Over the past decade, Oakland, Calif. native The Grouch has proven to be the embodiment of the independent musician. Alongside his crew the Living Legends, Grouch built an underground empire from the ground up, building a reputation by pounding the pavement with dope product, selling his music to fans hand-to-hand. He always made himself visible and bridged the often-murky area between supplier and consumer. Hustle aside, it was his music that resonated with fans. Instead of a fast food filling, Grouch based his lyrics in reality—honest and candid, intelligent and insightful. Through 10 solo albums, five group collaborations and more than a handful of Living Legends projects, Grouch has never led fans astray. An inspiration for anyone looking to make it happen by doing it their way, his career has shown that hard work and dedication go a long way.

In support of How the Grouch Stole Christmas, his aptly titled 11-city West Coast tour, the man whose fuzzy 4-track songs I once put on a Maxell mixtape spoke from his newly settled island paradise on topics ranging from modern-day subsistence living to Dr. Seuss—and of course, music.

I understand you’re out in Hawaii at the moment. Is that for work or pleasure?
Nah, I’m living out here doing the family life, growing vegetables and chillin’. Working of course, every day, all day, grinding over the Internet and over the telephone. It’s not a permanent thing, I don’t think, but we like it out here a lot so we wanted to give it a trial period. We were supposed to stay six months, but at the end of the six months we were like, we got to go for another six months. We’re taking it as it comes.

You said growing vegetables, are you really on some subsistence level shit out there or what?
Nah, we’re just living. We’re staying at a house that get its water from the rain and has solar power, and we have a good vegetable garden going. We’re just doing natural family life: kicking it, and jumping in the ocean and drinking coconuts.

That sounds amazing.
Yeah, it’s been a real good experience. It’s a good change, and we did it at a good time. It’s still the United States, but it feels a little bit detached out here. There is less advertising, less TVs around.

Your latest tour, How the Grouch Stole Christmas, is going to take you away from your paradise for a couple days. Off the top, it was nice to see fellow Living Legend Eligh’s name right there with yours.
Yeah, it worked out good because me and Eligh have an album coming out March or April of next year. People always ask when the next G&E album is coming out. Me and Eligh are good friends so when we do shows, it’s always fun, and people love to see the combination of us two. We’re both on the same page, as far as us both doing sober shows and all that, and we’re both at a time in our careers where we are taking everything very seriously and trying to step our games up.

I was going to say, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard mention of G&E as a group. What can you say about the album so far?
We’ve got a strong single with Gift of Gab, so you’ll hear that. But as far as everyone else, we have Mistah Fab on there, Sage Francis and Slug on a couple different songs. We’ve got a song produced by Flying Lotus, a joint produced by Amp Live of Zion I. It’s going to be a good release. I’m really proud of the music so far.

The Bayliens are also scheduled to play, but there is one name that I didn’t recognize: Paul Dateh.
Yeah, he’s dope. He’s from L.A. and played violin on my last album; he’s also a vocalist too. If you Google him, there are some pretty amazing videos of his violin skills, and how he combines them with hip-hop. He’s just coming up and making a name for himself. When you watch the set though, you’re like damn that was dope. Every time I have him open up for me, he gets a really good response. The Bayliens, they’ve been working real hard and I like the way they do their stuff, so it all works together.

Alright, last one to wrap it all up. Looking at Dr. Seuss as a writer, in terms of his story telling, his structure, his rhymes, how would you rate him in MC terms?
Dr. Seuss is a dope poet, and would make a dope MC. I think if he wanted to rap, he could probably have some tight raps. I don’t know how much of a coincidence it is that I’m using one of his themes, but I’ve had a lot of people tell me that my rhyme style reminds them of Dr. Seuss. I don’t know if that’s a diss or not [laughs]. It wasn’t like, “You have the most Simple Simon rhymes in rap,” but I have been told that they can see a resemblance, and I take that as a compliment. I like the dude’s style. He’s not the most complex, but he’s successful for a reason. The way he put his books out there, and the content in them with the pictures and the whole package, I really respect the dude.

Simple or not, at the end of the day he’s saying something of substance, which can always be said of your music.
Exactly.

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Clicking through pictures on The Cobrasnake, Los Angelean photographer Mark Hunter’s Web site that documents the revelry of his friends and acquaintances, it would seem that, even though much of the world is mired in an economic crunch, excess is still alive and well. At a cursory glance, it would seem that Hunter’s world is full of designer clothes, designer people and designer drugs. And if Hunter is the man who catalogs the flamboyant sights of the Los Angeles (and worldwide) party scene, then it’s DJ Steve Aoki who provides the sounds.

I’d read in an interview that you were hoping to tour less in the future.
Exactly. I’ve just opened a restaurant in L.A. I bought a house here. I’m producing a lot more tracks. All my businesses are running out of L.A. I just love being in L.A. And I just love doing nothing sometimes.

