savings time, so everything ran behind…
Mike: See, no one’s explained that to me. [Laughing] Now I understand what this video is about!
Jennifer: [Laughing] I’m sorry! Then she goes outside, and she’s in this house and all this darkness happens, and she faces these fears, and then she goes outside to bury the knots—
Mike: Okay! See, I didn’t know what the knots and stuff were about.
Jennifer: So, basically, what you do is, you take a red string or red ribbon, and you’re supposed to think of seven things at the same time. This is part of it. You think of one, and you tie a knot in the middle, and you keep thinking of that and you go to your right and you tie another knot, and you hold those in your head, and then you go to the other side and you meditate on that, at least as this book wrote about it. Then, this book said that you put it in a mason jar when you’re done meditating on this for a while, and then go somewhere around your house…there’s a certain side of your house that you’re supposed to go to, but then you bury it there, and then…you give the worries away.
DJ: I think I’ve heard of this…
Jennifer: I was talking to someone at the Rock Lottery thing, and he said there was also a Voodoo thing called Seven Knots, so what’s interesting is that it’s got all these different— it’s kind of like a rosary also, you know, tying knots and meditating on things?
Michael: And, too, why do you have to do a video? In this day and age, we have enough friends that we could do a film so, I’d rather do a film than a video, you know, because it’s a good idea, so…
Jennifer: And it looks so cool, and it’s all these people…I mean, Michael Briggs is in it, and Sarah Alexander plays harmonium in it. She’s in one scene— She plays Mary Baker Eddy, although it’s all sort of…surreal. There’s not a lot of dialogue. It’s pretty much…but she plays this faith healer, and she plays harmonium, and then there’s people reading poetry, and it’s just like…
Michael: It’s like there are all these people that are our friends in Denton that do this professionally, and they were more than happy to donate their time or work at a greatly reduced rate because they like the project and…I don’t know, it’s like the Talking Heads song…”Found a Job,” I think, where he’s talking about how if you don’t like what’s on TV, make your own show. Get your friends together and make a show. It was kind of like that.
Jennifer: Yeah, it was really special. It was fun to work on. Sashenka Lopez was the Virgin Mary in it. Just think about that. She’s awesome!
Michael: And there might be a soundtrack out of it, too.
Jennifer: Yes. That’s something…a lot of it is live things, but a lot of it we’re going to actually…do stuff.
Michael: ‘Original Soundtrack Recording.’ We’re going to leverage the brand across multiple revenue streams…create synergy.
Mike: Whoa.
DJ: Have you already negotiated all of the points allocations?
Michael: Yes, I have significant points on the back end for being a producer, of course, and for running the Craft Services with an iron fist. But, we’re going to see where it goes with the Gutterth empire…some points here and there, distribution, P&D deals…we’ll see what happens. And then, my God, the international rates alone are just…it’s a lot.
Mike: A lot of lawyers. A whole team.
Michael: Yes, a lot of lawyers. Well, you know, that’s why we like to work with Gutterth. They have that power behind them. They have a team of lawyers.
DJ: After this record cycle, after the film is released, what’s next for Shiny Around the Edges?
Michael: I want to do DJ nights.
Mike: Whoa!
DJ: The obvious next step.
Michael: Yep. I want to learn Ableton and start working more in trip hop. I’m really fascinated with that, and DJ nights.
Mike: And don’t forget, we have a side project in the works…Clarinet Fantasia.
Jennifer: It’s just those two guys…
Michael: Yes. Sijk beats and two clarinets. And that’s ‘S.I.J.K’…
Mike: ‘S.I.J.K’…Sijk! SIJK!
Jennifer; I’m excited for that! I’m going to try to get better on the trombone. Justin Lemons has been letting me play his trombone, and gave it to me, so, maybe these guys might be interested? I don’t know, just putting it out there…I don’t know. I mean, we always love to play, so it would be awesome as far as touring…it’s just, as you know, a big investment, but we’re always open to open for people or whatever…
Michael: We enjoyed doing it with Phosphorescent, and that was nice, and we’ll probably continue to play around the region and play here or there outside if we get the opportunity, but we certainly are willing to support someone much bigger, you know, because our schedules are flexible. Other than that, we’re also working on our drone woodwinds and brass…
Jennifer: You know, it’s weird, but when you put out a record, it’s so long in the making that once it’s actually out, you’re so often at another point musically, which is probably a good thing, but I’m excited now to start writing in a different way. Usually, Shiny has always worked where Michael and I each write songs separately, and we kind of bring them, and then we work on them and arrange them together and stuff like that, but I want to start actually— Kind of like we’ve just kind of started doing with you a little bit, Mike, like actually composing together. I just want to do that. So, hopefully that will…and maybe with the film, too, that’ll be part of what we can do. Bring some other sijk players in. S.I.J.K…
Michael: Word! Lean back and pull the trigger, dog! S.I.J.K.! Two clarinets and some sijk beats, y’all!
Mike: Hell yeah! SIJK!

R. Stevie Moore: A common question, yet it’s not as complicated as it sounds. We just pick enough to do and we’re done. It’s not like it takes forever to filter a hundred songs to fifty, down to thirty, down to twenty— it’s not that way, and consequently, we pretty much know. I mean, I have a band that has favorites, and I’m all down with whatever they choose, almost always. I may have different…opinions at other times, but, again, it’s not as complicated as it sounds. Most people take that different viewpoint, like, ‘You guys must really be freaking out!’ because, you know…making a choice. ‘We can’t make a choice! I guess, maybe let’s just break up the band!’ You know? It’s not complicated at all. And we try to do a little bit of everything. I was just telling him, this little thing that we just did was so refreshing, because it’s so underground and non-commercial mainstream, or…it’s not even indie, it’s just, you know, it’s ‘outsider’ or whatever you want to call it. But my live act is virtually just a hard rock band. It’s not punk, it’s not metal, but it’s loud and it’s hard, you know? And I shred my vocals screaming so much, and it’s only thing I know how to do in that situation. I can’t, kind of like, back off on it…or, I can. But a lot of fans get disappointed because it’s a little narrow, just doing, you know…the whole set’s pretty, I mean, it’s loud and soft and fast and slow, but it’s still just a hard rock band as opposed to like what we just did now. You know, I hate ‘laptop bands,’ and guys that do all this mixing on the stage. Like that’s really fun to watch, you know. That’s ridiculous to me. I’ll like, listen to that kind of music, but there’s fans that wish I’d do a little of that. I also…Our set is multi-faceted, in that we do five songs, it rises to a climax, almost every show we do— if it’s valid, if it’s worthy of this, and then I say, after five songs— it stops, it’s quiet, audience screams, and I say, ‘Thanks for having us. Goodnight!’ and we leave the stage. And people freak out. Because it’s either, ‘You didn’t play long enough! I didn’t get my money’s worth!’ or ‘This is so good, you can’t just stop!’ or they’re just scratching their heads. So, it’s a great incentive, it’s a device almost, a theatrical device to get that ‘Uh! Uh! Uh!’ It’s like they’re calling for an encore, but at the beginning of the set! So, then I come back out for a second set all by myself. I play a little dumb drums, by myself, like an idiot. I do a little crash cymbal, stand up, and they’re like, ‘YAY!’ Then I march over to a keyboard and do something dumb there, and they’re going, ‘GENIUS! YAY!’ Then I’ll grab the guitar and do a little bit of a solo thing, just for a change of pace from the hard rock set. I do that, and I say, ‘End of Act II. Intermission.’ I leave the stage, and then the band comes back and we do another whole five, six song set. So, it’s a great value, and makes it seem like the set’s three hours long.

