Can you give me your name and what you do in the band?
My name is Mike, and I play the bass.
It seems like your band blew up pretty fast – can you give a brief history of the band?
The core of the band has been together for five years. Cody and Blower met in college, their first or second year. They became friends and they had thrown a big dorm party and hired some cover bands to play the party and Austin was the singer for one of those bands, and they thought his voice was really unique and different from whatever else was going on right then, so they ran into him a few other times at different parties. Someway or another they found out that each of them were into music and they play different instruments – so they got together, it was Austin, Blower and Cody and they had a different bass player at the time, and they were playing gigs for a while and decided to go up to Canada and record an independent album with a known producer, so they went up there and did that, and the producer went up there and started shopping it around and when they came back to Oklahoma City after the demo was made, they picked up Mark and myself and we played a few showcase shows, and Universal ended up sharing the same vision as us, we went with them and we’ve been playing shows ever since.
So it started as a cover band?
Well they weren’t a cover band, but Austin was in a cover band. Once Austin joined with Cody and Blower, they started writing original material.
How does it feel to have sold out most of your tour so far?
It’s awesome – every other tour that we’ve been on to date hasn’t really sold out except for the bigger ones like the Nickelback tour and stuff like that. Every tour that we’ve been on that we’ve headlined hasn’t ever really sold out the whole tour and I think the fact that Lips of an Angel has crossed over to multi formats on radio has really helped out a lot. It’s pretty badass that every show is full before we even get there, so it’s a good thing.
Both of the shows in this area are sold out – do you know when you’re coming back?
We’ll get a little time off for Christmas and New Years, like a week or two, and then we hit the road again in mid January, and then we’ll tour for the rest of spring and the summer, and I’m sure we’ll be back in that area around late January, February – something like that.
What can fans expect out of you this tour?
This tour we play the entire CD, and then we play a song that didn’t make the album that for one reason or another, the record company and ourselves thought that it didn’t really mesh with the rest of the songs so we’re playing that one now and we might have another new one that we’ve been writing by the time we get there, and we also play a cover or two, so there’s about twelve to thirteen songs.
Are you guys excited to be playing with Aerosmith next month?
Yeah – they are one of our biggest influences musically and you know, we all grew up listening to them, and our parents listened to them, so they all introduced us to them. The fact that we get to share the stage with them is pretty ridiculous. It’s a pretty monumental step for us I think.
You put three singles out off your album – what song is next and what’s your favorite track off the album?
“How Long” is the current single right now and before too long we’re going to release “Better Than Me” and that’s going to hit the radio. A few top 40 and pop stations are playing and testing it out seeing how it’s going to do. That should be our next one. We’re thinking about maybe doing a fifth if it comes down to it, but we’re not sure about that one. My personal favorite on the album is probably “By the Way” or “Shoulda.” Nobody else in the band really has that one as their favorite, but that’s mine.
Where did the name of the album come from?
Well it kinda describes how we were living like whenever we all got together in the band, started playing shows, and the labels were coming out and whenever they came out they tried to get them to sign with them, they spend a lot of money on you – they take you out to eat, and we totally took advantage of that and got hammered every time they came, have them take us to strip clubs, and got tore up. When it came time for an album title, this kind of fit the way we were going at the whole process and so we decided to go with that for the album title.
Did you ever expect the CD to do this well?
We didn’t expect it to be at the level that it is right now. We always hoped that it would get to that point sooner or later, but I don’t think you ever really, really, really believe that it’s going to do as well as it does. You can always hope it gets better but I don’t know – I think it can still get better from here even though we’re at the level we’re at now.
I read somewhere that Lips of an Angel was not supposed to be on the album – it was supposed to be a B-Side … why wasn’t it going to be on the album?
That’s because of the label. During pre-production we wrote a bunch of songs, we recorded them in a studio back at home, and then we’d send them to them as we got them done – rough versions recorded. Whenever our A&R guy got that song, he was like “well you know, it’s a pretty good song, but it sounds like a b-side to me. I don’t know if it belongs on the album.” We were like “kiss our ass,” it’s going on the album, that’s all there is to it. Now that it’s doing well, he is a big supporter of it.
What was the inspiration behind that song? Is there any truth to it?
It’s actually an exact experience that Austin had while we were writing the album. The night before we wrote this song, pretty much the song spells it out. He was at home with his girlfriend and his ex-girlfriend called to do a few things and I don’t know – he had to keep it down in the other room and both of these chicks are gone now, but he came to practice and pre-production the next day and kind of presented the idea and it went along with something that Cody was doodling around with on the guitar and it just kind of wrote itself very easily just because it was the exact experience that happened the night before.
Have you heard that country singer Jack Ingram has released a cover of that song to country radio?
Yeah we have – we’ve been having friends around the country call us or text us and say “uhh I just heard a country version of Lips.” Yeah, we’ve heard it – someone sent us a copy of it or something. I guess you don’t need permission to do it these days and I guess you don’t because we didn’t okay it. I thought myself that it would have to be like someone would send you a version and be like “hey is this okay, can you give me the go-ahead to release it?” but that’s not the way things work so it was released and it’s getting some airplay on radio. I’m not 100% happy with it, I myself don’t like it, I thought it could be a lot better. It sounds like he’s reading it off a piece of paper – there’s no emotion in it at all. I guess people dig it because it’s getting played on radio – for how long I don’t know, but yeah we’ve heard about it. We’re not strong supporters.
Are you flattered?
Yeah, we really wanted somebody to do it so it would be a country song – some well known country artist would do it and do it well. We were actually looking into that option whenever we found out that he had covered it, so I don’t know – it just kind of came out and now it’s out there.
So you guys didn’t know that he was doing it until it was actually out?