You do have a lot of different ventures. When you go on the road, do you think they suffer without your attention?
You know, Dim Mak records, we’ve been doing that for 12 years. This year, I’ve been, like, gone a lot, right? I’ve been gone 25 dates every month, and the label has just grown exponentially even while I’ve been gone. I just have the right team. I feel like I have the right people around me to run all the different things for me. The clothing line is growing fast and doing really well. I have deadlines that I work with for all the different companies I design—you know, I develop lines for three or four different companies—so I have my own deadlines that I have to handle with these different companies, which is a pain in the ass because everyone has their own seasonal deadlines. The fashion side of things keeps me really fluidly working. I’m constantly working on different stuff. The production, I’ll be in the studio for 12 hours straight and pumping out remixes. I don’t do it every day; I just do it when it needs to get done. There are certain things that take up a bulk of my time, and some things that are, like, constant.

You’ve played some exotic locations; and in December, you’ll be playing The Park Lounge in Sacramento. You’ve been here before. What are your impressions of Sacramento?
I DJ’d at The Park, so it wasn’t a good representation of the nightlife culture there. I’m going back there to play, but this time, I’m not going to play any fucking hip-hop. I’m going to play my dance set and see what people think about that.

Do you feel out the crowd when it comes to what you’re going to play?
I want to be democratic. I don’t want to be a complete snob. I want people to have a good time. It’s not just about educating people about new songs, it’s about having fun, having a fun dance party, you know? You can’t force-feed people music. A good DJ knows how to present music in the right way.

Do you consider yourself a good DJ? Is that something that matters to you?
You mean technically?

Yeah, technically.
Yeah, I mean, it’s just like the A-plus student, the guy who has everything. He’s the Tony Hawk of DJing—he’s technically great, he’s got great song selection, he plays new music, he’s able to educate people, he’s able to be really democratic with the crowd, he’s able to please everyone—all that shit matters. The skills aren’t the only factor. If you asked me the question, “What’s more important: skill or taste?” I’d tell you taste. If a guy’s really skillful, but his tracks are just horrid, I don’t care to listen to his skill. Yngwie Malmsteem can play guitar solos for fucking 30 minutes, but I’m not going to dance to it. I really don’t care about hearing Steve Vai playing his guitar solo, or Eddie Van Halen playing his guitar solo.

Here’s the difference between Steve Vai and Eddie Van Halen: Eddie Van Halen is like, “Fuck it; I’m going to be in a rock band and write songs like ‘Panama’ and ‘Jump’ and fucking huge rock ballads that everyone knows, and everyone’s going to be dancing and having a good time, while I just kill it on the solos.” And then there’s Steve Vai who’s like, “Fuck that shit. I’m just going to be super prog and write solos all day long, and I’m only going to have a core base of like metal-head, techie, fucking dudes—and no girls.” I’m all about Eddie Van Halen.

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Singer/songwriter Amanda Palmer sits in the City Bakery Café in Asheville, N.C, hoping “many coffee drinks” will energize her after a tough day. She and the rest of her crew are planning the night’s on-stage festivities. “I was thinking about canceling our entire set and telling all the actors to take the night off so that I could play every breakup song I’d ever written,” she says with a laugh, unwilling to elaborate on what transpired the day before.

Folds’ influence is apparent. Who Killed Amanda Palmer has a grand pop sound, almost on the level of a Broadway musical, which wouldn‘t be a stretch considering Palmer‘s theater background. However, she says the album doesn‘t have an overall theme, at least not intentionally. “You could look at my entire life as a musical,” Palmer jokes. In the following interview, Palmer sheds more light on her relationship with her fans and how she believes her collaboration with Ben Folds will affect her future releases.

It certainly seems like serendipity that you and Ben Folds met and got working together. When he originally e-mailed you, what was your reaction?
I just felt incredibly flattered. When another musician—especially one as talented as Ben Folds—writes you a fan letter, you get to have one of those wonderful moments in your life when you stop and go, “OK, I’ve done something right.” Compliments like that coming from other songwriters are just worth their weight in gold. It’s one thing when it comes from your mom, or your fans, but it’s another thing when it comes from your peers.

Is it validating?
I think my whole career and my whole journey with Brian and the band, and now this, has just been one constant baby-step-by-baby-step staircase into the vague idea of validation. We‘re one of those bands that never, quote-unquote, made it big overnight. We toured constantly, we worked from the ground up, and we never had one major break. We just kept gathering fans, door to door, basically. Yesterday, I just wrote a long letter to our fans, because we‘d been having some mail-order problems; stuff in the industry is really screwed up, and it had just been a while since I‘d reached out to them. You know, watching what‘s going on in the music industry, and what‘s going on with other bands, and CD sales tanking, and ticket sales plummeting because of the economy, I have never felt more lucky and grateful to have been in this kind of band, because we have the kind of fan base that is impervious to flux. Because they‘re real. Now that I‘ve been doing this for enough years, I‘ve watched a couple of bands come and go, and there‘s always that little twinge of jealousy, like, this band comes along, and they have a lot of energy and all of a sudden, they‘re on MTV and in Rolling Stone. But then they disappear two years later, and you‘re like, “Where are their fans?” And then you realize that their fan base is fickle. So, even though Brian and I have never reached those huge, mainstream, stratospheric heights, we have something that’s so strong, I feel like I wouldn’t trade it for the world. That’s the most validating thing—that what we’ve got is solid, and it won’t go away. 


