Blast: Was a solo career something that was always in the back of your mind? What finally prompted you to get the ball rolling and put this album out?

Jody Porter: A solo career was nothing I wanted to ever do, but it just became something that I ended up doing. I’d been in bands back in England that I wrote for and sang and fronted, and that was in the ‘90s, so as far as being a writer and all that, I’ve already kind of been there and done that. I’ve always liked playing in a band, but this is turning out to be a blast, too.

What’s the status of Fountains of Wayne?

JP: We’re still working on Fountains of Wayne. We have a record that’s being mixed right now. You know, there have been periods where I’ve gone off to do my own thing. And this is just an in-between thing. We’re definitely still doing the Fountains.

Are your Fountains of Wayne bandmates supportive of you going solo?

JP: Yeah. I mean, we all do different things on the side. It’s kind of the order of business from day one with that. It does probably lend itself (to side projects) for Fountains of Wayne to take three years in between things, you know? We’re good for a record every three years basically, is our work ethic. Plenty of time to do stuff in between.

Can you discuss the pros and cons of being a solo artist as opposed to a band member? Which do you prefer?

JP: A lot of times, you kind of have to do a little bit more production stuff just to get things rolling (as a solo artist).  I’m not much of a micromanager. Being in Fountains … day to day, there’s not a whole lot of stuff to do. This project I’m doing now is a little more DIY. So we do have some managers involved, but I find myself having (to make) a lot more decisions than I’m used to. Just kind of scheduling stuff, you know, studio stuff, even down to interviews. (In a group), if we’re all sitting around or something, it’s a lot easier to have a direction for what’s going to happen with the next bunch of shows or the next recording. I think it’s probably a little less intimidating.

Are you happy to have the Fountains of Wayne recognition, and a built-in fanbase behind you? Or would your rather people just discover your solo material on its own merits?

JP: You know, it really doesn’t matter to me. I think (my involvement in Fountains of Wayne) is probably just a footnote. (The solo record) is completely independent of Fountains of Wayne and probably a little more like my first band, The Belltower, in England. It’s a little bit more rock ‘n’ roll and it’s more of a psychedelic approach than a straight ahead power pop approach. For me, coming out of Fountains of Wayne, it’s such a departure that I feel like it’s almost just like a new thing completely, rather than being a solo record.

Who are your musical influences? Are there any artists who you feel you were able to tap into more now than you did with Fountains?

JP: Yeah, I’d say so. You get 100 percent freedom (as a solo artist). It’s just one of those things, I guess, that gives you a little bit more vision and room to move with it. As far as my influences go, they’re more obscure than Fountains of Wayne’s probably would be. You know, those guys are totally influenced by a different sort of realm of music than I am. I’m more into stuff like (English blues-rockers) The Pretty Things. I guess we kind of share a common love for the British Invasion stuff, obviously The Beatles and all, but I don’t think either (Fountains of Wayne songwriters) Chris (Collingwood) or Adam (Schlesinger) are particularly big Stones fans, and that was obviously a big part of my influence.

What are some of your favorite tracks on the record, or ones you’re most proud of?

JP: As far as just a verse, chorus, pop song approach, I think that “Aurora” is a good one. “A Beautiful Life,” that was in the film “The Messenger.” (The film crew) just kind of approached me as, looking for something that was a little paradoxical or slightly cynical, but uplifting at the same time. “Cars on the Motorway,” more of the edgier stuff, some of the louder songs, are really fun to play live.

Do you have any favorite solo artists who have branched off from bands and done their own thing?

JP: I’m really a big Pulp fan, and I think Jarvis (Cocker) has made the transition (well). Going back to The Beatles’ stuff, I think Lennon’s records were still amazing after The Beatles.

You’ve collaborated with a number of artists, including Juliana Hatfield, Jesse Malin and The Strokes’ Albert Hammond, Jr. Is there anyone you haven’t worked with whom you’d like to?

JP: A lot of the people I’ve worked with are just kind of friends. I’ll get a call and just drop by because I’m in the neighborhood or whatever, and it just ends up being kind of spontaneous. With Juliana, that was a gas, because I went in just to do maybe one or two songs and ended up being on pretty much the whole record. And it went really quickly. That was a fun collaboration. I can just grasp at straws and say I really like Primal Scream. A lot of British bands. Maybe (Oasis’) Noel Gallagher, whatever he’s doing now.

What was the first album you were obsessed with?

JP: I had a pretty groovy father who had been a musician. He was a folkie on RCA in the late ‘60s.  The first record that he bought me was probably on my fifth birthday, and I had already scratched and worn out all his vinyl, like spinning it around with my hand when I was a wee toddler. So he had to re-buy a bunch of things, but I got for my fifth birthday “Sergeant Pepper.” I was kind of basically shown the light.

So, is this going to be a one-time solo thing? Do you see yourself releasing more solo material down the road?

JP: I think I’m going to be proactive with it. I mean, so far it’s gotten really good response, and I have a fairly big backlog of songs that I didn’t put on the record and a lot of new ones that were kind of thrown together.

Jody Porter plays Boston’s Lizard Lounge on August 14.

Jeffrey Lewis performing with The Bundles in Machester, U.K. on May 17. (Media credit/Man Alive! via Flickr)

NEW YORK — Jeffrey Lewis is sitting in a double-parked 1991 Nissan Pathfinder on South Eighth Street in Williamsburg on a Tuesday afternoon. It’s in low 80s as he’s flipping through pencil marked 11×17 pages.

In the car’s dusty interior, a black sketchbook and a small pouch of pens and pencils are on the back seat. A used scratch ticket is on the passenger side floor and coins and old receipts are scatted around the dashboard. The air conditioner is off but Lewis looks comfortable in his black Brooklyn Anti-Folk Festival t-shirt and blue Levis with worn out knees. A red number four pencil rests on his right ear, the tip poking out of his thinning shaggy brown hair.

The Pathfinder has been Lewis’ office recently, at least for a few hours on Tuesdays and Fridays when New Yorkers play a giant game of musical cars as the city’s streets are cleaned. The pages may be part of the eighth and latest issue of Fuff, Lewis’ self-published comic book series, but the 34-year-old artist and musician isn’t happy with them yet. Lewis has been working on the issue since last June and hopes to finish this summer.

“It could be done this week if I just hunkered down,” he says.

Lewis has more pressing responsibilities: Working out transportation and housing issues before going on tour with his new group, The Bundles, on May 15 throughout the U.K., and with his brother Jack in Israel beginning May 22. By the end of the month, Lewis will be at the Primavera Festival in Barcelona, Spain.

The last nine years have been busy as Lewis transitioned from playing coffee houses and small venues to touring around the U.S. as an opener for acts like Dr. Dog, and as a headliner in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Music became a source of income for Lewis around 2001 when his first album came out on Rough Trade Records, and more gigs were booked.

In 2009, Lewis released his fourth album, “‘Em Are I,” and he was asked to write a series of articles and a comic strip on songwriting for The New York Times. This year, he recorded a series of “illustrated songs” – tunes that Lewis sings while holding posters of related drawings – for the History Channel on topics like the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Peloponnesian War.

Living on money saved from touring over the past four years, Lewis spent this spring in Williamsburg resting drawing before touring this summer.

“I’ve been doing more artwork and a bit less music,” Lewis says, “and also I sort of feel like I’m in between albums in a weird way. I don’t really know what the next album is going to be.”

Dates are scheduled. He just wants to get it done. And for that, he probably needs to go to Maine.

–

Lewis grew up in a Manhattan tenement apartment on East Ninth Street between First and Second avenues. His mother, Wendy, is an English teacher. Joe, his father, was a New York City firefighter until an injury in the early sixties. Lewis’ father receives a small pension check every month, Lewis says, and lives “a very hippy lifestyle.” His father “always sort of had one little hustle or another,” Lewis says, “anything to avoiding working full time.”

Before Jeffrey and his brother Jack were born, the Lewis’ bought land about thirty miles north of Augusta, Maine where the family later spent a few months every summer sleeping in a trailer.

Jeffrey didn’t play sports. He sketched on the floor of his room and included drawings in school projects. Horror novels by John Bellairs were Lewis’ favorite books and he bought comics at magazine stands in Saint Mark’s Square. Marvel’s Rom issue seven was the first comic he really liked.

He played piano as a teenager, learning chords and basic theory, but was always more interested in drawing and comics. At the State University of New York at Purchase, Lewis’ thesis for his Literature major was a critical analysis of the comic, The Watchmen. For two years after graduating in 1997, Lewis traveled, began writing punk and garage-tinged folk songs, and finished his first professional comics.

–

(Media credit/Dale Harvey via Flickr)

Sitting in the driver’s seat, Lewis flips though a sketchbook. This is his 24th. The others sit on a shelf in his third floor Williamsburg apartment, where Lou Reed album covers and a poster of Rom are décor.

“I finally put them all in order and I realized how much I slowed down. In the past few years I’ve been filling up about one sketchbook a year, whereas before I started touring I was filling up about three sketchbooks a year,” Lewis says.

Drawing does not get done on tour.

He can’t work in a car and needs to be alone to concentrate. Still, Lewis brings his current sketchbook every time he goes on the road. Each book begins with a drawing of Lewis and his favorite comic book character Rom, has a list of songs and a page marking when the book was started. The first page of the book he is holding now has Lewis and Rom surrounded by overwhelmingly cute dogs under a title drawn in the style of a 1950’s horror comic.

His work isn’t exactly mainstream fare. One comic is based on his father’s exaggerated story about a cross-country trip in a 1959 Plymouth Fury that was ripped apart by bears. Another was named, “Reflections on Tomorrow Thus a Yesterday Flower Shall Doom.” Now he’s working on a coming-of-age story with adolescent superheroes experiencing the growing pains of everyday middle-schoolers. On one half-sketched page, Lewis shows a shy superhero boy that feels ostracized by his schoolmates, goes home and masturbates in the bathroom.

His comics are sold in a handful of stores around the U.S. Lewis says he rarely sees any money from retail sales. and the comics are sold at every show he plays. But the they not only take up more physical space in cars than CDs, comics make much less profit.

After looking over the 24 sketchbooks this spring, Lewis says he realized his drawing skills hit a peak in the late 1990s as his music career was beginning. To get over it, Lewis says, he will have to spend more time drawing.

He flips to pages where he recently copied panels from some of his favorite comics, like Eight Ball and The Watchmen.

“William Faulkner apparently would retype and retype the entire novel of The Great Gatsby just to know what it felt like to write a great novel. I thought that was a funny idea and, just for kind of a joke, I thought I would see what that would be like with comic book pages,” he says.

–

At about 1:15 p.m., Lewis puts his key into the ignition.

“It’s about that time,” he says. The engine whines. It won’t start. He glances at the dashboard and tries again. The ignition clicks and the Pathfinder is alive. After the car is parked in its usual place across the street, Lewis decides to walk down Broadway for pizza.

The used Pathfinder was purchased two years ago for touring the U.S. When home from tour, Lewis moves the car back and forth across the street twice a week and drives to Maine during the summer to concentrate on drawing. He’s put about 70,000 miles on the odometer.

He first went to Maine to work on his comics in 1997, just after college. After a few months, he finished the 40-page “Tao Jones,” his first comic. He hated going there as a teenager. “I always just wanted to come back to New York immediately, but then once I realized that it was a really good spot for working on my comic books I started spending a lot more time up there,” he says. Lewis built a small one-room cabin with no electricity and plumbing where he sleeps and works.

Before the Pathfinder, he would take a bus from Manhattan to Boston’s South Station, and hop another bus to Augusta. Then Lewis hitchhiked the thirty-mile stretch to his family’s property.

“I’m probably going to go when I get back from this next tour, but I haven’t gone for a whole summer for a long time, cause its just harder now that, you know, with tour stuff, if I have a girlfriend, or, you know, anything that just makes it impossible to disappear for three months or four months at a time,” he says.

Each every trip is more or less the same. He packs a few shirts, pairs of socks and underwear, an acoustic guitar and his art supplies. Arriving at the cabin, Lewis cleans up, throws a few dead mice away, and gets to work.

