Love Button – Interview – Thanks for Asking!

Love Button – Interview – Thanks for Asking! by Liam Sweeny.

RRX: “The best laid plans of mice and men…” I don’t really know the quote, but I
know this one; sh*t happens. When we least expect it, calamity befalls us. Sometimes
just comic inconvenience. Please tell us a story about some comic inconvenience that
happened to you whilst performing?

LB: Every New Year’s Eve, there was a big event downtown, where they had bands playing in different venues and areas throughout several blocks. We were playing in a warehouse, and were the last band at that location. We were supposed to end our set ringing in the New Year for that crowd, but with about 15 minutes to go before midnight, our drummer’s bass-drum pedal broke, and we had no way of fixing it. We tried playing without, but the drummer insisted on quitting and everyone had to shuffle off to another location to celebrate the countdown.

RRX: Every artist’s first song is a milestone. But so is the latest song. Describe the
first song/album you recorded, and also the latest song/album you recorded; what are
the differences?

LB: We gelled so well when we first met, a friend of ours paid for us to record an album in a professional studio after only being together for 2 months. However, the songwriting and our sound changed so rapidly, we never even released the album, and a few months later had our first EP that was done in a home studio on 4-track tape. Our next two albums were done by the same person, but he had upgraded to a full-board and 16-track tape by then. Our last album was done in our lead singer/songwriter’s home studio, with 16-input to digital. It was a very different experience, recording without worrying that every hour was costing us money.

RRX: Music genres are difficult for some artists. Some strictly adhere; others not so
much. What is your perspective on the genre you play, or the genres you hover around?

LB: Describing our style has always been a challenge. We were sometimes compared to Weezer, but our sound varies much more than they do. Maybe if you could put Ween into a category, we’d be in that one. Nerd Rock never really fit, because we feel more like punk than rock. How about alternative to alternative? Not fitting into a specific genre has often put us at odds with bar crowds, expecting us to sound more like the band we were opening for, but then there were always those few who’d love us for it, and they’d become dedicated fans.

RRX: Our style comes from the extension of our influences. It’s like an evolution.
We’re influenced, and it inspires us to influence. What can you say about your
influences, and what you feel you’ve done with their influence as a musician or band?
Have you extended their work?

LB: Our first obviuous influence was The Violent Femmes. We even started playing on street corners around clubs with acoustics and the mic and bass ran from a car battery, after hearing how The Violent Femmes were discovered outside of a Pretenders concert. We were also very influenced by the creativity and lyrical wittiness of They Might Be Giants. Our sound and songwriting became much more experimental and we moved away from the straight ahead acoustic sound of early Femmes stuff.

RRX: We do this for the fans. For the blisters also, but mostly for the fans. Who’s
one your best fans? Without necessarily giving their name, what are they like?

LB: We’ve had several of our fans become some of our best friends. Early on, one of our best fan/friends was an artist and we asked him to do the art for our EP. He then did the art for our next two albums, as well as a number of flyers and posters throughout the years. He is an amazing person, kind and honest beyond most. He went on to work for federal parks, creating trails in the mountains. He then bought land in Belize and started a trail exploration company there. Still one of our favorite people ever!

RRX: Playing out is tricky because you never know what’s going to happen when
you get there. Sometimes everything goes wrong. What was your worst show like?

LB: We played a small club in Austin. The crowd was “eh”, but not our worst show. We went with one of the waitresses after the show to smoke weed at some guy’s apartment. They were both nuts. Our bassist, the talk-to-anyone type, had triggered this guy and he was ranting and rambling about nothing for two hours, while I sat next to this attractive waitress who was on something and couldn’t complete a coherent thought. That already being one of our strangest experiences ever on the road, we started our late-night, 8-hour drive back home. On the freeway just outside of Austin, we came over a hill to find an accident in the road that had just happened. A car had hit a middle barrier and was blocking one lane, while what looked like bodies were strewn throughout the freeway. It turned out to be clothes that had flown out of this wrecked car, and the obviously drunk driver was standing there outside of his car. We and several other vehicles, as well as a semi-truck, stopped and pulled over to the shoulder as best we could. As we got out to help the guy, a total of three other cars came over the hill and smashed into the wrecked vehicle and each other, almost hitting us and knocking the drunk guy 20 feet into the air. Afterwards, we were in shock, and barely spoke to each other during the long drive home. He lived, btw.

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