You mentioned Ben Folds’ influence on the album’s sound, but I’d read that he was also an influence on the song selection. Your bio states that you’d tried to veto the inclusion of “Runs in the Family,” but he convinced you to put it on the record. Why didn’t you want to include that song at first?
I just felt that it was too immature. I wrote it when I was 22 or 23, and it just felt like too representative of young Amanda, and I wanted this record to be shiny new mature Amanda. That one was definitely, “Oh no…” It was one of those teenage, angst-y songs. But Ben convinced me that it wouldn’t come across so much that way. I think he was right. I made a few tweaks to it, and his production on it blew my mind. I don’t regret that at all.

Was it embarrassing for you to revisit those old feelings?
Yes and no. Sure, it‘s always a little weird to delve back into old stuff, but the old stuff that‘s truly embarrassing, I don‘t even air out. It‘s in an air-tight box—deep, deep under my bed. The stuff that sort of still kicks around—there’s stuff that I wrote when I was 18 or 19 that I still think about, and I’m like, “There might be something in there. I might drag it out.” There’s a quality of—I don’t know what you’d call it—like an homage you pay to your younger self. All emotions are valid. The emotions you had at 17 are no less real than the ones you’re having at 32. You’re just approaching them from a different place. There‘s something about digging up that old stuff that can sometimes be kind of invigorating, because you‘ve gotten over it, and you‘ve worked through it, and you‘ve come to terms with it, maybe, but that doesn‘t mean you can‘t access it.

I think that‘s a really key ingredient in being a songwriter or a performer, period, is that you need to be able to access. When you‘re performing, you need to be able to access everything. You need to be able to access—over the course of a night, if you’re playing 15 different songs that came from 15 different places, if you can’t genuinely access that stuff and you’re just going through the motions, then you’re ripping off your audience. It’s sort of the same way when you’re selecting songs. How far are you willing to let yourself go in a certain direction; how much old stuff are you willing to dredge up; how honest are you willing to be about how you are now compared to how you used to be? They’re all interesting questions. I definitely feel that I did a lot of delving on this record, and for my next record, I‘d really love to break new ground and start from scratch, because I‘ve never done that before. All the records that I‘ve made have all sort of been greatest hits collections [laughs], and I‘d really love to sit down and just say, “OK, right now, what’s really going on in there,” and make a quick and dirty kind of record.

What do you think you‘ll be able to take from this project that you‘ll apply to future Dresden Doll releases?
One thing for sure is that I was really able to give up a lot of control in the making of this record; and ironically, I‘ve never had more control, simultaneously. I feel like I got a really extended education about decision-making, from the really minute stuff to the big-picture stuff. Everything I did on the solo record had extra helpings of perspective on the Dresden Dolls and my relationship with Brian. I think all of our projects away from each other do. Any time you work so closely with someone for eight years, and then you start wandering off and doing other projects, you can‘t help but hold that mirror up to that relationship. The pros and cons of my relationship with Brian have never been more stark. If nothing else, I‘m really glad to get that perspective. I think we needed it really badly, because we were just up in each other‘s faces nonstop for years, and it‘s really hard to fix and appreciate and cherish what you‘ve got until you can step back and see it for what it is. I know, deeply, that my musical connection with Brian is a one-time deal. Something like that isn‘t necessarily going to come around again.

Does working on the solo project energize you to go back and work with Brian again?
It certainly made me wiser in regards to any collaboration. The more you work with people, the more you get what it‘s like to work with people. It doesn‘t matter who they are. My whole life recently has been a really strong indicator that talking less and listening more is always good, and not making snap decisions is always good. It‘s nice. I feel like I‘m mellowing into my forays into music making. No decisions are life-and-death any more. I think once you‘ve made three records you also feel like you have the latitude to do that…Once you‘ve made your mark and said what you‘ve wanted to say, you can get less precious about your style. I‘m excited about that.

Post from: Submerge Magazine

With numerous critically acclaimed albums already under their belts, Mukilteo, Wash. progressive rock trio The Fall of Troy are gearing up for their next release on Nov. 28. Phantom on the Horizon is a 37-minute-long collection of work divided into five chapters. Previously known to fans as Ghostship EP or Ghostship Demos, this album is a new take on old material.

Submerge recently caught up with Erak as he prepped for the tour from his home and talked about everything from the concept behind Phantom…, to message board trolls and his love for certain Sacramento bands.

How do you guys prepare yourselves for a tour like this?
Our bass player gets back in town from San Diego today and we’re going to start practicing. This tour is a lot different from the other tours we normally do, because the other tours we normally do are a mix of songs that span three or four records’ worth of material and on this one we’re going to be playing the new record front to back.

Tell me about the story behind Phantom on the Horizon.
It’s a fantasy story that has a lot of parallels; it’s very open to interpretation, though. I’ve been working on it for the last four-and-a-half years, as long as we’ve been working on the songs. It’s about a sailor that is on a ship with a crew of guys and they encounter a ship from another dimension, and he kind of gets trapped on that ship and encounters a lot of things in all these other dimensions that he passes through. I’m thinking about writing the whole short story out like maybe in a couple months and maybe try to put that out in one way or another.