He writes a script and outlines basic page layouts and then draws characters and scenes in his sketchbook. Once he knows the basic plot and panel flow, Lewis begins to sketch lightly on 11’’ x 17’’ card stock. Figures and backgrounds emerge in 3h and 4b pencil marks. He doesn’t know where it’s going yet.

As graphite is layered on, Lewis makes choices. Words and the page borders are the first elements to get painted with a size six watercolor brush. Each panel is finished with strokes of black Windsor & Newton ink and details in Micron pen. The finished page is scanned, converted into a .tiff file and sent electronically to a printer in Texas. Soon boxes arrive at his Williamsburg apartment with 3,000 copies.

–

Lewis is sitting in Sabrina’s Pizza Restaurant on Broadway. He’s serious about pizza. In a Times article, Lewis said the best “political” song he ever wrote was about price increases in New York pizza joints (“Sal’s Pizza Has Sold Out to the Yuppie Scum”).

Customers sit at some of the tables, only casually glancing at Lewis at most. He is not Jeffrey Lewis the musician or comic book artist here. He’s just eating a regular slice of cheese.

“I always just wanted to do comics. That’s, like, what I feel I’ve wanted to do my whole life,” Lewis says after he finished the slice, “Its just that very, very few people make any money at that, it’s a very esoteric form of entertainment to make a living at.”

He never planned on making a living as a musician. Despite the pressures and dual roles he’s playing, Lewis says there is improvement in each comic he produces.

“I would like to think I’m not too old to actually to end up as a comic artist after all but you know at a certain point anybody who’s playing baseball sort of realizes, like, oh I’ll never make it to the major leagues, you know, I’m at such and such an age,” Lewis says, pausing. “I don’t know if art is like that ‘cause you really can get better and better at it the more you do it.”

As someone who’s been in and out of the stupid radio business for the past 11 years, I know all too well how sketchy and awful that the Record Industry is. Not to mention, stupid. Then again, you don’t need me to tell you that. I mean, these are the same dope who decided to trash Napster instead of embracing it. Since they’ve realized this costly error, they’ve responded with outlandish lawsuits against people who’ve illegally downloaded songs. Suing people for hundreds of thousands of dollars that nobody could possibly ever be able to pay off.

Well, score one for the little guy, as a Federal Judge just slashed the hell out of the $675,000 in damages that B.U. grad student Joel Tenenbaum owed to four record labels, for illegally downloading 30 songs.

Sure, he still owes a bunch, but it’s also kind of a nice “fuck you” to the Record industry, too.

Full story on Boston.com, after the jump.

Last night that talent swayed its way onstage in the form of Zooey Deschanel, M. Ward, and a gifted band, performing a dreamy set after the Chapin Sisters warmed up the crowd.

Dreamy? I know you may be thinking this is a word reserved for self-proclaimed hunks, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, and comfy sheets and blankets. But yes, the act was dreamy. The songs, while shifting between mellow and contemplative to playful and danceable, definitely conjure up a calm landscape. I couldn’t tell if I was more inclined to think of a warm summer’s day with the scent of fresh linen drying in the breeze, or a crisp autumn evening in an apple orchard. Did I say dreamy? Perhaps whimsical is a better fit.

The recordings of Ward and Deschanel please the ear (check out She and Him Volume One and the recently-released Volume Two), and yet critics have described their onstage performances as less-than-stellar. I can only imagine the reviewers were either harboring a predisposed dislike for this type of music or were, in fact, dead, in which case we can safely say that zombies are tone deaf and rhythmically challenged. The band was enthusiastic and the audience was beaming. While the House of Blues’ seating and standing arrangement produced some disgruntled fans who could barely see the stage, the performance itself was golden. Deschanel, standing onstage in stockings and a sparkling dress, grabbed the mic at one point to look into the audience of people wearing flowery dresses, hats, and poster board signs stating “Marry Me Zooey,” to simply state “This is fun”. Simple statements can sometimes sum it up quite well.

Belting out tunes such as “In the Sun,” “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?” and “Sentimental Heart,” they also covered classics such as the 1962 hit “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” by the Miracles. “Hold me Zooey!” one fan yelled out during a downbeat, to which she responded “Hold me Boston.” Queue swooning.

The encore including “Fools Rush In” (Rick Nelson) and “Roll Over Beethoven” (Chuck Berry), which incurred delighted screams from the audience.

It was great to see a band incorporating its opening act into the set, as well as a wide range of musicians. The musical accents of the ukulele, a beautiful C&C drum set, a guitar vocalized by Ward, and spot on harmonies didn’t hurt either.

All in all, a band worth seeing. It is still astonishing that many are not aware of Zooey Deschanel’s musical talent, and any comparisons to Katy Perry are unfounded, other than perhaps a retro feel. Deschanel is a triple threat in that she can sing, act and dance, and do so humbly. M. Ward exuded talent without trying to step on Deschanel’s toes or hog the spotlight, and the entire band completed the sound.

For more She and Him tour information, check out their website.

Browning, of Muncie, N.Y., turned 22 down the street from where he was born.

As the Grateful Dead were about to end their last set at the Oxford Plains Speedway in 1988, Diane Shatz gave birth to Adam at 11:59 p.m.

“It must’ve been ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘Dear Mr. Fantasy’ that did it,” his father Phil Browning told the Advertiser Democrat of Norway, Maine, referring to the last two songs of the night that were playing as Adam was born.

“He decided he wanted to hear the music,” Shatz said in the 1988 article.

On Friday near the entrance to the festival on the Oxford County Fairgrounds, Browning, wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, was carrying two 20 pound bags of ice from a nearby supermarket.

“Its almost a religious experience, it’s the first time I’ve been here since 1988 and I definitely don’t remember that,” Browning said.

His father bought him the ticket and he is attending the festival with his girlfriend and several friends.

Phil Lesh and Bob Weir, former members of the Grateful Dead, are scheduled to headline the festival’s line up on Sunday with their band Further. The Grateful Dead, and its various post-Jerry Garcia incarnations, have not played in Oxford since 1988.

“I’ve seen Further a couple times and they’ve been amazing so I hope they put on as good of a show if not better,” Browning said.

Adam said he is still in contact with Edna Olmstead, an Oxford woman that delivered him. On Saturday the two reunited around noon.

“I haven’t seen him since that day 22 years ago,” Olmstead said in a telephone interview as she was about to leave to pick up Browning and his girlfriend.

“They want to get away from that scene and refresh themselves for a bit,” she said

While 22 years have passed since Browning was born at the concert and any members of the Grateful Dead have performed here, Browning said that he doesn’t think the scene is all that much different from what his parents experienced.

“Everybody’s peaceful here, everybody gets along. I don’t think its changed nearly as much as anyone thinks it has,” he said.

That night in Buffalo was seven years ago and news of guitarist John Nolan and bassist Shaun Cooper leaving the band came as a shock to not only Lazzara, but to a legion of die-hard fans. In 2003, TBS was in the fast lane to becoming a rock and roll legend. After only one album, the critically acclaimed Tell All Your Friends, they were playing sold out venues and arenas. Songs like “Cute without the E” and “There’s no I in Team” ranked Lazzarra and Nolan as the leaders of a generation of lyrical gods emerging from the Long Island music scene.

However, with growing success came tension among the members. Nolan and Cooper departed from TBS amidst a whirlwind of rumors and speculations to start Straylight Run. Fans were divided into Team Lazzara and Team Nolan camps with what seemed like absolutely no chance of reconciliation. Straylight’s toned down piano driven melodies and co-vocals by Nolan’s sister (and inconveniently, Lazzara’s ex) Michelle were a drastic change from the TBS sound – but Lazzara continued on. He recruited Fred Mascherino and Matt Rubano to replace Nolan and Cooper respectively. Taking Back Sunday would release three more albums, two of which ended up in the Billboard Top Ten, and one more lineup change. Mascherino left in 2007 to work on a solo album and was replaced by Matt Fazzi as the band went into the studio to record 2009’s New Again.

TBS was scheduled to head back into the studio to record their fifth album when rumors of fighting and disgruntlement among the members started circulating again. On March 31, both Rubano and Fazzi announced that they were leaving the band while the Taking Back Sunday website boasted a current Tell All Your Friends re-make picture of Nolan and Cooper sitting with the band, each of the members with their eyes crossed out. A couple of weeks later, Lazzara revealed to Alternative Press magazine that Fazzi and Rubano were “let go” from the band so the original line-up could be recreated.

The impossible had occurred – after seven years of not speaking, Nolan and Lazzara not only found a way to be civil to each other, but also repaired the partnership that had propelled both of them to greatness in the first place. The announcement was of unprecedented epic proportions to TBS fans that had dreamed, but never believed that the day would ever come. They have drummer Mark O’Connell to thank.

“Mark had kept in touch with John and I and hung out with us a lot over the years. Even when we weren’t in the band, we stayed pretty close.” Cooper explained to Blast before the June 25th show as he and Nolan sipped beers in the side alley next to the House of Blues.

“After one night where we hung out, he really just decided basically that this is the way it needs to be. We could tell the chemistry just as friends was always there,” Cooper continued. “So he hatched this plan and ran it by Eddie [Reyes, guitarist] and Adam, and they told him he was crazy. He told me about it and I told him he was crazy but I was very excited. We talked a lot about John and whether or not he would do it, but he called John and made it happen.”

Lazzara had apparently been warmed up to the idea for longer than expected. He had been sending O’Connell out to drop hints that he was willing to talk to Nolan again. Finally, Nolan took the bait, since “Adam was a total panty waist about it,” according to Cooper. After more than half a decade of not speaking, Nolan says the conversation was far more normal than people would think.

“It was sort of a ‘How have you been? What have you been doing? I’ve heard this or that’ back and forth. [There was] nothing really about the band or that much about whether or not we were going to do it,” Nolan rehashed. “I think we talked a little bit about how I was interested in hearing what he was feeling about where the band was and where he saw the band going – what he was looking for with it. The best thing that I can say is that for the type of conversation it was, it was surprisingly laid back.”

Approximately a month after that phone call it was decided that Nolan and Cooper would officially rejoin the band. Lazzara, Nolan, Cooper, Reyes and O’Connell went out to El Paso, Texas – just to make sure they could still get along. In that time they managed to write 15 demo songs.

“When we got together for the first time, nothing was concrete. It was very up in the air – we were very aware that it was crazy and that it might not work, but we all wanted it to,” said Nolan.

And it worked. In fact, writing together again came as organically as it did when they wrote Tell All Your Friends.

“The thing was, we decided not to reconcile anything. When this band first got together, we weren’t doing that. We didn’t sit down and talk to each other. ‘What direction do we want to go with this? What kind of songs do we want to do?’ We just got together and worked on songs,” Nolan said.

Cooper added, “That’s why I feel this lineup works so well together, because no one is like ‘this song has to sound like this. I have this vision and we have to take it directly here.’ It’s everyone working together. It’s everyone respecting each other and being happy about it. We all like each other’s ideas so that’s cool.”

The intention was to go into the studio to finish the songs, but after hearing that their producer, Eric Valentine, wouldn’t be available for months, the boys decided to take it out on a road. They played six dates: New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles, to give fans a taste of what they’ve been working on. The set list contained two songs from the El Paso sessions and a myriad of hits from the Taking Back Sunday repertoire. Every night they end the show with “There’s no I in Team,” which Lazarra swore he would never play again after Nolan and Cooper left the band in 2003.

(Live from The Starland Ballroom, NJ – 6/22/2010)

“We got this whole thing started and we understand each other, just as people and as musicians. We appreciate what everyone does. Maybe it didn’t work like that with [the Matts],” Cooper said, “I’m not sure because I wasn’t there, but that’s what I’m guessing.”

It seems that everyone in the band is happy about the decision. No matter how much of a dick Lazzara claimed to be all those years ago, he’s humbled now. During many of his talk breaks he’d go silent in the middle of a thought and just stare at the crowd. A few times it looked like he might be close to tears as the entire building welcomed the line-up back. Fans scream back every word he sings to them and the chemistry between him and Nolan is evident to say the least. Back in the alley, the excitement between Cooper and Nolan to be in the band again is almost palpable. Surely if tensions rose once though, they can rise again, right? It’s a question for fans if they should be worried that this is a mirage rather than a resurrection, but apparently not for the band.

