BB: How does a new song
usually come about for you guys?
...
Adam: Well to this point I’ve done most of the writing. The great
thing about it is the group is so proficient at their instruments that
they can take a song that I write and make it into something that’s totally
different. I basically will write the guts of the song and bring it to the
band and everyone has different ideas about what it should be and it kind
of evolves. Most of the songs have gotten the way that they are because
we’re a live band. We play a lot more live gigs than we do practice
actually.
Pete: There would be times that we wouldn't practice for months.
Josh: Yeah, we would just say let’s try this new song at this gig
or that gig.
Adam: Also Jordan had been in college the entire time at Bard
College in New York so she’s hadn’t been around as much. But yeah, I’ll
just bring something in, but most of it gets flushed out live. We really
are a live band primarily.
BB: What are your musical influences personally,
especially those that affect the music of the band?
...
Pete: My father is a drummer. He and my two uncles raised me on
things anywhere from the
Beatles to
Santana and the
Mahavishnu Orchestra
to
Jeff Beck and everything in between.
Phish, and
Zappa, and all these
really great bands. I think there’s really great stuff in all different
kinds of music.
Josh: I don’t even know where to start. I think my earliest
memories are of
Jackson Browne's “Hold Out” album. I hear that record and
it’s like I was born with it. But it took a long time before I realized I
actually liked Jackson Browne outside of the fact that it sounded so
familiar. Also
U2,
Bruce Springsteen,
Beatles.
Adam: You have a lot of
Knopfler too.
Josh: Yeah, Dire Straits.
Pete: My dad always said you sound like a mix between The Edge and
Dave Gilmore.
Josh: I’d say more The Edge, because I can’t play as well as
someone like Mark Knopfler but I can try to get sounds like The Edge.
Adam: We were just like Pete growing up with his family playing
drums. Our families are both real musical. We always had musical
instruments in our hands. I don’t remember learning how to play the guitar
because it was before memory. Once I got older, Bob Dylan became a huge
influence. Bob Dylan,
Van Morrison, Jackson Browne and
Tom Waits were
probably the four songwriters that influenced me the most. But then you
get into sounds, and what you want to sound like. U2 is a great influence,
beyond just the music, because of their way to be able to transcend
genres. I mean, you can turn on any music station in Boston and hear U2
whether it’s the River, BOS, FNX, BCN, Kiss 108 or Mix 98.5. Put on any of
those stations and you can here U2.
Jordan: Well for a long time when I was growing up and in high
school I was kind of rejecting what they listened to because they’re my
brothers and I didn’t want to listen to what they listened to. So mostly I
was into a lot of female artists.
Sarah
McLachlan was the reason
when I was in seventh grade that I started writing songs. And then through
playing with these guys and spending so much time with them, I realized
that the stuff that they like was really good. I still have my core of
female singers that I love.
Patty Griffin. One of my favorite bands is
The
Innocence Mission.
Adam: A great band.
Josh: I just wanted to say too that a lot of what influenced me was
just my dad talking about music. What it was like in his day. When we were
little we would listen to the oldies. My dad would tell us who everyone
was; tell us the history of rock and roll through the radio.
BB: How would you guys describe your own style?
...
Adam: That’s a good question.
Pete: That is a good question.
Adam: I think there’s a lot of people in the music industry that
want you to describe your own sound and label you as this is what you are
and this is what you’re doing.
Josh: Who’s heels are we gonna put you out on.
Adam: For us it’s difficult because we do a lot of different
styles. I guess at the core of it we’re just American Rock N’ Roll. We
have a lot of different influences and it’s hard to pin down. I think in
the end that will make a difference positively for us.
Pete: At the core of this band I think is really great songwriting
and singer for one thing. The singer makes or breaks the band. Adam just
has this phenomenal voice that even if I wasn’t in the Troubadours I would
be listening to him. There’s a jam quality to it, because we’ve developed
live. We do a cover of [Van Morrison’s] Astral Weeks, where it sounds like
it’s out of control at times, but it’s all orchestrated, we all know our
parts.
Adam: We do about three to four covers in a three-hour set.
Pete: We did two Bob Dylan and two Van Morrison the other night.
BB: What has your experience been like recording
music?
...