How did an idea like that come about? Are you guys into comic books or sci-fi or what?
Our drummer is a sci-fi nerd, but I’m just a writer, you know? I play music and I write songs, but I used to write a lot of short stories and poetry and stuff like that. I guess it just kind of came from the love of writing and art; you know what I mean?

Yeah, it makes perfect sense for you at this point in your career to put the two together: the story and the music finally together to create a “concept record.”
Right. It’s also not your run-of-the-mill concept record, either. It’s very open to interpretation and you can kind of take whatever you want from it, and that’s kind of the way I like things. I don’t think anything with music should be too black and white; there should be some color in there. That’s what art is; it’s what it is to you. It shouldn’t be just straight up like, “This is what it is, and this is how it is!”

Are there any new tracks included that weren’t on Ghostship EP?
Well, in between every song there is a segue that we actually took from a long session of improv that we just rolled tape on. Everything totally flows together. There has never really been a good recording of “Part II” and there’s never been a recording of “Part III.” It’s just very mature, and the songs are in their entirety now as opposed to being demos of them.

I read some message boards online where kids were getting kind of pissed at you guys and saying things like, “They shouldn’t re-record those songs, they will fuck them up!” How would you respond to them?
Um, “Fuck you!” [Laughs] Quite honestly, fuck them, and they don’t know what they’re talking about because those demos were never even made to be heavily in syndication in any way, shape or form. They were demos we did when I was 19 years old that were supposed to just be for us and they got out. I mean, this record crushes those demos.

If you’re going to sit on the Internet and bash anything, go outside or go read a book or go to a concert or listen to a record. Do something other than sitting on a message board or Myspace all day.

I guess they’ll find out, won’t they? There’s always going to be haters, man. The haters are going to hate.

You’ve toured with two of Sacramento’s more notable acts, Tera Melos and Deftones, on different occasions. What’s your take on Sac? Have you spent a lot of time here?
Oh yeah! The whole Northern California area we are pretty familiar with and have a lot of friends. There is a lot of good music going on in Sacramento. You know, Hella and stuff like that; there is a ton of good shit. Yeah, I love the Deftones, and I love Tera Melos.

Post from: Submerge Magazine

If Early States ought to have been intimidated by the traditionally aggressive cauldron of hardcore and metal bands bubbling out of the greater Sacramento area, they seem not to have noticed. In fact, they seem downright indifferent to the fabled demographic of their immediate proximity; a place where bands like Tera Melos shattered the glass ceilings of post-punk with dizzying mathematical permutations and broken instruments; a place where spatial metal heavyweights Deftones and Far ignited the tinder of disenfranchised Central Valley denizens and went knock, knock, knockin’ on Billboard’s door; a place where the sheer strip-mallian essence floats so pungently in the humid troposphere, you’re damn near required to bleed Orange Julius should you be so unfortunate as to be shanked in the citywide food court. It’s this kind of focused apathy that seems to be setting the band apart from its peers in the local music scene, and it’s definitely getting it noticed outside of it as well.

Early States is fronted by 18-year-old Zack Gray. His affluence in songwriting has yielded the band (also including Shaun O’Brien, 20, on guitar and keyboard; Brandon Lee, 22, on drums; with recent additions Tom Hatch, 18, on bass; and Nick Silva, 18, on lead guitar) a fluffy bed of uber-pop melodicism and expansive indie-rock pomp.

“We weren’t apprehensive,” says Gray with regard to the divisiveness of the band’s sound. “If anything we looked forward to introducing people to something new. We want to be one of the bands that takes [the scene] in a new direction.”

While the band boasts an average age of 19, their focus remains steadfastly on the progression of their still fledgling career. Having just finished recording their debut EP Powerlines, Early States is forging ahead with not only their CD release show at Club Retro, but also with the spoils of their headway with major Los Angeles-based music licensing firm Immediate Music. The band was recently signed a licensing contract with the company, who is responsible for the composing and licensing of music cues and pieces for television and in the promotional campaigns of 70 to 80 percent of the top 50 highest-grossing films seeping out of Hollywood’s glistening underbelly, including the entire Harry Potter series, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and even ­Spider-man. Not a bad spot to be for a band that only formed about a year ago.

“Being the first band to sign with Immediate Music hasn’t changed our direction. It has only made us more driven and ambitious,” notes Gray. “We’re honored that a company as prestigious as I.M. wants to work with us. It’s definitely some great validation.”

The band is planning on shopping their music to proper record labels come January 2009, and figures to utilize the time in the interim to “tighten up any loose screws” and to focus on the release of their EP.

Powerlines was officially release at the Nov. 21 CD release show, but the album hit Purevolume a week prior for free (with the band on the front page), and has made its way on over to music Mecca iTunes, then Amazon, then to basically wherever music is sold on the wild wild Web. Additionally, the band has acquired an endorsement from Dickies clothing.

“Our band is our number one priority and we look forward to being able to give it our full, undivided attention,” explains Gray. And the drive with which he’s espoused his songwriting couldn’t cut closer to the quick of the proverbial angst-loaded post-grad.

