And Ian told a story about quality:

Every time I say “quality is hyper-efficient” someone asks me if I am saying that our kids aren’t going to watch and listen to crap anymore. Of course they are, but they are going to watch and listen to exactly the crap they want to watch and listen to. It’s not really quality we’re talking about here, it’s relevance…

Never was this more clear to me than when I spoke to a room full of teenagers at the National Youth Leadership Forum on Technology. I asked the kids how many of them had seen the “Lazy Sunday” clip from Saturday Night Live. Nearly 100% raised their hands. I asked how many of them saw it on television as opposed to YouTube. None had. I pointed out that in essence negative marketing dollars were spent trying to get them to watch the clip; NBC actively tried to KEEP them from watching it and yet they still all saw it.

Then I asked how many of them had seen the new Superman movie (which was out 2-3 weeks at the time). About 10-15% had seen it. I then asked them why they’d all seen something that had less than zero marketing dollars spent and on a relative basis none of them had seen something which had millions in marketing spent trying to get them to see it. After a short bit of silence one kid finally raised his hand and offered, “Because it’s funny?” YES! Because it’s good, and your friend said you had to watch it, and when you watched it you said the same thing to ten friends.

Our kids are going to watch exactly what they want to watch, not necessarily what’s marketed to them.

Now, Ian runs Topspin Media, a company dedicated to providing artists with interactive tools for marketing directly to their fans and building successful businesses. You’ve probably seen (and used) their widgets to get an MP3 from a band you dig in exchange for an email address. You’ve probably read success stories about their bands, maybe Metric, Fanfarlo, or Get Busy Committee. You may have seen the Wired interview with Ian we posted awhile back, and you may have read some of the reports Topspin are eager to share with the world with proof of a theory we all share around here: Fans are willing to pay for music. And more than the cost of a CD.

We recently caught up with Ian, and talked shop as he made it through town from an early morning session at the Venice Skate Park to LAX. We want to share with you the conversation, an optimistic one for a change, on the future of the recorded music industry.

At the labels, it’s all about SoundScan numbers. Online, it all comes down to comScore numbers. For you, what’s the progress report?

Our report card [is] just your return on investment. I think the main thing is that the model is changing from one success propping up 15 failures to being where you really can follow something from being really small through organic growth, and you can make money the whole way, or you can at least not lose too much money in the beginning and then you can make money if it has legs and it grows, sort of just like a start-up.

I think in a lot of ways, you know, artists are entrepreneurs, and some ideas are really good when you’re an entrepreneur, and… a lot of them aren’t. But you know, it’s just like in the investment world, it’s not like everybody goes and raises $100 million and then a few IPOs prop up a bunch of failures. In the investing world, the name of the game these days is bootstrapping and angel investing, and it’s sort of the same thing from an artist’s perspective.

Some people do really well selling from iTunes, some people have done well selling direct to fans, some people get a synch that sort of gets them their yearly nut… Your revenue comes from a number of different sources… I think the thing is that artist and managers need to just look at, ‘Alright, what are all of my possible revenue streams, what drives each of those revenue streams, and then how do i optimize each of those?’

Do you see wildly different ratios from band to band, in terms of… This band here collects a lot of email addresses but it’s not turning into sales, but then this band over here has a lot of sales, compared to emails collected, just from strong word of mouth…

You know, not really. There’s a lot of variability in different ways, but for the most part, the conversion metrics are pretty static. The X-factor of course, is quality, right?

Relevance?

Exactly. Relevance to the audience. On the Brian Eno record, we were seeing that 20% of everyone who listened to the record bought the record. But that was a great record, I mean it was an exceptional album. And the same thing with Metric… Fanfarlo we saw the same thing, high number of shares, lots of purchases, but you’ve got… With Metric, you have a really great record by a band who has spent 5 years building a loyal following and has sort of hit that tipping point, and then with Fanfarlo, you had an exceptional word of mouth record, where when you heard it, you couldn’t believe you hadn’t heard it before, and you wanted to tell five people about it.

So there’s definitely a lot of variability that has to do with the content, but really… What you see is people with more emails sell more. Those sorts of things are pretty universal. There are definitely some generalizations you can make based on what we’ve seen so far. The top two things that anybody should be doing is collecting email addresses and worrying about search engine optimization. Because as unsexy as that may be, those are always the two main drivers of sales, people coming in off of search engines, and people coming in from the email list.

[Yet] the other parts of the campaign definitely matter. With Metric for example, they see a large number of sales coming from MySpace. They say MySpace is dead, but we actually see a decent amount of purchases come out of there.

There’s definitely some generalizations you can make, which is good, because what you can often do then is use those generalizations to find where you’re underperforming and where there’s money being left on the table. If you have an artist who is doing really well with their email, and their SEO is okay, but only like 2% of their sales are coming out of MySpace, you can go hey, you know what, if you actually directed the MySpace traffic well and reached out to the MySpace fans in the right way, there’s probably revenue to be found there.

People are saying that streaming is the next step, that iTunes is already the past, and the future of music looks more like Spotify.

I don’t think there’s any question. The business models follow consumption, and consumption is clearly going to move from downloads to all-in access. Just think about it, who needs to buy a 99¢ download when your iPod could just stream whatever you want to hear? There might still be a la carte models, the way Lala does streaming a la carte, but you definitely won’t need to buy a 99¢ download and then connect your iPod to your computer and transfer it, that’s just kind of an absurd notion really when you think about what the future is going to look like, you know?

Well yeah, though what’s absurd now was revolutionary just a few years ago, and yet it’s still ahead of where the major label record industry seems to be, pushing plastic discs… But you know, with them, the what isn’t really as interesting to me as the why… Can you play devil’s advocate, and tell me why first week sales are so important?

It’s really, it’s the blockbuster versus the snowball, right? The blockbuster model is just, you get huge first week sales, everything that you do drives everything else that you do. When I can tell this radio station and that radio station that Sade sold half a million units, they go, ‘Okay, well people must be all over this, so I better jump on it too.’ That totally works for that model… and you know what? It works really well. It’s a nice gig if you can get it. I definitely don’t disparage anybody who wants to go that route. If you can have that limited distribution, then you can really get big numbers. I’d love to see radio play for every band I work with, because it works.

But I definitely think that for a lot of bands, it just doesn’t build that way. And it doesn’t need to. If you look at a Metric, or an Owl City, or et cetera, you build those things over time.

We’ve talked to a few artists who are on majors, but that maybe signed a little early in the game, who are not as well established as some of their labelmates, and they’re looking for artist development but not really getting it. And they’re like, ‘If we had the same shot as Sade, or AC/DC, if we got the same push, we’d deliver numbers.’ They don’t get it, don’t get numbers, and then find themselves on their own for that long term, more gradual build that they need to work for…

It’s all about resources. I just had this conversation with Mark Reiter from Q-Prime. And he works with everybody from Metallica to Josh Groban to Donovan, and the conversation we were having was, it’s just all about resources. A management company doesn’t have all of the resources that it needs to really launch a record. You’ve got to put a team together. And a lot of times that team is and should be a label. But a lot of times they don’t have the resources at the label. They say, ‘Oh my god, I’m working 13, 14 hours a day,’ and if you’ve got a Sade record going off, and you’ve got this baby band that you can’t get anyone to call you back on, you’ve only got so many hours in the day. So it’s all about getting exactly the right team together.

Sometimes you talk to some people, like you talk to the Flaming Lips who are on Warner Bros., and they’re like, ‘We love Warner. They do a great job for us.’ Because they’ve actually put the resources in, they went and made a psychedelic record, and Warner Bros. found the resources to do what they had to do to get it out there.

I think at the end of the day, it comes down to people. It’s not about big or small, it’s about: Do you have the right team, and is that team really working their asses off for you? Because the fact of the matter is it’s work. Putting a record out is work. And whether your team is people at Warner Bros., or people at Matador, or people that your label hired, what you need most is really smart people waking up every day going, ‘Alright, what are we going to do today to get the record to another X thousand people?’ And that’s what it comes down to.

Even at a big label, how many people are really working on your record, you know? I bet that there are no more people working on the Sade record than the Metric record, and Metric is 100% independent, and Sade is on Epic. It’s just, you know, in both cases you have really great people who are waking up every day going, ‘What are we going to do to get this record to the next place?’ When you hear an artist going, ‘Man, the label didn’t do shit for me,’ a lot of times that might be the case, maybe there was a lot going on, and they weren’t a priority, and the label just straight up made a decision to say, ‘We’re not focusing on this.’ But look, a shitty manager can do that too.

Well shit, I always just take that kind of talk and compare it to life in any other industry. If you’re a contractor, a landscaper, a plumber, shit happens all the time, you align with the wrong people, and you can get fucked in all kinds of big and small ways.

So. You’ve decided that you’re going to try and make a career out of being a musician. Maybe it’s not the 80s anymore, but what are your odds, if you just want to make a good living?

That’s a really good question. I think it really depends on what the audience for your music is. If your music has mass appeal, I think you have a better chance than ever at making a good living… Talking about the music and touring and everything earning you several hundred thousands of dollars a year. Of course you have to be careful about how many mouths you’ll have to feed there, right? It definitely doesn’t pay to be Parliament Funkadelic with 25 dudes on stage.

