The Last Royals’ debut album came out earlier this month, and the band is touring with The Hush Sound starting in March.
Listen to “Only The Brave,” and check out the band’s tour dates with The Hush Sound.
Tag Archives: tour
Interview with Hope For Agoldensummer
I spoke to Claire of Hope For Agoldensummer, a three-piece band led by sisters Claire and Page Campbell from Athens, Georgia.
After The Show: Starting mid-September, you’ll not only open for Patterson Hood but you’ll also sit in with his band during their sets. How are you preparing for that?
Claire Campbell: I actually just texted Patterson yesterday because we haven’t had any rehearsals since last time we played a show together, so as of now we haven’t started preparing yet. What happens is we have marathon rehearsals at Drive-By Truckers practice space. Sometime after dinner we’ll rehearse, rehearse, rehearse until we can rehearse no more.
With his sets, there is no set list – he just works off a giant list of songs we know, so we have a huge catalogue of songs that have to be ready at all times for whatever he decides he wants to play. The other thing about Patterson is that he doesn’t always call out songs, so sometimes he’ll just start a song and we’ll have to figure out which song it is in the first few bars. I’ll be playing banjo and realize I have to quickly change instruments!
When you’re playing shows in the south or in cities in the northeast, have you noticed differences in how audiences react to your music?
At first it seems like more of a novelty thing to people who aren’t from the south or from the southeast. But we win them over with our terrible jokes and stage banter. I feel like we get a pretty good reception across the board. Some places take longer to warm up.
What was your experience using Indiegogo to fund your fourth album, and why did you choose it over KickStarter?
We chose Indiegogo because we had a rather lofty financial goal of what we wanted to raise. If you don’t meet your goal with Kickstarter, you lose everything. In our case, the album was mostly in the can when we started fundraising. We were raising to cover the material cost of making the physical album and then to hire a publicist for the album – those things are the expensive things, and why we wanted to pre-sell it and do the fundraising campaign.
Even if we didn’t meet our goal we’d still get to keep the money we raised on IndieGoGo. The album was going to come out regardless of how much money we raised.
You play with some really interesting, unusual instruments like banjo, singing saw, and even a cheese grater. What’s your favorite and/or most unusual instrument you play?
My favorite is just the guitar; it’s the most fun. That’s what I write most of my songs on. I don’t tour with it, but I have a tiny old nylon string guitar from Vietnam and that’s what I mainly just sit at home & play – it’s effortless.
The weirdest thing I play is the singing saw. It’s a beautiful sound, in small amounts…it can definitely be overused. I can get tired of hearing it sometimes. We try to use it very sparingly, whenever we do use it. I don’t release a lot of raging singing saw solos in our folk songs. For Page, her current favorite weird thing is probably an Echoplex tape machine. We don’t tour with it and rarely use it.
I love the line “Mr. Bloom / I’ve made some room / in my mind / for thoughts of you.” Do you want to discuss the meaning and evolution of the song “Daniel Bloom”?
It’s kind of a long story. Daniel Bloom is a really good friend of mine who lives in Athens. When I first moved to Athens in ‘98, he was the first or second person I met. I was studying religion and he was studying philosophy so we had a lot to talk about. We had been talking about bugs…I said you can eat cockroaches – they would be protein & safe to eat, but it turns out after research that you can’t eat them because they carry terrible diseases. We made a bet that whoever was wrong had to write a song about the other person & perform it in public. The song slowly evolved to involve what I had written about him for that bet, but also parts of a love letter from someone else.
Hopefully that song will have a music video to go along with it – our plan is to do a motorcycling music video where I drive and Page stands on the foot peg mouthing the words to the song. We’d then have different members of a motorcycle gang chase us…we’ll see what happens.
What aspects of the business of music do you like and not like?
I don’t like hardly any aspects of it. I’ve been in it for so long that I’ve gotten really weary of it. I don’t really like booking shows anymore, and I don’t really like publicizing my shows. We hired a publicist for this album and tour, but I honestly feel like we could have probably pulled most of it off ourselves & gotten the same results, for the most part.
I got sort of disenchanted with the whole rat race and competition, and my ideas and priorities changed as far as how much time I wanted to devote to music & how much time I wanted to devote to all the other things in my life. At this point, I try to keep my nose out of the business of music as much as possible, and it’s probably to the detriment of our band.
Page is a graphic designer now & I’m a doula – we have other passions that have come to the surface. They haven’t overtaken music at all but are definitely of equal importance as music.
