Touring, touring and more touring: That’s what Southern-bred trio The Whigs has been up to for the past year or so, and they’ve been playing packed stadiums and crowded holes-in-the-wall alike abroad and across the country.  Though their sound on record (especially on 2008’s Mission Control) is one that feels right at home in a dimly lit, gritty, made-for-garage-rock kind of spot, The Whigs are indisputably a live band that drum up a contagious, electrified energy that inspires even the most heavy-footed of concert goers to move their feet and bob their heads.   With warm praise from former tour mates and friends  Kings of Leon and the most celebrated producers in the country scrambling to work with them, The Whigs are ending 2009 on a high note.   Parker Gispert, Julian Dorio and Tim Deaux, though thrilled to be working their distorted magic in the confines of a studio in Nashville, are ecstatic to be hitting the road again: The perks of a live show, of kicking the volume up a notch on an electric guitar and feeling the reverb of feedback, are what got The Whigs going in the first place.   Their tour kickoff in Boston on Wednesday will be a special night as they’re sharing the bill with The Features, The Dead Trees and Mean Creek, all bands who make music they love and all bands they’ve come to embrace as friends from sharing stages with them over the past couple of years.

While driving home from CMJ Sunday night, I had the chance to catch up with Tim Deaux, bass player of The Whigs, about what The Whigs are currently working on in the studio, who they’re listening to out of Boston and how, exactly, he wound up crashing in Drug Rug’s apartment.  The Whigs are headlining tomorrow night Downstairs at the Middle East, and given that the bill is stacked with local heavyweights and notable national acts alike, you’ll want to get there early.  Don’t have a ticket yet?  Get going on that and fast, as these bands will bring a huge draw and it’s set to be one of the most memorable lineups this fall.

-Hilary Hughes

THE MAIN EVENT: THE WHIGS TPB INTERVIEW

Give us a little history, Tim: How did the Whigs come to be and make music together?

Julian and Parker, my band mates, grew up and went to high school together back in Atlanta and they’ve known each other much longer than they’ve known me (laughs). They started playing music around their freshman year at the University of Georgia, and that was sort of the beginning of the band. I didn’t join in until a little later on after I finished college when I moved to Athens and started jamming with these guys.  Now, I’ve been with the band for a couple of years and the band’s been around for technically about five years from them starting to get going during college, but that’s not a very good story! (Laughs)

Take me through the creative process behind the music of The Whigs. Who writes the lyrics? Are the arrangements taken on by one member of the band, or is the creative process of The Whigs completely collaborative?

Parker is the guitar player and singer and primary lyricist in the band, and Julian is the drummer.  I play bass primarily and I play a little of guitar and keyboard.  As far as songwriting goes, we take it how it comes: Any way an idea surfaces, whether it’s us jamming together at the rehearsal space or it’s something one of us comes up with on our own and we bring it to the band, Parker will bring in tunes that have a verse and a melody and then we’ll flesh it out together.  Sometimes he has the full thing, or sometimes Julian has a drum beat he’s excited about and then he’ll bring it to me or I’ll have a bass line or a chord progression I think is cool and I’ll show the guys.  There’s no specific recipe for our songwriting.  If we get an inspired thought, we take it and roll with it and see how far it goes.  We’re on the road so often touring that we don’t have a lot of downtime, so we may be at a sound check before a show and Julian and I may be messing around in the parking lot, and he’ll be like, “That’s cool! Keeping doing that!” And then we’ll start singing and sometimes songs happen like that.  We were lucky this past summer to actually be able to go home and have a dedicated songwriting stretch where we could dedicate ourselves to coming up with new material for the record that we’ll be putting out early next year.

Are there any songs in the Whigs catalog that you feel especially connected to?

I can probably speak for the three of us when I say that the new material is probably what we’re most excited to play, but a lot of that has to do with the freshness of the songs and the brand new excitement that comes along with the new songs.  With the older material, I wouldn’t say that I get sick of old songs but some songs that didn’t used to be your favorites suddenly become your favorite.  I think it has to do with being on the road so much.  Songs evolve from playing them night after night, and over time and they become these songs that were much different than they were at the point in which they were written.  Some songs turn into something more exciting during a live show.  One of the oldest songs we play is called “Need You” and it was actually written way, way back when Parker and Julian started playing together and it actually may have been the first tune Parker wrote, so we’ve played it forever, but that song recently in our shows has been a lot more fun.  I think we’ve been improvising more and letting random things occur, and that’s been rejuvenating for our songs I think.

What are the differences between your live show and The Whigs in the studio?  Describe your live show and what we can expect Wednesday night at the Middle East.

The band really exists as a performing band.  We’ve been lucky and had the privilege to make records and get in the studio and mess around and document the songs on a record. When you start a band when you’re a kid, you don’t think about an amazing record: You think about turning your guitar up and bangin’ away and playing tunes in front of people.  That’s what’s exciting about being in a band, and that’s what we’ve always enjoyed is getting onstage and playing music and playing it loud and having fun.  I think even what we’ve done on record maintains that same spirit, and the live performance has always been a part of The Whigs.  I would say Mission Control showcases that and showcases the band performance, as far as being a real meat-and-potatoes rock record.  It’s real loud and very in your face.  The first record, Give ‘Em All A Big Fat Lip, is a little more complex and there’s a lot more color and some added textures and layers.  The new album I feel like is a combination of the two:  It feels like our approach to this new record was to have this live vibe and the main parts of the tunes were all tracked live and we’re playing together, and then we went in there later and added a few tonal elements here and there.  In a way, I would say that the new record is a mix of what we did with Mission Control as well as what happened with Give ‘Em All A Big Fat Lip. As far as our live show goes, it’s going to be interesting because we haven’t actually rehearsed or played because we’ve been in the studio so much lately!  We haven’t actually gone onstage and played these songs outside the studio in awhile, so Wednesday might be a little bit of a sloppy rock show (laughs).  We’re trying to play as much of the new stuff as we can get away with, and we’ll definitely play a bunch of the old stuff, too.

When it comes to your touring adventures, do you have any crazy stories from The Whigs’ tour bus for us?

This last year for us has been probably one of the most exciting years of our lives: The summer before this last summer, we got to go to Europe and Japan.  It was a really huge thing for us to be able to play overseas. This whole past year, we’ve been able to do some touring with some bigger bands that have allowed us to play some huge, amazing arenas.  We got to play Red Rocks and go all over the country and play for thousands and thousands of people, and along the way on that tour, somehow or another we ended up rubbing elbows with a few movie stars and models and that was kind of a trip.  All that’s fun and gravy! As far as specifics go, I’ll leave that up to y’all’s imagination as things may seem more interesting than what actually occurred (laughs).  The last year’s been a lot of fun.

I understand that you’ve played Boston many times before.  What venues do you enjoy playing in the city?

We’ve been in Boston a handful of times and if my memory’s served me correctly, we’ve played TT the Bear’s awhile back and we’ve played the Paradise Rock Club quite a few times and we really enjoyed ourselves.  We played there with the Drive-by Truckers a few years ago.  We came back through and played our own show there just a few months ago, and we got to do two nights with Kings of Leon at the Orpheum about six months ago, and that was great.  It’s going to be an extra special exciting night on Wednesday because it’s not only the first night of our tour; it’ll be sort of a reunion.  We’ll get to see our friends, The Dead Trees, who actually grew up in Boston and we’re excited to see them.  We’re excited to see the guys in Mean Creek, and we’re good buddies with them, too.  The Features are friends of ours from Nashville.  We’re also bringing up a few friends from Georgia, and our tour manager and sound engineer, Matt, lives in North Hampton, and we haven’t seen him in quite a few months so we’re really excited to see him and it’s going to be his birthday, so I think we’re gonna have a good ol’ fashioned party Wednesday night!  It’s going to be a really good time.

You mentioned Mean Creek and the Dead Trees.  Are there any other Boston bands that you’re currently following?

Drug Rug is a personal favorite of mine!  I just got a copy of their new record.  They’re friends of friends, and the last time I was up in the area, I was at a wedding in the cape about a month ago and I found myself in Boston with nowhere to stay.  I called my friend Carter who actually has a band called Tulsa, and he was like, “Hey man, come stay with me!” And his apartment was actually Drug Rug’s apartment.  Drug Rug was still on tour at this point, so basically I crashed on Sarah’s bed (laughs).  It was a nice warm place to stay.  I’ve only seen them perform once, but I really, really love their records.  Doomstar is another Boston band that are friends of friends, too, and I got a copy of their EP and it’s amazing.  Tulsa for sure, too, I like them a lot and it’s the project of a friend of mine.  Carter’s an amazing writer.

What about your Boston fans?  How does Boston measure up to other cities you’ve played on tour with The Whigs?

Boston’s always fun!  There’s something about Boston – it’s a big city, and when you go to big cities you deal with big city things which cam be good or bad. A few of the more “cool” cities – You go to New York, and you can play a sold out show, and you’re up onstage and you’re looking out at the crowd and everybody looks like they’d rather be at the dentist than where they are.  When we play Boston or Chicago, the crowd is much more with ya and ready to get down and ready to have a good time and not worried about looking cool of what Pitchfork is gonna say about who’s there and wearing what and all that bullshit, basically.  Boston, we can count on the city as being one where people are ready to party, and that’s what we want: Party party party party!

What’s next for The Whigs?  Take me through what you guys have planned for the next couple of months.

This tour starts Wednesday and we’ll go basically up until Thanksgiving, and then we’ll take a short break to eat some turkey and do some laundry. After turkey, we’ll get back on the road again I think November 28^th up until about Christmas time, or Kwanzaa/Hanukkah time.  Then, we’ll go home, reground, and our album that we’re wrapping up now ought to be prepped for at least the beginning of the year, so hopefully come January or February of 2010 we’ll be touring again in support of the release of the new record.  I don’t think we have any real plans set in stone at all at this point, but basically we’ll be home for the holidays and then we’ll be back on the road again at the beginning of the year and probably tour until we just can’t do it anymore.  It’s what we do.  When this record comes out, we’ll be on the road forever. (Laughs)

Do you have any closing thoughts for your Boston fans before we sign off?

Is it gonna be really cold when we get there?  We’ve been very spoiled.  We’ve been home in Georgia soaking up the sunshine and sweating and wearing less clothes than normal.  I’m really not looking forward to the cold winter, but I’m looking forward to playing Boston!  Go Red Sox? I think it’s too late for that…

Scandinavia, on the whole, has given us some revolutionary [Vikings!], aesthetically pleasing [Minimalism! Ikea!], and whimsical [The Little Mermaid! Abba?] icons in popular culture.  Naturally, a Danish band like The Raveonettes is going to be pleasing to our palate:  Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo are on a mission to get beautiful people on the dance floor, and hey, we’ve got nothing but pleasant things to say about Scandinavian pop (especially since that Lykke Li album dropped last year.)  Their latest album, In And Out Of Control, hit stores in the US on October 6, and this record is a gritty, distorted followup to their 2007 release, Lust Lust Lust.

I caught Sune on the phone for a minute or two to chat him up about tonight’s show, what songs he’s stoked to include on the set list and what The Raveonettes are up to through the end of the year.  The Raveonettes hit the stage tonight at 9:15 on the dot, so go early and check out openers The Black Angels in order to properly warm up your moves.  Read up on Sune and Sharin, get on your dancing shoes, and get to the ‘Dise tonight for a piece of this lovely electro-jam action.

-Hilary Hughes

THE MAIN EVENT: THE RAVEONETTES TPB INTERVIEW

What’s the back-story on The Raveonettes?  How did you guys come to make music together?

S: Oh, that’s a very boring story! (Laughs)  Like any other band, we just met.  I did some songs, Sharin liked them, and we just started the band.  There’s no fairy tale story, unfortunately.

How is the new album different from previous material by The Raveonettes?

S: Well, it sounds different.  The production is very different and we made the album differently in that we recorded it and a studio and worked with a producer, and we haven’t really tried that before.  We had just recorded our songs at home before.

Take me through your creative process: How does the songwriting go for Raveonettes?  Is it collaborative, or does someone head up the majority of the lyrics and music?

I write everything.

Are there any songs by The Raveonettes that you feel particularly connected to or that you really enjoy playing live?

I really love all of them.  That was the whole idea with our music when we started: We wanted to make music that we’d never get tired of playing.  I love all of it.

You’ve played in Boston before.  Let’s talk about your experience here for a bit.  Do you have any favorite Boston venues?