(Laughing) Yeah, and well… I mean, I see all that overhead as like, a guy in a garage going from just having a skill… Directly to running a business. Which is hard, no matter what kind of business it is.

Well also, it doesn’t need to be that way necessarily. Look at a guy like Joe Purdy.

A good friend of ours.

I mean he bought a house, and I mean, how many people have heard of Joe Purdy? When I say mass appeal, I’m not talking about Miley Cyrus, I mean even you know, Yeasayer, where you have something that a core group of people are going to be passionate about. Then I think you have a better chance than ever.

If you just compare new to old, with the [new school], you can get out there, you can sell 30,000 to 100,000 records, a good portion of them can be direct to fans, where you can make a majority of the money, you can have a good touring base, you can get some good synch placements maybe if you align yourself with the right folks (that’s a pretty limited audience too, and maybe not for everybody, but certainly something that if you’re a Metric or a Yeasayer, it’s very doable). And you can make a decent living, making art.

Now, look, at the same time, my estimations tell me there’s probably 40,000 to 60,000 people in the world to whom that applies. And there are, depending on your count, there are like 3 to 5 million bands on myspace, and north of 450,000 I think on the ReverbNations of the world. So you can kind of do your odds that way.

Well, so let’s compare that to other industries. Let’s say you can fix a car. How qualified does that make you to earn a living as a mechanic? Are the odds of turning a passion into a career any higher or lower for musicians?

It’s a good question. I mean I think it’d be interesting to really compare it to how many successful entrepreneurs there are in the world. How many people that have an idea can then build a successful company? I’d imagine they’re pretty similar. I’d imagine there’s some kind of like, human constant, right? At the same time… You might have wanted to be an artist, but you might find out that you’re better working in a studio or something… There’s a lot of jobs out there; it’s a $60 billion business, music. Music worldwide is like $150 billion. [But] if you look at just recording music, and touring and publishing, it’s about $55 billion. So there’s plenty of money to go around. There is still a shocking number of people making a million dollars a year or more at major labels. I think those are even more once in a lifetime jobs than being a musician at this point.

There’s no better time to be an artist. I really believe that. It might sound… I mean, I am an optimist, to a fault, so you know, I’ll cop to that. But I’m also somebody who personally has always believed in niches. I grew up with Dischord and SST and Mordam and Alternative Tentacles, et cetera, and I just think the future looks like that. I think the future looks more like Matador than like the past, where you know… We’re moving from a mass market to a mass of niches, and people can run good businesses with low overhead and have great success. I think the things that people should be looking to are labels like Secretly Canadian and Jagjaguwar, and what Matador is doing, and the Beggars Group, Sub Pop even… There’s a bunch of examples out there of people who aren’t… I mean, they’re definitely being “hit,” but when you talk to them about their business, they’re like, ‘Look, the Fleet Foxes of today have a much better shot today, of reaching their audience, because of the way things have changed.’ They don’t need radio play to get the kind of success they have.

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Listen to Company Man:

Guitarist Dave Bone, Fireball Ministry’s James Rota, CKY drummer Jess Margera and Fu Manchu’s Brad Davis join Clutch frontman Neil Fallon to make The Company Band, who released an awesome sarcastic-ode-to-corporate-imperialism EP entitled Sign Here, Here, And Here last year. They’ve played a painfully small amount of shows to help the ever-growing boulder of enthusiasm gain speed down the mountain, due to the fact that the members are involved in a myriad of other projects.

We took the party to Jess Margera to get some answers about one of the best bands you’ve never heard of. Yet.

Antiquiet: Can you run through how the band got started in the first place?

Jess Margera: I think it all started between 2005 and 2006. CKY and Fireball Ministry did two or three tours together, and the whole time we were saying man, we should do something, even if it’s just a couple songs, just for fun. And Jim (Rota, guitarist) would tell me about this project he was working on with his buddy Dave. They were just writing songs and shit, and once the tour was over he sent me some songs they’d been working on, and immediately we pretty much got right to work on it. That wound up being the EP that came out. Just for shits and giggles I asked Neil (Fallon, singer) to sing on one of the songs, because I thought it would be cool to get a guest appearance from Neil, you know?

Antiquiet: Of course. What song was it?

Jess Margera: I think I sent him a bunch and said hey, whatever you’re feelin’ would be cool with me. He wound up liking it a lot and saying hey, is it cool if I just sing on all of it? So I was like, cool, yeah, fuck yeah. I’m a huge Clutch fan for at least a decade now, so it was a pleasant surprise that he was so into it.

Antiquiet: Coming from the routine you’ve got now – three bands, three kids – how do you find time for yet another project?

Jess Margera: Man, I don’t even know. I’m amazed that we actually did this full-length, because I thought it would never happen.

Antiquiet: Neither did I! I talked to Neil about two years ago, and he was having a bear of a time finding some free space to lay down some vocals over what you guys had written. It didn’t sound promising at the time…

Jess Margera: Yeah man, I thought my touring schedule was bad, and then I saw Clutch’s schedule and was like good Lord. those guys don’t even go home.

Antiquiet: Speaking of other bands, how’s (new CKY album) Carver City been doing?

Jess Margera: It’s been doing good – especially considering that we took four years off.

Antiquiet: You’re in a unique position with all these bands, and your vantage point is something people can pull a little perspective from, I think. What are your thoughts about the tidal shift in the industry, with the evolution of formats and such?

Jess Margera: I’m just as bummed as anybody to see the actual physical product go away. At the same time though, I think it’s kind of exciting because instead of busting your ass for two years in a studio to make a full-length, now you can churn out EP’s and singles. I think the full-length album… so many bands have one or two good songs and coast on the filler that makes the rest of the album. People get sick of shelling out fifteen bucks for two good songs. And it sucks because there’s bands out there that take it seriously and are putting their hearts into making a great full-length, but they’re outnumbered ten to one by the cheap-asses who’re gunning for the quick bucks.

Antiquiet: Well that’s one of the foundation arguments for illegal downloading, is the opportunity to try something out before you buy it, to see if it’s something worth your money.

Jess Margera: Right. My record store that I’ve been going to since I was nine is about to shut down. It’s hard to watch that, man.

Antiquiet: It is. And that old stereotype of the asshole behind the counter at the record store like in High Fidelity is so much more saturated because they’re losing their livelihood, so they’ve got a chip on their shoulder, and on top of it they’ve got to charge you up the ass for an album just to make ends meet.

Jess Margera: (laughs) You’re right, man. We licensed the actual CD’s and vinyl to a company called Restricted Release, but we’re putting it out on iTunes and such on our own. It’s a pretty cool deal.

Antiquiet: None of the songs on the EP made the album.

Jess Margera: Yeah the EP’s its own thing. Most of the demoing was done through email, and once we got a good batch of songs going, we all got together and played ‘em live as a band to work out the kinks and see how everyone’s flowing.

Antiquiet: Was it a nervous experience, going into that first session with everyone?

Jess Margera: Well I’m totally nervous all the time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s so much fun, but I was a pretty nervous dude in there playing with a bunch of my heroes, you know? (laughs) Like Brad Davis from Fu Manchu is one of the best rock bass players I’ve ever seen.

Antiquiet: And Neil’s got such a specific presence and delivery… was it something you had to consciously remind yourself of, so you didn’t sound too much like Clutch?

Jess Margera: Well that’s the one thing, we really didn’t think about anything like that. We just wanted to play, you know? We didn’t care. Whatever it ended up sounded like was how it sounded. There wasn’t any trying to steer away from anything. I imagine that it’s probably gonna sound like all the bands smashed together.

Antiquiet: It does. There seems to be a lot more melody on the album than on the EP. First off, do you agree with that, and secondly, what was the cause?

Jess Margera: Yeah, I mean Dave Bone writes most of the riffs, so whatever he’s got brewing is kind of where it ends up or starts out with this band. I think there’s way more melody on the full length, but I think that’s just because we built up more of a desire to see where it goes. There were so many songs where we’re like nah, this isn’t really working out, and then we jammed ‘em in the studio and they caught fire. There were also a couple that just happened in the moment, where it’s like yeah, let’s do something right now. Djinn and Pentatonic was one of those that we just kind of came up with. Dave had that riff going and we all just dove in. It came together really quick while we were jamming out in L.A.

Antiquiet: Damn, that’s one of the better tracks on the album, too.

Jess Margera: Yeah, it’s one of the best songs on the record and it came together in like an hour.

Antiquiet: Share your thoughts on another song, Who Else But Us.

Jess Margera: That was one of the early ones that we were working on. It went through a lot of changes, but we stuck it out. And that line: “Roky Erickson said to me/You can trust acid before the CIA” – man, that was fucking awesome.

Antiquiet: That and “Chairman of the waterboard” are up there among the best lines on the album, for sure.

Jess Margera: (laughs) For sure, for sure. Those are gems. It’s just a goddamn blessing to have these people on this record. This one’s close to my heart.

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Before their rocking performance in San Francisco at the Independent a couple of weeks ago, John sat with us over glasses of sangria to talk about how he makes time for fine art, his preference for spontaneous creation, the life in Alaska that was the storyline for this latest album and what it’s like for the crowd-shy frontman to be in music videos.