Right. Yeah, we got sent a copy over the internet from someone after it was already done, recorded and started going out to radio.
Do you guys know what’s up next for your band – when the next album is coming out? Do you have any songs recorded or written for that?
We’re touring our asses off right now, and then we have down time where we mess around and search for ideas for songs. We’ve got a few, like four or five that are in the works and we’re planning on staying on the road though until the end of July next year. We’re possibly going overseas to Europe or Japan or something during the summertime of next year, but we’re planning on getting off the road sometime in the beginning of August and take a couple of weeks off and then hit the studio. Start pushing the pre-production and then have the album out and ready to go January, February of ’08 – something like that is our goal.
Someone said that your band was generic rock, like Nickelback and you guys agreed with that – why doesn’t that bother you?
You read that we agreed with it?
Yeah.
No – they must have misquoted us because we actually hate the fact that people compare us to Nickelback. I mean Nickelback is a great band, you know they write great songs, I think we sound absolutely nothing like Nickelback. I think people just want us to compare us to them because we’re a straightforward rock band and we’re doing well. We aren’t like some of those artsy shit bands like Franz Ferdinand and stuff like that. It seems like they get a lot more respect than the straightforward rock bands. I don’t know – I don’t see the comparison. I don’t think we sound anything like Nickelback at all. I think we resemble late 80’s bands like Guns N’ Roses and Motley Crue, and that’s the way I see it. Of course, there’s always going to be people that say “you’re a Nickelback clone band” and all that shit, but if they actually came to a show or listened to our album they would probably have a different outlook.
So some of your inspiration comes from Guns N’ Roses?
Yeah – Motley Crue, Def Leopard, Bon Jovi – whenever rock was cool and fun and wasn’t dark and depressing and trying to be all artsy and weird like the trend seems to be today. That’s when I feel like rock was rock and it was fun, you know.
So you’re just in the business of playing straightforward rock songs.
Yeah – just songs that make you feel good and make you have a good time. If you think back whenever you saw videos like “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Girls Girls Girls” and all those videos like that, when you watch them, they put a smile on your face – you want to have some fun – go and party and do whatever it is you like to do. You watch videos now and it’s all depressing and dark and you watch it and you just kinda feel bummed. Like you want to go kill yourself or something. It seems like that music is kind of on its way out in my opinion and that’s kinda what we’re trying to steer clear of – that whole gray cloud over our band thing, you know?
Do you think you’ll inspire any people to play more straightforward songs then?
I hope so. We’re out with a couple of bands right now – Lynam is our opening act, and they’re from Alabama and they are really really good – just straight up rock music. Their guitar player is one of the best guitar players I’ve seen in a long, long time. Eighteen Visions is out with us as well – they are a little heavier than we are at times, but still – their new album is really straightforward, it’s a rockin’ album. I think there’s a bunch of bands that are going to start emerging – just straight up, they want to kick your ass and that’s it. They want to have a good time and that’s it.
Did all of you grow up in Oklahoma City?
Yeah most of us yeah – the surrounding areas. Most of us were close by. Mark grew up a couple hours away in the panhandle of Oklahoma.
So a lot of the music from around that area is usually country – did you guys listen to that at all or use any of that as your inspiration or did you want to stay away from that image?
Cody is a big country music fan. He likes the music – he doesn’t want to sound like a country band, he doesn’t want to have the image of a country band … I myself was force fed it by my parents and I kind of grew to not like it, you know what I mean? I don’t really like listening to country music anymore. Like you said, there are a bunch of country artists that have come out of Oklahoma, but you’d be surprised in the Oklahoma City area how many more rock bands there are than country bands. It might just be the same reason why I don’t like it, why there are a bunch of rock bands. All the kids are sick of the country bands in that area and they’re rock fans and they want to start rock bands. There’s a ton of good rock bands in Oklahoma – it’s just no one looks to Oklahoma for rock.
Can you suggest any bands out of Oklahoma?
We haven’t been there in a long time, but I remember when we were there – many of them are the emo rock bands … but there are a few, Minutes too Far, Chasing Paris, a few bands – I can’t really think of any other current ones because we haven’t been there in so long. Little League Hero – that’s a really good one. I don’t know – there’s a bunch of bands out there that should definitely be looked at.
How does your songwriting process work?
The way our songwriting process goes is usually Cody and Austin will kinda come up with a basic idea, like a skeleton if you will and maybe a melody. We’ll all get together, because it’s much easier to get two people together than the whole band. Because when we do have free time and we’re at home, somebody’s visiting their parents or whatever. But for whatever reason that’s how it works. Then we all kinda put our touch to it and hammer it out as a five piece and eventually come up with some lyrics and some harmonies and then that’s that. We take it to our producer and that’s it. And then he gives us suggestions and we either take them or we tell him to stick it.
Did you have any songs before your album came out or was that your first batch?
Before Mark and myself got in the band, the other four guys had a little EP that they had recorded themselves at home in Oklahoma City and that’s kinda been put on the shelf. We didn’t use any of those songs for the album – we basically wrote half of the album in pre-production and in the studio. The six demos that they recorded up in Vancouver before the labels had any interest in us, those six songs are in the album. We have the other four and then the one we didn’t put on the album written in pre-production and during recording.
Has that B-Side been released in any way?
I don’t know if it is available on our site or anywhere else. We have a couple of different versions of it, we have a piano version of it and an acoustic version of it and it got recorded. I really don’t know what happened to it. We’re saving it for hopefully the Spiderman 3 soundtrack, whenever that movie comes out. It might be available on that. We’re hoping that we can submit it to that movie and they’ll eat it up and throw it on the soundtrack.
Is there anything you wanted to add or anything?
Just thanks to everybody that’s coming out to the shows and all the fans that have bought our album in that area – we appreciate it.