R. Stevie: Not very well, at my age. Yeah, I’ve always been…I’ve done gigs sporadically, but never toured. Never one-nighter, one-nighter, one-nighter, one-nighters, and the long 8-hour drives. It’s just killer. I’m trying my best to persevere, but it’s difficult. And, you know, it saddens me to think that my— that the clock is ticking, and I just can’t— like, next year, they’re saying, ‘That’s going to be the year!’ Already we’re like fascinated because we’re booking in Moscow, in Warsaw and Helsinki, and that’s— What could be better than that, right? And, you know, they’re great money, great crowds, they’re paying for all the plane. We don’t have to worry about that all that crap…of touring. And you come back home! And you’ve made your mark. But we’re still at the bottom rungs of the ladder where we have to accept gigs at smoky beer dives, you know? And then also, festivals, which is…that’s the ultimate. We’ve been doing festivals, Primavera, and Roskilde in Denmark. I went to Europe three times last year. So, I went from no tour to globetrotting! And it’s been amazing. And I’ve had this big following that’s growing and growing, as the grandfather of DIY home-taping and stuff, and people— there’s all different generations. Ones that have been following me since the cassette days in the ‘80s, and a lot of new kids that know all about me. I’m this elder statesman, you know? And I’m having a blast. I do a lot of spoken word. I love doing that. In the middle of our set, you know? Profound Dada nonsense, spoken word poetry and stuff…I just love it.
DJ: How has the touring life affected your musical output?
R. Stevie: Well, that’s another thing. I recorded so much for so long, I’m blessed with having this amazing back catalog of my own stuff, which is fresh and brand new to those who haven’t heard it. And a lot of people love the old stuff better, you know? I’m born and raised in Nashville, and that’s what started my home, one-man-band stuff, and that stuff is outrageous in its unique individuality, and then I had to get out of Nashville. Nothing happening there. I moved to New Jersey, north New Jersey, near New York City, right as punk and New Wave started exploding. And the struggles continued, but I still recorded a lot. Decades of recording. So, now…what was the question? Touring doesn’t affect writing and recording, because I hardly do it anymore, and I don’t have to. That’s kind of cool, you know? It’s a relief to not feel pressured to come up with something new. And I’ve been— plus my philosophy of diversity is such that I don’t need to worry about fitting into a market, you know, of pop, power pop or punk or weirdo Captain Beefheart chaos. I can do it all, and I’ve always loved doing it all. But, biggest news now, too, is I’m starting to become friends with name celebrities in the music world, people I respect, and we’ve done a lot of collaborations. People like Jad Fair, Mike Watt, and the list is endless. Tim Burgess of The Charlatans, but the big news— I’m going to Jason Faulkner’s Hollywood home to record a brand-new album, first few weeks of November, with him. I’m just stoked about that. He’s another power pop wunderkind and he also has a great imagination and open mind, to where we’re just going to roll tape and start recording, and write new songs on the spot. I’ve also got tons of shards of lyrics and chord progressions, let’s do some cut and paste on Pro Tools, and also again I have the luxury of this great back catalog to choose songs from. So, that’s going to be pressure time, I’m going to have a lot of them and I’m going to have a blast doing it. I love the guy, and…who knows. That whole game, too. When you come up with something, what do you do? You shop for labels. Good, cool independent labels, or you know, forget the majors. They don’t exist anymore, really. You don’t want to be on a major unless you’re Britney Spears or Bon Jovi, that kind of stuff.
JR Thomason: Also, I would say that touring has affected recording in the sense that we’ve made some recordings on the road. This, I guess, qualifies as a road recording, even though it’s my hometown, though I don’t live here anymore. Also, we did a few days of tracking in Köln, Germany, to be edited down to be made into a record by R. Stevie. A lot of improvisation and stuff—
R. Stevie: Yeah. I’m sort of into cut-and-paste, too. Let’s capture thirty seconds of something and then deal with it later, as opposed to ‘We need a brand new, perfect song, three and half minutes, verse chorus verse chorus refrain’…you know, we could do that, too. I’m not against that, but that requires a lot of effort and pre-planning. But I’m all about experimentation. More than ever.
JR: We recorded in Denton about a year ago with JC Collins, Justin Collins…and it was three or four tunes, rock tunes, you know—
R. Stevie: That was different. That was redoing our stage act—
JR: But there was also two or three just pure improvisational tracks. Maybe as many improv tracks as…so, it’s creative output. It’s stuff that is being reinterpreted or it wasn’t there before, because it’s improvised, so I think there’s probably quite a few recordings that you’ve made in the last year since your started touring? And you did Please Leave since—
R. Stevie: Yeah, bits and pieces. It’s compiled, you know. But it’s good to have the luxury of being able to do anything and everything we want. And I don’t have a reputation to uphold except, you know, chaos itself. And I’m loving it.

R. Stevie: I do, because I’m a little of both. I have the talents of arranging and…you know, I was weaned on Beatles, Beach Boys, Zappa, Hendrix…Bowie, you know, and not what you hear these days with all of these stupid bands. The indie— indie rock! Where they have…I mean, you’re always going to have to have indie rock bands for that audience, and they love it. It’s all tunnel vision. Every song sounds the same by every indie rock band. But, what was the question?
JR: Do you want to be labeled, or do you want be labeled ‘outsider’—
R. Stevie: Oh, the ‘outsider’ thing, yeah! So, that’s why…I mean, we have your indie rock bands, this week’s model, but then we also have that ‘outsider’ thing, with the Daniel Johnstons and the Wesley Willises, and Jandek, and I’m all with that stuff, too. I mean, I love bad music, amateur music, but I really don’t belong in there. And yet, I do. I have one little— one toe in the water of that stuff, but those guys have no real abilities. They can’t sit down and compose a mock-Beethoven concerto and stuff. They’re just not into that. Or heavy hip hop. I love the hip hop stuff, I love Odd Future and Tyler and all this stuff that’s just really— Frank Ocean, that’s a big influence. But, I mean, everything is an influence, and I put forth the effort to show. Whether I can do it well or not, it doesn’t matter. My music is like a mixtape. It’s always been like that. So, the outsider thing is like a curiosity only. These guys, I don’t know why…All of these people that have a little bit of…you know, a screw loose here and there, and they’re genuine, and they’re cool in what they do, but that’s, that has nothing to do with Pet Sounds, or Sgt. Pepper’s, and that’s where I strive, so that’s not ‘outsider’ at all.
JR: It’s just the home recording thing that gets the ‘outsider’ label. What, because you don’t go to a major studio, you’re like…kind of more weird than you really are? They’re just really good— there’s some strange R. Stevie Moore songs out there. A lot. I mean…but, I don’t know, is Captain Beefheart an ‘outsider’ artist? I don’t know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone call him that.
R. Stevie: And yet everybody knows he certainly is! It’s like free jazz and stuff.
JR: Well, right, but the thing about ‘outsider artist’ is so specific to people who are home recorded, and the music’s kind of difficult to…maybe, appreciate, so ‘outsider artist’ is just a weird term.
R. Stevie: And related to that, I’m constantly on this crusade of stop calling me lo-fi, because we’re beyond ‘fi.’ Everybody, every kid is on digital fucking computers, so what is ‘fi,’ or ‘fidelity?’ My old stuff is hissy, it has a lot of muddiness to it or noises where normally you’d say, ‘Ok, wait. Get that little noise out of there! Delete it!’ you know? But the lo-fi thing means nothing to me, because I grew up on Beatles bootlegs, and we never complained about, ‘Huh! This doesn’t sound as good as their studio records!’ Come on! How stupid are we?! I kind of…DIY is it. Lo-fi means nothing to me, and I’m having to wear this nametag. And so be it, if that’s what they call it, but I mean, you don’t need to sound like Madonna and 48,000 tracks, you know, with DJ remixes and all— we’re all beyond that. One of my favorite recording machines is a little hand-held MP3…you know, like a dictation machine. I use it for song ideas, I use it to capture sound effects, ambience. I use it to do spoken word off the top of my head. And I release that stuff! It’s not like— well, and of course that’s how my whole career is. There’s no outtakes. There’s no, ‘Well, here’s my album, but over here is a shelf of songs that didn’t make the album because they’re not good enough, they sound bad.’ None of that applies to me. I’m a diarist of sound. It’s a diary of my life. And I love that kind of stuff. Always have, always will. It’s not…if that’s not part of your taste, move on! I feel like I’m an ultimate fan kind of artist, because fans love that stuff. You know, if you have a hero, you’d love getting any tapes, whether it’s music or not! Spoken…so, it’s not ‘fi’ at all. It’s sound. I’m into sound, not ‘fi.’

