BB: Did you play much around Nashville? How were the
fans there compared to here?
...
Adam: Yes, New Sheriff arranged for us to play at the Exit/In while
we were down there recording. It was actually a nice break from the
studio. The show was sponsored by Billy Block's Western Beat, so it
was broadcast live on the Internet and a lot of our friends/family/fans
were able to see it online. We received numerous emails, some as far
away as California, from people who had seen the show. That was pretty
neat.
BB: What do you think makes a
good show?
...
Josh: Caring about it.
Pete: Playing your heart out.
Adam: I think it has a lot to do with creating an experience for
everybody that’s positive. I think that the rooms we play around Boston
and that we play the most are rooms that kind of cater to that. It’s more
difficult to do that at like T.T. the Bear’s or some of these places
that have been part of this movement for the past several years that gear
towards negativity and anger and the fuels a real energy, but that’s not
what were about. There are a lot of music scenes we don’t fit into whether
they’re in New York or around here. We just want to create something
that’s more positive for people and that feel really good. Those are the
shows that are magical.
BB: What do you think was your best show so far?
...
Pete: I think that they’ve been getting better and better. Since
we’ve only been playing once a month for the past six months or even a
year, the energy is just better.
Adam: People are excited to come out to the show. It’s not like
“They’re playing again for the fifth time this month.” We did that for a
while. We played at least once a week.
Pete: You have to do that though. Every band has to do that. You
have to play; you have to pay your dues.
Josh: It’s part of why a lot of people are still around.
Adam: It’s fun to have people excited to come out and see us play
and mark it on their calendars.
BB: What’s your audience like?
...
Josh: Surprisingly diverse.
Adam: Some of them are people we know, but we have great fans that
we’ve met through the band.
Pete: We’ve got fans that drive down from New Hampshire now.
Adam: Yeah, we’ve got some people coming from Maine, Vermont and
Philadelphia. People come a long way to see us play, which is great. We
love that.
Pete: I don’t want to stereotype, but a place like the Burren, you
have Tufts nearby and that seems like a smart crowd.
Josh: Even that though. From playing there before it seems like
people talked and came back with their friends and half the room is
relatively new fans.
Pete: I mean it’s not cross-cultural like Paul Simon’s Graceland or
anything yet.
Josh: I really feel that anyone who comes to one of our shows
without deciding that they’re not going to like it usually enjoys our
music.
Pete: I remember we played a show back at Lilly’s in Somerville.
Adam: That place was great. It was built for music. I'm sad it’s
closed down.
Pete: There was this jazz-funk band and the whole place was there
to see these guys and we got up there and we played our songs and we get
off stage and people were saying, “I had no idea what to expect but I
really love what you're doing.” I think people can really see and hear truth.
BB: What are some of you favorite places to play in
Boston?
...
Adam: Well, The Burren is a great room.
Pete: The Irish Embassy was our room for the first four years of us all
being together. We played there like once a month.
Adam: Now it’s become Coyote Ugly.
Josh: That’s the only place we had a house gig in the city.
Pete: A lot of our scene is from the North Shore too, like
Gloucester. The Rumb Line.
Adam: The Rumb Line is just a small little hole-in-the-wall place
that people come to because they have good music. They have music there
every night of the week and they have open jams and those shows are just
electric. There are times that there are more people waiting outside than
got in.
Pete: You have to apologize to your family or sneak your wife in
the back.
Adam: That place is electric though because everyone’s jammed in
there, everyone wants to have a good time and they make strong drinks. By
the end of the night it’s just euphoria in there, it’s great.
BB: What other cities have you guys played in, and
how would you compare the scene in Boston to those cities?
...
Adam: We’ve played in New York a few times.
Pete: We haven’t spent our time, or perhaps “wasted” out time,
traveling around the Northeast trying to play to nobody to try to get a
following in Worcester or Maine or something. Basically we’ve played
around here, and New York a couple of times.
Adam: And more for the fun of saying, “Let’s go down to New York.”
BB: What are some of the more interesting covers you
guys do?
...
Pete: Well Astral Weeks is one.
Adam: The whole point is not to play a cover the way a cover band
would, to be sung along to, but to take a great song and put your own feel
to it, something you can do differently. There are some songs you wouldn’t
touch because they’re done perfectly.
Pete: Unless you’re a Van Morrison fan you would know that Astral
Weeks is one of his songs. We do Come Pick Me Up by
Ryan Adams, and I
never actually heard the original version of it. But everyone that comes to
our shows says, “Are you going to play that song about stealing my
records and stuff like that?” It has become one of our standard tunes.
Tears of Rage by
Bob Dylan is another great song, and then seeing Adam
sing all the words to Hurricane is like a feat.