“We’ve grown up. Part of us feeling everything out was feeling out how we understood each other and what our goals were. When I think back to when we were together [before], we didn’t have the same goals, and we didn’t understand each other’s goals and we didn’t really understand each other,” Nolan explained back in the alley.

“Once we had that confidence that we do get each other and we understand what we’re all going for here, even if we have different ideas and objectives, we all at least understand and respect and are committed to each other’s ideas. That’s the thing that would stop a repeat situation [of] what happened in the past.”

Cooper said that he wasn’t in it mentally when the band first started, but he knows what it takes now.

“Mark, Adam and Eddie have this crazy drive that I know I personally didn’t have. I have it now, I damn well have it now,” he said. “It’s their perseverance that has made this band what it is. Over all this time, through so much adversity and all the line up changes – they’ve dealt with a lot of bad stuff. Now I just hope we can make them happy. I hope we can write the best songs Taking Back Sunday has ever written.”

It has definitely been tumultuous road for this band. When adding up the setbacks and drama Taking Back Sunday has had to struggle through, it seems like nothing short of a miracle that they keep going. Nolan and Cooper have recently come to the conclusion that it’s not the band members that keep it alive – it’s the fans.

“I think a big thing that I’m realizing – that Adam had realized way before I did – (is) that Taking Back Sunday is much bigger than any of the individual members of the band,” said Nolan.

“It’s bigger than the sum of its parts,” Cooper added.

“I think that’s what kept it going – no matter who’s in it, no matter what direction the band is heading in.” continued Nolan, “Taking Back Sunday represents something, and it means something to people.”

The group’s members themselves don’t have a concrete description of their music — just don’t call them a bluegrass band.

“Because we’ve got a banjo in our band, a lot of people think, right, they’re a bluegrass band,” Mumford said in a recent interview with Blast. “But we definitely don’t claim to be (one), because firstly, none of us are good enough musicians to call ourselves a bluegrass band.”

“Our country is immersed in Americanized culture. … The most popular films are all American made, and the same with a lot of music,” he went on. “When we were growing up, those influences were very present in the sort of cultural tapestry that made up what we lived in. … “(But) I wouldn’t say (our influences are) exclusively American music. British pop, like The Kinks and The Beatles, we look up to them just as much as we look up to any of the American songwriters that we love. So we’re a real hybrid blend, I suppose, of different types of music.”

The recipe appears to be working. After releasing their debut album “Sigh No More” in the UK last October and in the U.S. in February, the band (Mumford, “Country” Winston Marshall, Ben Lovett and Ted Dwane — all multi-instrumentalists) recently concluded a headlining U.S. tour and left a trail of buzz in their wake. Their single “Little Lion Man” has also made a dent in American alternative radio playlists, and they’re slated to team up with one of their idols, Ray Davies, on the Kinks’ singer’s collaboration album later this year.

Just three years ago, the future musicians of Mumford & Sons were all unknown fixtures on the London music scene whose paths crossed in the summer of 2007. By that fall, they were rehearsing together as a group, but unsure as to what kind of sound they were trying to hone.

“All four of us came from slightly different angles, musically,” Mumford said. “Ben and I played in a jazz band together. At the end of school, I got really into country music. … Ted was playing a lot of blues. He’s a blues guitarist, really, by trade, but had also picked up a double bass. And Winston had been teaching himself the banjo and got really into some bluegrass music.”

They decided to just mix everything together and chose the band name in order to evoke an old-timey British family business. Other acts soon began to take notice.

“How we became a band, really, was just through other bands inviting us along for the sake of fun, really, and just saying, ‘Come and play some gigs with us,’” Mumford explained. “That’s why we really take our live gigs very seriously, and we take what bands we tour with very seriously. Because a gig can be an entire experience from start to finish, not just like a focus on one band.”

Supporting them on their American tour earlier this year was Australian outfit The Middle East, but the “pay it forward” approach extends beyond touring. Wanting to retain artistic control of their material, they self-produced three EPs and formed their own label to release “Sigh No More” independently. Mumford said they’re “definitely” interested in signing other acts.

“Not so much taking them under our wing so that we can have any kind of ownership, but more just, like, we were given so many steps up along the way when we first started as a band that we love the communal aspect of it, the community aspect of the music that we play. Musically speaking, a lot of the styles of the music that we love, like jazz and folk and blues, are very communal. They’re very based on relationships and that’s what inspires a lot of the music — not just kind of locking yourself away in a room and, you know, cranking out lots of different types of sounds and a song is made. The songs that we make are a result of rubbing off or being rubbed off on by lots of other people.”

Relationships aside, Mumford & Sons’ evident business savvy probably won’t hurt their trajectory, either.

“No one quite knows what’s happening to the music industry. It’s kind of a changing world,” Mumford said candidly. “We like the idea of being owners of (our music), and being in control of it, and having approval over everything, so that, in 10 years’ time, any mistakes we make along the way, we can say they were our mistakes. They weren’t mistakes made by people on behalf of us. That’s a distinction that is quite helpful for our mentality. I mean, it puts slightly more pressure on us … but we kind of like the idea of doing it more in that way, and then to team up with people who are really good at their jobs in other areas.

“Being in control and owning the record, at the end of the day, makes you the team captains,” he added. “We have quite a large team now of people and record labels. Worldwide, we have a mix of major and independent record labels that we work with. They’re just really great people, and we got to pick them all. We got to pick our best team, which was really great. We’ve had some wonderful advice and some wonderful help. … We’re very, very lucky in that way.”

Jonathan Kaiser (The Blackthorns, Painted Saints), Todd Chandler (who created the movie “Flood” with Dark Dark Dark and the band Fall Harbor), Walt McClements (Why Are We Building Such a Big Ship?, Panorama Jazz Band), and Brett Bullion (Tarton) are other gifted musicians that are part of the Dark Dark Dark line up, each joining the band on the road or in the studio at various times while others veer off on different projects. This band is rooted in the surprisingly cool Minneapolis music scene, but they also have deep connections to New Orleans and New York.

They’re frequently on tour, and I caught up with them recently as they performed in Cambridge at the Lizard Lounge to promote their new six-song EP “Bright Bright Bright” (available from Supply and Demand Music). Compared to their previous release, “Snow Magic,” this new collection of songs is more optimistic in its themes and more sophisticated, maybe even serious, in its melodies. Both demonstrate that Dark Dark Dark has a beautiful and original sound.

Describing their sound more specifically is difficult and feels a bit like slapping a cheap label on something precious which really has no name. Their record company has called them a “chamber-folk sextet.” That’s okay, but it doesn’t wholly encapsulate them (nor is the group always six in number). Some listeners fixate on their frequent use of accordion-driven melodies and see them as a hip, alternative take on Eastern European music. As exemplified by “Snow Magic,” the band could have made this particular characteristic their hallmark and rode it to success. But like many genuine artists, they are eager to try new things rather than repeat the old.

Listening to both these releases, one might notice the subtle and not-so-subtle syncopation that pops up in fun and delightful places. This characteristic connects them to jazz, but also to a wide variety of other styles, from medieval choral music to reggae and ska. Does it seem like the more I describe their music the less you’re able to imagine it? Then check out their MySpace page or brightbrightbright.com instead; both provide means to hear their music, for free, with your own ears.

Into the dark

It was a sunny afternoon in Cambridge as Dark Dark Dark did sound check for their Lizard Lounge gig that night. Nona and Marshall remembered me from a meeting at the Whitehaus artist co-op in Jamaica Plain a few years previous. I had heard them play there on a Friday night and spent Saturday trying unsuccessfully to remember their music that had so impressed me the previous evening. Sunday morning, they visited me in my dreams so that I awoke at noon with full memory of their songs in my head. It was an experience that has forever raised the bar on what I’m able to term “haunting melodies.”

Seeing them again, after a couple years of listening to “Snow Magic” and a few weeks of hearing “Bright Bright Bright” before its release, I was eager to express my appreciation. Yet awkwardly, among my first words were an admission that “Bright Bright Bright” didn’t immediately sweep me off my feet the same way “Snow Magic” had. But I explained that it drew me in more deeply each time I listened. It’s melodies, like many things complex and magnificent, can’t be fully appreciated until one has time to experience them.

On first play, I liked it a lot. By my third listen, I loved it. Its dainty syncopation charmed me and even made me chuckle. After I’d described my journey into affection and some understanding of “Bright Bright Bright,” Nona and Marshall, with characteristic reserve, looked at me just a little bit funny. Then they looked at each other, they smiled a bit, and Marshall said quietly, “Wow, a reviewer who actually listens to our music!”

Both Nona and Marshall have somewhat soft-spoken, introspective demeanor. To even casual questions, they tend to pause thoughtfully before responding, but that might be a lit bit of a Minnesota thing. Nona told me that she “usually makes Marshall handle the interviews,” and something in her voice hinted that it’s a responsibility he doesn’t exactly relish either. Their slight trepidation about the media is surprising since music reviewers seem to adore them. Nevertheless, the press is a weird animal, and Nona and Marshall have the perception to recognize that.

With their fans they are less guarded. Their fans are enthusiastic and far-spread. At their Lizard Lounge gig in Cambridge, people came from at least as far away as Northampton, and they were delighted to do it. Other fans, having seen them at AS220 in Providence the night before, drove north the next day to catch their show again. Perhaps recognizing me as a fan of what they do rather than a mere observer, Marshall, Nona, Mark, Todd, and Walt seemed to grow more comfortable with showing me their off-stage ideas and feelings. After sound check, we went to a local taqueria and started a conversation that lasted, off and on, all night.

Getting to where they are

Starting with a report on the tour that brought them back to Greater Boston, Marshall said, “Nothing weird has happened. It’s been totally great. The worst thing that happened was three days of downpour and dangerous driving. And a leaky van. The top seam of the windshield was leaking and filling up the cup holders with water. That’s not that dramatic or calamitous.”

A question about the first music they remember owning lightened everyone’s mood. Todd’s first records were J. Guiles “Freeze Frame” and Ozzy Osbourne “Diary of a Madman.” Marshall put down his veggie burrito and informed us his were the soundtracks to the movies “La Bomba” and “Top Gun” on cassette. Nona peered over her thick glasses, seemed to suppress a smile, and told us her’s was “Funky Divas” by En Vogue. Walt said his first record was “Come and Feel the Lemonheads” and  Rush’s “Chronicles,” his first cassette.

Marshall recalled, “I remember my mom doing the laundry while I was listening to Dr. Dre really loud in the next room and thinking, ‘I wonder if my mom thinks this is weird.’”

Todd said he listened to that type of music, too, but added, “None of the references were anything I could actually relate to.”

Nona and Marshall first became friends in Minneapolis. Then, according to him, “pretty fast we started playing something of Nona’s old songs.” Not long after, “both of us were without jobs, and running out of options, and becoming closer friends, and just decided to actually travel and make gas money playing. Within two weeks of being Dark Dark Dark we were on tour.”

Soon someone mentioned the accordion, and when asked about its role in the band’s image, Todd explained. “It often seems like we get placed with bands of a certain genre because they feel we fit in because we have accordions.”

The accordion isn’t featured on every song, but both Nona and Walt play the instrument. Describing how she first came to play, Nona said she simply “moved in with someone who had one, and I just picked it up and started playing.” It must have helped that Nona had first learned the piano. Indeed, several of the Dark Dark Dark members are multi-instrumentalists. Marshall plays piano, banjo, and clarinet. Besides accordion, Walt plays the trumpet. As part of Dark Dark Dark, Mark plays drums and Todd plays bass.

Accordions, horns, certain beats — these things tie the work of Dark Dark Dark to some types of ethnic music, but Marshall says he’s a bit tired of people focusing on the Eastern European nature of their sounds “…because it’s clearly not. It’s okay to talk about that as an influence, along with jazz and folk and tons of contemporary minimalist composers. There’s so many influences that it’s a bore to write them all down.” When asked if it was fair to note that along this spectrum, “Snow Magic” was more klezmer-y than “Bright Bright Bright,” Marshall agreed, saying, “Definitely. But as far as just calling it that, or calling it any other one of these music types? It’s not true about our music and it’s not respecting the tradition.”

