Misquoted: w/ Electric Touch
(again, you may notice that all of the Mile High Music Festival interviews have roughly the same questions. This is because I wanted to get different points of view from as many bands as I could concerning these topics. Enjoy!)
Have you guys noticed if there have been any trends in music that seem to be pushing it in a certain direction, and, if so, how do you guys feel like you fit into that?
Shane Lawlor (Vocals, guitar): I feel like the boarders of genres are falling down. I feel like bands that might have been obscure indie bands have an opportunity to get the mainstream conscious about them. So I feel that, in a good way, the walls are coming down, and people can make whatever they want. They have the technology at their fingertips, like with their laptops, to make the recordings their own. And, you know, there've been #1 recordings made on Garage Band. So I think it's a wonderful time to be in a band, or to be young, to be a musician. And that's the only trend I've noticed. Maybe the lack of pigeonholes.
Ross DuBois (Bass): When we were growing up, when we were kids, you'd like all different kinds of music that were distinctly different, and you'd think "Wouldn't it be great if you could have a band that sounded like INXS and Aerosmith at the same time. Aww, but that couldn't happen." But now it's like the rules are off.
What kind of albums, new or old, have you guys been listening to recently that, with new, is starting to change the way you think about music, and, with old, is still changing the way you think about music?
Louis Messina Jr. (Drum): Some of the new bands … the last three Killers records I hated the first time I listened to them, but then I ended up loving them. The just grew on me. And, the Arctic Monkeys … I'm trying to think of newer bands … I was actually impressed by the new Fall Out Boy record that came out last year.
Infinity on High, or the one after that?
LM: Folie à Deux. I was impressed with it. I always dogged them, but I always just listened to their singles, and I've got to stray away from the singles to get my opinion about bands now. Like the Killers' Somebody Told Me. I was like "stop playing that song," and now I'm like "yeah, 'somebody told me …' yeah that's awesome."
Christopher Leigh (Guitar): For me, I've been jamming the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' record. That hasn't changed a lot except that it reminds of every time that I've seen Karen O in concert it's been amazing. But the new Green Day record is amazing. I mean, sonically it has taught me a lot about music. I feel like a better guitar player while listening to it. It's so strict, but not a lot is going on. It's still three chord songs, and it sounds so big. It's bigger than anything that's out there right now, sonically.
SL: I heard Grizzly Bear for the first time. I met one of the guys from that band in Brooklyn recently, so I went and downloaded one of his albums, and I thought it was amazing to be honest. It really got me excited. And I often get excited about music, because I listen to a lot of it, but this was in a different way. And I was talking earlier about the walls of the genres coming down, Grizzly Bear was just the perfect example for me. I won't even try and attempt to say what they sound like, just go and check out the Yellow House record.
That was their 2006 release, right? That was a great record.
SL: Yeah, yeah. That really blew my mind when I listened to it, and I thought it was wonderful.
As far as writing style goes, how do you guys go about writing your songs? Do you try to fit into a certain genre, or is it more like whatever you guys are jamming on is what you perform? Or do you guys focus on something that you're trying to accomplish?
SL: Well, we're a pop band, we make pop music, and rock and roll music. And at the heart of it all, it's love. We call our music "Tales of Ordinary Life, in Glorious Technicolor," so everything has to come from the heart, and has to be very very real. The words have to be instantly catchy, they would turn me on if I heard them for the first time. But then if people want to look deeper, there has to be more substance to it also.
Like with that song you performed … "Black Tears" … or "Tears in Night" was it?
SL: "Tears in the Dark."
"Tears in the Dark," that's right.
SL: Ohh, you remembered it though. That's the first time we ever really played that song.
Oh yeah, I really enjoyed your set, but that one was really good.
SL: Thank you. That [song] was very very really. I wrote those words in two hours because it really happened. It came from the heart, and I'm so glad you said that, because it means that people do notice if it's real or if you're full of it.
Well you guys seem very genuine, which a very nice thing.
SL: Thank you
You guys are, right?
(laughter)
SL: No we're completely full of it.
(more laughter. Ross pretends to rip his face off to reveal some sort of hideous monster, making the best face I've ever seen in my life)
That is the greatest face I have ever seen. It's always going to be with me
(laughs all around)
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