Justin Collins: Pretty much…I had a roommate that bought a banjo on a vacation and never played it, and then I started playing it, just in an open G tuning. I’d been playing a lot in that tuning on guitars. Then, I had the terrible idea to start a band with a banjo, so, that’s pretty much the long and the short of it.
DJ: Did you get your own banjo at some point?
JC: I did, finally, get a banjo of my own. The original banjo is still around. Sinevil has the original banjo. It’s precious. It has a little butterfly inlay on the back.
DJ: It sounds beautiful.
JC: Yeah, it’s gorgeous. It’s probably better hanging on a wall than it is being used as a musical instrument, but, if you’re under the impression that you can tune a banjo at all in the first place, the banjo is probably not the instrument for you.
DJ: You released your most recent album No Lord Baby back in April. How did that come together?
JC: We did that record out at the Echo Lab, so, it’s pretty much all self-produced. We started…we started a long time ago. We went into the studio without any songs or any idea what we were going to do, and I was fully confident that we were going to leave with probably seven records, since we’re so talented and creative. We left with about three minutes of useable material. So then, over the course of the next…five years, I guess…that was in ’08, the first session, and then there was a session a year after that, and then, after the second session, I realized that I had sort of put the cart in front of the horse. I forgot to write songs and then learn the songs. That’s normally…that’s a normal recording process. Like, you write some songs, then you record the songs— no, wait, then you learn the songs. See, I still can’t do it. You write the songs, learn the songs, then go record the songs. That’s probably the most efficient way to use studio time.
DJ: The safest, anyway.
JC: It seems like that makes the most sense. So, after the second session, and trying a lot of things and coming up with another 90 seconds of usable material…so, in two years, we were up to 4…nearly 4½ minutes worth of really great, excellent material. So, then for a year and a half, I wrote some songs and we learned those songs and went and recorded them, and in about four months, we were done with the record. The record that we put out in April. It’s actually half of what will all be finished. The plan is to take the other half of the…it was 18 or something songs that we were all working on at once, so, take eleven that seemed to go together— I think it was eleven. Ten or eleven that seemed to go together, and finish those, and the other songs are a little more broad in scope. Just different kinds of sounds. This record is very much just live takes, vocals, not a whole bunch of extra harmony, just some simple percussion…We tried to keep it as clear-cut as possible. The next one— the songs that got left off of those collection are way more fleshed-out and geeky, as you would expect from a bunch of dudes sitting in a studio with a lot of time on their hands and not a lot of material to work with. “Hey, you wanna try pluckin’ the piano?” “Yeah, pluck the piano. See what that sounds like. Hit it with a feather.” “All right, cool. Should we take a break for four hours?” “Yeah, we probably should.” “All right, let’s get…cigarettes and beer.” “That’s right! We should get cigarettes and beer!” “And then we record twelve takes of kazoo?” “Yes, definitely. At least twelve takes of kazoo.”
DJ: It sounds like maybe there isn’t much of a sense of urgency.
JC: Well, you know, Geffen stopped calling me. Universal is no longer pounding down our door. So, yeah, we kind of get to work at our own pace to make the record we want to make. The record that we put out is just released online. The next one will probably be the same, and then if there seems to be some kind of urgent reason to make physical copies of them, so we can turn a huge profit and all buy nicer houses and cooler shoes, we probably will.

JC: Oh, man! The Burnt Sienna Band…they’re in Delaware, right?
DJ: Yeah.
JC: We exchanged emails with those guys probably ten years ago. I’ve been playing in this band, Burntsienna, since I was in high school, basically. There’s been a couple of other members, three other members who have gone their separate ways. We’ve been doing this since 2006, I think. Something like that. When was that first trip to Electrical? ’04?
Sinevil: ’02.
JC: ’02? Is that right? I don’t think that’s right. I think the Tijuana Folk Song record, which was all electric guitars with another band member, another songwriter, which we record and mixed everything up in Chicago, and I’m pretty sure that came out in ’04, and then the Trio record came out in ’06. I think that’s how it worked. We’ll go with that. So, even before Steve was in the band, we found out through Google searches about the Burnt Sienna Band. No actual ongoing feud. I think there’s some…there was a brief period while I was still working for a bank, doing a day job, where I sent some kind of email. There may have been some ‘Cease and Desist’ or some kind of legal action threatened on their part, since they seemed to have…they play a sort of hilarious menagerie of covers at frat parties and shit, so they probably have way more money, but it wasn’t pursued, and I still have the URL, so…Hopefully they’ll buy it from me someday.
DJ: Have you been approached by Girls Gone Wild, or any of the other companies that they work with?
JC: You know, for a long time, there was a steady stream of emails that would come through that were obviously intended for the other band. Like, asking me if I could book a wedding, and they’re favorite song is Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” and they just want that played at their Bat Mitzvah or whatever, and how the bass player is so hot and they wanted his personal cell number. There was a steady stream of those for a while, but I don’t really get those anymore. I don’t know why. I never deleted them. I’m sure I still have a folder of them in an old Hotmail account somewhere. They’re ancient but it’s totally true.

JC: Pretty much. It should be done, probably, in December.
DJ: What else is on the horizon for Burntsienna Trio?
JC: That’s as far as I’ve thought through it. It’s pretty adventurous and athletic for me to think even as far as throughout the rest of the year. I’m…I’m pretty slack when it comes to organizing the group. But, if somebody decides they like the records and wants to put them out for me, then that’s great. I’ll go play a bunch of shows and try not to make them look like a fool for giving me money.
DJ: So, open call for cash.
JC: Mhm. Just send me your requests to love my art and give the gift of our brilliant songs to the masses. Until then, it’s just going to sit online, and if I feel like listening to it, I’ll listen to it, and anybody else can listen to it, too.

Michael Bell: We worked on it a really long time, so…having it be released?
DJ: Your last record came out in 2009, right?
Jared Bell: Yeah. Pretty much all three years were spent working on it, so…it’s exciting. I think we just tried to change the sound a little bit, make it a little more upbeat, a little bit poppier, but still maintaining the characteristics of our sound. So, I think we’re just kind of…you know, whenever you’re trying something a little bit new, it’s kind of exciting to just get it out. Whether people hate it or not, just get it out there, you know?
Michael: We also were playing the songs from Symbolyst since the summer of 2011, playing them live, so, I guess it’s cool that this is the first tour where people could actually know them beforehand or something, you know? So, I don’t know. That’s kind of nice.
DJ: What about it took so long to make?
Michael: It just always takes us a long time to make albums.
Jared: Yeah, we’ve just been busy. Yeah, really…we don’t have any particular method we ever use for making an album, or an exact timeframe, so…they just sort of happen organically. This one just took a little longer.
DJ: I know that you were living in different cities during that time. Did you continue working on the album despite the distance?
Michael: Yeah.
Jared: Yeah. For about half of the making of the album, we were both in New York, but otherwise, we were apart. But even when we were in New York, we almost still write separately, so, since we’re just brothers and two people, it almost doesn’t make— obviously, it’s a little easier when we’re in the same room, but it doesn’t make that much difference, I think, to us. We’re so used to writing separately, and we just trust what each other is going to do, so…I guess in a way, we do. That’s maybe…if there’s any system we have, it’s that. Just trust, and almost in a separate, sort of separating the two sides. Basically, we write everything separately, and then when it’s time to record the final stuff, we like to be in the same room.
DJ: What do you want people to get out of the album?
Michael: I don’t know…Just their own interpretation, really. Like, there’s no vocals, obviously, and like…I mean, to me, the album has a pretty upbeat feel to it, so I hear a joyous kind of thing in it, but I could see how somebody else could listen to it and get more of a melancholy thing out of it. I don’t know, it’s just kind of a mood, you know, that’s totally open to interpretation.
DJ: Do you ever try to shape your music to evoke a certain feeling?
Jared: I don’t know if you can ever fully shape it. If you try to shape it too much, I guess there’s a risk in that. You try to shape it too much, and people can’t relate, and then I guess it’s just unsuccessful. Whereas, maybe we have too much ambiguity in our tracks. I guess we don’t necessarily approach it from that perspective. We just more approach it…We just take something personal, probably in the same way most singers or singer-songwriters would approach it. We just take something personal or in our lives, and we write melodies and things that make sense to us, but in just the nature of our music, it’s not so indicative of one type of style, or even within instrumental music, I think it’s not really like…you know, if I think something’s super heavy, it might be a little darker, or something’s super poppy, it might just have the inclination to be a little too peppy, or something. I feel like we try to live a little bit in each world, so that that final outcome, that for us might have a specific meaning, it ideally shouldn’t be that specific for the listener.