We’ve only played the Paradise Rock Club, and we’ve always had great shows there!  We’re really looking forward to the show tonight, and we’ll definitely be playing selections from the new album.  We’ll be playing “Gone Forever”, “Suicide” and “Break Up Girls” for sure.

So, what’s next for The Raveonettes?  What does your schedule look like for the next few months?

We’ll just be touring for a very long time.  We’re booked up through Christimas, and we’re planning for some shows in January as well.

[The Avett Brothers: Scott Avett and Seth Avett at the House of Blues, Boston.  October 18, 2009]

It may be snowing in October, but the wet, murky gloom of an early uninvited winter was decimated last night once The Avett Brothers took the stage for their nearly sold-out show at Boston’s House of Blues.  Simultaneously cheerful and wrought with resigned melancholy, the music of The Avett Brothers is a rejuvenated take on banjo-pickin’ Americana indicative of Seth and Scott Avett’s North Carolina roots.   While the sing-a-long crowd pleasers off 2007’s Emotionalism (“Will You Return”,”Go To Sleep”) are of a stomp-your-feet-spill-your beer variety, the lyrical prowess of Avett songwriting is especially showcased in their earlier love songs (“The Ballad of Love and Hate”, “If It’s the Beaches”) which can effortlessly hush a crowd within a measure or two.  Their latest release, I And Love And You, is a musical progression capitalizing on Emotionalism’s upbeat riffs as much as it is a continuation of their explorations in ballad writing.  Selections off the new album made up the bulk of the set list, and while Scott and Seth Avett took turns beating the modest drum kit into submission on pop-infused numbers like “It Goes On and On”, the stirring renditions of  “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise” and “January Wedding” delivered what fans were looking for:  Soaring melodies that last long after the last refrain, resounding twangs and steady bass lines that have come to define The Avett Brothers’ sound.

Since 2001, Seth, Scott, bassist Bob Crawford and cellist Joe Kwon have been sharing their earnest, intimate and at times rowdy onstage show with listeners from coast to coast.  The momentum they’ve been building since sharing bills with the likes of Dave Matthews Band and Wilco has catapulted them from small club act to packed-theatre status: The Avett Brothers have recently graced the cover of Paste Magazine, they wowed the crowd at this year’s Newport Folk Festival, and a sea of people was floored last night at the House of Blues after the quartet played for nearly an hour and a half straight.  If I And Love And You is any indication of the Avett’s progress, now is the time to pick up their albums and catch up on required listening before this band explodes.

After this tour, Seth, Scott, Bob and Joe will be taking some much deserved time off in order to spend time with their families.  They’ll resurface in Asheville, North Carolina for a sold-out show at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium on New Year’s Eve, and they have plans to demo more music before hitting the road again next spring.  A couple of days before picking up his bass onstage at the House of Blues, Bob Crawford took some time out of his hectic touring schedule to speak with me about which songs off I And Love And You are especially near and dear to him.  While voicing his exciting over the House of Blues show, Bob  made sure to note that it’s the enthusiasm and unrelenting support of their Boston fans that’s kept the Avett Brothers coming up north for years.  Read on for an exclusive inside the songwriting of The Avett Brothers, their life-changing plans for the future and why Boston is a city they look forward to hitting on tour each and every time.

-Hilary Hughes

[The Avett Brothers: Joe Kwon and Bob Crawford at the House of Blues, Boston. October 18, 2009]

THE MAIN EVENT: THE AVETT BROTHERS TPB INTERVIEW

How does I And Love And You compare with Emotionalism, Four Thieves Gone… and other previously recorded material that you’ve done with The Avett Brothers so far?

I think every album we’ve done since 2001 has been a natural progression.  As we get better at playing our instruments, as we get better at writing songs, there’s a natural maturing that I think occurs.  I And Love And You is probably the most mature album we’ve made yet.  We’re at a point where we have a bit of knowledge about our instruments and how to put songs together, and we’ve been working on branching out to other instruments to create new textures in the music. I don’t think I And Love And You is a great departure from Emotionalism, but I think it’s a natural next step.

What are some of these new instruments that you’re incorporating into your repertoire, and which ones can we expect to see in an Avett Brothers live show?

With the shows, we have piano, a drum kit, electric guitars and electric bass.  Of course, we have our traditional instruments for us, which are an upright bass, a banjo, an acoustic guitar, a high hat and a kick drum, and there’s a trumpet here and there.  Live, that’s pretty much what you’re gonna get.  While we were recording I And Love And You, it was kind of like, if we came to a song that needed a tuba, we’d find someone to play tuba: We were no longer hemmed in to what was immediately available.

Are there any songs on I And Love And You that you feel especially connected to?

I really love “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise”, and I love “Ill with Want.”  I think that Seth and Scott, with their lyrics and songwriting, have just touched on a new level.  The craft of writing takes time, and they’ve certainly put a lot of time into their craft.  I think that the topics and the ideas behind these songs on I And Love And You really rang true to me.  I think that we all have our desires, whatever they may be, whatever that thought that keeps anybody up at night, I think a lot of it comes down to worry and that worry comes from desire and ultimately comes to want and it’s a human condition that we all experience on some level at different times in our lives.  I think that the fact that Seth and Scott touched on it so perfectly, for me, it just connects me to “Ill with Want” in a great way.  “Head Full of Doubt…” for me, it’s great for us as a band because it’s always exciting to cut new ground in a song, musically.  Tempo-wise, chord progressions, instrumentation… I think “Head Full of Doubt” is one of those departures for us and I think it’s something that we’ll build on in the future and do more songs like it, though not just like it.  The less confined we are to what we know, to acoustic guitar, banjo and upright bass, we know that dynamic and we know it very well, so to branch out and touch other dynamics in music is very exciting.  It’s important for us to obtain that because we want it to always be fresh and new for us as well as for the people who listen to us and come see us.

[The Avett Brothers: Bob Crawford, Scott Avett, and Seth Avett at the House of Blues, Boston.  October 18, 2009]

Are there any other songs in the catalog of The Avett Brothers that you look forward to playing every night or that stick out to you, Seth and Scott as favorites?

We have some new songs that aren’t on an album yet.  There’s one called “Down with the Shine”, and that’s a great love of mine.  I love that song.  It’s one of those… I mean, those boys [Seth and Scott Avett] amaze me, just as they’ve amazed so many other people.  They amaze me often, and I’m no different in my appreciation of the lyrical content that they seem to give and work hard to develop.

When it comes to the creative process behind the music of The Avett Brothers, can you take me through it?

It’s always different: Sometimes, there’ll be just the skeleton of the song which Seth or Scott will bring chords or ideas to the table and everyone will fill in the meat.  Nowadays, it seems more piecemeal; it seems that more recently Scott will have a verse and a couple of chords and we’ll work on that for a bit, and then Seth will be like, “You know, I have something that might fit with that…” and he’ll add in his part, and then maybe we’ll need an instrumental part and I’ll contribute that.  More and more, it becomes a collective, and even with the lyric writing.

[The Avett Brothers: Bob Crawford and Scott Avett at the House of Blues, Boston. October 18, 2009]

I had the privilege of seeing you play at the Newport Folk Festival this year, and I know that WERS is thrilled to be presenting your concert at the House of Blues.  How has your experience been playing in New England, specifically Boston, and what’s the relationship like between The Avett Brothers and their fan base here?

I think the further north you get the more rowdy it gets! (Laughs) There’s some real fervor, and people get real loud in the best possible way.  It’s exciting to play up here.  The folks up north are strong, tough-skinned people.  I think the weather does it to you.  (Laughs)  Our fans in Boston have always put us up on their shoulders and brought us along and they’ve always been so hospitable.  Even at shows in New England that were smaller, a crowd of twenty or thirty people could sound like two hundred and fifty.  It’s always been a treat to be up here.  It’s beautiful in Boston.  The Newport Folk Festival was one of the greatest days of my life, and it was just such an honor to be on that stage.  We love making our way north.  WERS has been really good to us and we really appreciate them getting behind us on this.  We’re so excited to play the brand new House of Blues, too.  It’s really easy to badmouth a chain of anything, but I’ll tell you, for a musician, the House of Blues is great.  The rooms are great, the sound systems are great, the crew is great, and it’s a real pleasure to play any House of Blues venue.

What’s next for The Avett Brothers?  What do we have to look forward to from you, Joe, Seth and Scott in the coming months?

We’ve already demoed a bunch of songs and we’re writing like crazy!  We’re about to get four months off, and I’ve got a daughter that’s about to be born in a couple of weeks, so it’s going to be good to have that time off.  We need that time in order to be able to do this, to get solid down time to recharge ourselves and give our families the part of us they deserve.  We don’t have plans to stop anytime soon, so we’re going to take our break over the winter and we’ll get back at it at the end of February.  We’re going to do some rehearsals over our time off and develop this new material, maybe record some new demos, and we’re going to keep on doing what we’ve been doing since 2001.  There’s no real break in the action, just a little time off.

[The Avett Brothers: Joe Kwon and Bob Crawford at the House of Blues, Boston. October 18, 2009]

As they took the stage of the Comcast Center on Friday night, the Followill boys, known to the world as explosive rock powerhouse Kings of Leon, ambled from the wings to the solemn, soaring crescendoes of “Lacrimosa” from Mozart’s Requiem.  The shadows remained as the Kings grabbed their guitars and swung the straps over their lanky shoulders, but within seconds the Mozart was cut and the crowd was blasted with a wall of sound and light as the family act from Tennessee  growled, wailed, beat and ferociously strummed the mortal strings of their electric guitars underneath jarring washes of blue and red.  Kings of Leon are a band whose look is as distinct as their sound: Sure, you can thank their genetic makeup for the brooding good looks that have teenage girls and their mothers alike lusting after the four Followills, but the intensity with which Kings of Leon approach their music is apparent in their set jaws and fierce, steady gaze.  Looking at Kings of Leon frontman Caleb is like taking in a rock and roll interpretation of American Gothic: Focused, unfazed and with instrument firmly in hand, you wonder what’s happening behind this famous face when he belts these lyrics, which are being chanted back at him by thousands of people, as his family plays by his side.

Before they had thousands of screaming, soaking wet fans singing along with their VMA-nominated, radio-standard hits in Mansfield that night, we somehow found ourselves backstage in a warmup room sitting across from Jared Followill, who had taken a seat behind a practice drum kit.  He seemed exhausted and worn from the non-stop touring schedule that Kings of Leon have been subject to since the release of last year’s Only By The Night, but it didn’t stop him from gushing about the special connection KoL has with their Boston fan base and the songs he looks forward to playing each night.  As he nervously fiddled with a pair of drumsticks and a guitar pick left on the table in the makeshift practice space, Jared caught us up with what Kings of Leon have been listening to on tour, what the future looks like for one of America’s hottest bands at the moment, and what the hell he plans on wearing to the VMAs tonight if Kings of Leon wind up showing up at all.

-Hilary Hughes

Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

So!  Hi, Jared!

Hi!

You stayin’ dry?

(Laughs) Yeah, absolutely.

Let’s just jump right into this.  How’s this tour going?  This is the second time Boston has seen Kings of Leon in the past couple of months, huh?

Yeah.  We’ve been – it’s hard for me to remember really. It just kind of gets jumbled up into my memory.  We did the first half of the tour on the West Coast and Canada, and we did that with the Whigs.  Then we went to the UK and played festivals in Reading and Leeds, and now we’re doing the East Coast leg with Glasvegas and White Lies.  It’s been great.

Sounds like you’ve been all over the place.  How does it feel to be back in Boston?

It’s great.  I love Boston.  It’s a really fun city.  I mean, we played here when we were just a small band and we played the Avalon.  We have a great fan base here.  The shows are always crazy and people are always enthusiastic.

Got any crazy stories from the Kings of Leon tour bus for us, Jared?

Not really (laughs).  We don’t even have a bus anymore.

I know that you’ve got a lot of plans and releases coming out over the next couple of months.  Which future projects for Kings of Leon are you most excited about?

The remix album is really awesome.  We’ve got a lot of cool, good bands doing things for us like M83 and CSS and Lykke Li and the Presets, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell… it’s really, really cool.  It’s a different take on the same songs that people have heard before, and it’s interesting to hear our music with an electronic side to it.

Jared Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

How does it feel to have other notable artists expressing interest for your music through their own interpretations of it?  It must be pretty surreal.

I love it.  I’ve always been into electronic-based music and I was very excited about the whole idea.  It started with a few people making some remixes for us.  We talked about maybe just doing a five song EP, but then everybody else started sending in their remixes and cuts of our songs so we just decided to make a record.