You’ve said that music isn’t how you make money; it’s how you spend money. That’s such a powerful, succinct statement about the current state of music and the struggle of the majority of bands.
Yes. For most people it’s an expensive hobby…I hate to say the word hobby, but is money the determining factor? Probably not. Our band breaks even, although we have massive amounts of credit card debt after the last tour. Except if you started actually figuring in the man and woman hours, we definitely would be in the red. None of us are pulling remotely a fair wage from being in this band, but we love it & we do get fulfillment from the other ways we make a living, so I think that’s okay.
I am happy where we are, for sure, right now. I’m not unsatisfied & I don’t look back at decisions we’ve made & have massive amounts of regret. I feel like we are successful whether or not we earn our living from music. I waver back and forth – on the business of music. I know it’s frustrating for everybody. This town [Athens] is great for being a musician because people are used to hiring people who go on tour, but most people here are not making a living wage.
You do great covers like “Time After Time” and even an Aaliyah song. Are there any covers people can expect on your upcoming tour?
Well actually I was just thinking of pitching some Elvis songs to Page. We do a lot of old R&B from Georgia like James Brown and Little Richard, but I was thinking like an Elvis song maybe…and Chuck Berry. Then there’s this really weird song about “why would you wanna break up.” Do you know that song?
No…
It has really strange timing – the rhythm is weird and the chorus is amazing – sorry I don’t know who it’s by. Patterson’s band is going to be our backup band so we’re trying to keep things simple, and we’ll probably be playing the exact same set every night because we’ll have to teach people our songs. I have pieces of songs but nothing new. We might do a new song of Page’s. But Page is insanely prolific, which is good when I have writer’s block.
*Thank you Hope For Agoldensummer – catch the band on tour — list of shows here
Filed under Interviews
Interview: Sleeper Agent
Today I spoke with Alex Kandel, the lead singer of Sleeper Agent.
The band is in Boulder, Colorado on a tour with fun. sandwiched between a tour with Ben Kweller.
After the Show: I saw you open for Ben Kweller in New York at Irving Plaza two weeks ago. Any particularly memorable shows so far on this tour?
Alex Kandel: Well, playing at Irving Plaza was amazing. A few shows stand out…St. Louis (last week) stands out because I cracked my head open on Tony’s guitar. That’s still healing…a battle wound of touring.
Ouch. So Jay Joyce produced your album. Do you like recording in a studio or playing live better?
AK: They’re both totally different worlds. I feel like a toally different person in each scenario, but I get a little homesick for the studio because we don’t get to be there as often as playing live shows every night.
When you arrange your songs, how do you figure out which parts you or Tony sing? Do you guys try different arrangements?
AK: It comes naturally. We have a general idea of how we want to trade off. It’s from the gut and based on instinct. A sign that a song is overthought is that something doesn’t click…it doesn’t have that feeling like this is the song. We have demos like that where it could be a good song but it’s not…so sometimes we take parts of demos and piece them together.
When we wrote “Get Burned,” it ended up happening in pretty much one take, in terms of song structure. Of course we messed with it a bit vocally later.
Funnily, your album has been described as “a rollicking set of barnstormers.” I think there’s a perception that young bands with energetic music have songs that are just fun, simple and straightforward.
But, your songs are more than that – they have interesting lyrical references and wordplay – like “Pavlov’s pup” in “Get It Daddy” and “Freudian slips” in “That’s My Baby.” How aware of that dichotomy are you as a band, and how aware do you think audiences are of it?
We’re very aware of that. Tony’s/our motto is “Brevity is the soul of wit, so don’t waste my time.” We’re trying to write short pop songs, but we try to be interesting. We don’t want to write another clichéd pop song. We like old school melodies like those of The Ronettes.
A lot of our fans recognize that in our lyrics, and they like us because of that.
You made a T-shirt about getting a song on a car commercial, and now “Not Never” has been on the Nike video series. What TV shows would you want to license Sleeper Agent songs to?
My favorite show is Shameless. It’s amazing. Even on the road when I don’t have access to Showtime, I figure out a way to watch it. So, I’d want Shameless.
If you could have any band cover one of your songs, which band and what song of yours would you choose?
I want Girls to cover our song “Force a Smile.” I think that would be really cool. And I cover Girls’ songs so it would be a fair trade.
Will Sleeper Agent celebrate the 1-year anniversary of Celebrasion’s release later in the summer?
Maybe. We’re still focused on touring. We’ll hopefully be overseas by then, but I’m sure we’ll find some way to celebrate (the physical release) [which you can get at SleeperAgentMusic.com].