He further insists that it’s more than a matter of lumping or splitting when one talks about labeling the music of Dark Dark Dark as Eastern European or as anything else. “It’s more with us that we have so many other influences that it feels very strange to us.  And we hold in high regard so many other different kinds of artists that it doesn’t feel very true to us.” He added, “Klezmer and Eastern European music was the first music we learned to play our instruments on, before we started writing ourselves. So that’s what we grew out of, but calling it Eastern European music in any way is cheating.”

Previously, Marshall described some of the songs on Snow Magic as “waltzes.” When asked if there were tracks on “Bright Bright Bright” that would properly be called waltzes, he thought for a moment and said, “I believe so. But the one-two-three, oom-pa-pa is not so clear any more. And I guess we no longer really think of them that way because we are doing some three against four things and they’re not so blatantly waltz-y.”

Nona says people notice how “Bright Bright Bright” has moved their sound in new directions. “Someone did a review,” she said, “and it was interesting.  They did still say ‘Eastern European,’ but then they said it was ‘piano driven’ and they had some other adjectives. I mean, it’s true that’s a part of my life and my experience. And when I was learning the accordion, I did listen to a lot of Eastern European music. So it’s there still.” Nona described a review that said something like “moving from Eastern European to something jazzy” and added, “I think I like that.”

The first, and title, track on “Bright Bright Bright” is indeed driven, slowly and exquisitely, by a piano. On the second track, “The Hand,” accordions kick in with gusto, but their flavor is more gumbo than borscht. Hearing how the sound of these accordions, and a lyric about lights across the water, made me think of Louisiana bayous, Nona said, “Ah cool… that’s great. New Orleans has been a really big part of my life so my time there hopefully comes out in my music. But I actually wrote that song in New York. Half of it I wrote in upstate New York, and I think I finished it in New Orleans.”

Marshall said that Walter, who is from New Orleans “is a big influence on us. He’s in the band and he’s an influence on us and his other bands. And the Dixieland and the jazz happening in New Orleans is an influence on us. And I think when Walter’s playing it’s even a little more clear than when Nona’s playing. But it’s definitely there.”

“Walter plays jazz music in New Orleans,” said Nona. “But I don’t know anything about jazz. I listen to New Orleans jazz and I love it. It’s part of our experimenting with writing music and not trying to write in a certain genre. Not trying to categorize ourselves in a certain way leaves us open to exploring.”

Creating Bright Bright Bright

“Wild Goose Chase,” the last song on “Bright Bright Bright,” is a cover of an Elephant Micah song. Of the rest, Marshall explained, “Nona wrote four out of five of those.” Marshall wrote “Make Time,” the third song on the EP. It starts with nervous, rolling drums that are soon joined by Marshall’s voice sounding a bit creepy and British. Then, after a change, it becomes a joyous melody that both builds and floats pleasantly in one place in a way that might also be thought of as a Dark Dark Dark trademark.

Explaining their creative process, Marshall said, “Generally if Nona writes something, or if I write something, the other gets a chance to edit, or give feedback. But the primary writer is often Nona, and I get to be the editor, especially in language. And the whole band is involved with arranging the music.”

Nona described, “Usually I just get an idea, somehow, and think about it for a long time. Then I sit at the piano and sort of work it out, somehow. I don’t know how it happens. It seems a little different each time.” She reads and writes music and says “I write lyrics down right away or I forget them… I think usually I get ideas for lyrics first then I come up with the music. I guess I’ve done it both ways.”

As for the themes of the songs on “Bright Bright Bright,” Nona says “if it is about romantic love, I tried to explore different aspects, more complicated aspects of those relationships. And some of them aren’t necessarily about romantic love either.” She said “it all comes from personal experience,” but I asked how specifically that applies, citing the record’s fifth song, “The Flood,” that has a nice little image of someone in the park wearing their collar up. Thinking, she squinted, then explained. “Some of that song was really literal. The first half was really literal and the second half was more interpretive.”

“Bright Bright Bright” was recorded at Sacred Heart Studios in a former church overlooking Lake Superior. Minneapolis producer Tom Herbers, known for his work with groups such as WHY?, engineered, produced and mixed the EP on analog equipment from start to finish. Nona says, “I think it just sounds a lot better. I think it sounds beautiful. When you record digitally, you’re trying to recreate the beautiful sounds of analog music and when its possible to do analog it just feels better.” She added, “I don’t know that much about recording, and I know it can be easier to do things digitally, but for us to just play all in a room, and to have it recorded right onto the tape, like in two takes or something like that, it was amazing to me.”

Still, they are a small group of people, and Marshall explained that “the choir” (actually the band itself) was done on a separate track. Nona recalled, “I think there were a couple of cello overdubs, and the clarinet was tracked separately than the rest because Marshall plays it and sings. But most of it was done at once, and it was really great to perform live together because we were able to feed off each others’ energy a lot more. It felt like it was a more holistic experience when we were all in the same room, playing at the same time, instead of wearing headphones and listening to a click track, which is how it can also be done, but it felt more warm and real this way.”

Musing about her preference for analog recording, Nona said, “I don’t know if all the advances in technology are that great for listening to music. People just downloading music and listening to it on iPods is such a difference than taking a record and sitting down with it in your living room with a record player. You give it more attention than when you just plug in your iPod on the subway.”

Summing up how “Bright Bright Bright” relates to their previous work, Marshall said simply and playfully, “It’s better. We got better!”

Nona said, “I feel like it explores different emotions and different experiences.” I agree with both of  them. In its substance, “Bright Bright Bright” has an encouraging relationship to their previous work. It’s built on the same confident foundation, but it towers in good new directions. Their music has some very simple layers and some very complex ones. Their songs, both the slow ones and the faster ones, aren’t just interesting or well-crafted; they’re genuinely catchy.

The fans and the experience

Dark Dark Dark has some deeply devoted fans. According to Nona, “A kid asked me to marry him in Bloomington, Indiana… I said I’m not interested in marriage. That was pretty weird. I guess it was funny… maybe the funniest thing a fan has said to me.”

They also have fans abroad, and have played to appreciative crowds in France and Italy. Marshall described, “They were separate trips. It was amazing. We were floating around in the Venice canals in boats that we had built, and pretty much treated like we had the key to the city.”

When asked how their European audiences were different, maybe less or more reserved, Marshall said, “Actually it varies. Even the difference between last night and tonight is what you’re talking about a little bit, just because of the way things are set up, and the sound is, and so on.” He said their previous night’s gig at AS220 was “louder overall. There were two hundred people there, and we were the last band.” He compared that to this particular visit to Lizard Lounge, saying the latter was “more acoustic sounding… it’s a pretty dramatic difference.”

Speaking with affection for the band’s followers, Marshall said, “we have a couple fans who have mailed us packages in different cities, or have sent us messages. Quite often, it turns out that some of those might be on different sides of the country. But they end up meeting on the Internet because they’re both talking to us, like say through MySpace. They’ll both comment to us, and realize that they’re both commenting, and end up being friends in the end around us. Some of those people are pretty intense. They’re all really sweet, but sometimes really intense.”

Marshall laughed when asked, “What don’t you like to be asked by media?” and reiterated, “Simply saying ‘what are your influences?’ is a strange question because it makes us list bands. And then, I guess, people start putting us in a hole. Whatever that comparison is, it will get used over and over again, and we try to be real careful about that.”

Nona agreed and said she’s often asked, “What don’t you want to be categorized as?” or “What bands do you sound like?” I didn’t guess that Dark Dark Dark could get a bad review, but according to Nona, “I think someone said once that they didn’t like my voice. I think people have preferences. They just don’t like accordion, so they’re not gonna like it. They just don’t like us, so they’re not going to like it.” More often, Nona said, “I feel like people really get us and get what we’re trying to do.”

Looking ahead

Dark Dark Dark, again working with Tom Herbers, have a new album due in the fall. Marshall says, “All the recording sessions are theoretically done, and it’s even rough mixed. But we’re taking a bit more time listening to rough mixes to decide if we’re on the right track… I think that with this album, we certainly didn’t repeat ourselves and I hope we can continue growing and developing in interesting ways and not start making the record that sells and getting into an artistic habit because it worked the previous time… We’ve found that formula, but I don’t want to find that formula and stick to it. But that’s a long-distance fear — what happens to my favorite musicians.”

Looking into the future, Marshall says, “I hope we can honor all of our friends and fans without getting too inaccessible in terms of venues and prices and stuff. We try to be careful of that, but even now its a little hard to balance… We have so many fans that are close friends. I’m grateful because it’s kind of a huge number. And we also want to reach out to new audiences and not scare off the old ones.”

Part of me would like to see Dark Dark Dark become rich and famous as soon as possible so that more people would be exposed to their wonderful music. But fame and fortune might bring them little happiness if it meant sacrificing artistic integrity or alienating longtime fans. Instead, it seems, their career — like their beautiful songs themselves — will continue to grow and build at its own pace, interesting twists and turns not excluded.

If Dark Dark Dark’s upcoming record reflects the same sensitivity and intelligence as “Snow Magic” and “Bright Bright Bright,” they’ll be growing in the right direction indeed.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the first single, “I Was a Teenage Anarchist.” Gabel muses, “Do you remember / When you were young and wanted to set the world on fire? … I was a teenage anarchist, but the politics were too convenient.”

Like their major label debut, 2007’s “New Wave,” “White Crosses” (out June features anthemic, power chord-driven sing-alongs delivered with a healthy dose of attitude. The tightly-wound record clocks in at just over 35 minutes, and once again at the helm is veteran producer Butch Vig, whose fingerprints are all over the densely mixed 10-song collection. The recent addition of The Hold Steady’s Franz Nicolay as a touring member of the band should flesh out the tunes nicely on their tour dates this summer. And George Rebelo, formerly of Hot Water Music, proves himself to be a worthy substitute for longtime drummer Warren Oakes, who left the band about a year ago under less than amicable conditions.

Gabel may have relocated with his wife and infant daughter from the Florida college town music scene of Gainesville to the sleepy beach town of St. Augustine, but it’s clear that his political punk roots haven’t been completely overshadowed by his recent domestication. The album’s title, he’s said, was inspired by the “Cemetery of the Innocents,” a memorial to aborted fetuses, which the singer passed every day while writing the album in St. Augustine, Florida. In the corresponding song, he sneers, “White crosses on the church lawn / I wanna smash them all.”

But, perhaps owing to the regime change between their previous records and this one, some of the political posturing on “White Crosses” feels anachronistic. While earlier releases deftly skewered political figures like Condoleezza Rice and George W. Bush, Gabel now resorts to name-checking … Robert McNamara?

The strongest songs on “White Crosses” come when Gabel adopts a more reflective, older-and-wiser tone, as on standout track “Because of the Shame,” set at the funeral of, presumably, an ex-girlfriend.

On the country-tinged (yes, you read that right) “Ache With Me,” he wonders, “Do you share the same sense of defeat? / Have you realized all the things you’ll never be? / Ideals turn to resentment / Open minds close up with cynicism.” By the song’s conclusion, he’s acquiesced to the notion that “You may not find all that you’re after / In the end, I hope it doesn’t matter.”

While some songs, like “Rapid Decompression,” feel passionate yet formulaic, others, like album closer “Bamboo Bones,” find the band branching out in new directions both lyrically and musically. The album ends with Gabel, his identity crisis seemingly resolved or at least dismissed, looking toward the future rather than the past, sounding almost hopeful as he repeats, “What God doesn’t give to you / You’ve got to go and get for yourself.”

Against Me! is on tour with Silversun Pickups. For Blast readers, they play Orlando at Hard Rock Cafe on June 15 and Brooklyn, at Williamsburg Waterfront on June 25.

Though the band members — singer/guitarist Brian Fallon, guitarist Alex Rosamilia, bassist Alex Levine, and drummer Benny Horowitz — all hail from New Jersey, Fallon recently relocated to decidedly less blue collar Brooklyn. He’s apparently not worried about the move damaging his Jersey cred; about half the songs reference New York City by name.