Let’s talk about the creative process of Kings of Leon.  How do you guys work together when it comes to your songwriting, and how does that process change once you hit the studio?

It depends, honestly.  Sometimes Caleb will have a guitar part and a vocal idea ready; sometimes he’ll just have a guitar part or I’ll have a bass part.  Each and every song always starts from one musical part.  We all just get the music together first, and I’ll play my bass part and Caleb will play his guitar part and Nathan will come in with a drum beat.  Then, we just write around that musical idea during sound checks until we get the musical idea first.  Then, once we have the basic musical arrangement done, Caleb starts to think up a vocal melody.  Sometimes that comes naturally and quickly while we’re writing the music, and sometimes it takes a little bit longer.  When it comes down to it, the steps of our creative process are music, vocal melody and then lyrics.

Are there any songs in the Kings of Leon catalog that stick out to you, especially?  What’s your favorite song of yours?

There are tons that are favorites.  My favorites are usually not necessarily the ones that come from me.  I feel connected to the ones that came from an idea I came up with, but there are a few that I like, like “Crawl.”  I like “Manhattan.”  I like a lot of the songs that aren’t big songs, like “Seventeen”.  The songs that people aren’t necessarily fans of tend to be my favorites.

Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

Does the writing continue when Kings of Leon heads out on tour?

We stopped sound checking for two or three tours because we just really didn’t need to, and that’s where we wrote most of the stuff.  We just started sound checking again, and we’ve been coming up with new songs every day now.

How is this new material a departure from previous songs we’ve heard from Kings of Leon?

It’s more of a continuation.  Everything sounds completely different from when we first start writing it to where the song ends up, because you over-think things.  That’s why we like to record things quickly and early into the process: Songs tend to get a little too polished when you over-think them, and we like the ideas to be more raw and off-the-cuff.

What are you listening to right now?  If we were to swipe your iPod and look at your “Recently Added” or “Recently Played” playlists, what would we find?

I’ve been listening to this song called “Sweet Disposition” by Temper Trap a lot.  I’ve been listening to a song called “Velvet” by The Big Pink, too.  I like Crystals Castles. I’m a big song guy; I don’t have that much faith in too many albums.  I like listening to Glasvegas and The White Lies and I especially love listening to the bands we tour with.

So, at the beginning of the summer you played the MTV Movie Awards, and now Kings of Leon are one of the nominees to look out for at the VMAs.  How does it feel?  Did you ever think in your wildest dreams that you’d be up for a Moonman?

No!  Not at all.  It actually makes me feel really nervous (laughs).

Do you have an outfit picked out?

No, I have no idea!  I’ll probably just wear a leather jacket or something… I’m trying to talk the guys into going.  They don’t want to go, even though it’s already been announced that we’ll be there.  I think Paramore is going to win the category we’re in anyway because of Twilight, but I’d like a Moonman.  I think it’d be cool.  I’m more nervous about the red carpet.  It’s nerve-wracking.

Matthew Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009.
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

So after the VMAs, what’s up next for Kings of Leon?  Where do you see yourself a couple of months down the line?

Probably on the beach somewhere.  I might go to Mexico for a little while or something.  Six months from now?  I don’t know.  I don’t know where we’ll be.  We could be writing the new record at that point, so we’ll see.

Are you gonna record the next record in Nashville?

I don’t know where we’re gonna do the next one, actually.  There are a couple of ideas floating around, and we were thinking of maybe going to an island somewhere and do it.  I’d rather do it in Nashville or LA or somewhere familiar, you know?

That’s interesting, because I wanted to talk to you about place and how it’s affected you as an artist.  We spend a lot of time talking with Boston bands about how our city has treated them or played some part in the cultivation of their creativity.  How have your surroundings or the cities you’ve called home impacted you as a musician?  Has where you come from really made a difference in your sound?

Possibly.  We don’t really feel at home anywhere; Nashville never really accepted us, which is totally fine because we never really accepted them.  As far as the Nashville music scene goes, they hate us, so we don’t feel connected to Nashville at all which is totally cool with us. Well, the thing is, our fans in Nashville are great and they treat us as though we’re from Nashville, but the whole music scene there is really fickle.  If you don’t play certain bars for five nights a week, you’re not a Nashville band.  We literally formed in Nashville and started playing in a garage there.  We don’t really feel like we’re connected to any particular spot and we don’t really have a home base.  No matter where we are, we never really feel like we’re playing at home.

Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center in Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009.
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

Caleb Followill, Nathan Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009.
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

Few things are better than watching a group of talented, guitar and tambourine-wielding friends share their music and hometown pride on stages across the country, and for that reason few bands are more invigorating at the moment than Chapel Hill seven-man (and woman!) indie act The Love Language.  Back in April, The Love Language somehow fit a full drum kit, two keyboards, a bass, numerous guitars and seven people onto the tiny stage at TT the Bear’s for an epic set that had concert goers dancing along with “Nocturne” and fan favorite “Lalita”.  Though the stage Downstairs at the Middle East gives the group a little more room to stretch out, it was still a rowdy, crowdy party for all present on August 3rd as The Love Language opened for Cursive.  The energy encapsulated on The Love Language’s self-titled debut, which was written and recorded entirely by the band’s frontman, Stu McClamb, translates well to the band’s live show, and the album leaves us wanting more of this lo-fi, perfectly imperfect garage rock.

Jessie and I were lucky enough to catch The Love Language at their cheery TT’s gig this past spring, and we gladly spent August 3rd watching Stu, Jordan, Kate, Missy, Josh, Jeff and Tom dance, beat, wail, strum, shake and scream along with the jam-hungry crowd in the Middle East’s packed basement.  Pre-show, we caught up with four of the seven members of The Love Language and somehow wound up discovering a staircase that looks as though it walked out of a Lisa Frank coloring book after we ignored a “DO NOT ENTER” sign in order to find a quiet, tape recorder-friendly locale for the interview, and that’s where the photo above was snapped.  Our chat with [some of] The Love Language was an incredibly informative one, in which we discovered that North Carolina is definitely a place to visit if you’re in the mood for some fantastic local music and that Kate really, really likes crystals, especially in her cheese.  Read on to find out more about the band we can’t seem to get enough of, and keep an eye out for them here at TeaParty Boston because we’ll be jumping up and down in anticipation once we catch wind of their next gig in the area.

-Hilary Hughes

THE OPENING ACT: THE LOVE LANGUAGE AND THE TEAPARTY TEN

What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

Kate:  Fruit loops!

Josh: Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Jordan:  Cracklin’ Oat Bran.  Not my favorite, but DAMN if I don’t want some right now!

Stu:  I haven’t eaten cereal in so long!  Honey Bunches of Oats.

Who would you rather punch in the face: Long Duk Dong from “Sixteen Candles”, or Mouth from “The Goonies”?

Josh:  Mouth, definitely.

Kate:  Yeah!  Long Duk Dong is pretty cool.

Jordan:  I’ll punch Dong in the mouth (laughs).

Stu:  Dong.

If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be?

Josh:  A toaster oven.

Kate:  A mixer with a bread hook!

Jordan:  I’d be a frying pan.  I don’t know what that says about myself.

Stu:  I think one of those orange juice squeezers.  Those are fucking awesome and I don’t have one.

You go to bed, wake up, walk into the bathroom to brush your teeth, and you look in the mirror and you realize that you’ve turned into one of Jim Henson’s Muppets overnight.  Which Muppet are you?

Josh: I’m gonna go with Kermit because he’s really the only Muppet I know.

Kate: One of the “Yip! Yip! Yip!” space dudes.

Stu:  I would be Gonzo!  That was one of the first songs I ever wrote, one called “Gonzo.”  I wrote that in like, sixth grade.  I just said his name and played two chords.

Say you have a crazy night, you black out, and you wake up feeling like crap the next morning and you realize… you got a tattoo.   What’d you get inked?

Josh:  The giant head of an Indian chief, complete with headdress, across my back.

Kate:  I think a tree, running up my ribcage.

Jordan:  My brother’s face all across my back.

Stu:  Hot sauce and ranch being injected into my veins through a syringe!

Would you rather be a rodeo clown or a sumo wrestler?

Josh:  Rodeo clown.

Kate:  Absolutely!

Jordan:  Rodeo clown.

Stu:  Yeah.

If you were a particular style of facial hair, what would you be?

Jordan:  I’d be a real gross thin mustache that rides above the top lip, because I’m kind of a tall and slender guy but also just because it’s a strong piece of facial hair.  Actually, maybe I’d change it to a pretty gangster chinstrap.

Kate:  I saw an incredible facial hair sculpting: He had a chinstrap that went all the way around his jaw, and then it followed his entire hairline all the way around his head!  And everywhere else on his head he was bald.  I would do that.

Josh:  Mine would just be sideburns.  It’s because I think it looks good.

Stu:  I’d be a traveling mustache, where you shave a little bit off one side and then you just let the other side go.

If you were a type of cheese, which cheese would you be?

Kate: An hard one with the crystals in it, you know, the way old cheese get?  Like, parrano: That’s a strong, hard cheese. It’s FANTASTIC.

Josh:  Bleu.  Bleu cheese.  Roquefort, whatever.

Stu:  Nacho.

Jordan:  Cottage cheese.  Actually, I’ll go with ricotta.

What’s your quintessential “I’M GONNA DANCE AROUND MY APARTMENT IN MY SKIVVIES AND LOVE LIFE!” song?

Stu:  “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”

Josh:  “Flashing Lights”, Kanye West.

Kate:  “Dancing In The Dark”.  The Boss.

Jordan:  “Feeling Major” by Van Halen.

What’s your favorite word?

Stu:  Vulnerable.  I always fuck it up when I say it.

Josh:  I really like the word “pyramid”.

Jordan:  Boski.  It’s a word I made up.  Like, if someone tops you off, you say, “All right, Boski!”

Kate: It’s kind of lame, but serrated.  It sounds good.

THE MAIN EVENT: THE LOVE LANGUAGE TPB INTERVIEW

How does it feel knowing you’ll be playing a sold out show tonight?!

Kate:  We’re stoked!  It’s the first sold out show of the tour.  It’s gonna be awesome.

Josh:  We’re very, very excited.

So what’s happened since the last time we caught The Love Language in Boston back in April?  Have you been on the road?  Have you been recording new material?  What’s going on with the Love Language?

Js: Since we got back home we’ve been taking advantage of the downtime, just because it was our first tour and I think we all got home and were pretty road weary.  We took about a month where we just did nothin’.  We’ve been writing some stuff and recording a little bit at our studio back home, and then kind of getting ready for this tour once we found about it. Unless I missed anything else, we haven’t been up to anything too big, really.

You guys are based in Chapel Hill, correct?

Jordan:  Exactly.  That’s where we have a house and the studio.

What can we expect in terms of new material tonight?  Are we going to get a sneak preview of a forthcoming Love Language material?

Jr:  We’re going to be doing three new songs that haven’t been recorded yet.

What are your favorite songs to perform live from the catalog of The Love Language?

Js: I really love playing “Nocturne”, just because we kind of get to be loose and have fun with it and draw it out a little more than the recording on the album.  There’s a little more freedom on that song.  Everything else we play is, I think, by the book in terms of following what was recorded.

K:  One of my favorites is a new one called “Blood”-

Js: Well, it’s tentatively called blood.  That sounds kind of bleak!  It includes the lyric “Blood” and for some reason it’s being called that for its shortened title, but it’s fun.

What are you guys listening to right now?  If we were to steal the iPods of The Love Language and look up your “Recently Added” playlists, what would we find?

K:  For me, I’ve got Bats for Lashes, one of my favorite bands.  One of our friends is in a band called Max Indian and I cant stop listening to them, either.

Js:  For some reason, having to sleep in the van at night and generally having to wear headphones to keep it quiet and fall asleep, Pink Floyd has been big for me.  Jordan, what’s that rapper that we were listening to on the way in from New York?

Jr:  OJ and the Juice Man.

Js: Yeah!  I like OJ and the Juice Man.

Jr:  I’ve been listening to a lot of Keith Healey lately.  He’s like, a mid-eighties to late-eighties country singer, and he had a really amazing voice and some great songs.

What sets The Love Language apart from various projects or bands you’ve worked with before?  I know that you all come from extensive musical backgrounds and have played for years in various cities throughout North Carolina.