Powerlines ushers in atmospheric nodes in all the right places, begging here and there for a unique thread to tether, but still maintains an unmistakable knack for hook-y transitions and guitar-smothered verve. Gray’s adolescent renderings of universal themes such as “love and conflict, to wanting to get away, to finding happiness in yourself instead of looking for it in other people,” while prudent, don’t belie the vastness of his visionary palate.

“Although those are the main themes that can be found on Powerlines, I really enjoy listening to people’s interpretations of what they think the songs are about and how they relate them to their own life,” says Gray.

Early States are hoping to tour in Spring 2009, but will be working on new material and playing local and regional venues to begin the arduous task of getting their name plastered in the fertile minds of show goers; more importantly, the quintet has already eschewed the reticence of the young band syndrome, and expects nothing but great things in the future.

“We believe that we’re a very hard working band, especially for our age,” says Gray. “We think we share the same focus as the bands we look up to and aspire to be like.”

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Jaguar Love is something like a post-rock supergroup, if such a thing were to exist. Two parts The Blood Brothers and one part Pretty Girls Make Graves, Jaguar Love toes a difficult line between occupying the niche carved out by the sum of its parts, and breaking that mold to explore new territory.

Expectations aside, Take Me to the Sea, Jaguar Love’s debut full-length for Matador, certainly sounds like a fresh start. Though Whitney’s wiry falsetto is still in place, he’s now wailing in front of a more melodic, ear-friendly backdrop. As Whitney explained to Submerge in a recent interview, though hardcore fans of The Blood Brothers may scratch their heads at his and Votolato’s change of direction, the music of Jaguar Love is not only more personal, but may also hold more closely to Whitney’s natural aesthetic.

Over the years, after your last group, has your approach to your vocals changed at all. Has your preparation changed?
In hindsight, I feel like I was still writing for two singers when I wrote the songs on this record [Take Me to the Sea]. It’s a bit more challenging to pull off live than Blood Brothers was, just because of the sheer volume of singing. It’s different that way. It requires me to concentrate a little more on what I’m doing, but other than that it was the same deal.

Going from being in a band with two vocalists, does that affect you at all now that you’re in a band where you’re always front and center? You don’t really have anyone else to help bear the brunt of the workload anymore.
Yeah, it’s different. Being the only singer, I think also makes it easier for me to be myself on stage and not always be thinking about somebody else. It lends itself to letting my personality come out a little better.

Lyrically, did it make it easier for you to put forth what you wanted to express?
It was and it wasn’t. I think there’s always something to be said for having a partner. I wrote probably like 90 percent of the lyrics in Blood Brothers. I would write them and give them to Jordan [Blilie]—the other singer—and he’d proofread and bounce ideas off each other. In that sense it was harder, because I was on my own. But in another sense it was easier, because it allowed me to be a little more personal and a little more sincere with what I’m writing about because I’m not sharing it with someone who may not share the experiences I might be writing about.

Would you say this is your most personal record, lyrically?
Yeah, I would say that. I wouldn’t say that it’s even as personal as where most pop records are, but for me, coming from the perspective of someone who never really wrote anything personal, it’s a lot more personal.

You just said pop record, and from what I’ve heard of Blood Brothers, Jaguar Love is definitely more melodic. Was that J Clark’s influence, or was that something that you and Cody were looking to explore?
It was all those things. The thing about our band before this one—the Blood Brothers—were that we were a bunch of people playing in a hardcore band who didn’t like hardcore music. What we would listen to—or at least what I would listen to—were records by Elton John and David Bowie and The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and newer stuff like New Order, The Smiths and The Cure—stuff like that. But it always had to come back to us being a hardcore band, because that was the precedent that was set, sort of. When we started this band, we wiped the slate clean and had a sort of anything goes attitude to songwriting. I think the pop element started to show through a little more just because we didn’t have this albatross of hardcore weighing us down.

You mentioned an “anything goes” approach to songwriting, and one song on the album that stuck out to me was “Georgia,” which seemed to me to have a heavy soul influence. What inspired that song? Was it something you were listening to at the time?
I wrote the chords for that song in 2006. It was a song I’d had in my back pocket for a really long time. I didn’t want to use it as a Blood Brothers song because I thought it would be compromised.

Lyrically, it was inspired by a lot of things. Part of it was inspired by this girl who came to a Blood Brothers show who had cancer. She’d skipped a chemotherapy session to come to our show, and she was really far-gone. It was really powerful to see the joy that it brought her to see us and thinking about the fact that she would probably not live long enough to see us again. I never really write about one subject, but there are a few lines in there about that.

I’m sure you guys like to challenge yourselves songwriting-wise, but do you also like to challenge your listeners, to push what they’re able to accept?
Yes, but that’s definitely not at the top of my list when I’m writing a song. I think the most important thing for me when writing a song is having it transport me and move me to somewhere that’s a little more fantastic than the mundanity of everyday life. My hope is that people who listen to our music will have that transformative experience. Whether or not it challenges them—I feel like when you go down that road, you end up writing a bunch of math-y guitar lines and odd time signatures, which is useful at some point, but for this record, I just really wanted to write good songs. I wanted it to be a solid, crazy-sounding pop record. I think people who were hardcore fans of the Blood Brothers, it is kind of a push, because it doesn’t have that unhinged quality that the Blood Brothers did.