“American Slang,” out June 15, is a perfectly decent album, though it does lose a bit of steam in the second half and falls short of the band’s previous offering, 2008’s “The ’59 Sound.” The songs are catchy, nostalgic hybrids of punk rock and Americana, and as musicians, the band members have clearly matured since their last record, employing more sophisticated guitar riffs and song structures here. The title track and first single is the record’s finest, but other standout tracks include the raucous anthem “Stay Lucky” and slow-burning, moving album closer “We Did It When We Were Young.”

But while Fallon delivers all his lines with what seems to be genuine earnestness, there’s a nagging feeling that his approach to songwriting is less personal in nature and more WWSD? (What Would Springsteen Do?). The characters in songs like “The Queen of Lower Chelsea” feel at best forgettable and at worst cliché.

Fallon also continues his sycophantic habit of dropping blatant allusions to his musical idols (“Mama never told me there’d be days like these”), a trait I suppose could be seen as either grating or endearing. Personally, I tend toward the former and would appreciate a little more subtlety.

They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery, but in The Gaslight Anthem’s case, a little inspired originality might not hurt, either.

Gaslight Anthem plays New York June 15 at Irving Plaza with Tim Barry and Rival Schools and Boston August 2 at House of Blues.

But it wasn’t until they started recording the songs for “Work,” which was released in February, and performing live again that they truly understood how much their music meant to others, said Olenius, who chatted with Blast while the band was in New York City for a record release show earlier this year.

“We had a … seven, eight month break without playing. And now when we’re back, you sort of realize that people have been missing us,” Olenius said, sounding incredulous. “It was a turning point in the band, that we realized that this is really important, and … that this is not just important for us. It’s important for people to listen to us as well. It’s hard to realize that you have an audience.”

Indeed, since forming in 2001, the group has cultivated a following that’s gradually expanded from their native Stockholm to the United States, and continues to grow.

Even the album’s title, “Work,” refers to the evolution of Shout Out Louds from a hobby to something more.

“It’s a strong word that we really liked, and we thought about how we realized after about three records that this is really what we want to do,” Olenius said. “This is something that we see as a very positive work. Not anything about a job. It’s more the time you put into a project to make something work. And we just realized that this is what we want to do and this is our work.”

After their break, Olenius said, he and his bandmates — keyboard/vocalist Bebban Stenborg, drummer Eric Edman, bassist Ted Malmros and guitarist Carl von Arbin —returned to the studio feeling refreshed and ready to adopt a more back-to-basics approach.

“I think every time you (make a record), you always want to try to do something different,” he explained. “We decided to just do more of an old-school record with just focus on our instruments and have … a more traditional sound.

The album stays true to the Shout Out Louds’ traditional blend of generally exuberant indie rock, with danceable pop songs like “Fall Hard” and the anthemic, piano-anchored single “Walls.

“We worked a lot in the studio with the second album (2007’s ‘Our Ill Wills’), and then had time to sort of cut and paste and edit it and work with it,” Olenius said. “This is a different sounding record. There’s less things happening. There’s more space and really more of a relaxed record. … It’s a bit different mood.”

Despite all the bandmembers’ Swedish roots, all the songs are sung in more or less accent-free English, and have a distinct American indie rock/British New Wave sound. Olenius, for his part, said most of his musical influences come from abroad.

“My dad played a lot of Motown records (and) even Chicago or Queen, that sort of rock and roll music, when I was growing up,” he recalled. “I do remember (knowing) I wanted to sort of do something with music when I stole a George Michael record from my sister. … But when I wanted to start a band, the way we are right now, was sort of listening to Stone Roses a lot, and even heavier things. For a few years, when I was a kid, I was a heavy metal fan.”

“I don’t know if we have one band that we sort of look up to or (are) really influenced by,” he added. “I don’t think there’s one band that I think everyone can agree on that we can hear in our music.”

In fact, it wasn’t even music that brought the group together. They’ve all been friends since childhood in Sweden — something Olenius said can be seen as both a blessing and a curse.

“We’re all from the same school, so we know each other’s parents and all of that. It’s good. It’s easier to get over stuff,” he said. “After almost eight years in the band, we realized that we have to listen more to each other and really talk about things. Sometimes, when you’re on the road … you have to be more careful with what you say. A big fight can really mess up things. Because, you know, we’re friends when we get home as well, (and) you don’t want to be alone when you get home, so you have to sort of nurture that relationship.”

Having spent much of 2010 on the road already, the quintet has had plenty of time to practice their interpersonal skills. Though it may have only recently dawned on them that people besides themselves actually, you know, want to hear their music, Shout Out Louds seem more than happy to oblige.

“We’re lucky that we can sort of go everywhere,” Olenius said. “Even though we’re not a big band or anything like that, we can still play for a few hundred here and there. And we try not to just focus on just playing (in America) and in Sweden. We do small shows in Italy for about 250 people and that sort of thing.”

“We try to be everywhere and we like that.”

Blast got to catch up with ever-humble LaValle to talk about the songwriting process, instrumentation, and the status of the band.

BLAST: Do you think of your songs of having an overall story or emotion or is it more abstract than that?

Jimmy LaValle: I wouldn’t say it’s more abstract than that, I’d just say it’s more natural than that. I don’t really sit and think about what I’m going to write about or try to tell a certain story; it’s not really about that I guess.

BLAST: So how does the songwriting process start, is it some kind of motif or idea?

JL: It’s kind of whatever it starts with really, like maybe some programming I did, or a drum line, or some guitar part I have floating around in my head or a simple melody it just kind of starts with whatever it starts with, I guess.

BLAST: So that’s the start of a song. When do you decide a song is finished?

JL: Well I definitely can and do noodle around a lot (laughs). I don’t know, it just feels like everything’s full, everything’s there. I never really thought about it but there definitely is a point in the process when it is done-it definitely happens, I just can’t explain it. I guess the song just kind of feels right, you know?

BLAST: It seems like in on an Album Leaf record, you hear these certain redundancies, but it’s not overbearing or obvious, it’s like they’re meant to be there. Do you look at an album as a composition with some common themes more than a song, or is it more of a collection of compositions?

JL: I definitely do think of records as front to back-one piece of work. That’s the one thing that bums me out about iPods, or digital music. Everyone talks about quality or saying that vinyl sounds better- I don’t really think those are that big of a concern. But the one thing that really bothers me is not listening to records in sequence.

BLAST: A lot of instruments are used to make an Album Leaf song. Are there any instruments you won’t touch?

JL: I don’t know, maybe a five string bass (laughs).

BLAST: I still haven’t heard an accordion.

JL: (Laughs) No accordion but we used a didgeridoo on this one. We thought it might be cheesy but it ended up sounding really cool.

BLAST: The Album leaf has been your project since 1998 and yet you didn’t sing on it until 2004. Why the wait, and what finally prompted the decision to sing on an album?

JL: Just to do something different really. I know I can play stuff, I know I can write stuff, I know I can run around and play drums, and guitars, and keyboards and whatever else, and singing just kind of keeps things more interesting and more fun and another thing to think about live and think about the fact that now I need to sing this song or whatever it is. It’s just to keep it a little more fresh and a little more challenging. It’s boring to do the same record over and over again so it’s just to do different stuff really.

BLAST: To that point, do you look at the making of an Album Leaf song in terms of accessibility?

JL: It definitely crosses my mind, yeah. There’s a song on the record, “We Are,” that’s on the record that I didn’t like at all until we put vocals to it and then it really came together for me. And before this record I had thirty or so ideas floating around for songs and a lot of times I think this, that, or something else just kind of sucks and I just write it off. So, there’s definitely thought behind it and there’s definitely things that I don’t think mix well with other stuff that I want to do but at the same time it’s not really about pleasing people, it’s just about me feeling really good about it.

BLAST: For the latest album, “A Chorus of Storytellers”, you brought the live band that you’ve been touring with into the studio to write and record the album. What caused the change? Why not keep total control?

JL: It wasn’t out of my control, we all worked together on this one. It was just a lot of ideas, some were great ideas, some weren’t that great but we worked on them and got them there. It was also a nice way to think about representing what people had seen of us live in the last eight years, and also to experiment with different drumming styles, and a thinking about the music as a whole a little differently.

BLAST: I’ve read it was kind of a shock for you when “In a Safe Place” got big because you had always looked at it as just a hobby and now there was pressure to maintain that level of success. Do you still feel that way or are you past that now?

JL: I definitely do feel that. Being older and being married and having responsibilities and things like that- I mean, at this point in my life, I can’t really turn around and go work at the record store or the coffee shop. It certainly affects the decisions that we make-like it’d be cool if we get to the point where we’re known for our live show as much as the music, so someone could barely know the music but still be enticed to the show. So yeah, it’s like some of the shows we’re doing on this tour are with a stringed quartet. That’s just the way things are nowadays, you’re always trying to look for new ways to be semi-successful and make a living.

BLAST: The Album Leaf has been around for 12 years. To give you some perspective, I’m 20, so you’ve been around for more than half my life.

JL: (Laughs) That’s crazy!

BLAST: Yeah, so is this whole thing a trip for you? The fact is, you travel the world playing your unique brand of music, and there is a market for your work everywhere you go.

JL: Yeah, to be honest, I’m just really grateful. I’m grateful that we can do that-just go around and play to the demand of people who want to see us, and for that I’m just really grateful.

BLAST: You also get to do something that most people can only dream of.

JL: I just really couldn’t be any happier with this situation.

The trumpeter, who was also named one of the “50 Most Beautiful People” by People magazine in 2004, came back to Boston by having a show on Saturday, May 15, 2010 at the Hanover Theatre for Performing Arts.

The Grammy-winning recording artist started his show with “Ave Maria.” His band consisted of drums, guitar, bass, piano and keys. The “really long” but clear and beautiful sounding of Botti’s trumpet even made people laugh at times.

When they played “When I fall in Love,” a vivid combination of his trumpet and the band was really exciting, making Botti’s trumpet sound like someone was singing. The entire melody that Botti produced was so alive and it completely permeated through the bone.

After the tune, he shared the excitement of doing the show with the audience, “There is nothing I can say except for ‘Good night.’ That’s how great it is.”

After he talked about the Boston shows in 2008, he started “Caruso,” which he played in 2008 as well.
Botti talked a lot between the tunes. Despite the formal feel of the evening, he made a lot of jokes and kept the audience laughing. He even shared a special memory with Sting by saying, “English people sometimes don’t get jokes.” When he played with Sting for a wedding party in Italy last July 4th, Botti was supposed to be the only one who would perform there at first but the bride’s favorite musician was actually Sting, and her “second-favorite” musician was Botti. He jokingly told Sting that but Sting obviously did not get the joke and said to Botti, “So I should be performing, shouldn’t I?”

After this sweet story, he started “Flamenco Sketches,” which he referred as “Miles Davis kind of blues.”
“Emmanuelle” was joined by Lucia Micarelli who accidentally tripped and landed on a wine glass last Independence Day. She cut her left hand open, severed a couple of nerves, and did not have full feeling in three of her fingers. However, she put so much effort to get a speedy recovery and spent several months for rehabilitation after emergency surgery. After listening to this shocking but amazing story, the sound coming from Micarelli’s violin sounded really heavy and strong but at the same time, it was fragile.

After Micarelli’s divine performance, Madonna’s Confessions Tour backing singer, Nicki Richards joined Botti to perform “The Look of Love.” Her huge vocal dominated the stage. It was impressive and nearly competitive with Botti’s trumpet. They also played “The Very Thought of You,” which was dedicated to a couple in the audience who was getting married in October, and “Good Morning Heartache.” Richards’ vocal made each tune really fun, catchy, and rhythmic.