Js:  I would say the pure chance of the collection of personalities we’ve got sets The Love Language apart.  To have seven people together in one capacity and have them all click can be pretty difficult, but then when you put on them that they have to play music and be creative together, it’s a pretty difficult thing.  We didn’t plan or calculate the collection of people we have.  It just came together. As trite as it sounds, there’s a feeling, I think, about all our meetings.  It was so chance how we all came to be in this band together and I’d say just the pleasure of being with everybody and playing music with it and the energy we feed off each other, and I’d say that’s what the majority of positive feedback that we hear a lot of times from people is about.  They sense this energy and togetherness from us onstage, and that’s what we feed off of ultimately.

Do you think that place has any affect on your creative process?  You’re all from North Carolina, born and raised, and we talk about how where you come from can really affect your creative process with Boston bands a lot.  How has your sense of place impacted you, artistically?

Js:  It’s funny: We were in Brooklyn for two days, and it just kind of struck me about the variety and very expressive nature of those people there, and it just made me think, if we were a band up here, you really have to put yourself or really do something to stand out in this group of people.  Being back home from where we are, you’re not really faced with such a mass and variety of people.  I don’t really know the answer to this question, but I know that that’s somehow impacted our sound.  I wouldn’t call it “roots rock”, but I feel like we play what I call good American rock n’ roll how it used to be in the ’50s and ’60s.  We didn’t have that need back home to really stand out by doing something just outlandishly different that in other big cities you probably encounter, so in that sense, that’s probably shaped our sound in that it’s been steering us in terms of what genres or whatever we tend to favor in our songwriting and playing.  That’s a bad answer because it makes it sound like the scene back home is kind of dull and we’re a dull band, but North Carolina’s got a lot going on and I don’t think we’re doing anything groundbreaking or new but I think we’re covering some bases of the American rock catalog that we just happen to nail, and we’re a good band because of it.

K:  In Chapel Hill it’s definitely a community of musicians and we definitely all feed off of each other.  There’s something about people our age who are into music, in that we’re all drawn together.

Js:  I mean, the answer, ultimately, is that you’re influenced by the artists around you and that they push you in certain directions- “Well that band sounds like this, we don’t want to sound like them.”  Go and check out bands from North Carolina – Max Indian and Ryan Gustavson, Justin Williams and 12,000 Armies, get a sense of that and figure out for yourselves, but they’re all great bands and great friends of ours and they’ve impacted our musical decisions for the better because it’s a really strong scene there.  That’s one of our goals on tour, to put Chapel Hill on the map, because we feel like there’s a lot of good music coming from there.  We’re trying to start Drug Horse Collective, and it’s just a collection of great bands and great personalities that’s just waiting to explode.  Max Indian, Ryan Gustavson, 12,000 Armies, The Tomahawks, Jeff Crawford, James Wallace, the Light Pawns… so, yeah, we roll pretty deep and it’s just a matter of time before other people start realizing about us.

Jr:  There’s a great variety in that music, too: It doesn’t all sound like us and it doesn’t all sound like each other.  There’s some more eccentric stuff and there’s some roots rock and roll, but it’s all so good.  There’s a lot of inspired people in Chapel Hill.

The Avett Brothers are from North Carolina too, right?

Jo:  Absolutely.  They’re from Concord.  Once you see them live you’re hooked.

What about Boston?  You guys were here in April and now you’re back.  You’re pretty far from home, but do you feel any particular connection with the crowd and the community in Boston?  How has your experience here been for you?

Jr:  Josh wasn’t here the first time we played Boston, and we’ve only played two shows in Boston, one opening for the Rosebuds and the other opening for Headlights.  Both of the shows were awesome and really well received by the people of Cambridge, and tonight, being sold out, I think it’s a great setup for a third great show.  We’ve had an awesome response every time we’ve been in Boston.  I hope that we can come back as a headliner sometime and have a great show!

Well, we’d be happy to have you!  Have you been following any Boston bands, or do you like any Boston bands or artists in particular?

Js:  I don’t think so; I’m pretty bad about knowing where friends are from generally, so it’s very likely that there are bands I do like that are from here but I don’t think any come to mind that are just like, “Boston bands.”  I don’t hear a lot about Boston down in North Carolina, to be honest; nobody we know down in North Carolina is from Boston, and that’s generally how you hear about a band or something, through word of mouth. 

Jr:  I listened to that Passion Pit record on a road trip with a couple of buddies and I love their stuff.

(for our thoughts on Day 1 of Folk Festival 50, click here.)

Josh Ritter’s Contagious Glee, 11:30am:

There couldn’t have been a more appropriate kick-off for the second day of the Newport Folk Festival than with Josh Ritter’s morning set.  The singer/songwriter, who hails from Idaho, was grinning from ear to ear throughout the duration of his performance, as was his backing band, which was made up primarily of musicians hailing from the Greater Boston Area.  Ritter seriously looked like he was just gonna bust into cartwheels out of sheer joy, and his infectious ray-of-sunshine ways couldn’t have gotten the festival off on a better foot. I practically chased the poor guy onto his tour bus to catch up with him briefly before he and his band had to pack up and head off to New York for another show, but I was able to snag some details about how he thought the show went, what he’s working on now and what he have to look forward to from Josh Ritter in the future:

So, how does it feel, man?!  How did your set go?

Josh Ritter: It feels great!  It’s an amazing thing here.  It’s amazing to be included on a list of performers that I really respect.  I mean, Guy Clarke is about to start over there, and Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Neko Case, all these people… it’s amazing!

Were there any songs that you played today that just popped for you?

JR: When you’re playing the Newport Folk Festival, you’re carrying a lot of weight and history behind you, so you can plan to do a nod to that, but you can only do your best and hope that people understand the spirit in which your music is offered.  For that reason, I really loved playing “To the Dogs or Whoever” and my new song, “Another New World” because today was a chance to show off a bunch of stuff that we’re really happy to be playing.  This is the last show of our tour, so we’re very, very happy.

Wow, what a great way to end a tour, then.  You played the festival a couple of years ago, right?

JR: I did; I played the Newport Folk Festival a couple of years ago in a much smaller capacity.

And you were on the main stage this year-

JR: Yeah!

Well, that’s a cool way to come full circle!

JR: Yeah!  It’s great.

You’ve got a very packed schedule the next couple of months.  Can you take us through some of your future plans?

JR: Well, I’m finishing up a record right now, which will hopefully be done in August.  We’re going to be doing a show in a couple of weeks out at Mass MoCA.  After that, I’m off to the UK with Ray LaMontagne and then I’ll be doing some stuff around Ireland and then just running around like crazy!

I noticed that your band today was made up of a bunch of musicians from Boston.

JR: Yeah, they were crazy.  I got the best band, and they were mostly musicians from Boston.  They made it here with a minute to spare!

Let’s talk about the new record.  When can we expect the latest release from Josh Ritter, and how is this album a departure from previous work you’ve done?

JR: The record comes out in January.  The last record is kind of like blowing things up, and this one is put together more like a portrait with big, lush scenes, and no little details are left out.  I’m really excited about it and I feel like we’re onto something big.

So, are you saying that this album is going to be more of a concept album?

JR: I wouldn’t say concept; I just feel like that’s how the songs are coming out.  There’s no thread to the story and it’s more organic that way.

Elvis Perkins in Dearland and Their Awesome Bass-Drum-Wielding Drummer, approx 4:30pm

Jessie is a HUGE fan of Elvis Perkins, so imagine her delight when she got to squat in front of the Harborside Stage to check out their early evening set just as the sun was going down on Day 2 of the Newport Folk Festival.  “Send My Fond Regards to Lonelyville” was a favorite number in the set, and Elvis Perkins in Dearland put on one of the most rejuvenating, energetic shows in Newport that weekend.  Special props go out to Nick Kinsey, who worked a strap-on bass drum better than a seasoned marching band geek.

Roaming Around Fort Adams with the Ice Cream Man and Deer Tick, approx. 2:30pm:

As previously mentioned, Jessie and I had the privilege of tagging along with Matt Allen [aka the Ice Cream Man], his merry band of AV guys and Deer Tick as we sat in on the video they were shooting for Matt’s web series,  Road Trippin’ with the Ice Cream Man.  With a sailboat-speckled harbor as the backdrop and as the festival continued beneath us at the bottom o f the hill, Deer Tick’s John Joseph McCauley III and Christopher Dale Ryan were joined by Liz Isenberg for a rendition of “Friday XIII”, which is one of our personal favorites off of Deer Tick’s latest release, Born on Flag Day. I got to catch up with John on one of the cushy couches in the media tent right after their set on Sunday, so here’s his thoughts on the folk festival, what’s next for Deer Tick, and Deer Tick’s strong connections to Rhode Island AND Boston.

What did you first think when you were asked to play the fiftieth Newport Folk Festival?

John: It’s a tremendous honor to be asked to do this, being that we’re all native Rhode Islanders.  I was born in Providence; I’ll probably die there.  A lot of people with local ties are playing, like The Low Anthem and Elvis Perkins, and I guess David Rawlings is from here, too.

Now, you’ve been to the Newport Folk Festival before.  How does it feel, sharing the bill with other folk performers you respect and enjoy?

J: It’s crazy!  I’ve only been to the festival twice before.  The first time I was either three or four.  My parents took me because I loved the La Bamba soundtrack that Los Lobos did and they played [the festival] one year when I was a little kid, so my parents took me to that.  I went again as a teenager, I was either 13 or 14, so that was about ten years ago, and I came because [Bob] Dylan was playing.  I wanted to see himeven though I knew nothing about Bob Dylan, besides “Everybody Must Get Stoned”.  At the time, the song made a lot of sense to me. (Laughs)

Were there any songs that felt really good or stick out to you from the set you played today?

J: I think it was just cool watching the difference between when we were at our loudest at the beginning and then at the end.  Right in the middle, we kind of got a little softer and played more folk-y tunes.  Our set was kind of ridiculously, sonically overwhelming for a folk festival, but yeah.  I always love guest singers come up, like Liz did today, and I guess everyone else did, too.

Is there anyone playing Folk Festival 50 that you would love to collaborate with in the future, or any particular artist that you were thrilled to share the bill with?

J: I was really excited to find out that Guy Clarke and Billy Bragg were playing.  I’ve wanted to see them for a long time.  I mean, there are a lot of people here I would love to collaborate with.  Where do I start, you know?

Do you get the sense that the older generation of these festival performers is passing a metaphorical torch to the bands and artists of your era?

J: In a way; I mean, what we do, I don’t know if it’s really carrying the torch of the Newport Folk Festival, but maybe we can start the Newport Rock Festival.

What do we have to look forward to from Deer Tick in the coming months?

J: We have a big tour coming up that’s gonna take us through the US, Canada and Europe.  I’ve been pushing hard to get us a gig at the Hard Rock Café in Cairo, but I don’t know if it’s gonna work (laughs).  We’re gonna be on the road pretty much until Christmas.  We’re putting the finishing touches on the third album, and in the winter we’re gonna record a new album.  I’m going to do a side project with Taylor Goldsmith, he’s the lead singer in this band Dawes, and we’re going to get together and make a shotgun album and write it and record it as fast as possible.  Our album that we’ll be recording in the wintertime, that’ll be coming out early next year in time for a tour down to South by Southwest.  We’ll see about that.

How is the album you’re putting finishing touches on different from previous work you’ve done with Deer Tick?

J: The album is a lot darker, and we have enough material recorded for a proper album and an EP as kind of a companion piece that don’t really fit on the record.  I kind of had to bring myself back to being an emotionally tortured teenager to do it, but something about the studio and the setting and being isolated and having it be snowy in upstate New York where we recorded it, it worked out pretty well.  It’s way different than anything else that we’ve done.  I think it kicks ass.  When we record the new album this winter, it’s going to be much more of a group effort with everybody writing and singing and kind of sharing the frontman responsibilities and let everybody really create something.

Are there any particular songs that stand out in your catalog that you love playing live?

J: We have a lot of fun doing that song, “Straight Into a Storm”.  I think it’s just because me and Andy trade guitar solos and it’s something we can run around and be maniacs during it.

About Fort Adams: How do you feel about it, as the venue for Folk Festival 50?  I was lucky enough to chase you guys up the hill with the Ice Cream Man for your secret set, so can you take us through the experience of playing here?

J: It’s a gorgeous piece of land.  The building is so awesome.  It’s surprising that some of it’s still standing.  It’s pretty cool to be at the largest coastal fort in the United States.

I know that you guys have played Boston a lot, so I kind of want to tap into your history withProvidence’s “neighbor to the North.”  What’s your connection with your Boston fan base, and do you have any favorite venues in town?

