Our newest feature here at Scene Point Blank is our semi-daily quickie Q&A: One Question Interviews. Follow us at facebook or twitter and we'll post one interview every Monday-Thursday. Well, sometimes we miss a day, but it will be four each week regardless.
After our social media followers get the first word, we'll later post a wrap-up here at the site and archive 'em here. This week check out Q&As with INVSN, Don Giovanni Records, Red Scare Industies, and Sick Sick Birds.
Dennis (INVSN, formerly of International Noise Conspiracy and Refused)
Dennis: INVSN is a markedly different sound than your previous bands. What do you like most about playing a variety of styles of music?
That it is never boring! Only cowards or narrow-minded people stick with the same sound/idea forever. Or maybe very one-dimensional people.
I am none of the above. Life is about discovery. Art is about progression and taking chances!
Joe Steinhardt (Don Giovanni Records)
SPB: How big is your record collection?
Steinhardt: Steph and I own about 3,000 records, 3,000 CDs, and 200 tapes.
Toby Jeg (Red Scare Industries)
SPB: What is your favorite book or author?
Jeg: Man, these aren't supposed to be easy, huh? That's so hard for me because I take different things away from every book I read. I also try and oscillate my readings between something classic/scholarly and something hip and trashy. For example I was recently reading Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf, then I dove into Game Of Thrones.
I don't think I have a favorite book, but I think my favorite reading experience is from--GET THIS--a Dungeon's & Dragons book! It was a novel called Streams of Silver that I read when I was 14. I think I blew through the entire 300-page book in a day? It was one of those days where we got snowed-in and my father and I were stranded at home trying to stay warm and I was completely engulfed by the story. It's the second book in what became a very commercially successful series for the author, R.A. Salvatore. Yes, it's super dorky, but once you're an NYT best-seller, it's literature, riiiiight?! Anyhow, Streams of Silver is an awesome, riveting heroic tale and it's part of a trilogy that was a real game-changer for the fantasy genre. It's a little derivative of The Hobbit/LOTR, but I don't mind that a bit. Again, I'm especially fond of that book because of because the circumstances made it a memorable "reading experience," but I also stand by it as a kickass fantasy tale!
I should include that I had a similar experience 15 years later when I read Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which is a wonderful story that most people know about. Other books I've read recently that I would recommend would be In The Garden Of Beasts and The Forever War.
Mike Hall (Sick Sick Birds)
SPB: If I’m not mistaken, one or two of you in Sick Sick Birds have children, correct? What do your kids think of your band?
Hall: Yes, we all have kids. There are five of them now, ranging from 2-10 years old. Mostly, I think my kids just think of the band as something I do regularly: I go to band practice every week the way my son goes to baseball practice. But they do enjoy listening, and my kids both have their favorite SSB songs. My fourth grader is starting to ask more questions about music, and thinks it's cool that I write songs. My kids both like the rare occasions when we are in the car and an SSB song comes on the radio.
I think it's interesting to see how kids react to the juxtaposition of the DIY punk rock world and the America's Got Talent thing. Both of my kids like to watch America's Got Talent, and it's cool to expose them to other stuff that is going on that is less fabricated and show-bizzy.
We played a street festival in Baltimore last weekend, and it was a great opportunity for us older people to bring our kids with us to see some bands and eat some funnel cake. There were tons of kids hanging out watching the bands, and it was really cool to see. My son really dug the Paper Dragons.