Michael: Well, you know, fortunately these days, we’ve played music together so much, we’ve played these songs together so much, that, for me, it’s like…it’s like a sweet meditation, kind of, where I’m like…there’s an element of knowing the songs that’s on autopilot. Not in a bad way, just in a super ingrained way, so more and more I think I’m able to, I don’t know, from my perspective or whatever, focus on a little more subtlety in the music and actually really enjoy it, almost as though I’m listening to myself play. Not like in an ego way, like, ‘Oh, wow!’ or something, but just actually enjoying it from an outer-body perspective or something, based on that it’s so comfortable and second nature to play the songs. Especially tonight, man. Tonight…Our show tonight in Denton, it was like a money feeling. Everything was locked in, and it was that perfect balance of playing the songs second nature, but being really aware of every aspect of what I was playing and he was playing, while not intentionally thinking about anything we were playing. It’s hard to describe, but, I guess being ‘in the zone’ is the most cliché, but vague and…I don’t know, way to say it.
Jared: Yeah, for me…I’m just not a very good musician, I feel like, so…I always kind of have to pay attention to make sure I’m just playing it right. So, for me, I’m just trying to maintain, which is fun for me. It makes it. I think if I were better, I think I could be more autopilot, which would be nice, but I have to just pay attention more. But, I think for me, the largest factor is just the crowd, when I just sort of feel that there’s a reciprocative feel, it’s much easier to play. When I’m not getting that, I still try to give it everything, but I definitely retreat into my own shell. So, I think tonight was an instance of the crowd being more relaxed and into the music, so, it was easier tonight.

Michael: You know, do some more touring in support of our album, and then sometime next year or maybe even this year, start working on some new recorded stuff.
Jared: We’ve just been taking it easy lately. Well, not taking it easy, but just…I think, with music in our lives now, we just want to enjoy everything we’re doing, so we just try to think of it less like a job, lately, and more just like, ‘Let’s just do shows with good bands, or when it’s fun, or when we’re enjoying it.’ I mean, we want to promote the album and we’re really excited about it. We kind of just want to take the right opportunities when they come, so I don’t know if we have anything specific…I know we’re going to do some shows in Asia and Europe for the album, but…
Michael: I think, in general, at this point we’ve completely, utterly accepted what our band is, in all respects. Like, to say ‘for better or for worse’ isn’t really a good way to say it, because it’s all for the better, but I think since these days we’re really just comfortable with what our band is, it makes touring more fun. There’s very little pressure to…I don’t know. It just kind of is what it is, and it’s really fun to do things when we can, and I think we’ll always just keep making music, because at the end of the day, it’s just fun to make music, make records, get to tour sometimes, especially at a casual pace, you know? Without any sort of goal of, like, ‘This could go here! This could go there!’ Really, these days I think we just make music because it’s fun, and…you know, with the idea of completing something, completing an album, doing a tour, finishing the tour, but, it’s really just…I don’t know, more and more, especially with this tour, it’s just really fun to play music when everything’s cool. We get along really well these days.

David Saylor: Me and Cory started playing.
Cory Hager: Drinking 40’s.
BF: Was it Drink to Victory off the bat?
Cory: I think it was actually Defensive Onslaught…
David: [Laughing] Sovietnam.
Justin Lemons: Sovietnam!
David: Oh, wait, that was a Rage song, what I said. It wasn’t that. It was Defensive Onslaught.
BF: Did you have a previous bassist?
Justin: They did, actually.
David: Curt…whatever his last name was.
Justin: He played in Notes From Underground too, for a period. David kicked him out of each band.
Cory: Yeah, because we were too pussy to do it.
David: He was a big guy.
BF: Well, being a band in Denton for ten years, how has the music scene changed over that time?
Justin: It has not really changed for us.
David: No…
Justin: Our perspective has remained exactly the same, I would say.
David: Pretty much.
BF: That was ten years ago. You were probably like 18 or 20 years old…
David: There might have been more rock bands then.
Cory: Better bands that we like to see…
David: Yeah. There was Fabulous Badasses and Record Hop and Mugzu, and that stuff. Whatever’s happening now doesn’t rock as hard.
BF: Are there any bands in Denton that you really get behind?
David: …
Cory: …
Justin: …Man!
BF: Besides the bands you play in…
David: Bludded Head, man.
BF: We’ve got the Bleeding Cloud behind you.
David: Yeah.
Justin: Yep…Cerulean Giallo is pretty cool.
David: Yeah, they’re good. Anything that the Talley brothers do, I like.
BF: You played new songs for the session?
David: Mhm.
Justin: We…tried.
Corey: Attempted.
David: They’re not new songs.
BF: Sure, but they’re not on Health…
David: Previously unreleased material.
BF: Are you planning on recording and releasing it, or is it just for the anniversary show next week?
Justin: To me, that all depends on what happens in the next week, honestly.
David: Yeah…
Justin: What I’m trying to say is that, if it doesn’t happen in the next week, I don’t know if it’s going to happen.
David: That’s true, yeah. It’s imminent, or never. It’s coming out soon, or never.
Justin: We have the means to do it now.
David: Sort of.
Justin: If you know how to put together our qualifications.

David: It’s hard to practice.
Justin: Yeah.
David: It’s just…
Justin: I’d say it’s just impossible.
David: Yeah.
Cory: My work schedule sucks.
David: All of our schedules are different.
Cory: Which, I plan on quitting soon…
BF: I think it’s obvious that everyone misses you when you’re gone, because when you have the reunion shows, everyone always has a really good time…
David: If we played all the time, it wouldn’t be like that.
Justin: Yeah, that’s true. But…
David: We’re just ripping off the Toadies.
BF: Yeah, but they came back and put out another record…
Justin: Well, hey man! We’ve got three new songs!
David: Yeah. It’s like a new record.
Justin: It’s like an unrecorded new record.
Cory: I’ve got some songs on guitar, man, if you want to start playing drums…
David: Drink to Victory doesn’t do it for me anymore. I need louder.
Justin: We did, however, get the cops called on us at the practice space for the first time.
David: Yeah, that’s worrisome.
Justin: Drowning out T-2.
David: Not technically…
Justin: To the cops and neighbors! To the cops and neighbors.
David: Sure…
BF: This is at the storage place?
David: Yeah.
Justin: Lower frequencies travel farther, though.
David: I don’t get what the hell…he was just looking…it was late.
Cory: It was your voice…
Justin: Your voice really irritated him, man.
David: He didn’t like what I had to say.
BF: Is that illegal? That’s private property…
Justin: He had the codes. He doesn’t pay every month, but he got in. Maybe he does! Maybe he stopped there on the way home and was like, ‘I don’t like this one bit!’
David: It’s possible.
BF: Do you feel like you accomplished what you wanted to with Drink to Victory?
David: No.
Cory: No.
Justin: We didn’t accomplish anything. We did not accomplish one thing in ten years, so…
BF: You’ve got two full-lengths, the 7”…
Justin: Yeah…those are there.
Cory: We’ve still got plenty to sell.
Justin: Yeah! If you want one, let us know! Because we’ve got hundreds.
David: Hundreds.
Justin: You know, it doesn’t matter though.
Cory: I still enjoy it.
David: When they go for tons of money in the future, I’m going to be rich, because I’ve got all of them.
Justin: Yeah, there were only twenty released!
David: Limited edition!