J: One of my favorite rooms to play is Upstairs at the Middle East.  We did pretty well at Harper’s Ferry.  I hear that a lot of people don’t like playing that room, but I can’t figure out why.  My father’s actually born in Allston, so Boston feels a little like home to me, in a way.

Judy Collins, a Guitar, a Piano and a TON of Fog, approx. 6pm:

With cascading white tresses flowing over her black dress and the same piercing eyes that earned her a nickname and a song written just for her by Stephen Stills of Crosby, Stills and Nash, Judy “Blue Eyes” Collins took the stage, and I mean the whole stage, just before the concluding sing-along of Folk Festival Fifty on Sunday, August 2^nd.  Her presence alone filled the space that had been occupied earlier that weekend by bands with enormous amounts of equipment and numerous band members, and she mesmerized people with her renditions of folk classics and songs of her own just as she has been for the past fifty years.  Collins’ performance of “The Blizzard (Colorado)” left us stunned as we watched her from behind the stage at Fort Adams, and when Joan Baez joined her onstage towards the end of her set it was an instance that reminded us all that we were there for the fiftieth celebration of some pretty unique voices.  Collins on Folk Festival 50 and this year’s lineup, in particular: “In general, I think the idea behind the festival remains the same: A group of people coming together, who play all kinds of different music, and different slants on what people feel passionate about, and I’m sure there are some new songs that are being heard for the first time today and some other surprises coming along.”

As the fog rolled in off of Narragansett Bay and onto the main stage of the Newport Folk Festival, Jessie and I found ourselves scurrying up one of the hills contained within the walls of Fort Adams in hot pursuit of Deer Tick and the Ice Cream Man. We met Matt Allen, the big -haired smiley guy responsible for doling out free treats across the country as the host of Bablegum’s Road Trippin’ with the Ice Cream Man video series, when he parked his truck next to the media tent for the duration of the Newport Folk Festival.  Seeing as Jessie and I can’t resist frozen deliciousness, let alone free frozen deliciousness, we knew that we’d become fast friends with the man with the sugar, and the dude’s likability factor only increased when he invited Jessie and I to tag along with the Ice Cream Man crew as they explored Fort Adams with Deer Tick to shoot an exclusive one-song performance on the festival’s second day.

I won’t go into details here as Deer Tick’s impromptu jam is definitely Matt’s story to tell [which he does, here], but the whole point of sharing this little anecdote is just to say this: Jessie and I were thrilled to witness the work of the raw, uninhibited talent on display at George Wein’s 50^th Newport Folk Festival.  Our experience, both as music lovers and aspiring arts & entertainment journalists, was one made up of remarkable little moments, onstage and off, that really drove home the fact that the Newport Folk Festival is a time-honored tradition where some of the most respectable musicians and folk artists in the country come to this gorgeous stretch of seaside to make the most of their time together onstage.

Whether we were chatting up Matt about what kind of ice cream Neko Case opted to snack on or tearing up in the photo pit of the main stage as nearly every act on the bill joined Pete Seeger for the best sing-along ever, we encountered a slew of passionate, pleasant professionals who were as elated to be there for this fiftieth year of celebrating American singers and songwriters as we were.  We’ve compiled a list of our favorite moments at Folk Festival 50, divided up between events which occurred on Saturday, August 1, and Sunday, August 2: They include our jaunt with the Ice Cream Man and Deer Tick in fuller detail, as well as conversations with the timelessly gorgeous Judy Collins, the giddy Josh Ritter and even a heartfelt hug from Seth Avett of the Avett Brothers.  Folk Festival 50 had one of the most exciting indie/folk lineups in the festival’s 50-years-and-counting run, so even though we’re only giving you our favorite few, trust us when we say that each and every minute of our two days spent in Newport was filled with throaty yells, haunting refrains, hearty hooks, melodies chock full o’ raw emotion and a chance to catch generations of this country’s most promising talent in action.

-Hilary Hughes

(and hey! after your done reading up on our Folk Festival 50: Day 1, check out our writeup of Day 2.)

Day 1 of the Newport Folk Festival – August 1, 2009

The Low Anthem Play to High Numbers,  12:40pm

Jessie had her first unpleasant interaction as a concert photographer during The Low Anthem’s set: Shortly after they took the Waterside stage on Saturday afternoon, Jessie tried [politely, I may add] to make her way to the front so that she could score some sick shots… and an uppity fan was essentially really snippy with her.  Pro:  Ben, Jeff and Jocie of The Low Anthem are just as talented as they were the night we saw them play selections from their album, Oh My God Charlie Darwin,  at the Brattle, and clearly they’ve got some die-hard fans who were really looking forward to their performance at Newport.  Con: This woman was just mean for no reason.  She’s gotta take some pictures, lady.  Chill out and she’ll get out of your way in two seconds, geez.  On a more positive note, we were able to catch up with Jeff and pick his brains about becoming one of the newest members of the Newport Folk Festival legacy.

So, how did it feel, playing on the waterfront for hundreds of people?

J: We didn’t know what to expect because there are three stages here and we were booked on the smallest one, so we thought, “Oh, no one’s gonna see us, especially because we’re playing at the same time slot as Gillian Welch!  Man, WE want to go to Gillian Welch, and we’d choose Gillian over us!”  (Laughs) We thought that we wouldn’t see anybody, but we were happy that so many of our friends and people we knew from Providence could come out, and I think that the music was well received, so I can say on record, don’t worry if you get booked on the small stage, it’s still great!

Being a Rhode Island band, how does it feel to be reppin’ the state at such a significant festival with such a fantastic history?

J: We’ve been living in Providence for eight years and we love Providence, but our connection is more to that city.  Since we didn’t grow up here and spend our time traveling around outside the city, we do a lot of playing and working within the city, and not so much on the state level.  To play this festival, from our perspective, what’s great is that so many of our friends from Providence could come and see us here, whereas usually if we’re playing a major festival in Chicago or New York, they can’t make the trip.  I think it’s great.  And hey, maybe one of these days Boston can have a major festival!

How does it feel to be a part of the Newport Folk Festival’s legacy?  You guys seem pretty thrilled to be here, especially during Pete Seeger’s sing-along when everyone was up onstage.

J: I’d like to believe that this means that we’re accepted into the community.  It probably does in some way, but really, the relationships build from artists knowing each other and telling each other that so-and-so is a good musician.  Like, the old times, it’s by word of mouth and recommendations.  It’s a little weird; I was standing next to, say, Gillian Welch, and I don’t know Gillian Welch, and I wish I did, and maybe in the coming years I’ll get to meet her and we’ll become friends, but it was kind of forced because it was kind of like, “Hey! Everyone come up here.”  I’ve never met Pete Seeger, so it was like, I can’t say, “Yes!  The initiation is complete!”-

You don’t feel like you’re varsity folk yet, basically.

J: (Laughs) Yeah!  But it was an amazing experience, and I think that in the years to come I’ll look back on it fondly and I’ll be like, “Remember that time I was standing next to these great musicians and I was so nervous?”  It was a big deal for my father because he grew up listening to Pete Seeger, and when he saw me up there standing next to him it was a very emotional experience for him.

On the topic of initiation and meeting new artists within your musical community that you respect, do you think that your performance at the Newport Folk Festival is a kind of a new beginning for The Low Anthem?

J:  When we were booked it was definitely a significant event.  It was the same day we were booked at Bonnaroo, too, so can you imagine that day? (Laughs)  When that happened and we knew that some people were enjoying our music and gonna take a chance on us, it was great.  It was like a minor league baseball player getting a chance to play in the big leagues: Maybe he gets an at-bat in the big leagues and he’s sitting on the bench next to Manny Ramirez and Big Papi, and he’s still a rookie, but he gets his chance and he gets his cuts, that’s kind of how we feel right now.  We’re finally getting the chance to take a few cuts, and it feels good.

An Intimate Harborstage Serenade with Iron & Wine, 4:55pm

An enraptured audience swayed from side to side and sang along and half the bands on Day 1’s roster, including Ben Kweller and Tom Morello, looked to the stage as the voice of Samuel Beam, aka Iron & Wine, soared over the chorus of his cover of the Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights”.  Though each and every one of the performances seen at the Newport Folk Festival this year had their intimate, heartfelt instances of beauty in song, it was Sam who delivered a sincerely touching set that had many a festival-goer wiping tears from their eyes before its conclusion.

[Editor’s note: Naturally, I couldn’t just sit in awe like the rest of the crowd at the Harbor Stage and enjoy the music of Iron & Wine, no way.  I was standing backstage and away from the tent’s protection and I had the distinct pleasure of having one of the dudes from Fleet Foxes tell me that a seagull had chosen a most inopportune moment to relieve itself on my arm.  And leather purse.  And sunglasses.  So much for sentimentality, Mr. Seagull.]

A Spinning Bass and Stomping Feet from the Avett Brothers,  1:20pm:

Between their heel-hammering/banjo-strumming/bass-thumping/octave-soaring/tight harmonizing/chord-picking skills and the resonating melancholy of their poetic lyrics, the Avett Brothers were a tough act to follow on the first day of the Newport Folk Festival.  They played a few fan favorites from their 2007 hit, Emotionalism, as well as material from their highly anticipated I And Love And You, which is scheduled for a September 29^th release.  [Editor’s note: Of all the acts on the bill for Folk Festival 50, the Avett Brothers were the band to beat for me: Emotionalism and Four Thieves Gone are two of my favorite albums of all time and “The Ballad of Love and Hate” is the only song that can move me to tears.] The Avett Brothers will be hitting Boston on October 18^th touring in support of I And Love And You, and if the roar of the crowd in Newport that day was any indication of the  imminent success of the Avett Brothers, you’ll want to suck it up and pay the LiveNation service fee now to secure your spot at the House of Blues.

The Decemberists and their Reenactment of Bob Dylan Going Electric, approx. 6pm

The Decemberists have been good to New England this summer in that they’ve shown up in and around Boston multiple times since Memorial Day.  With that said, they blew Newport out of the water on August 1, and it surely was due in part to the fact that they were thrilled to be performing with a little help from their friends (like Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond).  Starting off the set with “The Crane Wife III” [which also happens to be my favorite song of theirs, original, I know], The Decemberists plowed through some favorites in addition to entertaining the crowd with a hilarious theatrical interpretation of a moment at the Newport Folk Festival fifty years ago when Bob Dylan plugged in his guitar and shocked the crowd.  The audience ate it up, and it’s no wonder why as the Decemberists offered up one of the most enthusiastic sets of the day.

The Most Epic of Folk/Rock/American Music Sing-Alongs led by the One and Only PETE SEEGER!, 7pm

The sun was sinking into the bay in the background, the crowd was on their feet, and the stage was chock full of the most influential folk artists along with some indie, folk and rock acts who were directly influenced by their work, and TeaParty Boston was there to see it all.  Pete Seeger, who recently celebrated his ninetieth birthday, led the festival-wide sing-along with his grandson, Tao Seeger, and had thousands of people belting out the chorus of “This Land Is Your Land”, “If I Had a Hammer” and “This Little Light Of Mine.”   What more could any music lover ask for, honestly?  We were standing in the photo pit gazing up at Ben Kweller, the Fleet Foxes, Elvis Perkins in Dearland, the Low Anthem, Gillian Welch, and nearly every other artist on the bill for Newport’s Folk Festival 50, and George Wein, the man who’s responsible for creating such a monumental musical tradition, was in the wings and singing along as well.  You can’t blame us for getting a little misty-eyed during this one.  With guitar-wielding artists across the country raising their voices today because men like Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie and women like Judy Collins and Joan Baez took  a stand through the use of their lyrics and steel strings, it was nothing short of amazing to see some of the most influential and innovative musicians on the scene sharing the stage with the artists who are partially responsible for the cultivation of their creativity.  The fiftieth incarnation of George Wein’s Newport Folk Festival was an event that celebrated the excitement of new talent while honoring the timeless, classic music of American singers and songwriters, and there wasn’t one person, onstage or off, in Newport that day who didn’t leave Fort Adams feeling as though they were the part of something much, much bigger than themselves.

