You have to keep going. The main attention is for us to stay alive and stay a band. You only really become very successful when you stick together. Just keep going and reaching bigger and better.
I had different bands. I played with the Acoustic Warriors for the most part, without girl singers. It was the same kind of sound, acoustic guitar, bass, with violin and sometimes accordion, and the guys would sing, that kind of thing.
I listened to classic rock and roll, and punk rock. 'Goon Squad' provides a pretty accurate playlist of my teenage years, though it leaves out 'The Who,' which was my absolute favorite band.
This band makes sure that we have whole sections of stuff that are free form so that they don't know what we are doing next, that is the fun part of playing. You are playing something that you haven't ever played before.
It is seldom right to say that anything is true 'according to Google.' Google is the oracle of redirection. Go there for 'hamadryad,' and it points you to Wikipedia. Or the Free Online Dictionary. Or the Official Hamadryad Web Site (it's a rock band,...
I mean, I could just go round and use session musicians for every song, but I don't find that helps when it comes to setting up a band for live. Derrick has been with me for donkey's years.
If I was president, of course I'd want an amendment banning boy bands, but it just wouldn't be right, and I wouldn't do it. Then again... I don't want to paint myself into a corner on this one. Let me think about it.
I've created several musical trends, really. That's not because I'm so far out and fabulous. It's because most bands have no ideas of their own. They're so desperate they'll grab at any old straw.
I used to get very nervous before a concert. It's okay when you are in a band. You can kind of disappear. But when it's just you... yes, that was difficult. I would not say it is easy now. But when you do it for a long time, you do learn to cope.
For a long time, when I was very young, I went to go see arena rock bands. I was 16, and it was all I could get in to see, legally. And I saw Led Zeppelin and Ted Nugent and Van Halen and all that.
When I first set up my big band, I only had Gilson Lavis, the drummer from Squeeze, with me. He was the core element. Whenever a group hits the big time, they always get a new drummer because they really need that. You can make do with rubbish elsewh...
Also there's two sides of it, I mean, a band like us, at our level and the way we have to promote ourselves and usually radio just completely turns their back on us, at the same time I think Mp3s help promote us somewhat, spreading the word about the...
The first time I toured with the 'Large Band' in 1988, I got so tired. If I just stood still anywhere, I could go to sleep. I was that tired. But I had to perform. And I did, and after that tour, I was much less fretful about going out onstage.
Shirley Wershba: Name me another wife who reminds her husband to take off his wedding band *before* he goes to the office.
Toby: How come an Indian wears a cowboy hat? Calvin: Well, I guess it's because it keeps the sun out of my eyes better than a head band and a couple of eagle feathers.
My focus is always on the day. What I've done behind me, I try to have respect for it, and keep an eye on it, and make sure it isn't abused, and obviously be thoughtful about it, because it's all real to me. I'm basically in every band I ever was in,...
I first started actually playing guitar when I was eleven years old. I had some neighborhood friends who told me they were starting a band and needed a guitarist. I told my folks, and by the next day I had a guitar lesson set up with a local teacher.
I love to play my music. That's what my heart wants me to do is to play music, and I love doing that when I got my band and my crew and all those folks with me, and that whole thing cranks up; it's really something to enjoy.
I don't really have loads of friends - three or four who are close. The thing that I love the most is playing with my band, and with everything else I feel kind of uncomfortable. I don't think I'm socially awkward. I just prefer being behind a piano.
One of my main problems with music is that the basic formula is always the same: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus, chorus, chorus, end. One of the bands that changed that was The Beatles. If you listen to 'Everybody's Got Something...
The wonderful thing about rock music is even if you hate the other person, sometimes you need him more, you know. In other words if he's the guy that made that sound, he's the guy that made that sound, and without that guy making that sound, you don'...