Antiquiet: You guys have just been churning out the records over the past few years. In regards to your music, you’ve mentioned that you feel that constant creation is necessary to keep things evolving, and progressing and preventing them from getting stale. Do you approach your fine art in the same way, and how do you make time for all your different kinds of creation from the album work to the shirts?

John Gourley: I don’t know. You know what… Drug Rug was asking just the same thing last night because they do all their own art work as well, Sarah does. We were just talking about how hard it is to find time. Generally I’ll get deadlines for things, our manager will call me and be like, “Ok I need somethin’ by Friday” and I’ll say “Alright, cool.” And then I’ll wait like four weeks and give it to him on that Friday. So basically I’ll do everything late and that’s really the only way I can even find time to do it.

Antiquiet: It’s pushed to the last minute, to when you are under those constraints.

John Gourley: Yeah, and there is always so much pressure. I feel like art can never be pressured but it always is when we are doing what we are doing. Everything has to be handed in on time, and you know, before tours shirts need to be done. Yeah, there’s really no time, I don’t know how it happens. It just does, it just does. (laughs)

Antiquiet: I’ve read previous interviews where you’ve been hesitant to delve into the meaning of album titles so you’ll have to forgive me when I ask you to elaborate on the significance of the Santanic Satanist and the painting of the creature with his third eye. I see a lot of symbolism there and wonder if to you there is a connection between the two and what that’s all about.

John Gourley: Uh, yeah. I really love Scanners. Scanners is a great movie if you haven’t seen that. The Satanic Satanists came around a long time ago- we’d tossed it around as an album title but we really didn’t have the music for it. We always do this- “Oh that’d be a great album title, let’s throw it in the bank!” It made sense once we started talking about the music. We really wanted to write an oldies record and we wanted to write a pop record and we wanted to write something with substance and something that made sense. So I guess in sitting down to write these lyrics I knew I really wanted to write it about the times the we moved around a lot in Alaska which was me as a little kid. We moved around from ‘87 to ‘93, something like that. Maybe it was ‘86. ‘87 just sounded better in lyrics so (laughs) we put it in ‘87.

Yeah, we wanted to write a pop record and we wanted it to be about escape and the Satanic Satanists came back around as just a really great contrast to what the album was. It so very much represents what that escape was- it felt like you were an outcast. It felt like you were, you know, booted. I would watch Sesame Street, and you know TV shows, and I’d wonder where my neighbors were, like where is our apartment building. What would that even be like. You know I’m stuck out in the woods. I’m just hanging out with my family- which was amazing. But yeah, that’s just the way it felt and it was about contrast. The album artwork was very much the same. The third eye was just everything you think about as a little kid. It was that extra look into the trees and into the sky, you know looking out at the northern lights when everything is just snow and ice and pitch black. It’s pretty amazing. It was trying to take all of that in and have it make sense. I don’t know if anything we ever do will make sense (laughs) But to me it all works really well.

Antiquiet: How content do you feel in Portugal’s progression of sound and your approach to making music? Do you think that the same pre-production that went down in this album will go down in future albums or that you’ll go back to the spontaneous in studio kind of thing?

John Gourley: Well we actually did another record, another album, basically right after Satanic Satanist was finished. I went back to Austin and just, just to do it because we had done so much preproduction and planned out everything, I wanted to see what would happen if I just went and did it. and its come out really cool. its all drum machines and all samples, and mostly synthesizers. It was just the producer and I playing guitar and handing guitars and basses back and forth. I played a little bit of synthesizer on it… It’s pretty weird. I think its something you have to do… You really have to just go and throw something out there to see if it will work. its just the way i work personally. the pre production helped, it helped a lot but it was really just doing the exact same thing that i’ve done in the studio, just a month or two before we actually went in and recorded it. So the pre-production was no different than our albums in the past and the music didn’t really change much outside of that. We just knew it, going in. I think the advantage to knowing what you are going to do is pretty huge. But you can do things both ways. It always works. Whatever works, works.

Antiquiet: But you do ultimately prefer the more spontaneous going at it?

John Gourley: Yeah, yeah, I think it works well for me.

Antiquiet: What are some of the things that you’ve learned being a member of this band, and how have you seen both yourself and the band progress as a result?

John Gourley: The thing that I’ve learned through all this is that you really have to be true to yourself and what you want to do. I think thats the way the world works. You have to really like going to the office every day and filing things all day to have it really work… to be happy in life. And there are people for every aspect of life. Thats one thing that i’ve noticed just traveling around as much as we do- it’s just so strange how there are just groups of people. And there within every little group as well. I think that might be going too far in depth or off pace… (laughs) but yeah, its really amazing. I feel like i’m just really happy doing what I’m doing and I can really appreciate the fact that my dad is really happy building houses and that’s what he’s always loved to do. He’s always worked hard doing that.

Antiquiet: You’ve said that if you weren’t in the band you’d be in Alaska and that its a place where a lot goes down that’s just isn’t very common over here. What are some of those uncommon things that keep your heart so deeply connected there?

John Gourley: There are really tight communities, everybody knows everybody. Especially in the town my family is in now, they live in Willow and my mom works for the fire department there, which is the funniest thing. Just out of nowhere my mom called me 3 years ago and she was like, “I think I’m going to be a firefighter!” I was like, “Wow! You’re eight years old!” (laughs) “You’re going to be a firefighter!” She went from that to paramedic to ambulance driver to dive rescue- she does all these crazy things. The thing I learned about that community is just everybody trades, trades everything. Its such a cool thing to be around. My dad builds and he’ll go build something for someone who bakes or whatever and they’ll do things for us. It’s just very cool. The communities are just really nice, and really tight.

The space is amazing as well, you just kind of do whatever you want. It’s easy to sit. You kinda get lost in sitting up there I guess.

Antiquiet: What were the periods of darkness in Alaska like? How long were those?

John Gourley: Like 6 months, 7 months I guess. Not straight dark. I mean we have mountains, we live in a valley so there are mountains all around us. The sun will come up for maybe 3 or 4 hours at the darkest point but it dips back behind the mountains pretty much right after you see it crest. So its pretty dark I guess. Its kinda fun. I never got bothered by it. My friends would stay in doors but I’d always go out cause it was fun and the moon is amazing when you are in that intense of a darkness. Just with the reflection of the moon on the snow- it’s actually very bright if you stay out long enough to let your eyes adjust.

Antiquiet: Did you ever pay much attention to the constellations then? Do you have a favorite constellation?

John Gourley: I was actually pretty scared of space when i was little which is so weird cause I’m such a sci-fi kid and I was so into it. You know I loved space but just the thought of space… When you’re in that much darkness you look at it and you’re like “Holy shit! There is so much happening up there right now. I can’t even grasp it.” Yeah I was scared of space. I’d get really nervous whenever I’d see satellites moving around like “what’s that doin?” (laughs) And you always see that stuff when you’re in Alaska cause its just so dark.

Antiquiet: This is something I’m personally really curious about- You mentioned the album being about escape and I know that your family ended up in Alaska because your parents decided to escape from New York in the ’70s. What was it that they were escaping from and what did you grow up understanding as the reason for being in Alaska?

John Gourley: Man, Escape From New York is such a good movie! (laughs) That’s so funny. I’ve never really asked. It’s just one of those things that I can appreciate and I understand that they just went and did it. And I really respect the fact that they did what they did. They have some really amazing stories. My dad lived off of no money at the beginning of coming to Alaska. Eventually he started his own construction company and he’s fine now. (laughs) Yeah, they have some really cool stories. I think it was just what alaska was at the time. It was completely unknown, it was so unknown. I remember even being younger, going to my grandparents’ in New York and their friends asking me questions like “Do you guys have TV? Do you have radio? What do you do? Do you have stores?” and I’d be sitting there dressed in clothing, you know, I’m obviously not blown away by your TV. (laughs) I flew- there are planes. (laughs) I think it’s just what it was at the time. It must have been very appealing in the town they grew up in because my mom and dad are years apart, didn’t know each other at all, very very small town but a few of my dad’s friends ended up in Alaska, and then my mom. They eventually met up there.

Antiquiet: In Alaska??

John Gourley: Yeah, it’s so weird. And they met in Wasilla which at the time it must have been under 1,000 people, easily. It’s completely random they met there.

Antiquiet: Is music something that you’ve always done? When did you become conscious of your voice as such a strong instrument? When were you like “I can sing!”

John Gourley: (laughs) I don’t think I’ve ever gotten to that point- every night I’m like “why am I doing this, why are you guys letting me do this?” (laughs) Really, I guess I got into music in high school and it was hearing bands like Oasis and Nirvana, all these bands that were playing at that time. They were so good. They were really doing what the Beatles did with songs. To me, I had missed everything from like ‘69 or ‘70 when my parents left NY and came to Alaska, everything under that my parents listened to. And then I missed everything up until high school. So I was really thrown into this world of three chords and four chords- people writing songs so simply. It was something that felt so untouchable to me because to me the Beatles had done everything and they’d done it all right. (laughs) It was just so hard to even think about playing songs like them. So, I got a guitar and kind of just played around. I was always into writing songs- but I mainly did it for myself. I just sat in my room. I had made a demo at some point or recorded something and my buddies who had moved to Portland, heard the demos and asked me to come and sing for their band.