Botti started talking about Sting again when he showed his appreciation for Sting. Six years ago, Botti made a big breakthrough in his career, when Sting asked him to be a supporting act for his tour.
The entire show was full of sweet and bitter memories that Botti had with other musicians. Additionally, the sweetest thing happened in the end. Botti asked the audience, “Is there any young musician here today?” An adorable little 9-year-old girl answered that she played the piano. And, she was invited to come up the stage. After welcoming the cute little pianist, Botti started to share about his senior year in college doing short touring stints with Frank Sinatra. He paused, asked the girl to cover her ears with hands, and said “I ‘dropped out of college’ for that.” Jazz pianist Billy Childs and Botti started the unplugged/acapella version of the Frank Sinatra tune “One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)” Needless to say, the show closed with full of smiles and excitement.

*Set list*
Ave Maria
When I Fall in Love
Caruso
Flamenco Sketches
Emmanuelle
The Look of Love
The Very Thought of You
Good Morning Heartache
Cinema Paradiso
Indian Summer
One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)

Katy Perry contributed to the lyrics of the Truth & salvage Co. song “Old Piano” while sleeping on a couch.

The LA-based band, produced by Chris Robinson of The Black Crowes, was casually working on a new song in the living room of James Valentine, the guitarist for Maroon 5 when Perry had her stroke of genius.

“She was dating my friend, James Valentine, who plays guitar in Maroon 5. We were up at his house one night, and she was asleep. He had a piano there, and it was late. I started playing and working on a song. I just had: You’ve been playing me like an old piano/ all the notes out of key,” said Truth & Salvage Co. member Tim Jones.”Katy woke up and said, ‘What’s that you’re playing?’ I said I was working on a new song but all I have is You’ve been playing me like an old piano/ all the notes out of key. To that she responded: Singing the right words over the wrong melody. And went back to sleep … She contributed those words.”

Fresh off a tour with The Avett Brothers, the debut album from Truth & Salvage Co. will be released on May 25. They play Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton June 30.

“A lot has changed. It was very beneficial for us and a big deal. It was our first platinum single.” said Cobra bassist Alex Suarez during a phone interview on Wednesday. “We’ve been able to go to countries we’ve never been to and play a lot of places we weren’t able to play before.”

The single also gained the band a new legion of fans, which made keeping the intimate relationship they had previously held with the kids that came out to their shows a little more difficult. It was a philosophy of the band that they didn’t want a fan club because they didn’t agree with making fans pay to meet them. Instead, a free membership to “Cobra Crew” came with every purchase of “Hot Mess.” Entrance into the crew means exclusive news and contests as well as pre-sales and early entry or a meet and greet with the Cobras before every show.

“For a while [our fans] didn’t want us to get a fan club. They were all old school fans and were worried about the new kids coming in. It was a sucky situation because we’ve always been really close to them, but it’s actually worked out well,” Suarez said.

“Hot Mess” brought Cobra not only closer to fans, but also had them working with some of the industry’s up and coming heavy hitters. “Good Girls Gone Bad” was co-written by American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi and featured Gossip Girl’s most notorious bad girl Leighton Meester. For “The World Will Never Do,” the band also teamed up with a then somewhat-unknown rapper – B.o.B , who has since blown up on both iTunes and Billboard charts.

“We had the song written and were thinking we should have someone put a rap down. Either Gabe [Saporta] or Nate [Navarro] knew him and he came in and killed it,” Suarez said. “We’re really happy he’s doing so well right now.”

The third single from “Hot Mess” is “Living in the Sky with Diamonds,” one of the slowest songs on the album, debuted last week. For the video, they were approached by Lewis Carter, who they met when previously touring with All Time Low in the UK. Carter suggested the idea of directing the video for free while Cobra Starship was back in England earlier this year. The video stars British socialite Peaches Geldof and has an artsy, old-time movie feel which is a different direction for Cobra Starship, but characteristic of their desire to always think outside the box.

“[Carter] just called us up and asked to do the video and we agreed,” said Suarez. “We set up in the theatre and it was fun. I like the sparkles.”

Currently the boys and keytarist Vicky-T are out on the road co-headlining the Too Fast 4 Love tour with 3OH!3, Travis McCoy and I Fight Dragons which kicked off in Milwaukee last month. Each night Cobra and 3OH!3 switch off for who closes the show.

“We were planning to tour and just weighing our options on who to go out with, and we had met 3OH!3 on Warped Tour [2008]. Then we found out they were looking for a tour and so it just came together,” Suarez said about the choice of tour mates.

It’s not all fun and games on the road though. The Cobras have already started work on their fourth album by installing a mini recording studio in a spare bunk on the bus.
“It’s just so we can get ideas down and then we’ll go into properly recording the album after the tour,” Suarez said.

The demo stage has proven to be pretty close to the end result for Cobra though. Last year when they retreated to the Pocono Mountains to start writing “Hot Mess,” almost all of the electronic tracks they emerged with ended up being the final cut for the record.

“When we got to the studio, all the electronic stuff was kept from the mountains. We just had to re-track drums and vocals – that’s about it,” Suarez said.

With any luck, you can expect a new Cobra album by early next year. In the mean time, you can catch them on the Too Fast 4 Love tour which rolls through Boston thus Sunday, May 9 at the House of Blues. Fangs Up!

These guys are electric on stage. They give you so much energy and provide great music stemming from rock, electronica and dance.

I was able to check them out at “Great Scott” in Allston on Tuesday, and they rocked the house. Bella Saona, the singer of the group, brought some of the audience members on stage to experience their music which you don’t see most musicians do.

Overall, I felt the show was a great success and I hope to see more of them in the future

Blast first met up with TFAR in 2007. They were one of the first bands we profiled.

She will present a fundraising event “An Evening with Women” held by the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center on May 1 with other celebrities such as Renée Zellweger and Christina Aguilera.

Blast got a chance to talk to her about her view of creativity, life, and music.

BLAST: You are originally from Massachusetts. Do you sometimes come by your home state?

Linda Perry: No, I was born in Springfield, Massachusetts and at 1 year old, I moved to California. So San Diego, CA is more of my, you know, I consider more of my home. And I don’t even remember Boston. I have a few relatives there but I do not really know but I have cousins, you know, out there so…

BLAST: So, you don’t really come by?

LP: No. For some weird reason, we were never brought up with our that family, you know, like I said, I don’t know them. I heard from some of them a couple of times but I do not know that side of my father’s family he has always kind of kept away from us for some reason so I know they are out there but you know, I was brought up in California and they never reached out to us. We never really knew much about them.

BLAST: 4 non blondes released the debut album and broke up but people still quickly recognize your song “What’s Up” when they hear it. What was on your mind when you wrote the song?

LP: Um, nothing ever really is on my mind. It’s more about what’s in my heart. You know, I don’t write songs from my mind. I ad-lib, I make it up as I go along. And I don’t … yeah it’s hard. Obviously that song wasn’t on my mind. That song was in my heart. I don’t know how it comes out, it just shows up.

BLAST: Did you expect that the song was gonna be a hit?

LP: No! To me, I wrote the song that everybody likes. You know, I don’t really look at things that way. That’s how I write. That’s how I talk. That’s how I am. I am just, I don’t have preconceived idea what I’m going to do. It just happens.

BLAST: What’s the main difference in your life as a music producer, comparing with old times when you were in the band?

LP: Well. I don’t have to go on a tour. I don’t have to deal with the band mates to make decisions. I choose not to do interviews. I don’t have to do pictures. I don’t have to make videos. I don’t have to do things that I don’t wanna do. And being in the band, you have to … there’s a lot of sacrifices that you have to make. There is a lot of compromises that you have to do because of those 3 other people with you. And being a producer, I gotta do what I wanna do. Only my decision. That’s that. I don’t have to do interviews. Only reason I’m doing this interview for you right now is because I’m promoting “An Evening with Women.” It’s what I would love to get to right now in our interview. You know, I don’t need to do interviews for, you know what I mean, It’s like, I wanna make music. That’s it! I don’t think anything else is that important and I feel that, in the music industry today, everybody’s made what you look like more important than music. They’ve made your fashion and perfume line more important than music. They’ve made gossip and drama more important than music. They’ve made money more important than music. Everything is more important than music. And, I can’t live that way. There is nothing more important than music. If you are in the music business, music should be the most important thing. Everything else is a bonus. To create the videos, you know, you should write great songs and perform a great concert. If you have those few things, you will make it in this music business. If you rely on your look, fashion, whatever all the other stuff, if you think that’s more important, then you are screwed.

BLAST: You’ve produced many musicians, such as Pink, Courtney Love, Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani, Adam Lambert and so on. How do you get the most out of their talents?

LP: Well, I get the most out of their talents by getting people focused on what we are here to do not here to, like when people come into my studio, like I said, I’m not here to … um … kiss their ass. I’m not here to make things smoother and soft-pedal things for them. They are coming into my studio to work and make music and to do something, you know, meaningful. Now, to me, something meaningful and heartfelt or real isn’t a hit. It is not always a hit. It’s just “Let’s do something cool. Let’s do something real.” I don’t wanna waste my time with all this bullshit that you can get from other people. I wanna do something unique so what you get from work time is something unique whatever that means to you. That’s people who listen to their side what’s considered unique. Some people think unique is a hit song. To me, it’s not. To me, it’s an experience. If they have a song, like if you listen to my song on Adam Lambert’s album, for instance, it’s not a hit. But it’s a really great cool song. It’s unique from the rest of the album. That’s what I do. I like to consider myself like if you wanna give an analogy, it is in another term, it’s more like going to someone for contour outfit. No one else is gonna have this. You know, the next album I do, you are not gonna hear Adam Lambert, Christina Aguilera, Pink. If you actually put all those songs together, not one of them sounds anything remotely like each other. You know, that’s what I do. I will give you something unique.

BLAST: Is there any special memory with them that you would like to share?

LP: No, I don’t share things with the people that I work with. I mean, that’s our private moments. I can write a great book though with the stuff that I know. But you know, for me, I’m private. I’m that type of person and I think that’s why people like working with me. They know when they come to my studio and work with me. I’m not trying to promote myself. There’s a lot of producers out there that try to promote themselves and tell you stories about working with so and so and blah blah blah blah…um, you know, there’s obvious things that Christina is an incredible singer, bottom line, she works her ass off. She’s perfection. Love it. You know, Gwen Stefani is one of the most down-home, most humble people I’ve ever met in the business. You know, she’s incredible and she is funny and dorky and I really like her a lot. Adam Lambert is a really sweet guy. Really really sweet. You know, Pink, she’s a very strong girl that has very strong opinions. You know, those I’ve been telling you that, obvious. Those are the things that are obvious.

BLAST: What about Courtney Love?

LP: Courtney Love is a very smart woman but very destructive (Laughs).

BLAST: Do have any plans about your solo activity/albums in the future?

LP: You know, I used to, when people asked me that, I used to say, “That’s never gonna happen.” And now I can’t really say that. I don’t have a plan but I don’t think it’s never gonna happen. I could see. You know, I write a lot of songs that really go over people’s head. They don’t get it. And the only person that could actually sing them is me. So I’m, um, you know, partly not quite a lot of those songs and they are really great songs. And so, you know, I have concentrated maybe this is something I should do. But it’s not saying that I am making a plan for. It’s just a thought back of my head.

BLAST: So you will do that when your life is ready. Is that correct?

LP: When it’s time, yeah.

BLAST: Is there any possibility for us to see you going on a tour sometime?

LP: Well, I would have to make an album to do that now, wouldn’t I ? (Laughs) Without delay. I don’t know. It’s possible! You know, like I said, I am not gonna ever say “Never” again. It’s not, that’s not a reality. “Never” is not a reality. But again, I don’t know.

BLAST: I would love to see you though.

LP: Well, you know, it’s fun. I think playing shows is fun. I never really liked touring because again, it was having to do things, you know, on demand, and I am not good about doing things on demand. I like to do things on my own pace when I’m ready to do it because I like to give everybody more than 100% of myself so what I have to do things on demand, you are not getting 100% of me.

BLAST: Yes because that’s fake.

LP: Yeah, I don’t feel good. To me, it’s a lie. Like being in the band and touring all the time. It was a lie. And I’m just an honest person in any way whatsoever. So in my soul, my spirit, I didn’t feel good.

BLAST: I’ve heard a story that when you were young, you fell off a high place and broke your rib, which changed the quality of your voice afterward. Is that true?

