Interviews

 

  “Shane MacGowan came up and put his arm around me and he says to me, ‘Come on, me and you, we’ll do Helpless’… I could hardly understand him, he was pretty far gone.”  That would have been one hell of a Neil Young cover. 

 Jesse Malin, from Queens, New York, has been supporting Ryan Adams on his ‘Acoustic Nightmare’ tour, from Dublin to Scandinavia to Britain and finishing in Amsterdam. He’s now back in the Big Apple. But over a cold beer at the New Theatre in Oxford, at the end of the last show on the UK leg of the tour, he talked to The Rock Club UK.

 Anyone who saw Malin on this tour or at previous shows will know that he’s a slick storyteller. He’s a natural comedian and admits he recently considered stand-up as change of career. Mostly his tales are about family and growing up ‘in the Boro’ and many of the tales reference his musical influences and heroes – especially the Ramones.

 A punk rocker at heart and with a recording and performing pedigree to back it up – look up D Generation – his solo career is, however, defined by his first album, ‘The Fine Art of Self Destruction’. It was produced by his friend, Ryan Adams, and it’s an excellent record that he drew upon frequently on this European tour.

 We’ll get to the record it in full later this year when Jesse brings the St Marks Social band over to perform the whole record.

 

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Interviews

 

Hi Emmy. How the devil are you today?
 
Soooo tired today. How are you?
 
How was your Glastonbury experience last weekend and how did the Tim Wheeler Pixies cover come about?
 
It was epic, as always! The cover was something Euan and I had done in the past, and when Tim did his Pixies cover set for JD sessions, he asked us to come and do ‘where is my mind’ with him. Now it's something we do together because it's in our repertoire. I really wanted Tim to come to Glastonbury this year and since he was there it seemed cool that he would come on stage with us.
 
I am sure the last time I saw you, you were solo at the Latitude festival prior to the release of the first album. Second album done and with a very substantial band( judging by Glasto,) playing alongside you, how is your musical life right now?
 
It's pretty varied at the moment. I play solo acoustic, or with just me and Euan, and then we go on tour with our big band, and then at bigger dates still we add two backing singers. I also have a side project with Elizabeth from Summer Camp where it's just the two of us and we sing without guitars. And yesterday Tim and I played a show at the Willowstone Festival in Northern Ireland and that was a different experience again. I got to play guitar on Shining Light. As you can imagine it was a pretty awesome experience.
 

Interviews

Hi Haale & Matt, how the devil are you today?

Excellent, thanks.

How would you describe your music to people who have not heard you before?

It’s super percussive with interlocking electric guitar riffs and layered vocals. As you said in your review, and others writers have echoed, it's hard to pin down bands that we sound like.  There are strains of TV on the Radio, Tinariwen, Blonde Redhead, PJ Harvey, Page & Plant in the music, but there's something new happening here.

Matt, who are your drumming influences - Billy Cobham, Michael Shrieve  & or Neil Peart by any chance?

They are all great drummers for sure.  All powerhouse, technically great players but also with a lot of deep groove.  Of the three, I have checked Billy Cobham out the most.  Another great drummer is Narada Michael Walden – the stuff with Mahavishnu on “Visions of the Emerald Beyond” is classic.

But since I play a hyrid set with a lot of percussion, I also really like Zakir Hussain, Jamey Haddad, and Nana Vasconcelos, among others. 

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Interviews

Hi Chris, how are you today and how is the latest U.S tour going?

 
CM: The U. S. tour is going great! I’m out here with a couple of
amazing players – Ryan Hembrey, whose been with me for almost 15
years, on bass and my friend Dave Bryson (of Son Volt) on drums. We’re
making new friends and seeing old friends and just having a really
nice time. The shows are going well too!
 
Ten years? Well I guess you have been out there a lot longer, still smiling?
 
CM: Absolutely! I feel really lucky to still be making records and
playing shows after such a long time.
 
Heavy Years does not seem to be available in the UK yet physically, so if someone wanted a staring point; which songs do you think that you've written, best reflects your style, one from early song writing days, middle and most recent?
 
CM: I think ‘Signal/Noise’ was the first song I wrote where I was able
to write and execute something on a grand scale from beginning to end and have it come out the way it was in my head originally. So I’m
really proud of that one from the early days. ‘Farwell to Arms’ is one
of my favourite songs from The Wall to Wall Sessions and I think marked a transition in the way I was writing. And ‘Atom Smashers’ from Living in the Aftermath is one of my favourite straight up rock numbers from the entire catalogue. I also think that one’s pretty fun lyrically, if I do say so myself.
 

Interviews

 

Hi Graham. Congratulations on a great new album, How the devil are you today?
 
Very well, thank you.
 
What are your plans for the summer? Band / solo shows.. any UK or European gigs planned?
 
My summer is going to be very relaxed. I think the band is going to play a couple of shows, and I might do some or I might not, we'll see. I'm mostly hoping I get to play some baseball.
 
I noticed that TPC were at the Sasquatch Music festival last weekend, how does that compare to say the Glastonbury festival over here?
 
My only experience at Glasto was unfortunately brief, as we had to drive our bus to Norway pretty much right after we finished playing. I also made the mistake of wearing wellies on stage (they're heavy!) and a camera operator kept stepping on my plugs and turning off my keyboards. So, compared to that version of Glastonbury, Sasquatch was heaven. But reliable sources inform me that Glastonbury is actually a lot of fun, so I hope to return one day soon and experience it properly. Maybe if you know someone on the board of directors you could put in a good word for me?
 

Interviews

 

Hi Jesse, how the devil are you today?

 Wicked. Get it?
 
What made you guys decide to make music your career and how did you come together?
 