David: Mortville is going to open up. You know who they are…
BF: Yeah.
MB: But explain it, for the cameras.
Justin: They are Mike Forbes and Nevada Hill and Bill from Bukkake Moms’s free jazz band, and they are unbelievable. I should have said them, when you asked that question earlier, and I should have also said Bukkake Moms.
BF: I’ve yet to see them, but I heard they’re really good.
Justin: Fucking unbelievable.
BF: Aren’t they young?
Justin: Very young. Some of them can drink, I think. Well, now there’s only three, but one of them at least can drink.
BF: It’s probably the coolest name ever.
Justin: It’s a good name. Descriptive.
David: Stoned Men and Scoff are going to split a set, so that’s good. That’s going to be exciting.
BF: I haven’t seen Scoff in a long time.
David: They haven’t played in a long time.
BF: We did that one show with them at J&J’s with you. I think that’s one of the last times I’ve seen them. That Trifle Tower, Drink to Victory, Scoff show?
David: That would have been a long time ago.
BF: Yeah, that was two or three years ago.
David: If it was with Trifle Tower, it would have been a lot longer than that, man. And then, Shiny Around The Edges are playing, because they’re part of the fam. They have to be there. It’s going to be awesome. There’s going to be some interesting new developments, I think.
Justin: And then Nick’s flying in for Dust Congress, and he’s got two new songs, but I don’t know if—
David: That are going to be probably way better and more developed, well-written, composed—
Justin: —than other bands.
BF: Is he flying in that day, or are they going to have time to practice?
David: I don’t know when he’s flying in.
Justin: They’re flying in on Friday or Saturday…I lost my message from him, but he’s coming in on Friday or Saturday. I think it’s Saturday, actually. And then he’s going to leave really early on Monday morning…
David: I hope he doesn’t leave on Monday morning.
BF: Tuesday morning?
Justin: Yeah, Tuesday morning! I forgot it was on a Monday…to everyone’s misery.
BF: I know I like to be hung over on Tuesday.
Justin: I know a lot of people are asking off work on Tuesday.
Cory: I’m not gonna work.
Justin: But that’s the actual day that they played together live.
BF: When was the first show? Where?
Cory: Rubber Gloves, open mike night.
David: Big Ass Beer…
Justin: On October 29th, 2002…
Cory: My 21st birthday. Had an 18-pack of Bud Light that night, of all beers.
David: I don’t remember that.
Cory: Because my brother gave it to me for my 21st birthday.
David: I don’t remember my 21st birthday.
BF: You spent it at Rubber Gloves open mike night?
Cory: Yeah…
David: It was amazing. It gave birth to something amazing. Would you believe that?
BF: As soon as you say that, you’re all supposed to flash your DIIV tattoos.
David: Oh, right.
BF: Have you seen that there’s another band called DIIV?
Justin: It’s ‘Dive,’ I believe.
David: Fuck those guys.
BF: I was confused, I thought you guys were playing the Index Festival.
David: I don’t know what that is.
Cory: Is that a skateboarding festival?
Justin: I’m not 100% sure about the Index Festival either, but we are not playing it. And we wouldn’t, either!
BF: The GZA played…
Justin: Well, maybe we’d play.
Cory: I like the Wu-Tang Clan.
Justin: We did play it, actually.
David: That was us. We are the Wu-Tang Clan.

Joe Michelini: We were traveling a lot, you know? I think this record, like the last record, was natural, just, not sitting down to write, but when a song happened a song happened, and then overall, having this group of songs, it felt like the album revealed itself as what it was, in the track order. But we were out and about a lot, you know? We were experiencing a lot of new things. I was writing as it was happening, and now this collection of songs just happens to be that, happens to reference those different points in our travels.
DJ: What kind of feelings do you think the album evokes? What do you want listeners to get from it?
Joe: I think it’s overall hopeful. I think it’s an overall hopeful record. I mean, just that, to…forgive other people, forgive yourself, and to move on and…to make peace. Resolution, I guess, is the feeling I want people to have.

John Muccino: I think it’s a blast.
Sam Tacon: Every day is a new adventure. We cram into a 12-passenger van, which probably seats six people comfortably, but it fits us.
John: I feel like it would be even harder to tour with a smaller group of people. Like, this long of a tour, you know?
Joe: That’s what I was going to say. If it were any less than eight, it would be a big band, but because it’s eight, it’s so many that it’s not really a big band, it’s like a travelling group of people. Everyone serves their own purpose emotionally, mentally, you know…everyone helps each other out in some weird way.
DJ: You mentioned that you write on the road. Logistically, how do you find the space and time to do that?
Joe: We don’t really. I write when I get home, for the most part. I’d like to have more time to write on the road. As we become more…efficient and more used to touring, our free time increases, and your headspace kind of increases. You’re not worried as much, and I think eventually I’d like to write on the road, but right now I just…mostly I write when I’m home. I record little ideas on the road, but that’s it.

Joe: It’s so hard to tell. Two years ago, I wouldn’t have known what to say, and I don’t know that I know what to say now. I hope that, in the future in general, we can keep making records and touring. That’s about as far as I would ever want to go with something like that, you know? Because it’s so up in the air, and the next record isn’t written yet, all kinds of stuff. There’s so many variables. I see the band still being together in two years.

Jon Teague: It was out of necessity, really. We started playing together in The Great Tyrant a long time ago, and originally that was the two of us—
Daron Beck: Prior to that, he was in Yeti and I was in Pointy Shoe Factory, and we played shows together all the time, and prior to that, we were in the same vicinity of each other for decades without even knowing each other, you know? Like, we were talking about going and seeing Chumbawamba earlier, and that was at this shitty fucking punk club back when Chumbawamba was a punk band— they always were, but before ‘Tubthumper’ or whatever. We were both there, but there’s probably 20 shows that were like that. Skinny Puppy and Godflesh, and you know, it’s like…
Jon: We did all of the same shit, just not together.
Daron: And we had tons of mutual friends. Like, all of the Dallas punk people and Mid-cities punk people were all friends with the Ft. Worth punk people. I guess it was because I was… on the goth fringes or whatever, so I didn’t get into the metal stuff too much, so I wasn’t going to a lot of the thrashier punk shows and stuff like that….
Jon: But, after Great Tyrant ended, we just immediately decided to start playing. I mean, I think we were writing stuff within a couple of days.
Daron: Yeah. It was a necessity. Before that even started, we had done a two piece practice, I guess the night before this band started, and realized we could actually do this as a two piece, because Tyrant started out as me and him.
MB: I remember when you filled in the remaining booked Great Tyrant shows with Pinkish Black…
Daron: Right. We cancelled like, one…
Jon: We had to cancel one—
Daron: —because it was two nights from then or something—
Jon: —but I think, after we started this band, we played our first show within a month of doing it, and it was…the material was pretty loose, but we just didn’t want to cancel any shows.
Daron: We wanted to have deadlines set on ourselves so that we had to do it, because otherwise, we really would have just drank all the time, you know?