LP: Um, I fell off the building and broke my collarbone. And, you know, I did a lot of drugs because I was very wild, you know, in my teenage years, and I did a lot of drugs and you know, I slept in cars, I slept in parks, I did a lot of crazy things … I loved dropping myself and I got better and I started doing drugs. And do more routine the course of my life, it was a part of the course of my life.

BLAST: So did your voice change?

LP: My voice changed? No. I wasn’t singing then. It was before I was doing any of that. No. My voice didn’t change. I didn’t have a voice yet.

BLAST: You’ve been supporting the event “An Evening with Women” held by the LA Gay & Lesbian Center. You are open about your sexual orientation. However, some people really need some courage to open up themselves. What would you say to those people?

LP: Well, I guess it’s easier said than done. But I’ve always been out. I’ve never been, you know, honestly, I just don’t like people are saying “Coming out.” I find that, to me, it’s the things bizarre that it’s like that. But, um, I’m gay. I’ve been always gay, bottom line never hit it, that’s who I am. It’s never affected me in a bad way. But I do know that people who have been out or whatever expecting them being gays, they’ve been beaten up in high school, some has been murdered, you know, it’s a really horrible thing to know. You know, when you are in high school or school and like the story just recently about a teenage girl, you know, pushing the girl over the cliff because she was a lesbian. You know, if I were in school and I read that story, I would be afraid too. But the bottom line is, you know, we have to be who we are. And to be who we are, it takes a lot of hurt, it takes to be very brave, and you really have to, you know, it’s not an easy answer, again, because there could be, you know, some boy that’s 15 years old that is very gay, you know, everything that he wants to come out so bad but his parents are Christian and he goes to a Christian school. Well, Christians are the most horrible religion, you know, out there because they believe, you know, in a white race, they believe gay people are going to hell and they are evil, you know, they are not, they believe god is gonna come down and strikes all dead if you don’t believe Jesus Christ, you know. They are, most Christian ,should I say, not all Christians, but most Christians have a very horrible bad belief. Their god is evil and vengeful god, you know, so when you’ve been brought up in this, well, hell, man, you can’t come out being gay? Because your parents probably send you to therapy? They probably put you in a mental institute? You know, you probably would be killed. You know, that’s a horrible thing to think about! Like kids are being brought up would be belief their parents are teaching them that being gay is a devil work and you are a sinner. Being an African-American is a sinner. Being an Asian is wrong. Being Hispanic is wrong, you know. Listen to rock’n’roll music is wrong. Like their kid being brought up with all these belief so how am I gonna sit and answer to this question going? What can I tell your child? You know, “be brave?” “Back up?” “Hey, you are gay, go out there?” You can’t answer that question. You can’t answer that question. You know, all I know is, in my life, it’s never affected me. I’ve been proud about it, I’ve been open. I’ve been strong. And if anybody ever said anything about me being gay, I would confront them to get on and scare the shit out of them to the point where they would know there’s nothing wrong with this, or I would talk to them and express to them, “Look at me. I am a regular person,” and they go, “Oh, there is nothing wrong with that.” I mean, it’s a hard question. I’m gay. If you are gay and you feel it’s comfortable for you to come out, then good. You know, be gay. But the thing is, ok, here’s another thing. So I will give you the complete worst scenario. Being brought up with Christian parents and going to a Christian school. That’s the worst scenario, right? Well, half out, just a simple as you are gay but you are afraid that your friends aren’t going to accept you and you know, and it’s easier or if you are just afraid of people, then that’s not a good place to be either. You know, if you are afraid that your friends are not gonna accept you, and then they are not real friends if you are afraid of them accepting who you are. You know, if your parents disown you because you are gay, then let your parent disown you. Let them kick you out of the house. Let them turn their back on you because that’s screwed up if your parents would not accept their child for who they are. If you are afraid to be gay because you are afraid of your employer or people that you work with, then you are not working in a healthy environment. You know, There’s that. You need to look in yourself. If you are afraid of yourself, It’s you that’s the homophobic. It’s you. It’s the gay that’s been homophobic. It could be only person that’s keeping them in themselves.

BLAST: How do you define “Love?”

LP: Love is, you know, the best love..if you…let me see how can I right say this…You have a dog or any pet?

BLAST: No.

LP: No? Well, when I come home, my dogs greet me with so much happiness. They don’t judge me for how late I came home, they don’t judge me for what I look like, they don’t judge me for what I did. They just love me unconditionally. They appreciate what I do. Now, I’m not saying that, you know, that’s the way should be and I’m not saying that I want my people to love me like a dog. I’m not saying that. I am using it as an example. But it’s unconditional. And when you can get that from human being, and that’s the best love. You can find, if someone doesn’t judge you for what you’ve done and just loves you for who you are, everything about you. And they want to support you and they are being honest with you, they would tell you, “You know what, that was wrong and you should really work on that.” so love shouldn’t be afraid to be honest. Love shouldn’t be afraid to love. You know, love should just be exactly what it’s right is in there. That’s how I define love.

BLAST: Most people tend to see you as a “powerful rock’n’ roll woman.” Do you have any counterargument?

LP: I think that I am a strong woman. You know, I think I would kick “rock’n’roll” out. I am just a strong woman. I love all music. I don’t actually consider myself a rock’n’roll person because I love the Carpenters. I love Carole King. I love Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, and yes I love rock’n’roll music. But I also love country. I love R&B. And I love soul music. I love 80s. I love it all, I love everything. I love music for all the beauties that it offers you for, I love the bad stuff too, like I love when people write really bad songs and hear it on the radio, you are just going like “Ugh! Oh my god!” That’s pretty much, you know, half of the mid-90s, just one bad song after the next but it’s like… I love it. I love it all. I love it, you know, because what a wonderful place to be, you know, I mean, the fact that somebody can write a song and if it’s on the radio or put on a record or you can perform at live to people. It’s just amazing. I mean, how can I really judge it for good or bad? How about look at it for..that’s incredible. “Hey, I don’t like this song but that’s incredible that you did that.” You know, I wish things were more like that. Like instead of us putting people down, how about just say, “I don’t like it but ride on for you to do it.” you are out there and you are doing what you wanna do. You know, like Britney Spears, I can’t stand her music. But you know what, ride on for her, great for her, that girl is selling it because she believes it. You know? She believes what she is doing and that’s all we need. if you can do something and you believe what you are doing, we should be patted on the back for actually doing what we are believing, not being insulted because we don’t like what you did. But our, so, “Ride on for doing what you are believe in doing!” What a different world we are living in if we actually could just accept that we are different. We went around and complain about how we wanna be unique and different, but then here we are trying to make everybody the same. Why can’t we be just different and unique? I’m not gonna like all the music you like and you are not gonna like all the music I like. How about we share with each other why we like this and just respect the fact that “Hey, you did that and I did that, ride on, it’s music.” Your music you like is creating a feeling for you, right? Well, my music I like is creating a feeling for me. So anyway, I am a powerful woman that’s in the music business that really loves and is open to all stuff of music.

BLAST: How would you encourage whoever has to make a breakthrough in his/her life?

LP: With music? Or just in general?

BLAST: Whatever you would use.

LP: I really do feel that, you know, there is a lot of talented and smart people out there. A lot of creative people. And, hundreds of thousands of millions of, and just because you are talented or smart or beautiful or whatever your thing is, it’s not enough. That’s not enough. My talents are not enough to get me from here to there. But my focus, my motivation, I need drive. I need perceivance. I need determination. And I need dream to make it. So I need all that to take my talent to, and then my talent helps me to get there. That I have to have all of the other stuff first, you know, because if you really look at it, how many people are out there? There’s a lot of people that some may say are not that talented, right? I mean you can probably think of a lot of people that’s really popular and famous right now that’s really untalented. But what they had was determination. They were hungry. They were focused and they had dream. So you just have to really work hard to break through in the entertainment field. You have to work hard. You have to work extremely hard. It’s not easy. It’s not an easy job because there are million other people who want it. So you need to stand out. And the way you are gonna stand out is by how hard and how much you want it. And what you are willing to go out there and, you know, put in hours of working non-stop. Most people would think I’ve made it that I am successful. But in my own life and my mind, I’m not nearly as successful as I would like to be. I work all the time. I’m still putting the hours in. I’m still hungry. I’m still motivated. I’m still driven. I still have the dream. And I’m still going after it. And I’m in a great position but I have to work my ass off to be here. You know, so if you are a lazy person, you think everything is gonna be handed to you, good luck. There are a lot of people out there like that, that think “Oh, I’m so brilliant, I’m so talented.” There is a lot of fucking artists like that. That just makes me fucking crazy. That they don’t appreciate where they are at all. And honestly, I wanna take my hand and slap them on the back of their heads and tell them to wake up. But the reality of it is they are gonna lose everything that they have. I am watching it right now, I am watching a lot of artists that have been sitting in high horse, thinking that they don’t have to do that much to get there and I’m watching them one by one fall because there are too many people out there that want it and they will continue to want it. Madonna still wants it. You know, you gotta constantly be working. There is nowhere being enough. And that’s how you break through in life in general. You know, don’t sit there your job 9 to 5 and be content with that. Here is something. We all have talent. We all wanna do something. But you know what, you know how many people say “What if?” “What if I did this?” “What if I did that?” They use it in their past context. You know what I mean? They should have at their desk and go, “What if I would’ve took that, you know, job or the gig,” “What if I would’ve be famous today,” or “What if I would have more money today” “What if I would’ve be married,” you know what I’m saying? Now here, listen to the switch. I’m gonna use “What if” now in a positive, “What if I do take that?” and, um, “What if I had a million dollars” “What if I was a big rock star” “What if you walked out right now and just say hello to the whole world.” You know what I mean? Vibe-change. “What if now” is a future. I’m not using it in the past. I’m using it “What if now.” I’m gonna get off the phone, what if I get off the phone with you and I walk into the kitchen and I give my girlfriend a big kiss and tell her I love her. What do you think will happen? She’s gonna be really happy.

BLAST: Yeah.

LP: So, you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna get off the phone, when I get out of here, walk in the kitchen and do that. Now it’s my future. “What if” is my future. It’s no longer my past. Do you understand?

BLAST: Yeah. That’s a good point.

LP: Big change. Right? It’s more motivating. It’s more of a plan. “What if now” becomes a plan and your future.

BLAST: So you are making causes for the future by yourself being really motivated.

LP: Yeah, exactly.

BLAST: So at the event this Saturday, you are going to auction “a day in the studio with you.” Are you looking forward to doing it?

LP: I love that, yeah, you know, everybody should have an opportunity to experience being in a studio and I’m really a great person being in the studio with. So, you know, not everybody can do that so I’m giving an opportunity for somebody to have that chance. And I feel that, you know, it’s gonna be fun and I’m looking forward to it. And this is an event really important to me and I just wanna get as many people there to support it as possible. It is this Saturday. It is for the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center. They do so many wonderful things for the community. They have a wonderful health clinic. They have legal services. They have been incredible pharmacies for the HIV. They fight for gay rights. Their house, there are thousands of kids who get thrown out of their house for being gay and they have been caught for drugs and prosecutions. And the center grabbed them off the street to get them somewhere to go and help them, you know, helping them all in their lives and I think there should be the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center in every state, so my goal here is to get people really aware of the work that they do so really wonderful and I look forward to Saturday and I got Renée Zellweger coming up and talking about the center. I’m performing. Heart is gonna perform. Gina Gershon is hosting the event and Sarah Silverman is performing. It’s gonna be incredible. Kat Von D, she’s auctioning a tattoo done by her, so you know, there is a lot of great great things.

BLAST: So, are you going to kiss your girlfriend now?

LP: Yes, I am.

The electronic trio’s debut album, Drink the Sea, is an important artistic departure from previous Glitch Mob works, such as remixes of TV on the Radio and Krazy Balhead, and their previous mixtape, “Crush Mode”. The album combines many of the three previously established DJ’s diverse influences, from drum-and-bass to ambient to experimental to club music. A recent XLR8R article recently observed the group’s, “willingness to take risks and a fierce determination to steer clear of classification… [The Glitch Mob is] tearing up dancefloors and confusing the hell out of anyone trying to put a label on their music.”