Is the rest of the band thinking about getting more active with Tony’s songwriting?
We’re all involved in the first record. We collaborated on parts of “All Wave and No Goodbye,” and I wrote some of “That’s My Baby.” Because we’ll have a lot more time to flush out the second record, there’ll be more writing from everyone, and we all still constantly write on our own. We’re always sharing songs and ideas, even if it’s Tony who puts a lot of it together.
When we wrote the first record, we were living in the same house. When Tony writes a finished song and presents it to us, it ends up totally different than how it started. Example: Early acoustic demos of “Be My Monster” sound totally different. Justin speeds everything up, and adds the crashing drums. It’s not Sleeper Agent without Justin.
Thanks Alex and Sleeper Agent!
Check out the band’s current tour dates at SleeperAgentMusic.com
Filed under Interviews
Maria Taylor: On Tour Now
Maria Taylor is currently on tour promoting her new album…and she’s having a baby, too!
Here’s a video from last week in Denver of “Cartoons and Forever Plans”:
See the dates below:
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Filed under Show Announcements
What city enjoys the best concerts?
When a band embarks on a nationwide tour, audiences in 20-30 cities will get to buy a ticket and see the concert. Ideally, the band’s performances in all of these cities would be of similar quality and content.
But, bands are composed of people, and people can get sick, run down, tired of sleeping in vans and hotels, and fatigued from the demands of touring life (not getting normal diet and exercise, for example).
Given that most cross-country tours either start on the west coast (Los Angeles) or the east coast (New York), at what point during the tour is usually the best time to see a band play?
LA and NYC shows certainly get more press coverage than shows in Kansas, for example, but maybe a band’s performance in Kansas is actually their best of the whole tour.
Of course, sound equipment and quality greatly affect the show, but I’m talking about the performance itself.
At the beginning of a tour, a band is still warming up, getting any kinks out of their set, and getting back into the swing of things. At the end of a tour, a band is generally exhausted from traveling and not being home in months, which can affect the quality of the music that they play.
I’ve only been to shows in LA and NY, but maybe audiences in the midwest actually get to enjoy the best concerts because the performers have already settled into the routine of playing each night but still have lots of energy.
Here’s a recent example from the current Lemonheads/Shining Twins tour, which started on the east coast a month ago and has now made its way to the west coast.
The opening band Shining Twins seem to play their song “Greasy Bear” much slower and with less energy at their LA show at the end of the tour. This slight difference actually has a big effect, though, since the song isn’t as good/interesting at the slower tempo.
Maybe the band was tired, or maybe they decided to alter the tempo of the song. Hear the difference below — the lethargic version of the song is first:
Filed under Music Discourse
Blitzen Trapper and Dawes Sampler
Blitzen Trapper and Dawes are touring together in October and November, and you can download a free, six-song tour sampler EP featuring three songs from each band.
Head to NoiseTrade to download the songs.
Don’t want to download the entire EP? You can also stream individual songs like “Time Spent in Los Angeles” and “Love is All I Am” at NoiseTrade.
Filed under New Music, Show Announcements
Tour: Pete Yorn & Ben Kweller
Filed under Uncategorized
Kaki King/An Horse
Watch Kaki King doing great electric (full band) and acoustic covers of “Camp Out” by An Horse:
Kaki King and An Horse are currently on tour together. Here are the remaining dates:
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The Waiting Room | Omaha, Nebraska, US | |||
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The Fox Theater | Boulder, Colorado, US | |||
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Cervante’s Masterpiece Ballroom | Denver, Colorado, US | |||
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Neumos | Seattle, Washington, US | |||
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Wonder Ballroom | Portland, Oregon, US | |||
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WOW Hall | Eugene, Oregon, US | |||
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Knitting Factory | Reno, Nevada, US | |||
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Mystic Theater | Petaluma, California, US | |||
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The Fillmore | San Francisco, California, US | |||
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The El Rey Theater | Los Angeles, California, US | |||
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The Belly Up | San Diego, California, US | |||
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The Glass House | Pomona, California, US |
Filed under Uncategorized
The Young Veins in Rolling Stone
The Young Veins were featured in Rolling Stone. You can read the article here.
Below is a video (also featured on Rolling Stone) for their song “Change:”
Filed under Uncategorized
Rooney on Tour
Rooney are leaving the studio to go on tour. Their tour across the country starts at the end of this month.
You can buy their new EP, Wild One, at the shows. Head to Rooney’s website for a full list of tour dates here.
Filed under Uncategorized