Photo: Jessie Rogers

Walking through the lipstick red hallway at the Paradise Rock Club on July 11th was like tripping through a rock and roll minefield.  When Jessie and I had arrived at the venue to meet up with pop punk international heartthrobs The Click Five before their opening set at The Luxury’s CD release party, we did our best to stay out of the way of the members from all four bands as they scurried on and offstage setting up for the evening’s big event while dodging amps and guitar cases and other miscellaneous show equipment.  After we found Joey Zehr and Joe Guese upstairs stringing guitars and answering emails, we settled down with the boys at the tables that now stand in place of the stage of the former Paradise Lounge.  That was the very stage where The Click Five had their first residency back when they were shacking up in Allston and finishing up at Berklee, and we know now that there couldn’t be a more perfect backdrop for a conversation with a Boston band about the journey they’ve made between their first days playing together and the level of international fame they’ve reached.

After picking their brains about their new album, the residency they played this March at the Lizard Lounge and their life changing experiences raising awareness for human trafficking with MTV Exit in Asia this past year, we came to the following conclusion: The Click Five may be just another Boston band that got their start playing for their fellow students at Berklee, but this pop rock quintet has proven that there’s more to them than catchy hooks and hipster hair by doing their part to lend their voices to those who are aching to be heard.

-Hilary Hughes

Photo: Jessie Rogers

OPENING ACT: THE TEAPARTY 10

What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

Joey Z: Heart to Heart!

Joe: Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Who would you rather punch in the face: Long Duk Dong from “Sixteen Candles” or Mouth from “The Goonies?”

JZ: I got Chunk’s back; I don’t know if I got Mouth’s back.

J: I’m not a big movie guy.

If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be?

JZ: I’d be the cheese grater bowl that you see in the PitchMen infomercials.  You can use it for garlic, too.

J: A frying pan.

You go to bed, you wake up, you go to brush your teeth… and you realize that you’ve morphed into one of Jim Henson’s Muppets overnight.  Which Muppet are you?

JZ: I’m probably Animal.

J: I think I’d be one of the critics.  I’d be Statler of Statler and Waldorf.

After a raucous night out, you wake up at some point the next day and you realize that in your fit of crazy you got inked.  What tattoo did you wake up with?

J: I’d be horrified if I woke up with a tribal tattoo of some kind!  Definitely not a tramp stamp.

JZ: I’d get Ben Roman’s face on my right ass cheek.

Would you rather be a rodeo clown or a sumo wrestler?

JZ: Rodeo clown!

If you were a particular kind of cheese, what kind of cheese would you be?

JZ: Pecorino!

If you were a particular style of facial hair, what style facial hair would you be?

JZ: My mustache likes to grow five times faster than the rest of my facial hair, so I guess I would be a magic rapidly growing ‘stache.

What’s your quintessential “I’M GONNA DANCE AROUND MY APARTMENT IN MY UNDERWEAR AND LOVE LIFE!” song?

JZ: “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”, Michael Jackson.

What’s your favorite word?

JZ: Second-off.  As in first off, second off….

Photo: Jessie Rogers

THE MAIN EVENT: THE CLICK FIVE TPB INTERVIEW

Hi guys!

Joey Z, Joe: Hi!

Where are you from, originally?

Joey Z: Originally, I’m from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Joe: I’m from Denver, Colorado.

And you guys all met at Berklee, right?  How did you find each other there?

JZ: We all moved to Boston in 2000, I think.  Joe and I were in a class together, and everyone actually kind of knew each other at various points and then in Allston we became roommates.  About a year or two into living together we started The Click, which in turn became The Click Five.  We just met through common interests at Berklee.  We were a bunch of dudes who wanted to have our own little version of “Animal House” out in Allston (laughs).

Did you like living in Allston?

JZ: It was definitely a lot of fun while we were in school.  We attempted to have a lot of parties, but they weren’t always very successful, but so is the way of college.

Define a “successful” party for us.

JZ: Well, you know, it was college, so usually in college the meter was like, “Is it ALL guys… or not?” and pretty much it would always end up being all guys for us.  That’s what happens when you go to Berklee.

J: That’s changed, I think.  When we were at Berklee it was 70/30 guys to girls.

Let’s talk about The Click Fives’ creative process.  Does someone specifically take care of the lyrics or the composition of the songs or is it more collaborative?

JZ: It tends to be- definitely the majority of the time various people – not really Joe and me, but the other guys – they write songs and bring ‘em in.  With one of our favorite tracks off the new record we did the collaborative thing and all sat in a room and wrote.  The problem is is that it seems to take days to write a song, so the more people you have in a room for days at a time, the hotter it gets and just the… I don’t know.  I mean it’s interesting; we were successful with it this time around.   We had never actually really done it before.  It usually starts out with one person coming up with the creative idea and then brings it in and the band refines it or whatever, but it varies.  I would say that’s probably the norm.

What is it that you really love about working with each other?  Is there something that makes you guys gel really well together as opposed to with other bands or musicians you’ve worked with in the past?  What sets The Click Five apart?

JZ: At this point, we’ve been playing together for long enough that the thing that’s probably magical within us is that we all know how to play together now.  I’d say what’s been a uniting force since the beginning is that we all have a desire to be pretty professional about it, and take what we do really seriously without cutting corners.  We don’t like to be sloppy, and I think the dedication amongst all of us is what we have in common.

Are there any songs of yours that you feel particularly connected to or that stand out amongst others in your catalogue as favorites?

J: I like playing them all!  The newest stuff is probably the most exciting to play, though.

JZ: Actually, last night we were playing a show in New Jersey and we opened the set with a song we hadn’t played in four years.  That’s kind of fun, to throw in the random old favorites, like songs from the first record.   We’re so focused on what we’re doing now that it’s hard for us to play older songs.  We always like to play our current record more than anything else.

Were you playing stuff from your new record throughout your residency?  I know that you guys played the Lizard Lounge each Saturday this past March.

J: Yeah.

Are we gonna hear some new stuff tonight?

JZ: Probably mostly new stuff, actually.

How was setting up shop in one of Boston’s favorite music bars for your March residency at the Lizard Lounge?

JZ: It was great.  It was awesome.  It was pretty much sold out every night, and it was all really great bands.  That was how we met The Luxury, doing that show with them.  It was a great vibe, the whole thing, the bands were all getting along, and it was great hanging out in that basement and making music together.  We would play two sets every night it was like a two-hour adventure with us.  It was a lot of fun.  The funny thing about playing the Paradise tonight is right here, where we’re sitting, we had our first residency on this stage [at the former Paradise Lounge] which now, I’m guessing they don’t do music in here seeing as we’re sitting where the stage used to be [laughs].

Yeah, no stage, just some awkwardly shaped tables…

JZ: I mean, we have a new history with the Lizard Lounge, but we have a really old history with the Paradise.  This is definitely where we would play nonstop before we were signed, so it’s exciting to be here.

Would you say this would be your favorite venue in Boston?

JZ: Ah, I don’t play favorites!

Well, let’s a get a list of the venues that you really love playing.  A Varsity Venue list, if you will.

JZ: Well, I can’t think of a whole bunch that we don’t like…

What about the crowd?  What sets your Boston fans apart from your audiences in other cities?

JZ: Well, they’re all our friends, mostly, so it gives the show a little extra meaning.  It’s kind of like when you’re coming to play for your family, it gives you that little extra kick.  I think that’s one of the great things about playing in Boston.

What do you think it is about Boston’s music scene that sets it apart from that in other cities? What makes it a great city to come back to?

J: It has a real traditionalist aspect to it that I don’t think New York or LA really have as far as a purist rock and roll scene goes, just with something as stupid as having the right guitars and right amps.  So many people cut their teeth here before they go elsewhere.  There’s such a long list of people who not only came out of here but who spent their time here.

Who are your favorite Boston bands that you listen to or that you love to see live?  What Boston bands do you really enjoy?

J: We love John Powhida, the John Powhida International Airport.

JZ: The scene that we came up in, as a band, was the Lizard scene.

J: Bleu, the Gentlemen, the Gravel Pit, Viola… Those are the kinds bands we listened to or have played with, kind of the older crowd…

JZ: We like Apollo Sunshine.  Jammy used to copy my tests in Economics at Berklee (laughs).

Let’s talk about your more recent travels.  Didn’t you go to China relatively recently?  Take us through your experience with MTV Exit and your work in Southeast Asia.

JZ: It was actually our first time in China.  We’ve done a lot of business in Southeast Asia, we’ve got an interesting thing going on there.  We went to Beijing and did a cool club show, probably a similar sized club to the Paradise, and then after that we went and met up with the MTV people in Cambodia in Angkor Wat.  MTV Exit is a nonprofit branch of MTV that raises awareness for human trafficking, and I think because they knew we had a big following in the people they wanted to educate about it in Southeast Asia and stuff, they brought us on to be the main international act.  In Angkor Wat, we did a show with Placebo and Duncan Sheik in this amazing temple, and it was the first rock and roll concert that ever happened there.  It was really an honor to be a part of it.  Then, we drove to Penan-Pen and we played the stadium there for 15,000 people, and that was great because I don’t think they get a whole lot of concerts there and that was a good time.  While we were there, we were visiting women’s shelters which was crazy because it was a bunch of 18, 19, 20 year old girls who had been sex slaves since they were about 10.  Some of them were dying from AIDS and there were kids running around that they had with the people that were raping them.  It was the heaviest thing that any of us had ever experienced, for sure.  It was really cool, and MTV a special about the whole thing, and we finished the trip in Bangkok.  MTV made a whole special about our trip there and kind of used that as a vehicle to raise awareness in some of the Southeast Asian countries.  It’s one of those weird things where we all knew about it before going there, we knew it exists, but once you actually get there and see it it’s unbelievable that something that inhumane is happening.  So, yeah.  That was probably one of the coolest trips that any of us had been on.

Do you think your trip with MTV Exit affected you creatively as well?  I mean, something that impacts you on such a raw human level has got to have some kind of artistic aftermath.  Do you think the trip brought The Click Five closer together as a unit?

J: I think so, for sure.  It definitely puts a whole different perspective on things, you know?

JZ: You can’t leave something like that and not be completely changed.

It must feel good to have MTV Exit reach out to you and your music like that.

JZ: Yeah, and they really like one of the songs off the new record that we have called “Don’t Let Me Go”.  We were at the shelter, and we were playing for them and it was really raw with just a couple of acoustic guitars, and I was playing drums on a bucket, and Ben didn’t have anything so he was just sitting there clapping, but we played “Don’t Let Me Go” and none of the girls spoke English, so they would listen to us, and the translators would translate the lyrics and while we were playing the translators were crying.  Everyone involved in this has been affected: Our translator’s daughter had been kidnapped, so she was listening to the song and crying, and she stopped and translated the song, and the girls loved it, so now MTV is making a music video for that song and the last time they did that was for Radiohead, for “All I Need”.  We’re honored and excited to see that.

When’s that going to happen, the music video?

JZ: No idea.  Everyone keeps asking us “When’s this gonna happen, what’s next?”  The reality of the situation is that we have no idea.  We finished our record, but right now we’re not signed to a label.  Our first two records were on Atlantic and we’re not with Atlantic anymore.  We kind of shuffled our team up in that we switched managers and lawyers, and so right now where we’re at is really finding how we’re going to go about distributing our record and based on all that the video will probably get figured out.  It’s a whole puzzle that we’re trying to piece together right now.

Does The Click Five have any plans to delve further into activism or any humanitarian work in the near future?

JZ: I hope that we can keep doing stuff with MTV Exit and work with them on some other shows.

Well, thank you for doing that, because you guys are in such a key place to make such a difference, especially seeing that you have such a following in Southeast Asia specifically.

JZ: The one thing that was really eye-opening for me was that we were on the Great Wall in Beijing, and there was this huge group of Chinese kids that were obviously from somewhere not in Beijing, and they were really excited to see us, not because they knew who we were or whatever but because we were tall white dudes walking around and they wanted to take pictures with us.  I kept trying to see if they knew any English, and they didn’t know ANY English; they didn’t even know “America”, they didn’t know the word “English,” and then I said “Kobe Bryant?” And they all started nodding their heads and getting excited.  Having that experience and going to Cambodia made me realize that these kids aren’t watching the news.  They’re watching entertainment, and we’re going to be their form of showing them this really heavy stuff.

When it comes to touring, do you guys have any crazy stories from the tour bus you feel compelled to share?

JZ: I have a really gross story.  (Laughs) I shouldn’t tell them…

You kind of seem like you want to tell it.