Adam: Well, to this point we’ve done four full-length albums. And
we’ve done them in a few different types of settings. It’s actually pretty
easy because we play so much live that really everything’s ready to go. We
did two albums with
Tony Goddess from the band
Papas Fritas.
Pete: Dentine commercial.
Adam: He’s been around the Boston scene for years; he’s a really
great guy.
Pete: He’s the one that basically took
Guster from a jam band and
turned them into a pop band. That song Amsterdam, he co-wrote it. We went
in and recorded 23 songs in two days, and 21 were in the first day. Then
we just came back to do two more. It all just came from live songs and we
said, Jordan’s going to college, let’s just get them down.
BB: Do you guys prefer the studio or playing out?
...
Pete: They’re both their own animal.
Josh: I feel like a studio, given time and resources, it could be
really good and exciting new thing for this band.
Pete: Especially with Alex.
Josh: But playing live…
Adam: There’s nothing like playing live. There’s nothing like the
energy.
Pete: The past year we’ve been playing less but to more people. The
Burren was like on fire the whole night and it was just a great experience
to have people, after playing five years of bars and the same sets still
enjoy it. I have DATs of all our shows since ’98 and we’ve had the same
sets in some cases for years. I think our best stuff has yet to come and
with the addition of Alex we crossing over into some sort of electronic
and classical, it’s just something really good.
Jordan: We’ve also just become much better musicians. When I first
started playing in the band, I had been playing the bass for a year and
didn’t really play that well and now I’m getting better at it.
Pete: Jordan’s a real star.
Adam: Jordan will be legendary.
BB: You guys went down to Nashville recently. How did
that come about?
...
Adam: A friend of mine moved to Nashville and I went down to visit.
It’s hard to not know people in the music industry when you live down
there. The whole town is built on the music industry. I had said to her
that if she knew anybody in the industry down there to throw our name
around. She then gave her next door neighbor's sometimes boyfriend our name.
He had worked for Sony, and was one of the top publishers in at Sony music
for 15 years and had started his own creative enterprise. When I went down
there I didn’t even know she had given him the CD. We went to the Grand
Ole Opry, came back the house, and there was a sign on the door that said
don’t let your friend leave town before I talk to him. I ended up going to
this guy’s house, staying up till three in the morning and talking music.
He said, “when’s your next gig,” and I said we’re playing this little
place up in Boston out on the water in Gloucester called the Mad Fish
Grill in a couple weeks. He said, "I think I can be there." So he flew up to
see us play. He came up a couple times afterward and I went down there.
He’s seen fit to make some investment in the band with his company. His
goal is to get us signed to he the best major record label that we can.
It’s actually fun to do it through Nashville as opposed to New York or
Boston because around here we have trouble being taken seriously, because
we’re not negative enough. Not angry enough. There’s a lot of angst in
music right now. Just down on everything and all that, and we come out and
play these shows and it’s an anomaly that something that's trying to be
positive and communal would be received so well. Then we go down to
Nashville and we’re “edgy.” (Laughter) We’re rock. I go down there for a
week and meet all these music people and they’re like, “hey, you’re the
rock n’ roll guy.” (Laughter)
Pete: Well, I think that’s also the goal. It seems like he’s making
sure that we don’t record something even remotely close to country. He
gets country all the time, so the idea that we are gonna be presented as a
rock pop outfit is cool. I mean, we have country in our blood, I guess its
“county country,” but definitely rock is the where I’m coming from.
Adam: And that’s the stuff that we’re recording.
BB: So how was the trip?
...
Adam: Very exciting and transformational. The company we are
working with down there, New Sheriff Creative Enterprises, Inc., has been
great. They arranged for us to record at The Sound Emporium, a top flight
Nashville Studio, where everyone from R.E.M. to Sheryl Crow to Kenny
Rogers has recorded. And yes, "The Gambler" was recorded there. They also
set us up with producer Tim Lauer, who turned out to be perfect for the
job - we hope to work with him again in the future.
That experience was also important for us as a band, getting used to
functioning as a unit in those types of situations - including the unusual
situation of being alone together away from home while recording, touring,
etc.
The recordings we made in Nashville will be released over two EPs. The
first, titled Plan A, will be released Saturday, July 24. The second,
titled Plan B, does not yet have a release date set. These EP’s will be
immediately available for sales at our website or at live shows.