Jon: Handmade Birds put the record out and got it all over the place pretty quickly, and then somehow it ended up in someone’s hands at Pitchfork. I didn’t even know what Pitchfork was—
Daron: Neither of us did.
Jon: I was like, ‘Oh…’ because someone, the guy from the label is telling me ‘Oh, this is great!’ I was like, ‘Okay… what is that?’ So, I looked at it, and I was like, ‘Okay. Cool.’ But they were having some kind of showcase at St. Vitus in Brooklyn and they asked us if we wanted to play, and we were like, well we only had two or three weeks notice, so that’s not enough time to book any shows between here and there, but we thought it would be a good idea to do this.
Daron: And everybody told us it would be a good idea…
Jon: Yeah, I mean, after getting some advice from friends that were more familiar with that stuff. They were like, ‘Yeah, you should go do that.’ So, they gave us a little bit of money, and then Daron started the Kickstarter thing…
Daron: Because, initially, we thought we had one van at the time, which was Jon’s van—
Jon: Which was falling apart.
Daron: Yeah. We weren’t going to be able to do it unless we dropped a couple of grand on his van to fix it up, and through a weird circumstance, we got another van from my parents. It was like I was having to basically quit my job so I could go to New York, and they said they didn’t want us driving across the country in a van that would break down, so, that was the nicest thing they had ever done for me. In whole, they’ve been generally unsupportive of any musical endeavor I’ve ever undertaken, so…it was a shock for sure. Yeah, but the money that we got, it definitely helped us. We’ve got T-shirts now, we’ve got CDs and records. It definitely helped, because when you’re not playing shows on the way up there and on the way back, you have no way to make any money.
Jon: It’s a lot of gas just driving from here and then back. That’s a thousand dollars in itself. It helped a lot.
Daron: Yeah, it helped a lot.
Jon: It was really awesome to see that our friends wanted us to do this. That was the best thing about that.
Daron: And, as of now, we’ve pretty much filled the record orders and digital download orders. We’re working on the three cover songs now. We got money to do three cover songs, and we’re working on those now. Somebody’s actually wanting to put them out on a 7-inch.
MB: Really?
Jon: Maybe.
Daron: Maybe. Which will just be like a boutique, like 50 pressing or something, but…
Jon: Yeah, so we’ve just got to get these songs learned—
MB: So you know what the covers are?
Daron: Yeah.
MB: Are they a secret?
Daron: I don’t guess so. It’s… ‘I’d Rather Be With You’ by Bootsy Collins and ‘Coma’ by Tear Garden, and you’ll have to—
Jon: It’s called ‘Naufraga’ by this Italian punk band called Contropotere.
Daron: Yeah, that song’s awesome.
Jon: Yeah. Really interesting band, and the friend of mine that paid for that, you know, that’s great to have a friend bring up one of my favorite punk records and get us to play something off of it.
Daron: We’re planning on having a backer party here in the next couple weeks, probably at the Chat Room or Boiled Owl.
Jon: Just to give everybody their stuff.
Daron: We still have some t-shirts we have to send out and stuff like that, but really, the covers are the major thing we’ve been working on, because that’s a task.
Jon: It’s fun.
Daron: No, I mean, ‘Was it worth it?’ Yeah. It was well worth it.

Jon: It’s kind of…uh…
Daron: It’s a mystery right now. We don’t know.
Jon: We don’t know what’s over this horizon. Like, I can see this horizon, but I have no fucking idea what’s going to happen.
Daron: You know, because things… major shit has happened in the past month or two months, you know, and it’s stuff we never thought we’d have to deal with—
Jon: But it’s all— It’s really attributed to making that trip.
Daron: — and, you know, we wouldn’t have been able to do if we hadn’t had that Kickstarter. So, it’s interesting and very cool to think that, ‘Oh, wow, all of our friends really helped us get to the next level that we never thought we could achieve,’ you know?
Jon: We’ll have another record. We’re going to go record again in December.
Daron: With [Matthew] Barnhart again.
Jon: So, I know that’s going to happen, and I think we’re probably—
MB: You have all of the songs already written for that?
Jon: Well, we’re like one shy.
MB: It’s going to be a full length?
Daron: Yeah.
Jon: Yeah, and I guess we’re going to just start trying to tour as much as possible, because now we’ll have the van and we’ll have just a little… enough money to go, and… yeah, touring. That’s what I see happening.
Daron: Yeah, that’s all we want to do. I think we like playing live more than anything… when it goes well.
Jon: When it goes well.
Daron: When it’s before 1:30. We have a cut-off time to our enjoyment. But, yeah, that’s all we want to do. Tour, put out more albums, record more stuff, write better music…

Regan Farquhar: I don’t have enough forethought to really know what people should take away from a lot of my songs, but I think by and large it was mainly a break-up record, or it was kind of inspired by that idea. The songs were really cathartic. They came after a…big break-up, and just…you know, I would never think that something as commonplace and romantic as the fizzling out of a relationship would be a good impetus for one of my records, but it is, and it became one for Beaus$Eros. My older record, Cosmic Cleavage, kind of had a similar thing, but…yeah, so, it’s basically just a break-up record, with other stuff in between it.
DJ: You mentioned that you don’t have a thought-out message for a lot of your music. Do you start writing without any specific concepts in mind?
Regan: I’m just saying I don’t have a whole lot of self-consciousness as far as how I want to be perceived, or how a body of work is to be thought about, but, no, most of my songs have some kind of idea that starts them off, and some kind of…some kind of message or story or idea that they want to convey, and that’s pretty apparent on Beaus$Eros, more than on most records.

Regan: The lead-up? The pregame? Yeah, right. I’ve been following the pregame. I haven’t been following it as much, because I lost interest after Rick Perry dropped out, and after the news cycle started getting…just comically obsessed with the ‘Flavor of the Week.’ Candidates surging in polls that wouldn’t act like…that guy was on his way, on his way to winning the Republican nomination, but, it’s just been a constant back and forth, so I’ve lost a lot of interest in it. But I’m still following it.
DJ: Where do you think the country is headed after November?
Regan: Well, a lot of people are in a depression, so, I think that’s going to continue. As far as what millionaires do in the governing of this huge swath of land, I can’t really say, because I’m a poor man and I don’t know the dealings of millionaires and concerns of billionaire corporations. I don’t know where those put us. But that’s how some things are run. But, you know, hopefully, I mean, I don’t think we’re going to have much of a change. I don’t think we’re going to have any new people that are going to be moving into the White House. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but that doesn’t matter, because it’s still the…the policy right now isn’t too fantastic, so…
DJ: What would you like to see happen?
Regan: It doesn’t matter what I want to see happen. It’s not going to happen. You know, I want gumdrops raining out of the sky. I don’t really care, because there’s no…to me, it’s not a partisan argument, because there’s no candidate who represents things that I think are important in office or who is even running for office, so, it’s not even possible for my concerns to be addressed. But, I think Obama is a good celebrity.

Regan: Well, it’s made it the only way, pretty much, to connect with my music, which is unfortunate…either it’s unfortunate, or it’s great, I don’t know. I guess it depends on what tools are readily available to me, but it…it invites a kind of competitive nature to music making that I don’t personally enjoy, because you’re competing with everything. Literally everything. It dictates a lot of choice-making and songwriting, you know? It should influence my songwriting more, but it hasn’t a lot-lot, but it should. I don’t know, I like it because it means the proliferation of a lot of stuff and people are really…you know, it’s really competitive, but it’s nerve-wracking, too. It devalues songs a lot, but…
DJ: Devalues them how?
Regan: The songs are really just ephemeral. There’s such a— People are competing so fiercely that they’re putting out stuff at a more rapid rate, and things are free and things are just out there, and people pick them up online and they just kind of take them in, and then they just vanish into the ether, and that’s the way music is going. There’s more music being made and consumed now than ever at any point, you know? It’s…I don’t know, it’s…I don’t know any artist who isn’t incredibly stressed out and incredibly pressed to make things. Which is good! But, under what circumstances? I don’t know. So, it’s great, because you can readily give people shit, but you know, you’ve got to compete with…you’ve got to compete with popular culture, which is fine— which is good. It’s just not good for me, because I don’t care enough.

Andrew Michael: I don’t think it’s retro sounding. I mean, I think there’s like…everybody’s influenced by whatever it is they listen to, and so I can understand, definitely, a lot of the associations with music that we’re inspired by, but I think that ‘retro’ makes it a little novelty, and I think that, if anything, I think that we’re pretty grounded in something that’s happening right now. But, I mean, naturally, in a band like ours we are going to get a lot questions and associations about ‘retro sound’ or ‘New Wave sound’ or whatever. ‘80’s sound.’ Well, we like that music and we dance to it, so I’m sure a lot of that is going to show up in what we do, even though we— I don’t think we consider ourselves any type of retro or revisionist group at all.
Julie McKendrick: I kind of think of what we’re doing more like a soap opera or something put to music. Or like it’s…it’s kind of…extreme. Like, some of the lyrics are just sort of like gushy, gross, emotional…like maybe too…like a soap opera. I mean, that’s the easiest. Right?
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, definitely, it’s like a—
Julie: But they’re real feelings. They’re real things that you go through. It’s kind of focusing in on when you are…for me anyway, a lot of when you’re at your lowest, and you are acting like a complete…teenager or emotionally affected or whatever. It’s sort of like you’re stuck in that emotional state or something.
Andrew: I guess, from a sound perspective, I can understand tags like ‘retro’ or something, but like, I don’t know, it’s more, for us, just more like a visual— like video-type story line that kind of blurs the line between our real life and other things. But, I mean, structurally I think we have more in common with metal. We listen to a lot of metal. So, a lot of our songs kind of follow…or inspired by a certain form that different metals can have—
Julie: Like copper and steel…
Andrew: Yeah, copper and quartz. Magic rocks.