I didn’t want to sing for a band, I was really self conscious of my voice. I absolutely did not want to do it. A few people had heard the demos and they asked who the girl was- “Who’s the girl that sings all this stuff?” I was like “Oh… sweet. That’s me!” But I would never say that. I’d just say “Oh, you don’t know her” and just blow it all off.

Antiquiet: Who’s voice would you have if you could have any artist’s voice besides your own?

John Gourley: Man, if I were to claim anything new- that dude from the Black Keys has the coolest voice. He’s so good. Sam Cooke, he’s amazing. Favorite singer ever. Joe Cocker is good too. He’s got some crazy screams.

Antiquiet: I know that lyrically there was more coherence in this albums than past albums but did the lyrics in your past albums have significance to you or was it really, truly random?

John Gourley: They did. It’s actually really fun to read the old lyrics because they all make sense to me. The weird thing is that they are very literal and I know it doesn’t come across that way. It’s just kind of the way I think about everything. I’d rather think of things as a reality no matter where I’m at. But ah, yeah, they all have their place. Everything was written at the same period of time. You know, we had always gone into the studio, just recorded the songs then I wrote all the lyrics. Pretty much on every album we’ve done I’ve written all the lyrics on a 2 or 3 day period. so a lot of the times the subjects will get mixed. If you actually take apart the lyrics and put them where they need to go it all makes sense. Its just kind of telling like 6 different stories at once. It’s really fun. You actually don’t have to make sense.

Antiquiet: Was being on camera (for the video) intimidating for you at all?

John Gourley: Oh yeah. I hate being in front of a camera, it’s the worst. (laughs) But we kind of have to do it. We love David Bowie, we love things like that and I think to truly get into that role you do have to do those thing. Its always been fun. Its always been cool and we’ve always worked with friends on them. Its easier when you are in that setting.

Antiquiet: When do you guys finish the tour?

John Gourley: December… December 8th.

Antiquiet: How much time do you have off then?

John Gourley: None. I go into the studio with some friends, they’re making a record. Then we go into the studio with our band and make another record. And then we go on tour with our band (laughs) until December next year.

Antiquiet: December of next year??

John Gourley: Yeah… That’s what the schedule says right now. I wrote our manager back and was like “Dude!” (laughs) That’s so much time.

Antiquiet: You’re not feelin’ it?

John Gourley: To be perfectly honest this year was the first time I ever felt like- Wow, we traveled a lot, we’re really doing this quite a bit. I think the luxury of hotel rooms and the luxury of going out for dinner has just completely been ruined which is funny to have happen.

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Before we bring you the full coverage, we have an exclusive treat for you: A few hours ago, Johnny talked to Them Crooked Vultures’ Josh Homme. We’ve been following the group for awhile now, but as long as the biggest questions being asked about the new group have continued to go unanswered, with rumors and hoaxes clouding the facts, we’ve been hunting down the elusive frontman to get the truth, right from the beak.

Antiquiet: We’ve got some basic questions here, since not too many people know what the hell’s going on…

Josh Homme: I have extremely complex and secretive answers.

Antiquiet: I heard this came together at a renaissance-themed birthday party?

Josh Homme: Yeah, well Dave, he mentioned this idea, and we’re always looking for a chance to do stuff together, Dave and I. So he said, “you know what, maybe I should ask John Paul Jones!” And I was like, “that’d be awesome. And I’ll ask… The President. And we can put it all together.”

And then all of a sudden he starts sending me emails, of correspondence between him and Jones, and I was like… ‘uhhhh… well shit. What do I do?’

I hadn’t played guitar for five months, and I was gonna maybe take a break for a second, for my first time in a long time. But then [Dave] has his birthday party at Medieval Times, and of course he sat us right next to each other. That was the blind date. But he sat in the next row behind us, like looking over (laughing)…

But you know, I think it’s fairly common to meet someone from Zeppelin at Medieval Times.

Antiquiet: What’s going on with the album?

Josh Homme: Well, we just finished figuring out what songs we’re going to put on it, which took a little bit of time. We couldn’t decide what [we wanted] to do. Do you make a triple album? An EP? How many songs is too much?

I tend to think that even if you’ve got a bunch of good songs, maybe you should err on the side of brevity, and keep it tight. But we really enjoy lots of songs, so we couldn’t decide.

Antiquiet: And they’re long songs…

Josh Homme: Some are, yeah. We call them battleships when they’re big. There’s about four battleships. And like, do you put ‘em all on? I dunno, it’s a tough call.

Antiquiet: Any name for it yet?

Josh Homme: It’s a self-titled.

Antiquiet: How about a release?

Josh Homme: We’ve been doing a lot of stuff real kind of secretive, and we actually made a pact to not know when it’s coming out, the band guys. I’m betting… Well it’s going to be before the end of the year… We kind of have a little running bet on what the date is. And I intend to win that bet, because I’m going to cheat.

Antiquiet: In terms of songwriting, and getting down and playing together, how quick did that come to be?

Josh Homme: Well it actually happened pretty fast after that meeting. Both John and I told equally dry and sort of scathing jokes to each other at Medieval Times, and so it sort of stamped the ‘let’s do this.’

What’s funny is once you agree to do it, I realized this after the first time we played, once you agree to jam together, it has to work. Or it’s like saying… ‘Why couldn’t it work between the three of you? Why wouldn’t you be able to do something that would be… that you would at least want to listen to?’ So it’s no pressure…

Antiquiet: What was the first song you guys wrote?

Josh Homme: Well, there was one called Reptiles… [But] we didn’t end up doing it until almost the very end, I had to sort of convince those guys that it was the right sort of angular thing to do. Because it’s a little bit hard to understand at first, I think, the way I delivered it. ‘Hey, check this out!’ (spastic convulsions) ‘Watch this broken robot clean your house!’

And then there was a song called Spinning In Daffodils that was the first thing we really recorded.

Antiquiet: Any idea as far as an agreement on a label, or how that’s all going to work out distribution wise?

Josh Homme: Yeah… It’s going to come out on Interscope in the states, and Sony/BMG internationally.

Antiquiet: How do you feel about that? You’ve been pretty outspoken in the past about not feeling so hot about Interscope anymore…

Josh Homme: Well, you know… If it was up to me, I’d just get a real big hot air balloon, and put ‘em all in the basket of that, and just (miming) pull the cord and let it drop over places, you know?

But, you know, it’s not up to me always.

Bonus for the readers: The following isn’t in the video above.

Antiquiet: Foo Fighters bassist Nate Mendel was asked about [Them Crooked Vultures]. He said that what’s most interesting to him is that he’s watching Dave in a band where he’s not in charge, and he’s not calling all the shots. (over laughter) Any reaction to that comment?

Josh Homme: Well he’s giving all the shots. All the B12s, and all the flu shots…

Well, I think by nature of it, this is three people interested in hearing what the other person’s opinion is. So there’s no need to run anything. If we’re not careful, it just runs itself. And you just gotta play catch-up anyhow.

Antiquiet’s trip to Austin for ACL 2009 was graciously sponsored by our friends over at camelcamelcamel. They set up a cool little site that lets you track prices of items on Amazon and a bunch of other online retailers. We’re happy to be aligned with such a non-lame company, and we’re happy to help them get the word out. Pay them a visit.

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The Meatbats achieve sonic alchemy by fusing together an array of influences, including old school funk, punk and 70’s R&B. Their debut album, Meet The Meatbats, consists of 10 songs written in the span of a few days at Chad’s pool house in Malibu (known as “The Tiki Room”), and exudes the feel of a spontaneous party-funk celebration of soul. That’s a good thing, too, because that’s exactly what it is.

I caught up with Chad just before the album’s release to discuss all things Meatbats, as well as to get a little insight on the future of the Red Hot Chili Peppers – which, if you’ve been paying attention to guitarist John Frusciante’s comments of late, is still riddled with uncertainty. Smith, however, feels differently.

Chad Smith: So what’s Antiquiet all about? I love the name.

Antiquiet: Thanks – we call it like we see it, popular opinion be damned. Personal taste is at the forefront, and our readers trust us not to suckle the scene teat or feed them a line of bullshit for quick hits. We don’t want to be mistaken for the bloggy payola stuff going on out there…

Chad Smith: “Bloggy payola?” (laughs) That’s fuckin’ great, man.

Antiquiet: Yeah, I’m not sure that’s an official term. I guess we’re just audacious enough to think we have better taste than most of what’s out there, and it’s working so far. We’ve got a good base who knows they can trust what we throw at ‘em. We have some spirited discussions with our readers that helps drive our approach to it. But wait a minute, I’m supposed to be interviewing you, aren’t I?

Chad Smith: Yeah, yeah, I had it backwards for a minute there (laughs). Sounds cool though.

Antiquiet: Thank you sir! So let’s talk about the fantastic Bombastic Meatbats situation.

Chad Smith: Fantastic Bombastic… Yeah! We’re pretty excited man, the record’s all set, and everything’s coming together. We’re really excited about it.