JZ: …Okay!  It was the night of our record release party and I was messing with Ben, our keyboard player, he’s kind of aloof.  I took a shit in a bag, and I handed it to him, and he thought it was food and he got excited but then he realized what it was and it got really ugly.  But then, meanwhile, we had this 18-year-old guy on the road with us who was doing our merch, and he was totally green to the road and didn’t know what was going on or whatever.  We come to find out that he saw me do that, which is totally unacceptable what I did but it was just guys being stupid, or whatever, and he saw me do that and we come to find out later that he started storing bags of shit in his bunk on the bus (Laughs.)  We’ve never told that story to anyone.  You can’t shit on a tour bus.  I mean, you could, but no one does.  It’s like a rule.  You wait until you get to a hotel or at a truck stop or whatever.

So… I… don’t know how to respond to that.

JZ: I just did it to be hilarious and sometimes I can bend the rules, but this guy just saw this thing happening and though, “Oh! I guess you can do that!”  Yeah.  It was bad.

…I was expecting you to be like “Yeah, we had a crazy time at this one bar!” Not… that.

JZ: Well, I can tell you a more kosher story, too.  One of the stories that we always tell – a mom drove her car in front of her bus so that our bus couldn’t move forward, and then her daughter ran on our bus with her camera.  We were all sleeping, so we come falling out of our bunks in our underwear and boxers like, “What’s going on?!” She’s like, trying to take our picture, and our tour manager tries to kick her off when all of a sudden her mom comes running into the bus too.  We were actually going into a venue, I think, so a security guard had to come along the bus to keep their car away from the bus.  It was really, really weird.

Where was this?

J: Connecticut.

JZ: I gave that girl a lot of credit.  That was ballsy.  They could’ve gotten hurt.

Let’s talk about the new album.  How is this a departure from previous material released by The Click Five?  What is it about this album that makes you really excited to share it with your fans?

J: It was our first record away from a major label, so that was kind of interesting and cool because there was no outside interference really whatsoever.  It was just the band and our producer making the record that we really wanted to make.

Photo: Jessie Rogers

For more information on The Click Five’s advocacy work, human trafficking and how you can help, visit the MTV Exit Homepage.

Chris shows off his origami skills

The miniscule size of TT the Bear’s Place makes it nearly impossible to avoid bumping into members of the band you’re there to see, and you can frequently catch the headliners warming up on the pool table before their set in between cheap beers and routine trips to check up on the merch table.  The night that my friends and I went to see Canadian folk outfit Rock Plaza Central was no exception to this rule, as Chris Eaton, the frontman and individual responsible for organizing the talents of the five people we saw onstage that night, was bouncing back and forth between the sidewalk and the inside of the venue for various interviews and to say hi to a few friends.  I had noticed his hunter green cowboy shirt embroidered with poppies on the collarbone before our official introduction, but Chris’ warmth and contagious enthusiasm for music, Canada and all things Rock Plaza Central left a far more lasting impression than his sick fashion sense.

Rock Plaza Central’s latest album, At The Moment Of Our Most Needing, dropped on June 16th and you can catch the Canadian folk rock group out on the road until autumn hits.   If you’re interested in finding out how Rock Plaza Central’s eclectic sound came to be, what the band’s plans are for the future, and why, exactly, Chris feels the need to punch out that pretty-haired dude from Felicity, keep readin’ on.

-Hilary Hughes

OPENING ACT: THE TEAPARTY 10

Before we get into some intimate questions and answers, let’s get the ball rolling with a few off-the-wall inquiries.

What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

The only breakfast cereal I eat is Vector.  Do you guys have Vector in the States?  Maybe that’s why it’s fun, then.  It’s not even- on the box I think, it’s not called a cereal and I don’t think they’re allowed to call it a cereal for some weird reason, but it’s a “meal replacement”.  It’s really just soy clusters and some other things.  It’s kind of a granola kind of thing- it tastes like Frosted Flakes but it’s better for you.  It’s supposed to be for athletes or something, but I eat it because it tastes like Frosted Flakes.

Who would you rather punch in the face: Long Duk Dong from “Sixteen Candles”, or Mouth from “The Goonies?”

I don’t remember what mouth was like in “The Goonies”; all I remember is… what’s the fat kid’s name?  Chunk?  That’s all I remember is the Truffle Shuffle from that whole movie!  Long Duk Dong… I suppose probably Corey Feldman’s character because he was kind of a jerk.  I once said something about punching out Scott Speedman.  Felicity must’ve been really big or something… And then the next night after I said it, Scott Speedman was sitting RIGHT in front of me at this play!  He’s from Canada.  So, I was at this play and he was sitting right in front of me, and I’m going, “Awww what am I going to do!? Now I have to!”  I should’ve just gone up to him and said, “Excuse me, I told somebody I had to punch you in the face.  Can I just very softly…?”

If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be?

A blender.  I don’t know any other kitchen appliances.

You go to bed, you wake up, and you go into the bathroom to brush your teeth… And you realize that you’ve morphed into one of Jim Henson’s Muppets overnight.  Which Muppet are you?

I don’t understand the question!  What do I look like in the morning, or who would I love to be? When I was a kid for mother’s day I bought my mother Muppet mugs and my favorite Muppet – and it’s remarkable that they wouldn’t make a Muppet mug for this guy – was Beauregard, who was the janitor on the Muppet show.  For me at the time the guy was great.  The Swedish Chef’s all right.  If you actually lived in Sweden you’d know that he’s obviously not Swedish.  He’s Norwegian.  The Swedes all know his accent is totally Norwegian.

Okay, so you go out, get hammered or stoned or what have you, you black out, and you wake up the next only to realize that in your inebriated state you went out and got tattooed.  What’d you get?

“The plane!  The plane!”  That’s an old bad dumb joke.  That quote’s from Tatu from Fantasy Island.

What’s your standard “I’M GONNA DANCE AROUND MY APARTMENT IN MY SKIVVIES!” song?  Think along the lines of “Risky Business.”

I think I just did this the other day too so I’m trying to remember what it was.  Maybe something by Led Zeppelin or something… Any Zeppelin box set, how ‘bout that?  I’d just go all day long.

Would you rather be a sumo wrestler or a rodeo clown?

Rodeo clown.  My initial response was rodeo clown, just because maybe I have some actual skills that would actually allow me to do that.  Rodeo clowns just run away, right? I’m all right at running away.  But sumo wrestlers get to eat anything they want, right?

If you were a cheese, what kind of cheese would you be?

I would be Saint Agure.  It’s a blue cheese that’s kind of got a strong taste that most people don’t like, but those who do can appreciate it.

If you were a style of facial hair, what would you be?

What’s the one with long sideburns and a mustache?  Mutton chops with- a mustache with two lines going down, with the chops.  I want to call it a Lemmy.

What’s your favorite word?

I got this CD once at this store in the $2 bin of this young guy who was totally trying to be Tom Waits, and that was one of the lyrics: “I would like to know you Jennifer / What’s your favorite word? / I like Ocelot, Lily and Nectarine / First, second and third.”  Ocelot is a pretty good word.  Lily and nectarine aren’t that great, but ocelot is a really good word.  I’ll go with ocelot.  That’s a good hats-off to Craig Davies, wherever he is.

THE MAIN EVENT: THE TPB ROCK PLAZA CENTRAL INTERVIEW

First and foremost, hi!  What’s your deal?  Where are you from, and where’s the rest of the band from?

Yikes!  My name is Chris, and I play in Rock Plaza Central.  The touring band for this tour is comprised of five of us and, I mean, everyone’s playing a lot of different things.  Scott Maynard is playing many things and Fiona Stewart is playing many things and Donald Murray is playing many things… but not the bass, and Andrew Innanen is playing drums.  Do you guys know that rhyme, “I know a man who’s named was Finnegan?”  I’m always talking about whiskers on Andrew’s “chin-a-nin”.  He doesn’t find it funny anymore.

Tell me the story of how Rock Plaza Central came to be.  Can you take me through how you all met and how you all came to make music together?

I mean, the name existed before the band you’ll see tonight came together.  I was playing a lot of shows, not ever playing them solo but showing up solo, and seeing if members of the audience would want to join me for the night and just improvising on whatever on songs I had written.  One night, three people who are now in the band came with me and opened up for three other people who then came to be in the band as well. There was this one show we did where we had an improv choir and that failed.   There were some moments that were shining stars in complete blackness otherwise.  At the end of the first show we played together, people came up and said, “You guys are so tight!  How long have you been playing together?” and I was like “Uh, I don’t know that guys name….” I’m sure people thought it was a joke, but seriously, I didn’t have any idea who “that guy” was at first.  As we started the first song, we just said, “Hey, do you guys wanna come up?  If you wanna come up and play, come up and play.”  The middle of the song they came up and never left, and we became a band and recorded about a month later.

Let’s talk about your discography.  Can you bring me through the brief history of Rock Plaza Central from your first album up to where we are now?

There’s a really old album that we don’t ever talk about, it’s the first album, and that’s like, ten years old.  With this group, The World of Sound was recorded about a month after we did that first show, and we didn’t get to even practice anything for it, we just said, “That’s great! Let’s record.” So, we booked some time and then showed up and the six songs we did that night we played again, and then I had 600 ideas, so I just taped everything live off the floor.  I think we added a few harmonies and horns later, but mostly the album is just live off the floor in one take.  We were there for two days.  Then we did Are We Not Horses? a few years later, and spent pretty much the same amount of time doing it.  We have a record coming out on June 16th called At the Moment of Our Most Needing.

Who are your influences, musically, creatively and otherwise?  Who do you credit a lot of your creativity to when it comes to writing?

My mom. (Laughs)  The band- because we don’t practice or at least in the beginning we didn’t practice very much, we’d get together and hang out and kind of play music and stuff- But we don’t usually go into it like, “we’re gonna learn the songs or have an idea of where they’re gonna go.”   In performances, they go wherever.  There’s anywhere from five to eight people playing the show pulling it in different directions and it somehow goes to this one place.  Influence is a really hard [question] because we can’t agree to listen to anything in the band.  They don’t wanna listen to what I wanna listen to…

Well, let’s talk about that.  Who do you like to listen to?

Oh, I don’t know.  Most of the stuff I listen to that I really like I listen to at home and it probably wouldn’t communicate very well in an auto stereo or something. I like Smog a lot.  (Laughs)

Who’s on your Recently Added list on your iPod?

I don’t have an iPod yet!  I’m totally behind the times!

Do you have a DiscMan?  A WalkMan?

No, I don’t have anything!  I don’t like to listen to anything when I’m outside.

Why’s that?

I like listening to people talk.  I’m a chronic eavesdropper.  I should probably get an iPod to fake it and get hearing aids to amplify other people’s conversations.  At home, I know that for the last few weeks I’ve been listening to a lot of Jim Guthrie.  Royal City, do you guys know Royal City?  He’s a Canadian guy, and I’ve been listening to his first album, his solo album, ENDLESSLY lately, just over and over and over.  That, and Betty Davis, not the actress; there’s a singer who’s married to Miles Davis, which is where the Davis comes from.  She’s amazing, just really funky.  I listen to stuff that doesn’t sound like us.  We’ve been listening to a lot of classic rock in the band.  The US has many great classic rock stations.

WROR in Boston is great, you should listen to that while you’re hear, though they do tend to play Buffalo Springfield/CCR on a loop…

The States I think in generally does have better classic rock stations than we do [in Canada].

Is there any iconic Canadian classic rock?

Rush.  Is that classic rock? Or prog rock?  Bachman Turner Overdrive, is that classic rock?  They’re obviously Canadian.  And the Guess Who.  Burton Cummings, what a wicked voice that guy’s got!

What about Rock Plaza Central’s creative process?  Is it a collaborative effort to write music or do you write the majority of the lyrics and the songs?  Can you take me through your songwriting and how it changes once you’re in the studio?

I write the lyrics, although often members of the band will say other things and I’ll be like, “Oh yeah!  That’s awesome, let’s keep that.”  I think I’ve developed some sort of veto on the lyrics, anyway.  The music tends to start off with some kind of melody that I have in my head but I haven’t played yet on anything, so it’s trying to figure out the chords and what goes around with it.  Everyone does what they want to do.  It’s interesting; the first time we play a song, which can often happen at a show, we’ll just, I’ll just launch into something I’ve had in my head and people will try to figure out the chords, and most of the time it works pretty well.  The last time we were in Boston we did a song that is on the new record, but it wasn’t the same at all when we played it.  It was one of the first times we ever played it.

What’s your favorite song to play live? Do you have a general favorite amongst all of you?