Julie: We wrote these songs like four years ago and we keep playing them. We don’t have any new ones.
Andrew: We sort of have some new stuff, but it’s so like…it’s so future. I mean, they’re listening to it in Ethiopia, but not here, because it’s 2005 in Ethiopia.
Julie: That’s true.
Andrew: One of our friends just got back from 2005.
Julie: That’s crazy. That’s true. But…what was the question? Because…
DJ: How do you write songs together?
Julie: Oh yeah, right. Sometimes I’ll…play music on them, and we record them…
Andrew: We usually just come up with a bass line and a drum part, and we jam on that forever, and just sit around in a circle and tell jokes and write out lyrics of little weird scenarios in our head, and then play it back on tape and just play it over and over and over. We listen to it all the time, just on…I don’t know. We just sit down and play it.
Julie: Yeah, a lot of times we’ll write the lyrics together, and then the music, he’ll already have some stuff already put together, and it’s usually magic, so I don’t—
Andrew: Yeah, it just kind of happens like [snaps] that.
Julie: Because everything he does, I like, and so I like everything we do. I don’t think we ever have a problem.
Andrew: No. It’s more like we like all of the same foods, and so we’re just putting those foods on a big table, and then we can just eat and make whatever, and it’s fine. It’s just how we—
Julie: Yeah we…we have similar aesthetic things that we like, but…yeah, and we don’t, we usually never have a problem with it.
Andrew: No.
Julie: Like, in other bands you’re usually like, ‘Oh, I don’t like what you’re doing.’ But you can’t or you don’t know how to say it or something like that. But every time it’s just like, ‘Oh my god, you’re so awesome!’ We, I guess…have similar interests.
DJ: Does your live show impact how you write music, or can the live show and your music exist separately?
Julie: You mean like recordings? And then live?
DJ: Yeah.
Julie: We’ve recorded some songs, and it took us a long time to be happy with them, and now we’re…almost completely happy with them, but I think— for me anyway, with the live, there’s definitely something that’s very hard to translate or to have that live experience, I guess, on a…on some sort of listening, like, tape or whatever. I mean, actually putting our songs out on tape cassettes helps in a way, I think, because you do have weird…because live, it’s not always the same. When you have a CD or digital copy or something like that, it’s like there’s never really any…it’s too clean or something, like, I don’t really know how exactly to describe it. I’m trying to think if there’s something I’ve listened to and then I’ve seen them live and it’s way awesomer or something…more…it’s like communication, you know, too. You can’t communicate if your body’s not there, or something. Completely. The essence is missing, maybe. I don’t know.
Andrew: I guess both are legit to me. I can listen to it or perform it, but I do like performing, and that’s why we still do it. It’s because it’s so much fun, and we like playing really loud, and we like making people dance and we like seeing people have a really good time, and sometimes we can accomplish that. Even if it’s only a few people, most people seem to really respond in a real fun way to what we do. And that’s the only reason we approach it anyway, to have fun and have a sense of freedom in life, because so many things are so— there’s so many obstacles to just being able to purely express oneself today without either falling into, like, some type of category or stereotype or something, and again, it’s not that we couldn’t be categorized. Categorize us away. It’s just that for us it’s more of a liberation, final freedom thing, and that’s the reason we still do it. So, live is immediate and you get to communicate and connect with people.
Julie: And that’s why we’re usually set up on the floor, too, because we…when you’re on a stage— There’s projects where I’ll be on the stage, but this project is totally different, right? And with him, there’s something really magical about playing with him that I feel when we’re performing, when we have people dancing and they’re with us, you know? And I can go with them, or you can just be part of it, or people can be part of what you’re doing, and come and, you know, dance real close. So yeah, that’s this project.
Andrew: I think a lot of the shows we came out of seeing, like, just in the past six or seven years, right? There was a time when all of us that make music together were connected to shows where it was always like that. It was always very immediate, it was usually in somebody’s house, for free, and for all the right reasons, which was just to hear music, experience art from people all over the country, sometimes all over the world, and just having that immediacy, on the floor, being able to connect with the artist. There was no barrier. I can appreciate the stage whenever there’s…when there is a theatrical component to it, and maybe that separation between audience and performer seems like it fits the context, but just in general what I think we’re really about is more like feeling and dancing and being able to be that close to people that we’re playing with. I see them less as spectators and more just as a part of the experience.
DJ: Do you think that connection you felt a few years ago is not around anymore? Do you think that ‘community spirit’ has disappeared from the local music landscape?
Andrew: Well, I think it’s mutated, but I think it’s definitely noticeable in there being less shows. House shows, I should say, or in non-conventional spaces where there’s not a business context set up around, where it really is just about the nurturing of expression. I mean, everything changes though. There’s always cycles, and I don’t really know what’s going on with anything at all anymore. I mean, even just anything in general. I don’t even know. I’m kind of losing—
Julie: Getting older.
Andrew: Time and like, ability to think about anything, because it’s just too much to think about. So, I just like cooking and making music and being with my friends and my girlfriend and my cat. Just trying to live life. Yeah. I think you’re kind of at the same place too, right?
Julie: Yeah.
Andrew: It’s all a very low key affair.
Julie: Yeah, you know, you get older.
Andrew: But Halloween is coming. Awesome.
Julie: Halloween is coming up!

Andrew: We’re going to release some tapes. We want to release some videos. That’s the next thing, to make videos for all of the songs. We’re always collage-ing, like, oftentimes we’ll put out things where there’s only two or three copies or something like that, but I think we’d like to have maybe a little more availability of some of those things, and definitely make videos and play—
Julie: And go on a worldwide tour…funded by…someone.
Andrew: Virgin.
Julie: Virgin?
Andrew: Airlines.
Julie: Virgin Airlines. Yeah. We’re the next venture for…what’s his name? Branson?
Andrew: Branson. Well, they kind of want that band One Direction to kind of work with us a little bit and see what we can do with that.
Julie: No! But yeah.
Andrew: Make videos, definitely try to write some new material.
Julie: Yeah, there is some new material that we’re…
Andrew: There’s a new idea.
Julie: Yeah. It’ll be about maybe two or three years before that happens. We take things very slow.
Andrew: We do. It’s very, very slow, slow. But that’s fine. We have an idea of what new kind of sounds and things we want to do, we just…we’re still kind of experimenting and exploring. But, hopefully, just have more fun.

Tres Warren: I just wanted to kinda write some more songs, getting more…into some kind of…songier stuff. Listening to some more kind of pop stuff, after having been listening to more kind of like…free or kind of ‘out’ music for the past couple years. I still like that stuff, too, but it was just…seemed like, you know, it would be fun to write some songs.
DJ: Simple enough. Do you think you’ll continue in that direction in the future?
Tres: Yeah, I think we haven’t…I don’t think we’ve figured it all out yet.

Tres: I don’t know if it’s necessarily just that time period, because I like a lot of music from right now, too, but…I don’t know. What do you think?
Elizabeth Hart: It’s kind of a hard question.
Tres: Yeah. Not sure…
Elizabeth: I don’t know if we’ve ever specifically, you know, tried to pull from that time period, or whatever, or if it just comes out sounding influenced by that time…
DJ: Well, what does inspire your music?
Tres: Just playing music, you know? Working on music and writing songs, jamming…
Elizabeth: Right, yeah. Other people’s music…playing together.
Tres: Just playin’.
DJ: OK.
Tres: And listening to music.
Elizabeth: And listening, yeah.
Tres: Do you play music?
DJ: I do, yeah.
Tres: Oh, cool.