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Long before Sarah Palin stepped into the national spotlight and gave the small town of Wasilla, Alaska a name, John Baldwin Gourley of Portugal. The Man called it home. “It’s such a sheltered place,” recalls the singer/guitarist/songwriter. “It’s so very much a part of the United States and so very different at the same time.”

Currently in the middle of a two-month-long headlining tour, Gourley graciously took some time to talk with Submerge about the tour, Censored Colors and the recent election.

Where are you at this exact second?
We’re in Chicago. I just went into a shop to get out of the cold. It’s really fucking cold.

You’re probably somewhat used to that being an Alaskan boy and all.
[Laughs] You know, the thing that’s so funny that I always try to explain to everybody that nobody seems to get is it’s so much different, it’s such a different cold. The lower 48 is kind of a wet cold, more than the Alaskan frozen north. Dry cold is so much easier to deal with.

How has the headlining tour been treating you so far?
It’s been going really well. Earl Greyhound and Wintersleep are both really, really great bands. It was really good that it ended up being that way. You never really know when you go on tour. I mean, how many bands have we listened to over the years that we thought were really great and then you go to a show and it’s like, “Well fuck, not good!”

Tell me about your latest release, Censored Colors. It’s different from anything you’ve done in the past. Did it turn out the way you intended it to?
I don’t think a single record we have done has ever turned out the way we expected it to. It’s a good thing. We go through everything making a pretty conscious effort to make a different record each time; that’s important to us. But yeah, it came out the way it was supposed to. It was a record for family, and it was about respect and community and just about life, you know?

And you released it through your own label, right? It must feel nice to be free of a record labels constrictions and own your rights to everything. Will you continue to self-release stuff?
I suppose so. It kind of depends where everything goes. We never like to set any goals or expectations [laughs], we’re just going to do what we’re going to do. We’ll always make records and hopefully do at least one a year as long as the music is there.

Do you think it’s important to put out music that frequently?
I suppose it is. When you’re in a band, that’s what you do. You can’t expect to get better and progress if you’re putting out a record every two years. You can write an album based on a week of your life. You don’t need that space and that time. It’s just what we do. With everything we do, we always want to work hard at it. We’re already planning on going into the studio this December and January to do a new record. Our goal has always been to just make music and keep it moving. Hopefully we’ll get two records out next year, I would love to do that.

I want to switch gears for a second. You’re an outspoken political person with strong views; tell me how you feel about the results of the election?
I’m so proud. I feel like thing’s could go so well. He’s [President-Elect Barack Obama] really just got to take this and run with it. There’s no looking back. He definitely does need to bring the country together somewhat by just proving himself, he’s just got to get out there and do it. He’s got to just say, “Fuck it” to everything that’s going on right now and take it all in. He’s got a lot of work, you know? You can’t expect it to just happen overnight. It was definitely a huge step for the world.

Agreed. To wrap things up on a lighter note, you guys are constantly touring all over the world but do you think Portugal. The Man will ever actually play in Portugal?
[Laughs] Oh man, I imagine at some point. For some reason we haven’t had the opportunity. We definitely got to find some time to do that.

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Crank up the volume and feast your ears on a musical smorgasbord that definitely requires a full concert hall. The native Sacramento band MC Rut combines the talents of singer and guitarist Zack Lopez with drummer and backup vocalist Sean Stockham. Lopez’s angsty lyrics explode on a canvas of poignant guitar riffs, for a full sound that is raw and edgy. MC Rut doesn’t tiptoe into their songs—they give it all they’ve got, musically and lyrically.

Submerge catches up with MC Rut in the interim before they hop a plane to London—an interview that appropriately takes place at the Streets of London bar.

Can you tell me a little about the projects you’re working on now—the new album and the upcoming tour?
Sean Stockham: We’re always playing and writing music whether it’s an album we’re writing for or not. We do what we do. We get together five or more days a week and play music for as many hours as we can. Right now we’re getting ready to go to London in November. Obviously we’re really excited about that

Have you guys ever been to London before?
SS: This is the first time. It’s definitely something we’ve dreamt about doing since we started playing music. At some point we had stopped dreaming about it, and it didn’t even seem realistic.
Zack Lopez: Now it’s reality.

When do you think the new album will be realized?
ZL: We don’t even know really what the new album is. We’ve never written a song for a specific project.
SS: Out of what we have now we could probably put together maybe four to seven projects.

Why did you make the decision to release EPs instead of a full album?
ZL: They are full albums essentially. We’re just scared of the word “album.” Once you commit to saying “album,” that’s your first album.
SS: It’s just like not committing to marriage… There’s something very scary about marriage and there’s something very scary about a full-length record.

So people have described your lyrics as being kind of aggressive. Did you write these songs during a dark period, or are your lyrics pretty consistent?
ZL: It wasn’t a dark period; it was just a normal life period. You don’t necessarily have to be depressed, you know? Most people aren’t happy with their lives as it is and I think that’s a big part of this band.