Antiquiet: Was the entire thing freeform? I read somewhere that you wrote everything in-studio, on the spot.

Chad Smith: No, we came up with some stuff… We wrote some songs at my house actually. Ed Roth, Jeff Kollman and I used to play with this guy Glenn Hughes, who used to play with Deep Purple. now he’s a solo artist, but that’s how we met. We played in his band and played a few records with him and played live sometimes. We’d just jam when he wasn’t around, and we always dug this kind of funk thing that we got into, and one day… I don’t know who it was, it might’ve been me – said “hey, we should record this shit, write some songs and get it down on tape,” and that’s what we did.

Antiquiet: How long did it take to bring it all together once you were recording?

Chad Smith: We did it all really quickly, probably in the span of a few days. We went into the studio and just recorded ‘em really quick, and boom, there’s a record.

Antiquiet: There’s little to no overdubs or overthinking done on the record, right?

Chad Smith: Yeah very minimal – we cut it all live, and I think… I think the piano had to be done separately because it was in a room that the drums would’ve leaked into. But other than that it was all old school, raw and live.

Antiquiet: The Meatbats sounds, to some extent, like Billy Preston on shrooms.

Chad Smith: (laughs) Right! There was this one guy I talked to in Alabama who said “this sounds like music Frank Sinatra would listen to if he was sniffing coke off a whore’s ass.” Sounds like a good category to be in. I haven’t seen that section in the record store, but we’ll fit it right between reggae and house music. (laughs) Okay, maybe not. But it does have that Billy Preston, Jeff Beck kind of vibe to it. All over the place.

Antiquiet: I know that the Chili Peppers really haven’t gone back to the material from One Hot Minute (the band’s one-off album with Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro) too much… John’s never played that stuff, has he?

Chad Smith: John…I don’t think he really feels comfortable playing Dave’s stuff. It’s like you’re fucking your girlfriend and she asks you to move like her old boyfriend did or something. It’s just not right to him. I think that’s what it is. There’s just so much other stuff that we can play, and so much other stuff that people complain about that we don’t play, that it’s easier to focus on all that. I’m personally proud of all the stuff we’ve done. I have no problem playing any of it. Dave is a wonderful musician… that was just a different band.

Antiquiet: How are you gearing up mentally for the Chili Peppers to kick back into gear?

Chad Smith: It’s all good! I’m ready, it’s gonna be fun. We haven’t played in two years, so that’s the longest we’ve ever not played together.

Antiquiet: There’s been a lot of concern over that, since you’ve been gone for so long. And John (Frusciante, RHCP guitarist) made a couple comments a while back on how he’s got no intention of diving back in..

Chad Smith: Yeah, he wasn’t too anxious to get back & get going. But one way or another, we’ll get going.

Antiquiet: How do you reconcile all those personalities at this advanced stage in your careers?

Chad Smith: I just try to do what’s right for the music in whatever situation I’m in. I just feel like it’s always fun to play different stuff and keep shit fresh. I just have to play, man. I just can’t not do it. I’m fortunate that I’m able to find people as passionate as I am about playing music and keeping it fun. It’s important to be artistically fulfilling, but at the same time you gotta enjoy yourself, man. It has to be a fun thing.

Antiquiet: Your name is going to draw attention to the project, but the change of pace and general atmosphere of it lends itself to more of a try-before-you-buy element. I’m not sure everybody would dive in head first to buy this new album, for a simple lack of stylistic touchstone beyond your involvement. Applying that, how do you react to P2P downloads?

Chad Smith: You know, especially for something like this, I’m all for illegal downloading (laughs). We just want to get it out there in any way we can. And I think that it promotes word of mouth, and its so important to just get it out there in any way you can these days. Whatever the means, I’m all for it

Antiquiet: So you’d take Tampax up on an ad offer?

Chad Smith: (laughs) We’ll that’s something I’d have to think about. I mean, when I was a kid, ’round twelve or thirteen, and I was interested in the music, I’d steal records too. But I’d be stealing actual vinyl records, which is much more difficult given how big they are, trying to fit ‘em under your jacket. I remember getting Masters of Reality, a Led Zeppelin album and Humble Pie’s Rockin’ The Fillmore… and shit, that was a double album. If I was a kid and I really wanted to hear the music, I’d get it any way I could. I’d steal that shit in a heartbeat. Totally. Is it right? No, of course not. But I didn’t care, it was all about me and how I could get it.

Antiquiet: So you’re not looking to cash in here, is what you’re saying.

Chad Smith: We’re not trying to compete with fuckin’ Coldplay or Lady Gaga and shit, you know? We’re a band for a little cult. A niche group that’s just having a great time playing kooky instrumental music. Any way people can get their hands on a new band, I think that serves the band well.

Antiquiet: Especially when it’s Frank Sinatra cokewhore music.

Chad Smith: Exactly.

You’ve read the words, now open your ears and check out Chad Smith’s Bombastic Meatbats.

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One highlight of my day, OK my week, was hanging out with one of the coolest, funniest and most talented cats in underground hip hop, Aesop Rock.

I swear, if I could only sell one of the networks on a rap sketch show, it’s be a massive hit. I’d add Aesop to my Murs and Me show and that shit would be an instant classic. Guaranteed.

As we sat in the ice cold air conditioning, avoiding the sweaty masses outside, here’s a bit of how we passed the time.

Antiquiet: Soooo. First things first. Are they remaking Beverly Hills Cop? Or Police Academy?

Aesop Rock: They are remaking Beverly Hills Cop but I wish they were remaking Police Academy again. Why stop a good thing? It’s pretty much the Harry Potter of the police movie world.

Antiquiet: I saw the first two Police Academy movies and I wasn’t sure what other scrapes they could get into. To be honest, I’m not sure my heart could handle it.

Aesop Rock: Understood. Tackleberry with his guns all the time…

Antiquiet: Do you ever sample the noises that Michael Winslow makes?

Aesop Rock: I saw that guy recently on TV and he’s still doing that shit. He’s still doing the robot noise. I found myself wishing I could do it. At first I was like ‘he’s still doing the same thing?’ And then I was like ‘That’s awesome man!’

Antiquiet: You have a video on your page about building robots.

Aesop Rock: It has a sad ending. There were three… my friend Cage was with us and… at the end there were supposed to be these theremin style synthesizers that had a robot face and the eyes were light sensitive. It required soldering. It was something we thought we could get stoned and do in a half hour. Six hours later with the soldering iron… we’re like shit. Now it’s a pile of robot guts sitting in the corner of the room that my wife keeps asking if she can throw out. ‘No! One day I’ll fix it!’

Antiquiet: You probably could’ve recorded an entire album in the time it took to NOT build those robots. But hey, it’s the journey, I guess. You’ve known Cage a while?

Aesop Rock: I met Cage in New York. But I was a fan of his. I didn’t really get to know him until he signed to the label (Def Jux) in 2003 or ‘04. He’s been doing underground rap in New York for a long time. He had records out in the nineties. He would go on college shows and for a while I looked up to him. I still do but now I know him. A lot of these guys are a couple years older than me, and they were guys who, when I was trying to make a little noise, it was directly plotting what they had been doing. Cage is one of those guys. And now we’re friends.

Antiquiet: You started out studying painting. You don’t see collaboration in the art world like that. Except maybe Banksy, but he ain’t exactly asking permission.

Aesop Rock: The current generation of street artists who turn into gallery artists do collaborate, but it’s mostly in music. It’s a gift and a curse. You don’t want to see every song have a ‘featuring so and so’ cause it’s like… well what did YOU do? But, yeah, it’s cool I have a group of go-to people. I have a small network of people if and when I need them. At the same time, I try and keep the collaborations to only a couple per album, because that gets to be too much and looks like you can’t complete it yourself. But it’s so cool that dudes I used to tape off the radio, I can now call them and say, ‘Hey do this thing with me.’ I definitely never take that for granted.

Antiquiet: I should say thank you… and also I hate you, for contributing to the whole Nike/iPod song sync up thing. At first I thought it was so cool to have a sensor in your shoe to match up to your iPod and your music. But then what a nightmare. Now I’m held accountable. My iPod knows how slow or lazy I am. Thanks a lot, Aesop.

Aesop Rock: Oh, hell. I’m not getting on a treadmill. Luckily my wife runs so I was like ‘Oh this will be great. She can be my lab rat and test it out.’ I’d make ten minutes of music for them… They said ‘We need it in forty days.’ Now, I’d been working on my own album for two years. It was about an hour plus of music. And they want this in forty days? So I’d say ‘Hey honey, here’s seven minutes of music. Go run to it!’ It worked! She’d have some notes about where the levels of intensity should go and I’d rework it and send her out again.

Antiquiet: Why do I see you like Burt Young, the coach in Rocky, driving along side her in the car, making her run in the street?

Aesop Rock: Yeah. The best is when I turned it into Nike before it was fully mixed. They had a room full of people running on treadmills to it. And the runners had notes for me! Part of me wanted to say “Fuck you! You don’t understand what I’m doing with my music.” But it was to serve a purpose. It’s for people who run. Gotta meet in the middle as what’s best for a runner and what’s best for a stubborn little musician guy.

