Features / One Question Interviews

Chris Moore (The Rememberables)

SPB: Playing in more bands can be complicated planning wise. What will happen with your other bands if The Rememberables will really take off? Or the other way around? 

Chris Moore: Haha. The question of the ages! Well fortunately out of the six bands I play in (Coke Bust, Repulsion, D.O.C., Guilt Parade, Sick …

Eddie Roxy (Department S)

SPB: What do you remember of playing your first live show?

Eddie: The first Department S concert was at the MUSIC MACHINE (now KOKO) in Camden. I was playing keyboards in those days. My main memory was having Boy George standing next to me dancing, he was wearing his Romanesque/Britannia costume with a roman …

Mike McGinnis (Plaque Marks-guitar/vocals)

SPB: Has being on a stage regularly changed your social interactions? Are you more/less social because of your stage experience?

Mike: Not in anyway that's very noticeable. I'd say if it has changed my social interactions then it's happened like a callous that slowly builds over time. You would think it would make someone …

Becca Richardson

SPB: What is the most touching or memorable thing a fan has told you about your work?

Becca: A fan sent me a video of her daughter singing along to one of my songs in the car and it was pretty adorable.

Sally Grayson (Black Swift)

SPB: What did participating in The Voice bring you, both personally and artistically?

When the talent scout approached me asking if I would audition for The Voice of Germany, I was very skeptical. I honestly really didn't think that this was something for me. I'm more of a punk rocker and not a …

Will Prinzi (Broken Bellows)

SPB: What drummer (not your own band) stands out to you the most?

Will: Thomas Haake (Meshuggah) is the greatest drummer of all time. That is all.

Perry (The Travoltas)

SPB: Should more punk bands listen to Beach Boys and use their influences? And which album would you recommend to start listening?

Perry: That's an absolute yes. If you want to be schooled in songwriting and come up with great harmonies, this is it. Especially with the early records it's just back-to-the-basics: bare-bones production with …

Whit (Fallow Land)

SPB: How do you choose your album art?

Whit: Fallow Land chose the album cover of Pinscher to mirror the overall attitude I had when writing it. My friend Andrea Calvetti is a fantastic photographer and videographer. I saw a photograph of his dog he had taken and posted on Facebook and I knew it …

Shilpa Ray

SPB: What is the strangest trend you see in modern music (or in the industry)?

Shilpa: Baseball caps. Too many baseball caps.

Deni Krstev (Fonija)

SPB: Fonija is changing their sound on every record so far. There is a certain risk attached to that: alienating your fanbase. How is this turning out for Fonija, do you have a strong fanbase that sticks around? And are you inspired by certain bands that kept changing and developing?

Deni: Heraclitus wrote that you …

Dick Rubin (MINKA)

SPB: What is the worst stereotype of musicians that you encounter when people discover you’re in a band?

Dick: When people discover you’re in a band, they always think to themselves: “I bet he wouldn’t be a good accountant.” well, I’m here to tell you…that’s a bunch of hogwash.

I know all about credits …

Hector Martinez (Spider-lead vocals)

SPB: What is the best TV theme song? 

Hector: Without a doubt, I gotta say the theme song for the HBO show John From Cincinnati is the best theme song ever.

The song used is “Johnny Appleseed” performed by the inimitable Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros.

I always loved The Clash …

Will Ingram (Wieuca)

SPB: Who is the most overrated musician/band of all time? 

Will: Deerhunter aka Coldplay for hipsters

Kevin (Edgewise – drums)

SPB: How old were you when you first learned a music instrument?

Kevin: I was eleven when I officially started playing drums. In my mind, I had started years earlier. My oldest brother had a drumkit that he refused to let me play. I snuck a few hits in when I could, but it …

David Wilson (Sarin - guitar/vocals)

SPB: How likely are you to pick up a record based off its cover with no knowledge of the band or music?

David: I generally treat cover art as indicative of what's inside, as presumably that's the imagery the band wants me to associate with their music. It's not unusual for me to …

Eric Carlson (Steppe People)

SPB: What is your primary or go-to tour food?

Carlson: Touring allows bands the opportunity to venture out into the world, see new and exotic scenes, meet fans and future friends, and of course taste far out and local delicacies. None of those bands are Steppe People. Steppe People are a delicate ecosystem. In …

SPB: What song (by any artist) has the best use of bongos?

Felix: That would be “Funky Nassau,” the version by The Blues Brothers. Never has bongoing been so succinctly demonstrated as a musical force. It’s in the second Blues Brothers film that I saw when I was ten, and it made me want to never sleep until I …

SPB: You and Bobby Kapp come from two different eras of the NY free jazz scene. What did you discover in your recording sessions, about either the past and the present of the scene? 

Shipp: The great thing about music is that, even though we are all a specific product of the time and environment we come out of, …

Gino Bambino (Gino and the Goons)

SPB: Who is your favorite lyricist?

Gino:

I walk 47 miles of barbed wire,

I use a cobra-snake for a necktie,

I got a brand new house on the roadside,

Made from rattlesnake hide,

I got a brand new chimney made on top,

Made out of …

Cindy Marabito (The Dicks From Texas)

SPB: Living in Austin and being a part of South by Southwest for the last several years, I'm often struck by the, what I might label, "niche" music documentaries that pop up, in seemingly increasing numbers, from year to year. How would you assess the market for these types of documentaries, have things …