Elizabeth: There’s so many bands and so much going on in New York, so, I don’t know how it affects, but it does always sort of feel like the energy keeps you sort of on your toes, maybe, a little bit, or wanting to work on it all of the time, I guess.
Tres: Yeah, I don’t know. I’m not sure.
Elizabeth: But, I don’t know, we’ve been there for a while, so…
Tres: There’s a lot of music there just to take in. There’s a lot of music in New York, and then there’s obviously everybody comes through New York, so…I don’t know how it affects things.
DJ: How do you get to and from shows in New York City?
Tres: You’ve got to call a car service. It’s a drag, man.
Elizabeth: It’s a nightmare.
Tres: That’s the downside of it. And now we’ve got five people, so sometimes it’s like two car services.
Elizabeth: We’ve just got to figure out…we’ve got to streamline.
Tres: Or, you know, we might have to buy a van. Insurance in New York, man, it’s no joke.
Elizabeth: Insurance in New York, and also just like, parking, you know, when you’re not using the van…moving it every day for street cleaning or whatever.

Alex Atchley: Well…I personally don’t have anything specific in mind, except to continue writing songs, and making more records and playing more shows. And maybe, at some point, we’ll get out on the road…
Donovan Ford: We’ll put out that album…
Alex: Yeah. We’re going to finish our first full-length shortly…as in today…
Donovan: We’ve got plans to maybe write an EP. Tentatively titled.
Alex: Yeah. Tentatively titled. So, write now, we’re finishing the album, which is called Why Are All The Kids Crying? And then, at some point, we’re going to throw five songs together and call it The Cradle of Filth VHS EP, pending any legal action.
DJ: How does your new album differ from Post-Punk Depression?
Alex: Performance-wise, it’s a lot tighter. Umm…It’s going to have more songs?
Donovan: It sounds nice.
Alex: Yeah. Our EP sounds nice, too!
Donovan: It’s a lot sparser, though, and it really— When I go back and listen to it, it really does sound like we were a band for about a week beforehand, and that the recording took about three hours. Like, I hear— and it’s great for what it is, but this one has a whole lot more work involved in it.
Alex: We started recording it this time last year, but we still have only put like a week’s worth of work into it.
Donovan: That’s because you just jet-set in, teach us two songs and then bail.
Alex: ‘Hey, I’m in town! Let’s record!’ and you’re like, ‘Oh, what? No..’

Alex: I don’t know. I don’t really have anything in mind for the listener. Just…for them to enjoy it, I guess.
DJ: You’re self-described as ‘dad rock,’ right?
Alex: Only in passing, in jokes…only in jokes. Only in the land of the joke do I call it ‘dad rock.’
Donovan: We all dress nice…
Alex: Yes, we do dress nice.
Donovan: …and we have children.
Alex: We have many children with our many wives.
DJ: So, you wouldn’t want ‘dad rock’ to be the impression that they get?
Alex: I don’t care if that is someone’s…if someone actually listened to it, and they have some kind of negative reaction—
Donovan: Or a positive reaction. They might really like ‘dad rock.’
Ryan Schefsky: If the cap fits, let them wear it.
Donovan: …What?

Alex: We’ll play it two times.
Donovan: We would just skip ‘Legs,’ start with ‘Fuck Peter Hook,’ and then play it again at the very end.
DJ: What is the story behind that song?
Alex: OK. Me and my friend Jason Lacker, who was in the band the Hack and Slashers with me…in about 2009, we went to the goth club, the local goth club known as The Church, where Peter Hook, member of Joy Division and New Order was set to do a DJ set. The cover was like 6 bucks, so we decided to go down there and check it out, and he was absolutely the worst DJ I’ve ever seen in my life. Basically…he used CD turntables, like CD-based turntables, and he had stuff that was pre-mixed, like songs that already went into other songs, so he didn’t have to go through the trouble of doing it live, and he would put those in, and he would stand in the DJ booth and sign records most of the time while songs transitioned into other things, and most of what he played were really, really, really, really bad remixes of Joy Division and New Order songs, and shit like The Killers remixes that he did. He was really pompous about doing nothing, like, he’s just riding the coattails of his former bands—
Donovan: Man! So—
Alex: So, fuck him. That’s pretty much it. Also, in interviews, he’s kind of a dick, and they kicked him out of New Order anyway, so whatever. I still really like his bass playing, though.
Donovan: All that being said…
Alex: All that being said, he’s a good bass player. However, he needs to move on.
DJ: All right.
Alex: Yeah. I remember a particularly bad trance-esque remix of the song “Atmosphere,” which is one of the most powerful and most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard in my life. Just the original version. But this version was like [mimics loud drums] and had little arpeggios going ‘doodlydoodlydoodly,’ and it was the most ghastly and unholy thing I had ever heard in my life. I’m not precious about most bands. I don’t think there are any holy or sacred bands, but that was…that made me just fucking sick to my stomach. It was really bad.
DJ: Bad enough to write a song about it.
Alex: Enough to write a very short song about, which I wrote completely in my head while waiting for jury duty. I was sitting in the Ft. Worth courthouse and I was so bored, I started thinking of little riffs and stringing them together in my head. I had my little notebook with me, and I wrote down some lyrics, and then later, when I got home, I recorded it all in like an hour.
DJ: Do you think that putting yourself in that negative mindset affected your thoughts about the case?
Alex: Of the what?
DJ: Of the case that you were serving on the jury for.
Alex: I didn’t get called in. It was a drug case, and I didn’t want to be there anyway, so basically, when they were asking me questions, I told them how much I love drugs, and in the questionnaire I was basically like ‘Fuck the Police! Get high everyday!’ I didn’t have to go in.
DJ: OK, the interview is over.
Alex: Could you please leave in ‘OK, the interview is over?’

Ceschi Ramos: My songwriting process is pretty slow. I write a lot of little pieces, and sort of piece together a collage of ideas that I like and that are kind of cohesive, and then try to make it all work. So, I don’t really have a specific thing that goes through my mind. It’s a lot of feelings. My last record was sort of a concept record. It was called The One Man Band Broke Up, and so, I did have this sort of underlying concept behind everything, even though some of the songs were written before I came up with the concept, I sort of molded stuff to work around what I was trying to say.

Ceschi: It’s been harder and harder to find time to record these days. Well, I run…luckily, I have a really awesome label manager and a great guy who’s doing artist accounting for us, and someone who’s running the website. So, we’ve gotten bigger as far as the amount of help over the years. At one point, it was just me, and I was trying to do music…really slowly. Yeah, time is scarce.
DJ: It’s all about delegation.
Ceschi: Right. It’s all about organizing properly and giving yourself some time. I usually record from, you know, 11 PM to 3 in the morning or something, if I do have time. My days are pretty much dedicated to the label, or touring. I tour a lot, too, so…
DJ: Which is your favorite artist on the label?
Ceschi: On the label? Ah man, that’s such a bad question to ask! I love them. I love all of these artists. I mean, that’s why I asked them to be on the label. Um, they all have different qualities. I really can’t say I have a favorite one.
DJ: What do you look for when you’re thinking about new artists for the label?
Ceschi: Well, obviously, I have to really like what they’re doing musically, but I’m also really interested in artists who work for themselves a lot and are willing to grind, get on the road and push themselves, because, especially nowadays, a label can’t save you. It can’t save your career. Some people think that it’s just like, ‘Oh, I’m on this label now. I’m all set.’ It’s just not like that. I’m the same way. I’m constantly touring and, you know, even if I sell like two copies a week, that’s something. I want that to happen. I don’t want it to come to a standstill with my music, ever. I try to work with like-minded artists.

Ceschi: It’s kind of a long story, but, my cousin…I record at my cousin’s studio space…that a reality TV show built for him. So…
DJ: A reality TV show?
Ceschi: Yeah. My cousin, he’s on a lot of reality TV shows. Like, he’s been on a bunch of talk show and everything. It’s just kind of like this…He’s kind of on the list or something of actors that they choose to be on reality TV. It’s really a lot less real than you’d expect. So, he’s been on Discovery Channel Oddities. He’s been on Rachael Ray, The Tyra Banks Show, he’s been on dating shows, and this one show called Doorknockers on the DIY Network. He applied for them to come to his house— It’s actually our friend Eric’s house. They had sort of a messed-up garage, and this show rebuilt it into a studio space. It’s been soundproofed, you know, rooms inside of rooms. It looks really nice. That’s where I’ve moved all my recording equipment. It’s pretty cool, and it’s five minutes from my house, too.