Antiquiet: For some of the milestone points, they had people like Lance Armstrong or Tiger Woods with pre-recorded congratulations messages. They didn’t have you do that. I want to hear what you would have said at the ten mile mark.

Aesop Rock: I would’ve said “Fuck you! You’re never gonna make it, you pussy!” HA! Cause every time I’ve joined a gym and they give you a free training session I’m like, ‘Cool, let me cash in on this.’ And last time, the trainer… I just hate having people telling me what to do. They’re there to push you, but they’re just yelling at you. My last trainer experience, ugh. He Googled me. Half way through I knew I was never coming back. I had to write a letter saying ‘Hey it’s been cool and you worked me hard, but I feel like crap. So I’m not coming it tomorrow… But you’re awesome!’ And then I’d keep seeing him at the gym. So now I don’t go.

Antiquiet: Felt 3? You’re not allowed to talk about it? Is it like Fight Club?

Aesop Rock: No, I can now! I’m producing it. I can’t say who the dedication is. It’s definitely a woman. And its definitely an actress.

Antiquiet: Paris Hilton.

Aesop Rock: I said an actress. And one that kinda hasn’t been in the spotlight for a while.

Antiquiet: Paris Hilton.

Aesop Rock: I can tell you it’s NOT Paris Hilton.

[Breaking: It's Rosie Perez]

Antiquiet: But I’m close? See? I’m getting answers out of you. So, Dewana’s Bridal. A film short. You’re doing the score?

Aesop Rock: Yeah, I’m psyched! Ace Norton, a director who did the video for Coffee off my last record (None Shall Pass), he did a horror movie style video. We hit it off really well. Now when I go home, there will be a cut of the movie. It’s officially scoring something.

Antiquiet: Yeah and you don’t have to make people run.

Aesop Rock: No! I get to sit there in the dark and eat Junior Mints.

Antiquiet: That’s the opposite of running. So you’re performing later at this here Epicenter festival. Which is the name for an underground explosion. What do you think is the next big underground explosion?

Aesop Rock: Uuhhhh, I don’t think it’s here today. Musically?

Antiquiet: Whatever. Music. Junior Mints. Cake.

Aesop Rock: I do love Ace Of Cakes. Did you see that cake in the gifting suite we were in? The woman was like, ‘Look at this cake. It’s make by a rock n roll bakery.’ And it’s totally just a bullshit version of an Ace Of Cakes cake. B-rate Ace Of Cakes. I love those Ace guys and the people over there should be fucking ashamed to be in the same category as creative cake makers.

Antiquiet: You need to use REAL guitar strings when you make a guitar shaped cake. None of this licorice whip string bullshit. I want to be able to play a b flat!

Aesop Rock: Agreed! I want engines and small motors! Hmmm. Where’s the underground explosion? When I took Black Moth Super Rainbow on tour with me last time I thought they were really good… I would sample them if they were obscure and from another decade. I thought they were doing some cool shit. And the other thing I like about them… I feel like I fumble through everything I’ve ever done. I look around here at this KROQ festival and I’m like, this is ridiculous. What the fuck am I doing here? And Tom is a ball of talent who is nervous who doesn’t know how to say ‘hi’ to the world, which is how I feel sometimes. Most music people are hermits and them they pull you out of your shell and they’re like go do KROQ! So here I am. I’m not saying I’m the next underground explosion but it’ be nice if I could still make some kind of explosion.

I so wish it would’ve been one of him exploding out of that bullshit cake. Alas, that was not to be. The KROQ kids had to settle for a cakeless Aesop Rock set which is still enough to rock Marie Antoinette’s ass off any day.

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Read on for some truly, genuinely inspiring insight into the record industry from someone other than Trent Reznor for a change. Hanson was one of the first hugely successful bands to go independent, and they’ve got a lot to say about labels, radio, selling CDs, and what music is really about.

Antiquiet: I remember the day I became a fan of you guys. It wasn’t the first time I heard Mmmbop. It was in 2007, when you guys did the Howard Stern show. How did that appearance come about? It doesn’t seem like your usual audience…

Zac Hanson: One thing that we always feel pretty confident about, and I don’t want to sound cocky… but when people get a chance to actually listen to our music, we’ll at least do alright. Nobody’s gonna come back and be like, ‘oh, you guys are total hacks.’ So they asked us to come on the show, and we said we’d only come on the show if we got to play.

Howard… I don’t know how, but I guess he’d been a fan, or had been supportive, and said good things about our record. And so he was like ’sure! Of course you can play.’

So once we knew we were going to play, it was kinda like, well who cares how many sex jokes or whatever, or ‘when did you lose your virginity’ [questions], or ‘why do you have so many kids, are you some freakin’ Mormon?’ …You know, that kind of stuff wasn’t going to matter, just because we knew we were going to play.

Antiquiet: Did the appearance bring a noticeable amount of new fans?

Zac Hanson: It’s hard to quantify exactly… I don’t remember if you know, the next week, we sold this many thousand records. But I definitely know that performance… I mean you said you became a fan from it… I’ve heard that a surprising amount of times. It’s something that I know… We knew going into it, he had [passionate] people listening to his show, and that if you could just get a minute to get them to listen to it, that they might be the type of people that would be willing to… I don’t know, I mean, people that listen to Howard Stern don’t really take shit from anybody… And that’s the way I feel like Hanson fans are.

Antiquiet: (Laughing) I get that. I get shit. Whenever I tell people about Hanson, it’s like, “Hanson? Liiiiike Mmmbop Hanson?” And I have to stand my ground and say “No man, no. You’ve gotta check out their new shit. I’m serious.”

Zac Hanson: (Laughing) Yeah, yeah.

Antiquiet: So after that, I picked up The Walk, and since then, I’ve had a chance to check out the Strong Enough To Break documentary.

And that… I mean. Damn. It was bruuutal. It was a horror movie! And the record label was Freddy Krueger.

Zac Hanson: The awesome thing about that movie is that you could switch us out for so many other bands, and it would be the exact same story. The only difference being that most [other] bands didn’t leave the label. Have you seen Wilco’s documentary?

Antiquiet: No, I haven’t.

Zac Hanson: They did a documentary about making one of their records, in which they… They end up signing again to the same label.

Antiquiet: Aaaaaah… God, I’ve read stories like that. 30 Seconds To Mars did that; They were fighting with the label, fighting with the label, fighting with the label, then finally they get to the end of it, and they re-signed.

Zac Hanson: Yeah.

Antiquiet: It’s like… What the fuck?

Zac Hanson: Yeah… Well [Wilco] re-signed with a different label… That was the same label. [Wilco left Warner Bros. Records for Nonesuch, a subsidiary of Warner.]

We have tons of friends who go through that same crap. In fact, all three of the bands we’re touring with have been going through similar things. Hellogoodbye just left their label, and I think both Sherwood and Steel Train just left their labels. So you know, it’s something that…

We felt like that film was important, and we put it out on the internet for free, I mean you [can] go to our YouTube page… We did that just because we felt like the film was important for the young people who are in college, who are going to be the next music executives or the next entrepreneurs in the music world, so they can know that these are the reasons that the music business is screwed up, because this is the norm.

You can watch the entire documentary on YouTube with the band’s blessing. We highly recommend it, regardless of how you may feel about the band’s music. Here’s a handy playlist with all thirteen chapters arranged in order.

Antiquiet: The opening scene was Stephan Jenkins [of Third Eye Blind], telling you guys that Hanson would ultimately survive the kinda… ‘curse’ of child stardom by evolving and staying true and through real talent and not by… sweating the next big hit or forcing out another Mmmbop. And then that scene is immediately followed by you guys agonizing over… how to give Jeff Fenster [Hanson's A&R guy at Island / Def Jam, now senior VP of A&R at Arista] his big hit single. Did that not hit you when you looked back at it? Was it like you couldn’t see the forest for the trees, or…

Zac Hanson: Well… The thing with us… It’s a funny thing to say… But I feel like we’re good guys. We’re the type of guys that will give people the benefit of the doubt is what I mean by that. So I think with Fenster, I think what we were trying to do… We never made music that was like, bastardizing ourselves to make the hit, and the people that we didn’t want to work with, we tried not to work with. And we never worked with Max Martin, or-

Antiquiet: (Sarcastically) Oh, you guys would be huge if you had!

Zac Hanson: (Laughs) Yeah, I know! We should have made lunchboxes and Barbie dolls…

But I think what we tried to do was give him songs we were still proud of, that were still…

Antiquiet: You tried to meet him halfway…

Zac Hanson: Without… We didn’t try to be something we weren’t, we just tried to continue to give him songs that we thought were good songs.

The biggest thing is… You’ve gotta get out there and keep working and making good music. You’ll have a hit song every once in awhile. But you can’t just sit around waiting for a hit song to hit you. That’s not what you do. You’ve gotta keep playing for your fans. Just because a song doesn’t become a “hit song,” doesn’t mean you’re not writing hit songs. Those things happen like lighting striking. You happen to be in the right place in the right band with the right song at the right time. You’ve just got to go out there and push the ball forward.