Your songs express a general dissatisfaction about middle class life. Would you say you have a fear of the 9-to-5 lifestyle?
SS: It’s different than like the fear of death, because none of us have actually experienced death… The 9-to-5 thing is something that’s always right there.
ZL: I feel like some people are down with what they do and that’s great. It’s all about being happy with where you’re at. When you come to the point where you’re struggling to be somewhere that you don’t even want to be in the first place, that’s when you’re bummed.

Do you think that’s an artist thing?
SS: I don’t want to say that. You can say that, but yeah, that’s probably exactly what it is.
ZL: We expect a lot from ourselves. And if we don’t get it, then we’re miserable, and we keep chasing it till we get it.

You guys have high expectations, then?
ZL: From the first time we played music, we expected everything… But at least we’re on the road to hopefully getting there. We’d rather be trying to get somewhere than never try and never be anywhere.

How do you think living in Sacramento affected your lyrics, or did it?
ZL: It definitely didn’t. It was more living in L.A., living on a failed dream that affected our lyrics.

In one of your songs, the song “I Don’t Really Know,” you write, “We’re never going anywhere, just circling around.” Do you still feel that way at times even today, even though it seems like your band is really taking off now?
SS: I think everyone feels like that, generally stated. For us in the band, its such an exciting time right now it would be really hard to not feel like shit was improving at least.
ZL: You’ve got to understand, five minutes of your life where you could feel so strongly about something you could write 10 songs, and you have to express what you felt at that point. It doesn’t necessarily express how you feel all the time…it represents who you are at that point. And we’re really good at writing songs about moments.

So if you wrote a song about right now would it have a more positive spin on it?
ZL: It would sound like 311. And we’d be bummed on it.

How has your music evolved between the last songs you released and the new songs you’re working on now?
ZL: The vibe is the same, but we feel like we’re better songwriters. If we don’t consistently keep writing better songs, we feel like we’re not doing our job. Every time we’re writing something, the only reason we ever move on something is because it’s better than what we’ve already done. If its not, it gets left behind, and that’s where it deserves to be.
SS: At the same time, if what we’re doing now doesn’t at least have something in common with what we’ve done before, then it’s not even us.

Post from: Submerge Magazine

In a manner of speaking, Tom Gabel has come full circle. Long before his Gainseville, Fla.-based punk band Against Me! gained wider notoriety with its latest album (and first major label release) New Wave, Gabel played solo under the same moniker. Now, the singer/songwriter stands ready to release his first true solo effort under his own name. Heart Burns, a seven-song EP, is slated for an Oct. 30 release on Sire Records. In the meantime, however, Gabel is on the road with Against Me! through the month of October, with solo dates to follow in November. Gabel recently shared with Submerge his thoughts on the upcoming election, his solo album and his search for a place to call home.

Where are you right now?
We’re in Atlanta, Ga.

So you’re not too far from home.
Not too far. We go to South Carolina tomorrow, and then down into Florida to play a couple of Florida shows, including a Gainesville show. So we’ll be floating around there; although, right now I don’t even have a home. I just have a storage unit in Gainesville.

On your blog you wrote that you were thinking of moving to Los Angeles.
I am thinking about that. It’s just so fucking expensive. Me and my wife have been looking for places in St. Petersburg, Fla. as well, and the amount of space you can get compared to the amount of space you’d get in L.A., it’s tough to justify that sacrifice. But then at the same time, there’s so much going on in L.A. Really for me, I’m just trying to figure out what my schedule is and what living situation will allow me to spend the most time at home.

Well, look at it this way, you’ll be out on the road, so that will give you a chance to see a lot of different places.
But that will just makes it more complicated. It’s easier when you only have a couple of options, but when you’re like, “I can live anywhere in the world,” then it’s like, “Fuck! Where am I going to live?”

You’d also written on your blog that during the recording of your solo album in L.A., you felt more like yourself. Could you explain that a little bit?
I don’t know. I guess it has a lot to do with the nature of the city. I feel like that when you’re out there, a lot of the times, the people you meet aren’t that impressed with what you’re doing. They have their own little projects going on. It’s like, “Oh, that’s cool. You’re doing a solo thing? I’m doing this. Check this out.” It has an energy of people sharing ideas and checking out what other people are doing and being inspired by it and doing their own thing. I’ve lived in Gainesville a long time, and it has its positive aspects and its negative aspects, but for me, it just seems to be smaller and smaller of a city. I feel more uncomfortable. I have a certain lack of anonymity there that I would like to have in my life.

Now that the band has gained more notoriety, do you feel that also makes Gainesville seem a little smaller?
Yeah, but it doesn’t take much notoriety at all to feel that in Gainesville. It’s just weird. I feel like a lot of the times, you walk into a room, and you can tell that people have this perception of you that’s incorrect. Maybe it isn’t a fair one, but they have an opinion about you nonetheless. You feel like you’re not in control of what that opinion may be of you, and it makes for an uncomfortable situation. It’s just kind of weird as far as trying to make friends and trying to have a life when you’re at home.