Right now there’s two songs from the new record that I personally love to play live: “Don’t You Believe the Words of a Handsome Man”, which we played for the first time in Boston, actually, and then “The World is Good Enough”. I’ve been playing a lot more banjo lately, and the banjo patterns in those songs are really fun for me to play.  Those are the songs where we really rock out.

I definitely want to talk about your relationship with your Boston fans and how it’s been for you playing here.  Do you remember the first big gig you played here?  Where was it, and when?

The first time I came to Boston when I was probably 10: My dad took me to watch the Boston Red Sox play.  I think they may have been playing the Yankees.   It was a big deal.  We’d come to Boston pretty frequently when I was a kid; we’d just hop the bus in New Brunswick and come down and watch baseball games because, I mean, it’s closer than going to Toronto or Montreal or anything.  It was a neat experience for us.  The first time we played Boston as a band was right after Are We Not Horses? came out.  I can’t remember the venue, but it was a fun show.  We had really just started touring far a-field from Toronto, and on that trip we had done a bunch of shows in Canada and then down to Boston, and then we were going to New York, and for some reason our one trombone player couldn’t play that one show in Boston.  We brought the trombone up on stage, and while everyone was playing what they were normally playing, I walked around and put the trombone up to the [audience members’] lips so they blew while I did the notes.  The song just went on forever, but it was this really awesome thing…  As far as touring goes we’ve kind of scaled down to a 5-piece for the most part, and we kept bringing those instruments, and so we kept playing more electric guitar, more trombone, more banjo, more, uh, we didn’t pick up the accordion too much, but… (Laughs) We all started playing things that we didn’t normally play.  I never really played banjo before that.

Do you have any favorite acts that are local around here?  Do you have any favorite bands that hail from Boston that you really like?

Oh my God.  I just saw The Grownup Noise inside and they were great.  I never know where bands are from.  Who’s big in Boston right now?  What was that band that had that song, that really, really old tune, “Dirty Water”?  Whenever we come to Boston we start singing it in the van.  “Oh, Boston, you’re my home!”  We keep thinking we should cover it.  Every time we come to Boston, we keep thinking we should learn it and play it here.

People would just throw themselves at you!  So after learning “Dirty Water”, what’s up next for Rock Plaza Central?

The record comes out on June 16th, and then it’s touring time, yeah.  We’re gonna play all summer, I guess.

Do you have any crazy stories from the tour bus so far?

Not this tour! The last tour we were on, the last show, we got in a big car accident on the last day.  We flipped the van outside Saskatoon during a big ice storm.  It’s been weird to get back into it.  It was fine, no one was hurt, no instruments were damaged; it’s remarkable, really, I don’t know.  It’s kind of freaky to get back on the road after that.

A couple of months from now or six months from now, will you be going back into the studio?

Well, no, not yet. I don’t like touring very much.  I like playing a lot, and I like meeting people and stuff, but actually getting on the road is not my thing.  I would rather tour for a very short period of time and go back and record an album and come out with an album each year instead of tour for two years and then record.  I think my plan is to maybe write some new stuff and record in the fall and then go out on the road again next year and sort of do this every summer.  Winter’s the worst [for touring]! (Laughs)

What’s not to like about a band that brings their own “stage monsters” on tour?  While getting their gear ready for their set at TT the Bear’s in April, Thao and the Get Down Stay Down had a slew of propped up imaginary creatures, painted on plywood, with shaggy fur, horns and toothy smiles nestled amongst their cables, amps and kick drum.  The whimsical touch was a fitting one for the fiercely talented threesome, who has solidified their place in the hearts of indie rock lovers across the country with their sing-songy melodies, uplifted beats and lesson-teachin’ lyrics.

I had the pleasure of catching up with Thao a couple of hours before she was to take the stage at TT the Bear’s Place a couple of months ago.  The girl had plenty of bizarre, beautiful and even some Boston-related anecdotes to share during our conversation.  Thao with the Get Down Stay Down will be touring for a few more weeks this summer before finishing their new album, which is currently scheduled to hit iTunes and your favorite record store on October 13th.  Read on to learn more about the band’s upcoming release, Thao’s favorite songs to play and the stories behind them, and why she looks forward to coming through Boston, the “sleeper hit of the season”, each time Thao with the Get Down Stay Down head back out on the road.

-Hilary Hughes

THE MAIN EVENT: THE TPB THAO WITH THE GET DOWN STAY DOWN INTERVIEW

How was your show at the Iron Horse in North Hampton last night?

It was fun! It was a good time.  It was actually a livelier crowd than we’re used to.  There were these two drunk bros in the corner right up front.  They were the only downside…

I don’t think you’re going to be seeing any bros tonight, because TT’s is a pretty low-key venue.

Rad. That’s my favorite thing to hear.

I got a few questions about your tour so far and your back-story and stuff like that.  In your own words, can you give me the abridged history of Thao with the Get Down Stay Down?

Sure! I started out solo, and Willis, our drummer, and I went to college together.  He started playing a few shows with me and he played on a few songs on the first record that I put out, but no one really has that record.  I think only my mom has it?  Then, we went on tour.  We found our bassist, Adam Thompson, in Richmond, Virginia, and we worked him into the band. Things picked up and we went on this tour for this compilation for Kill Rockstars.  We recorded some songs, and then Kill Rockstars signed us, and then we finished the record and that became We Brave Beestings And All.  It happened without a lot of fanfair, but quickly enough that it kind of surprised us, and then we’ve just been on tour.  I liken it to a shotgun wedding.  We weren’t really entirely aware of what we were doing or getting into, but then we were in it.

Unlike a shotgun wedding I hope that you’re not regretting the consequences!

Not everyday. (Laughs.)

Now, how long have you guys been touring this leg?

We’ve been on the road about three and a half week and after tonight we’ll have three shows left.

About the tour: Can you tell me any crazy stories from the road?  Do you have any ridiculous tales from the tour bus, so to speak?

This tour has been surprisingly uneventful.  I think it because it feels more like a job this time around.  We’re more responsible, everybody’s drinking less, eating healthier, and, uh… Well, Texas is always kinda nuts.  Fort Worth, in my opinion, is kind of a bizarre town.  There’s a live bull on the side of the road that you could ride and take pictures with, but it looked drugged and we didn’t trust it.  And then we went to an indoor rodeo… pretty funny… Texas is much more unbelievable than other places.

Have you had the chance to play in Austin?

Yeah!  We’ve been in Austin a few times lately because we were there for SXSW and we came through on tour.

What are some other favorite cities you’ve played in and some other venues you like?

I live in San Francisco and I love going back, and we play The Independent a lot, it’s a great venue and the staff is really fantastic.  We always play Lubbock, Texas, which is hilarious, and the crowd is by far the liveliest.  I don’t know how, but they all know the words.  There’s drinking, they bring you cigarettes onstage, everyone’s incredibly enthusiastic and warm.  They make you feel like a high school quarterback.

Really?!  That’s awesome.  So I guess if you ever want to take a break from the road you can always head over there…

And it’s Buddy Holly’s hometown! There are these cool horned-rimmed glasses, enormous ones, outside of the Buddy Holly Museum.

So, you like Texas, you love San Francisco.  Can you tell me how you feel about Boston, specifically?  Can you talk about your experiences in Boston, having played here before?

I often think about Boston as the sleeper hit of the season because we have no ties to Boston and so we’re always really incredibly surprised, pleasantly surprised with the turnouts, and everyone’s so great and warm and really fantastic.  The last show, when we came through last time on tour, I guess it was at the Middle East, but that was by far one of the best shows on the tour.  We played at the Museum of Fine Arts, which was a lot of fun as well.  It was a sit-down venue, and it was indoors.  People have always been great, and we’re always happy to come through!

Well, we’re happy to have you!

Well, thanks.  (Laughs)

Have you had the chance to check out any local bands while you’ve been playing here?  How long do you usually stay in Boston?

Unfortunately, we just stay the night and then we have to shove off in the morning.  It’s always a four or five hour drive to New York, which is the next place we have to be usually, so… Yeah, we went to the Cheers bar once! Which, you know, turns out to be not as cool as you want.  It doesn’t really look like the Cheers bar; it’s kind of drab.  I’m trying to remember but everything blurs together because I am a fruit fly.  Let me think… We went to a nice park once. Local bands, no, we haven’t, but not because we don’t want to, just because we haven’t been able to.

Totally understandable.  Tour schedules can be crazy, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.  On to other bands that you listen to: Who do you find to be musically inspirational?  If you and I were to switch iPods right now, who would I find on your Favorites Playlist?

Right now, I listen to a lot of older stuff.  I don’t know a lot about newer bands.  The Lovin’ Spoonful, the Byrds … I’m just actually going through [my iPod] right now… The Zombies… I like Mirah a lot, Mirah and Andrew Bird are the two most present-day artists I listen to.

Yeah, Andrew Bird is coming here in a couple of weeks.

Yeah, he’s great!  What a good whistler, that guy!

Yeah!

We’ve been listening to a lot of the Clash.  And Tribe, sometimes, always, and Outkast I like a lot.

Yeah, they’re fun.  Now, do you guys have any pre-show rituals?

Yeah!  We do this kind of group huddle-thing and we chant, “Get down! Stay down!” in funny voices, but we only do that if we have time.  A lot of times we’re off scattered in different corners of the venue and then we congregate onstage at the last minute.  When we have time and we’re not too stressed out we do that.  We’re starting this thing – Well, I am, I don’t know about the other guys – but I’m gonna start playing shows sober.  Last night was the first time I think and it was enjoyable.  I might do it again tonight, I don’t know.  Normally, we’d have a toast before a show.

You guys are going on pretty late tonight – You’re not going on until 11 right?

Maybe, I don’t know anything.

What are you guys working on now?  I know that you said you have a couple more shows left, but after that what’s next for Thao with the Get Down Stay Down?

We do, we are working on a record, and it’s almost done.   We have another week of recording in July, and then the record will be out on October 13th.   I have to work on some songs and get them ready for recording, and, uh, we’re playing some festivals over the summer.  It’s pretty light, since we’ve been on tour so much this year.  I’m going to do the Rock N’ Roll Camp for Girls in Portland this June, which I’m really looking forward to, and we’re gonna… um… work on exercise… I don’t know, I think we’re going to Sweden?  I’m not really sure.  As far as a band, we’re playing just, we might go to Europe in August for the week, but we’re just gearing up for the next record and the touring that’ll inevitably come.

Great!  Is there anything you can tell me about this new record?  Can you give me a sneak preview, or is this information confidential?

The new record is a lot more energetic, but at the same time sadder and more straightforward and emotional, I would say.

So, a little melancholy?

Yeah! Oh, totally heartbreak record!  We tried to make it festive as well.

I feel like you guys do a good job of blending the melancholy and the energy… I feel like “Beat (Health, Fire)” is a good example of that.

Thank you! Yeah, we try.  Actually, this record, it’s funny… There are a couple of songs that are just sad, you know?  They’re sad songs and they sound sad and I wanted to try that because sometimes it’s too dark to try to brighten up.  So, there’s more of a balance on this record, I think.

Can you take me through your songwriting process?  How does it go?   Do you write the majority of the music and the lyrics, or is it more of a collaborative effort?

Sure!  I write the songs, and then I bring them to the guys and they write their parts, and we’ll figure out arrangements and additional instrumentation in the studio.  I prefer to have the song relatively complete as far as the lyrics and the melody and the structure.  And then, the songs, it helps when something terrible has happened as far as inspiration for them, and then we work on the song as a band and we bring it into the studio with Tucker, our producer.  Then, we gather around and just play it through and record it, and see what else it might need, but at the end it’s a very collaborative effort and it’s pretty cool to have everyone’s ideas colliding against each other.

Yeah, that’s great.  Well, Thao, I think that’s all I got for you!  Are you playing anything new tonight from the new record?

Yeah, two or three.

What’s your favorite song to play?

“Beat”, definitely.  We have the most fun with that live.  That’s my favorite song on the record and it has been since the beginning.  I think it was a really good example of where our musical selection was headed, or where we were headed musically.  Yeah, that one, haha.

Does that have a back-story, “Beat”?

Yeah, well, you know, the title, “Beat: Health, Life and Fire”, I stole it from an insurance agency.  Because, you know, I walked by an insurance agent’s storefront and outside they said, “We sell Insurance: Health, Life, Auto, Fire”, and I just took out “Auto” because I just like how it sounded.  That song is just about fucking shit up with people, which is a lot of what our songs are about.  It’s basically I guess about being a little self-destructive with relationships.

I think we’re all guilty of that from time to time.

Good!  I’m glad to hear it.