The thing that I look back on and wish we would have done is… I just wish we would have [known to leave] sooner. We should have just said ‘this isn’t the place to be.’ But it’s really important for musicians to have people to back them up…

When we first got signed and everything, we had young managers who had quit their jobs to manage the band, and just go all out and do whatever they could to help us be successful, and that was great, to have that kind of passion. But what we found after we had a little success was like… where’s the guy with the knowledge? That says ‘hey. You don’t need to do that.’ Or ‘hey. This is your career.’ I’m not trying to knock those guys, they were great guys, who worked hard. But just like us, they didn’t know any better, and so when we would go to say ‘well maybe we don’t need to do this…’ They’d be like ‘the label says you should do this, so you should do this…’ And that kinda kept us holding on longer.

When you watch that documentary, and our managers say at one point, ‘well, you can produce the record yourself… But Jeff will shelve it.’ He should have been saying ‘you know what? You want to produce this record? We’ll get off this label, and we’ll find somebody else. You guys got fans, you can tour…’ They should have been able to say ‘we’ll find a way,’ rather than just sort of… reading the news. And then repeating it.

Antiquiet: It just killed me to see you guys like… I mean there’s so many scenes of you guys recording. And every song you’re working on sounds great, sounds like a hit, or a single at least. And you’ll pour your soul into four or five songs over however many weeks or months, and then the label bags them all with a phone call. Then you go back and do five more, and they bag those. And again and again. And I felt like there were thirty truly great songs that were ultimately deemed worthless by… a fucking lawyer.

Zac Hanson: Ultimately… As you watch the documentary, what’s being said is ‘if you sound like Hanson… Which is what you’re known for, what people like from you, and what you do, and what you are as a band, then we won’t like it. Even if we think it’s good. Because you can’t sound like Hanson, because we think you need to sound like someone else.’ That’s basically what they were saying.

Antiquiet: Were they aware of the fact that they had signed Hanson?

Zac Hanson: Exactly. It’s a perfect example of what’s wrong with the music industry. You’ve got this band Hanson, but you want them to not sound like Hanson. What? So you bought this can of white paint, but you need it to be black.

We got a call from Jeff Fenster, and he asked to see the movie. So we sent it to him. And then a couple days later, his boss called, and said like ‘what is this thing? Jeff is like… freaking out. What did you… What did you do?’

Antiquiet: (Laughing) It doesn’t seem like you went out of your way to paint a certain picture…

Zac Hanson: Oh we didn’t go out of our way. We really didn’t. I don’t know if you remember the scene where [Fenster] is going ‘uhh… ooh… uh… uh… uhh… uh…’

Antiquiet: Yeah, he’s just stuttering for like 20 seconds…

Zac Hanson: We made it shorter. We really made it shorter. We cut about 30 seconds out of it. We were sitting there going ‘if we put this in, in real time… Noone’s going to believe we didn’t edit just this together on purpose. We’ve gotta make it look reasonable…’ We wanted to represent what he really did, but we cut about 30 seconds out.

Anyway, so the president of [Arista] called, so we sent a copy to him, and then he called back a week later:

“Hey, watched the film. Great film.
I don’t see what the problem is.
This is the way we make records.”

Antiquiet: Wow.

…Now I mean, there is a business side, it is an investment, there are beans to count and returns to secure…

Zac Hanson: There is a business side. There has to be… You know, you have to make records that you feel passionate about and that you’ll able to be successful with. But at the same time, you don’t… That’s not the way you make records, because you’re sitting there wasting money with no creative direction for your band, but you’re holding them up.

Antiquiet: Yeah, that killed me. It was like “I don’t like this. I don’t like this. I don’t like this…” And then you say, “Well, what do you want?” And the guy at the label says, “I don’t know.”

Zac Hanson: Yeah, exactly. “I don’t know what I want.”

The music industry is changing every day, and…

Antiquiet: Do you ever get the impression that it’s changing for the better? Worse?

Zac Hanson: I think it’s changing for the better, but it hasn’t found itself yet, still. I think iTunes is awesome, just because it’s a digital outlet where you know, you can get your music out to people without having to pay for manufacturing, and I think it will get better and better as Amazon [and others] become more of a powerhouse in the digital world, just because it’s never good to have just one guy.

Antiquiet: So now that you’re on your own, on the other side of the fence, how is the fight for radio play going? Are major label dollars always going to dominate?

Zac Hanson: You know what… We haven’t really done a lot of pushing for radio. We did pretty well with [first independent release] Underneath, and we felt pretty happy about what we did with that, but with The Walk, we just decided, you know, let’s just not even go to radio. At all. Let’s just tour. And speak directly to our fans, and do things on the internet, and do the things we’re passionate about, and let that be our focus.

I think radio is still… important? But it’s still becoming less and less important every day. And less effective. And with the consolidation in radio, there’s so little opportunity for people to take risks, that your possible return for your effort is really marginalized. If they can’t take any risk on you, but you’re going to take all these risks, showing up to play free concerts, telling all your fans to call in, spending all your own money as independents… You’re putting a lot more into it for very little benefit.

So we’re seeing more and more that radio is going to matter less and less and less. We’re just waiting- I mean ‘we’ as an industry- I think it’s just waiting on one piece of technology or software… Whatever new thing empowers artists to reach fans in a different kinda way.

There’s so much crap out there. So I guess what I’m saying is that when somebody creates a new crap filter, it’s going to change, I think. And I think more and more, I think bands are going to rely on each other more and more…

Antiquiet: That sounds about right. I think fans have come to trust artists a lot more than labels…

Zac Hanson: I think that’s true. And I think what you’re going to start seeing more and more is people selling less records for more money. Meaning, not even necessarily records, I just mean special [deluxe] packages for your fans, where you are recouping your costs after selling 10,000 copies, and then you’re totally recouped and making money, you know, and you’re successful, and you’re touring. Selling 10,000 copies, but you’re selling the cool…

Antiquiet: Something you can’t download…

Zac Hanson: Yeah, because you’ve gotta rely on some of that stuff because those are still things that people can’t get. Somebody’s going to download the song for free, or get it from their buddy or their brother or their sister or their mom or whatever. But if they’re a big fan…

Antiquiet: Then there’s a value for the limited edition.

Zac Hanson: For many reasons, unfortunately, music is being continually made less valuable. I saw the… It’s funny that I’m [mentioning] them again but they were the ones I saw- the Wilco catalog for like $7 on iTunes, and I was just like… ‘Oh my gosh. These are great records, they’re worth more than that!’ But if that’s what people are going to say they’re worth…

Antiquiet: Well, even when we all bought CDs, there were albums you lined up for on release day, and then albums you picked out of the used bins… For me, that was the stepping stone between parking lot tape trading and MP3 downloading.

Zac Hanson: You’ve gotta continue to evolve… As you push to figure out how it’s going to work.

Antiquiet: How has the business of running your own label evolved over the years, since 2004?

Zac Hanson: It’s good… It’s work… We like doing it because we are able to make all of the decisions and we don’t let anyone get in the way…

Antiquiet: Has it gotten easier now that more people are doing it, and there’s more precedent for independent coups?

Zac Hanson: Yeah, I think if you look at how many more bands are independent… Even five years ago, it was like… ‘really?’ And now it’s like ‘oh dude, yeah, my friend’s doing that…’ And everyone’s doing it. I don’t know why now, why not five years ago? It seemed pretty obvious to us five years ago that this is where we needed to be, you know…

But I think it’s getting easier. There’s more and more services, there’s more and more people who want to work for independent labels. I think more and more of the young people who want to go into the business are wanting to start somewhere, but somewhere smaller, and to be part of companies as they grow, and have more of a stake in it- not yet wanting to make money or be successful, but just knowing that if they want to be in the music business, they’re going to need to go somewhere where they’ll have a real opportunity.

There are more and more companies who are good former label people (or bad former label people), who are creating groups that you can hire out, and they’ll help you work your record, and they’ll be a publicity department, or a radio department, or a licensing firm for your catalog… It just gives you more opportunities to find good people to work your records.

We like it that way, just because a la carte, we get to get what we want. And we don’t need to get more than we need, and we don’t need to skimp on getting good people. You can hire out the people that show the passion, and show the knowledge of what you need, and hire the good… AAA guy or whatever, instead of just getting onto a label that might not have everything you want necessarily.

Antiquiet: You guys got to meet Les Paul, who just passed. What are you going to remember about him?

Zac Hanson: It was incredible that he was as spunky as he was. We met him about… I think it was just about to be his 90th birthday party. Isaac and Taylor went up and played with him which was awesome. I regret not stealing the drumset, but that’s… it sucks being left handed!

But he’s an icon. People don’t necessarily know him I think a lot for his music, they just know him for inventing the solid body electric guitar… It’s incredible that he lived as long as he did, but it’s more incredible that he played as long as he did. It’s something that… You look at him, and he’s playing well into his 90s, he’s playing shows every week. There aren’t that many people who have ever done that.

It’s something that should inspire all musicians; That’s what we need to do it for, we need to be like that. Paul McCartney is probably a billionaire, and he’s like 67, and he played a three hour show [Monday] night. By the time he came out for the third set of encore songs, he was going way beyond what he needed to play to make everybody happy. It makes you go… ‘I need to be that guy. I need to live up to that.’ When people see that, that’s what affects people in the audience; when they know you’re going above and beyond…

Antiquiet: When they know you don’t need to do it… But you’re doing it for them.