From what I’ve read, it seemed like you were debating as to whether you’d release the songs on your solo album under your name or under Against Me!. Why did you decide to put them out under Tom Gabel?
Really, the deciding factor for me was… In November, I’m doing a bunch of touring after I finish up this tour [with Against Me!]. That’s why I started writing these songs, because I knew I was going to do these dates, and I also had all these thoughts in my head that I wanted to get out and put to music—about the current political scene and the election and all that. I felt it was important to record them and record them quickly, and just get them out there. I went into the studio originally thinking it would be Against Me!, but the tipping point was that it wouldn’t be weird to release a record that was just me under the name Against Me!. I don’t think people would be confused by that, because the band started out that way. I think that people would understand that. They’d buy the record, and it wouldn’t be a disappointing thing, but I couldn’t play a show under the name Against Me! and have it just be myself. If it couldn’t go both ways, it wouldn’t seem right to me.

You said that you wanted to get your solo songs out before the election. On your blog you wrote that you thought John McCain has never stopped fighting the Vietnam War. Are you fearful of McCain winning the election, and what do you think that would mean for the country?
I’m totally fearful of him winning the election, and I really hope that he doesn’t. I hope that a year from now that he’s just a fading memory. In a lot of ways, saying that it would be four more years of Bush would be incorrect. It would definitely be his own agenda, and I think that he has his own vision of the world, but from reading his books and stuff like that, he comes from a really strong military background. His father fought in wars, his father’s father fought in wars, his father’s father’s father fought in wars, and so on and so on. I think that he really sees that as a way to solve problems. In particular, with the Vietnam War, I feel like that not only does he feel an embitterment for what happened to him—which is understandable being a POW—but I really think it goes deeper than that. It goes to the way America started to view the war and the backlash that came with the protest movement of the ‘60s. The war was lost on both those fronts. It was lost on the real frontlines and here at home, and I feel like he’s never gotten over that. I think he really feels like there needs to be this return to some kind of glory of America that’s long gone. I feel like we won’t be leaving Iraq anytime soon [under McCain] and that we’d be invading more countries.

Would you consider yourself an Obama supporter, or do you see him as the lesser of two evils?
Well, I don’t know. I’m definitely not a Democrat. In my opinion, it’s an imperfect system when you only have two choices, and I wish there were more options. I do agree with a lot of what he [Obama] says—not everything he says—but I do think he’s the best choice for this country at the moment.

What’s coming up next for Against Me!?
Well we have this tour through the end of October, and then I go out and do some solo dates for November on the Revival Tour and a couple after by myself. Then we go to France in December for like a week and a half or so, and then we come home and I’m sure everyone’s going to do their own thing for the holidays—for Christmas and New Year’s. We’re not going to be practicing on those days. We’ve just rented a new practice space in Gainsville, and we’re going to start writing. We haven’t had a break in a long time. We haven’t had time to focus. I think we need a second to write the next record.

Would you say you need a vacation?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I feel really energized and creative, and I’m excited about music, but at the same time, I don’t have a fucking home [laughs]. I’ve been without a home or a solid foundation for a good two years now, and it’s really unsettling. I need to just put some attention into my personal life for a second and sort that all out before I can continue to do what I’m doing now, because everything else is in total disarray. We’re at that point where we want to play new songs. You have to take a second sometimes and just collect yourself and reflect and then move on to the next thing.

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Favorite MCs:
1) Eminem
2) Jay-Z
3) Chase Moore

Least favorite MCs:
1) Dose
2) Aesop Rock
3) Cawzlos

Favorite albums:
1) Thriller – Michael Jackson
2) 2001 – Dr. Dre
3) They’re All Gonna Laugh at You – Adam Sandler

Least favorite albums:
1) C True Hollywood Stories – Canibus
2) 8 Diagrams – Wu Tang Clan
3) NOW! That’s What I Call Music 17

Favorite concerts:
1) Rock the Bells where Mos Def performed “True Magic” produced by DJ Epik
2) Ashford & Simpson at GlideChurch in SF
3) Chase Moore in 2004 The Source Unsigned Hype battle at Arco Arena

Least favorite concerts:
1) Ugly Duckling where they dissed JD and Jay-Z
2) N.E.R.D.’s performance at Sleep Train
3) Downtown James Brown on 28th and K St.

Favorite movies:
1) The Dark Knight
2) The Godfather II
3) Terminator 2

Least favorite movies:
1) Batman & Robin
2) Napoleon Dynamite
3) Jaws-3D

Favorite radio stations:
1) Shade 45
2) KBMB 102.5
3) KSFM 103.5

Least favorite radio stations:
1) KBMB 103.5
2) KSFM 102.5
3) The one that has Ryan Seacrest on it

Favorite DJs to work with:
1) DJ Epik
2) DJ Oasis
3) Kodak

Favorite venues to rock live in Sac:
1) The Library (R.I.P.)
2) Joe Style’s Shop (R.I.P.)
3) The Boardwalk

Favorite bars in Sac:
1) The L (shout out to my brother Leon)
2) Whiskey Wild (only if I’m faded and on the prowl)
3) Flame Club (cheap as fuck)

Least favorite bars in Sac:
1) Barcode
2) XO Lounge
3) Flame Club

Favorite places to take a lady in Sac:
1) My bed
2) My bed again
3) A quiet picnic overlooking the river at dusk

Guilty pleasures:
1) Katy Perry
2) Marvel Comics
3) Fried chicken and hot sauce

Photo by Carlos Lopez

Post from: Submerge Magazine