Well, it happened differently for all of us, of course. Most of my band mates came to music much earlier in life, but I was a bit of a late bloomer, tried out a buncha other jobs and careers that I just didn’t love, music was the last game standing.
 
How did you enjoy playing in Europe recently and will you me back anytime soon?
 
It was great, our favorite trip yet, actually – and we’ve had some fun ones. It’ll be hard to stay away from those mountains in Norway and the streets of Cologne, so, yeah, you’ll see us back there, whoever we have to rob, kill, or extort to make it happen.
 
You seem to have some interesting festivals planned this summer, Huichica, Floyd Fandango, Hillside etc what are the major difference between each festival?
 
Hard to say – haven’t played em yet. As we speak, we’re en route to Wakarusa tomorrow and then flying out to Huichica in California this weekend – so we’ll have at least two cases very, very soon. But we’re excited to be doing more of the festival circuit this summer, and less 7-nights-a-week touring. Spending more off time on the next album, having a few more free days to just kick back and enjoy summer – you know, all the good stuff in life.
 

Interviews

- Hi and welcome back to Europe soon, how the devil are you?

 Very good! Really excited to be coming back to Europe. 
 
- What influenced the writing on this album and is the creation of a new song, a whole band process?
 
It's hard to say what influenced the writing on this album; it really can be a number of things. Each song starts out coming from one person, an idea or something complete, and then we all work on it together. 
 
- What is the best part of the album cycle, writing, recording, promotion, playing live?
 
It would be a tie between writing and playing live for me. Writing can have such a peaceful, cathartic sense about it, because you are getting a lot of creativity out of your brain and making something that you are proud of (that's the goal at least). Playing music live is just amazing. It's loud, it's moving, it's magical.  
 
 

Interviews

We are delighted to publish our interview with Marry Waterson and Oliver Knight. 

  Hello and how are you today, is life enjoyably hectic?

Oliver: Hi Pete. Very well thank you.

Marry: Hello Pete, thank you for the lovely review. Oliver and I are gearing up for a series of concerts and interviews, the first being Lewes on 5th May and Bristol on 6th with London Kings Place on 13th and others  throughout May

How long were the songs that made up the album in your mind, before they were put on to tape?

O: Windy Day was around since about 2004, I wrote that while walking with my daughter but always though someone else should sing it. Marry wrote most of the other lyrics although I had a lot plotted out for Angels Sing and I had the Basic tune for Sleeping Flame.

M: Secret Smile was about my neighbours in the street where we bought our first house, so that particular song had been rattling around in my head for some time, Rosie contains lyrics from an afternoon’s writing Mum and I once shared, with the majority of other lyrics added much later.

Once Oliver and I had collaborated on our first song Angels Sing, I couldn’t stop writing, some songs where complete and with others I would have lyrics and an idea for a tune and Oliver and I would develop them in the studio, so sometimes songs where put down pretty quickly. Revoiced was the last song I wrote when the album was more or less finished, we recorded it almost as soon as I’d written it.

There are comments that the folk world had been waiting for Marry to sing for a long time? So again before the album, was it just singing in the shower that made you realised you had a wonderful voice?

M: Well, that is very kind, having grown up immersed in traditional song I first sang on stage with the Waterson family when I was ten years old, making the occasional appearance from then onwards. I guess the confidence and inspiration took it’s time coming, though as an artist, I have always been involved in other creative disciplines.

 

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Interviews

 

An Interview with Adam Harrison, Bassist  of The Boxer Rebellion direct from their current U.S. tour:

 

How the devil are you today? Did you have downtime after a hectic SXSW?

Very good thank you! We actually had no downtime after south by- on the Sunday we were called by our airline to be told our flight was cancelled out of Houston... Not what you want to hear when you have to play Amsterdam the day after the new arrival date! So... Yeah, no rest for the wicked- all worked out though and it turned out to be our biggest ever show on mainland Europe...

 

 With so much (friendly?) competition out there, how have you approached the marketing of your new album to get it on top of people's want list?

It has been a combination of things really; we try to make the album artwork attractive and the packaging interesting. We also try to incentivise sales by adding exclusive tracks for different retailers... At the end of the day though its the music that has to carry you and word of mouth really is our biggest tool.

 

With the band gaining popularity and larger audiences is there a temptation to resign to a major label (if the offer arises) &  2) what advice would you give to bands starting out who believe the way forward is to get signed to a label?

In today's climate you have to have the whole package as a band already together before a label will pick you up so my best advice is to go he'll for leather in the direction of independent release, if you attract a great label offer in the process, good for you, if not you've got everything you need to continue without the need to re-think any strategy. In terms of our own situation we actually licence our albums to some territories and have great relationships with our partners whilst retaining our rights. There are still good people in the industry and I'd never rule out finding a home at the right label in the future, for now- the job is best done by us.

 

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Interviews

An interview with Josh Grier  from Tapes ‘n Tapes. Feb 2011


How are you all? Life enjoyably hectic at the moment? 

Yeah, enjoyably hectic would be a good way to describe things.
We're doing well, though. We just kicked off a month and a half long
US tour, so we're excited to be out playing shows. It feels good to
bust out some of our new songs.
 
Your third record and it maintains the quality in song writing and
musicianship as the previous two. From your point of view, was there any different approach taken to the recording process this time around?
 
I think the overall approach we had to making this record was pretty similar to our past records. However, we did spend more time as a band demoing the songs on the new record. In the past, I would typically make a rough demo of a song, then I would bring it into the band and we would sort things out in a live setting. 
 
This time around we focused more energy on demoing the songs before we went into record. I think hearing the demos and working on them allowed the songs to grow more before, we went into record. It also gave us a better idea of how we wanted everything to sound.
 
 

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