Zac Hanson: Well yeah. You don’t need to be here. You don’t need to come back out for one more song. You don’t need to dance that hard, or play that energetically or… You know. So it’s just inspiring.

Hanson is just about done with their eighth album, still untitled. It’s due out in the Spring of 2010. In September they’ll be releasing an EP called Stand Up, Stand Up featuring four acoustic versions of new songs, as well as one electric album version.

In the meantime, the band is touring the country with Hellogoodbye, Steel Train and Sherwood. View tour dates here.

Zac told us that physical copies of the Strong Enough To Break documentary arrived at their shipping facility in Oklahoma this week, and so that will see an official DVD release any day now. Again, we recommend it for any and all music / industry geeks. If you liked Dig!, It Might Get Loud, Private Parts and/or This Is Spinal Tap for that matter, you’ll find something to appreciate.

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Fortunately, we had a fair amount of mostly coherent conversation that night as well, and we’re pleased to present this more proper interview, featuring three fourths of Sweethead and Johnny, with me behind the camera.

In case you haven’t been following, Sweethead is the new band featuring Troy Van Leeuwen of Queens Of The Stone Age, Eddie Nappi of Handsome / Enemy, Norm Block of Plexi, and fronted by a vixen named Serrina Sims, who we first spotted onstage at the Natasha Shneider Memorial concert last year. They have an EP out called The Great Disruptors, and a full length is on the way.

Pardon the unsolicited meta, but it just so happens that Troy Van Leeuwen was Johnny’s very first artist interview. Troy was playing guitar with A Perfect Circle in 2001, and on one of my first trips out to California, I had my new aspiring journalist friend Johnny talk to Troy for the (now sadly defunct) fansite aperfectcircle.net. Serrina was present for that interview as well. So this was a full circle sort of moment for us personally. Pun by no means intended.

We discussed the whole “Los Angeles band” thing- a misconception, if you ask Troy, as well as the story behind the video for The Great Disruptors, which hit the internet last week. Check it out here:

As we get to talking about influences, we discuss some legendary, somewhat substantiated rumors surrounding Chuck Berry. Since wrapping the interview, I’ve personally done some independent research into Johnny & Troy’s allegations, and… honestly, it left me speechless. That man is a guitar God, but he was into some freaky freak shit. I’ve gotta read his autobiography.

Sweethead will be touring Europe in October with Eagles Of Death Metal, as well as elsewhere- with another cool band- soon enough. See their MySpace page for tour dates, as well as two tracks from their EP (available for $4 on iTunes), their cover of Life In Laralay from the Love & Rockets tribute, and a track from the forthcoming full-length, due in September last we checked.

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It felt a bit strange kicking the rest of the band off their own bus just moments before laying waste to the House Of Blues, but the guys couldn’t have been more cordial. In this clip, Maines kicks the wisdom on Strange Cousins From The West, playing in fans’ basements and the pleasures of being a totally independent group after nearly two decades in the label game.

There’s no shortcuts around paying your dues as a rock band, as Dan explains, and Clutch is a shining example of a band that’s fought their way to the top through nine albums and a work ethic that rivals the biggest names in the game.

We’ll catch up with the band again in October at Austin City Limits, but there’s nothing quite like seeing a Clutch show on your own. See below for Clutch fall 2009 tour dates (with Wino & Revolution Mother):

9/9 Pittsburgh, PA @ Mr Smalls
9/10 Buffalo, NY @ The Town Ballroom
9/11 Philadelphia, PA @ The Electric Factory
9/12 Hartford, CT @ The Webster Theater
9/13 Montreal, QC @ Lee Saints
9/15 London, ON @ London Music Hall
9/16 Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre
9/18 Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel
9/19 Jackson, MS @ Club Fire
9/20 New Orleans, LA @ House of Blues
9/22 Mobile, AL @ Soul Kitchen
9/23 Nashville, TN @ Cannery Ballroom
9/24 Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall
9/25 Grand Rapids, MI @ The Orbit Room
9/26 Chicago, IL @ The Metro
9/27 Omaha, NE @ Sokol Auditorium
9/29 Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot
9/30 Denver, CO @ The Fillmore
10/1 Kansas City, MO @ The Beaumont Club
10/2 Memphis, TN @ New Daisy Theatre
10/3 Oklahoma City, OK @ Diamond Ballroom
10/4 Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits Music Festival
10/6 Lake Buena Vista, FL @ House of Blues
10/7 Atlanta, GA @ Center Stage
10/8 Richmond, VA @ The National
10/9 New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
10/10 New York, NY @ Irving Plaza

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We’re allowed unprecedented intimate access to the creative process of each guitarist as they describe their own musical development and source of innovation, digging beneath the veneer of their star personas to get to the meat of humanity that spawned such incredible music virtuosity.

Page allows the film crew to accompany him on his visit the stone halls of Headley Grange where When The Levee Breaks was composed, and digs through early session tapes of what would become some of the most famous rock songs of all time; we head to Dublin with The Edge and watch as he pulls out the original four-track rehearsals of Where The Streets Have No Name, allowing us a rare look into the rough edges of one of the biggest bands on Earth. At his home in Tennessee, White describes being inspired by the raw style of bluesman Son House before writing a song, on camera, at the drop of a hat.

The trio eventually unite for a little jam session, discussing their craft while trying each other’s songs on for size. Several songs were recorded at the time, which will likely serve as extras on the DVD when it’s released.

I managed to keep a poker face on my gut-boiling enthusiasm at the press day for the film last month, as White, Page and Guggenheim fielded questions from the room. Here’s a few highlights:

Jimmy Page on the three musicians coming together:

I’d met Jack before. We’d done an interview and, obviously, I was really aware of his work. But, what was so fascinating about this is that we are all really self-taught guitarists. We all have real interesting characteristics. It’s not like we’re part of an orchestra, where everyone has been taught the same way and there are varied areas of interpretation. With this, it’s really strong with the character of what we’ve lived, in our music, so there was a lot to receive from the characters and how it manifests through their playing. I do really believe that all guitarists have a different character that comes through, that’s a strong character, the stronger the person is.

Jack White on the creative process:

Say a listener listens to the radio and says OK, well you chose to write this song or you chose to do this or do that on purpose. Maybe they’ll see that that’s sort of an after-effect, and aftertaste of what the songwriter’s doing to begin with. They’re trying to get to an emotion or an idea, and the byproduct ends up being a rock song or a punk song or a ballad or whatever it is. But if you see how sometimes things are attacked from the beginning, what it ends up being. When Jimmy talks about the drum sound in When The Levee Breaks in the film, you can see that it wasn’t like this is what Led Zeppelin sat down and wrote out on paper, this is gonna have this ferocious drum sound that everyone’s gonna remember for eternity, then we’ll go to the riff, and the critics will love it, it’ll be great.

Jack White on the perils of Guitar Hero:

I’ve had a lot of conversations about that, over the last couple of years, and I gave up trying to understand it. I do know it’s depressing to have a label come and tell you that this is how kids are learning about music and experiencing music, and that that’s the only outlet now. You have to put it in a video game to get it in front of them. That’s a little sad. But, other than that, I don’t really know. I don’t like to tell people what format they can get things in, or say, “I’m only going to release this on vinyl and nothing else. You have to come to my world.” I don’t like to say that to people either. But, I do think there’s a loss of romance.

Jimmy Page on what moves him now in music:

There’s always music that moves me. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s within the parenthesis of rock or blues, or whatever. It’s usually far more reaching than that. It can be in many different genres. The best part of it is that, in 20 years, you can hear something that is a total surprise to you, or you wouldn’t have conceived would have been there, musically, before. That can really move you and take your attention.

Jack White on his love for the old Son House song Death Letter (a frequent White Stripes show highlight):

Someone had played it for me when I was about 18 or 19, that song. I’d already heard John The Revelator and I was in love with that, then I heard Grinnin’ In Your Face and that was just the end of it for me. I just couldn’t believe it. But by the time the Stripes had started recording, I picked Death Letter because I wanted to sing Grinnin’ In Your Face, but it was too special to me. I didn’t want to insult it. So we picked Death Letter just off the cuff, and the funny thing was that we had recorded that song in my living room, and the door was open and I was looking at Meg while we were recording, and when I finished the song Meg had a scary look on her face. And I was like, “what?,” and came to find out that there was a drunk man standing behind me who had wandered into the house.

Jack White and Jimmy Page on starting with the right instrument:

Jack: I think starting with whatever you can afford is the best thing to do. Starting with a top-of-the-line guitar won’t facilitate anything. It will be less of a struggle and, especially someone who’s young, should have a little bit of a struggle because they’ll find their own relationship with the instrument. And, all the kinks that are in the bent neck, or the out-of-tune string, or the nut that’s broken, they need to have. It has to become their own.

Jimmy: I agree with that because you’ll see if you’ve got a passion to want to play the instrument, and that is a good initiation. From my experience, once I got a guitar that was relatively user-friendly, but not super-duper easy, I really came on as a guitarist, at that point. It helped. It wasn’t a super-expensive guitar either, but something needs to steer you a bit, if you’re playing an instrument that is really hard.

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