The assessment is spot on. “Drink the Sea” plays like the club’s version of Dark Side of the Moon, atmospheric and experimental, yet incredibly rhythmic and percussive. Member Josh Mayer adds, “It’s definitely not just a collection of random club bangers.” It’s the kind of album that you can enjoy equally on the dancefloor and sitting in a room with headphones on.

The Glitch Mob’s sense of experimentalism is in part due to the scene from which they hail. Justin Boreta, who got his start in Northern California’s hardcore and experimental scenes before joining The Glitch Mob, explains, “The great thing about the scene we came out of was that it defies labels. There’s no one single sound that unites our peers — it’s not a ‘scene’ defined by genre. Instead, what unites the artists is an interest in shattering categories and pigeonholes. Everyone around us from the West Coast—Flying Lotus, Nosaj Thing, Daedelus, Eprom—has their own distinctive sound. We all seem to want to break boundaries, but everybody has their own lane, which is what makes it so exciting.”

The buzz around The Glitch Mob is warranted, and will continue to furiously build towards “Drink the Sea’s” May 25th release. The collective recently released a sweet video for one of their non-album tracks that will undoubtedly spawn a new wave of music blog fawning.

Want to check out The Glitch Mob live when they roll into The Middle East on May 5? Blast has the hookup. Everyone who enters a comment on this article will be eligible to win two free tickets. For those that don’t win, a limited amount of seats are still available.

Ingle, better known as Never Shout Never to his fans, has been touring since 2007. He’s known best for his acoustic upbeat pop anthems like “Big City Dreams” and “Your Biggest Fan”, but this Spring, he’s put together a full band and is headlining the AP Tour.

“We pretty much have a little jam band behind me. They’re people I rounded up from back home in Missouri. It’s pretty sweet. They’re all really good guys and super talented musicians,” said Ingle in a recent phone interview with Blast. “. I call them ‘the shout’”.

Ingle’s latest release “What is Love” came out in January and was the first release post signing with Warner Brothers last year. Though still not a full-length, Ingle got paired up Butch Walker who has produced the likes of P!nk, Dashboard Confessional, Weezer and tons more.

“It was a big budget record I got to work with a lot of new sounds. It was awesome, kind of scary though. It was just a little EP, but I wanted to do something different with it,” Ingle said.

Ingle’s record deal didn’t come with only a big budget, but he also managed to squeeze his own imprint out of the deal – Loveway Records. So before he’s released his first full-length record, Never Shout Never has the ability to record and release anyone he wants.

“It feels empowering almost. We can put out whatever we want It’s fun to have this imprint that we can just make a whole new vibe with. I’m trying to find people on it that would never get anything with our scene because the scene is so image based and so fake,” Ingle said, “It’s a huge blessing. I’m so lucky.”

Ingle dropped out of high school in his senior year, only a few short months before graduating, to be able to pursue his music career. It was a huge sacrifice to make to start his climb to the top but on the way he’s trying to give a hand to everyone he can.

“I want to help everyone that I can because this isn’t for me. I’ve been blessed with so many opportunities so I can make an impact,” said Ingle.

It seems a bit unreal to think anyone can be this upbeat all the time, but even over the phone Ingle feels like the epitome of adorable. He’s modest, cordial and honestly seems like he’s just out to make everyone have a good time.

“Life is too short to feel bad. Everything is about break ups and stuff like that which really doesn’t matter. There’s so much more out there in the world like love and happiness. The first thing you should do is find happiness,” he said.

The positive attitude is something that Ingle tries to pervade throughout everything that Never Shout Never attaches its name to – and it really seems to be working out.

“All I really want to do is spread the word of selflessness. It’s not about me. It’s not about you. It’s not about him or her,” Ingle said. “It’s about community, all of us coming together.”

Never Shout Never is now featured on the Punk Goes Classic Rock compilation, covering Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”. You can also catch the band and Ingle on the AP Tour with Hey Monday, The Cab and Every Avenue. The tour stops in Boston this Thursday, April 29, at the House of Blues.

The night kicked off promptly at 6:55 with Paper Route. The quintet from Nashville had an As Tall As Lions and just slightly peppier Death Cab For Cutie sound that made them a bit of a surprising opener for the ultimate of peppy headliner. From a distance, the lead singer had a striking resemblance to Brand New’s Jesse Lacey, which was only encouraged by his intense mope-stare to the crowd. Their synthesized groove sound was just the ticket to get the crowd going – at one point they had three drummers on stage for an incredible build up. I’m not entirely sure Owl City was the best fit for them but they were extremely impressive and hey, being first up on a sold out tour can’t hurt, right? Definitely keep your eyes, and ears, out for them soon.

Next in the lineup came Toronto’s newest shining star – Lights. When Blast last talked to her, Lights was fresh in the rush of releasing her second album “The Listening”. Now she’s making a crowd pleaser out of songs like “Lions!” and wooing the audience with soft ballads like “Pretend.” Though her set is decorated with two synthesized pianos and keytar, Lights’s voice is really the showstopper. When she steps on stage she looks pint sized in jeans, white tank top and leather jacket, but she opens her mouth and that out of this world soprano range really elevates the set. It’s adorable to see her bouncing around the stage, getting the entire crowd to fist pump with her, but I think a phenomenal show is in the works when Lights gets to officially call the shots.

At nine o’clock the main event began. It started with the lights, three “waves” lit up with blues and greens to resemble the ocean. The drums next, then a mini orchestra – two violins and a cello – then glockenspiel and finally Adam Young, Owl City himself, as the crowd erupts. It was the same visceral reaction to every song, which made it strange to think that Owl City was a relatively unknown until last summer when “Fireflies” became so massive, even Nick Jonas covered it. “Fireflies” came in the middle of the set though, to obviously the most applause. When the band departed the stage for their encore, I wondered if they’d come back and just do the song again, you always end with your biggest hit right? It was an excellent surprise to hear the first digital beats of “Hello, Seattle,” – his biggest pre-“Fireflies” song. The crowd didn’t disappoint either, showing they knew every word to his songs even before “Ocean Eyes” came out last July.

After hearing a lot of buzz about Art Decade’s incorporation of a stringed quartet in their live show, I was intrigued to say the least. The quartet and power trio didn’t interact like two separate entities, as one would naturally expect, but rather like one body, sounding symphonic at times. Art Decade’s set was a classically driven indie rock performance, in not only the wide variety of texture the quartet brings, but in the music itself. The songwriting screams that of a classically trained musician. While at times this sounds belabored and obvious, for the most part it works, creating complexity and at times, chaos, out of even the simplest of parts.

Guitarist/vocalist Ben Talmi played equal parts frontman and conductor, delivering an energetic performance while leading the quartet, while bassist Binod Singh Jr. shredded through all the registers of his instrument, free to noodle a bit more with the bass’ older cousin, the cello, holding down the low end.

The other standouts of the day were Southern Belle, who played an engrossing set of dynamic-shifting electro/experimental pop. The group’s tight guitar work and magnetic pre-recorded loops might have turned the room into a dance party had it not been 2:30 in the afternoon. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what this band does in the coming months.

Shapes and Numbers opened the show, playing a lights out cover of seminal Boston classic, “Where Is My Mind?” Whenever you here a Pixies cover in the Hub, it’s a good day.

Her debut album, Animal, sits at No. 8 on the Billboard Top 200, and it’s 2 on the Digital Albums Chart. The album has had 600,000 sales per week since January.

She’s like a 2010 Avril Lavigne — style, catchy beats, and popular songs.

Ke$ha’s songs have been downloaded more than 8.5 million times in the U.S. alone.

Ke$ha performed her third single “Your Love Is My Drug” on Saturday Night Live on April 17. “Your Love Is My Drug” is 7 on the Digital Songs chart this week and is rapidly climbing the chart at Top 40 radio.

Ke$ha will join Rihanna on a 25-city tour this summer. Only a year ago, she was doing her first gigs ever, wowing the crowd at Lollapalooza.

Last week, Furstenfeld also opened up to Blast’s Brooklynne Kelly Peters.

Furstenfeld formed Blue October as an outlet for his clinical depression. He describes Blue October’s music as “bipolar art rock; up and down, all over the place.” The content of the music isn’t something meant for dinner conversation. “I like to bring shit up that people don’t like to talk about so we can get it out in the open — the elephant in the room.”

“I think we talked about (recording a version of ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’) years ago,” said Alva, 29. “We were joking about it. In the process room, I started doing the bass line. Then we were like, no, no.”

Songs by Elvis and Jeff Buckley were also tossed around, but ultimately the girls — Alva, and sisters Nina and Phanie Diaz, who handle lead vocal and drum duties respectively — decided on seven tracks from artists they grew up listening to, including hits from The Beatles (“While My Guitar Gently Weeps”), Patsy Cline (“Walkin’ After Midnight”) and Joy Division (“Transmission”).

“We have so many influences,” Alva explained. “What we chose is kind of a collection of all of our influences, and just a wide spectrum of time periods (and) different types of music. And plus, the big thing too was, what can we take and then make it ours too? So, a lot of questions came into what we were choosing and, you know, how are we going to execute it? And we were left with these, which we’re happy about.”

The songs appear on three EPs, collectively titled “Adventures in Coverland,” whose release dates are staggered throughout the month of April. Together, the three 7” records comprise a board game — a concept Alva designed as the group was trying to think of ways to combat illegal file-sharing of their music. (The songs will also be available digitally.)

“It was just like, how the hell are we going to get people to buy a goddamn record, like without downloading it? What’s going to make them want to have something in their hands?,” she said. “It’s really cool. It’s not, like, the funnest board game. It’s not like Monopoly. But it’s a good idea.”

Girl in a Coma officially formed on Thanksgiving Day in 2000, borne out of a friendship between Alva and Phanie Diaz, who bonded over a shared love of Nirvana records and The Smiths’ “Louder Than Bombs” in junior high. They eventually recruited Phanie’s sister Nina, seven years their junior, to join as lead vocalist. But there was never any of the annoyance that one might expect from having a little sister tagging along, according to Alva.

“Phanie and I are still very much immature,” she admitted. “Sometimes Nina’s a lot more mature than we are. The only time we thought about it is when we would go on tour and it’d be like, ‘She can’t come in until she sings.’ You know, she couldn’t go into the bars and stuff. That’s the only time we’d be like, fuck.”

Alva, who lives with the Diaz’s parents and Nina, says sibling rivalry hardly ever comes into play and that the vibe in the group is more like all three are related.

“We’ve known each other so long,” she said. “You know, we’re all sisters. So we all fight and we make up in like 10 minutes. Like, ‘Well, sorry. Ok. Move on.’ I think that’s one of the great benefits of us being so close is, you know, we fight but we get over it real quick.”

With a diverse range of influences including Bjork, Smashing Pumpkins, Selena and ‘90s riot grrl acts like Bikini Kill to Selena, the band has cultivated a post-punk sound over the past decade. And even though they stop short of recording cover versions of his songs, they have shared the stage with their hero, Morrissey, who invited them to be his opening act for tour dates in the U.S. and Europe in 2007.

“That was great,” gushed Alva, who characterized the tour as a learning experience. “It was just perfect, because we needed to do a big tour like that and to work with somebody that, you know, has influenced us, but to treat it more like, this is a business. We (were) representing our music. We’re going to come in and see how many of his fans can like us. I mean, that’s what you do as an opening act. It was just a great experience. … Being the opening act is fun. You know, it’s good to do the big one and get the big one out of the way, so that anything else that comes, it’s like, ‘Cool. We got it. We’ll do it.’”

They’ve also shared stages with Tegan & Sara, The Pogues and Social Distortion.

Currently, the members of Girl in a Coma are in the midst of two back-to-back tours — first with British indie rockers The Wedding Present and then with Australian singer Sia starting next week — that will take them across the country and back again. After being approached by both artists, they agreed to compromise and do half of each tour, Alva said.

“We were going to do the whole tour with (The Wedding Present), and then Sia came around,” Alva explained. “We met her at the Michigan Womyn’s Fest. We actually woke her up. We had a really early sound check. It’s outdoors and everybody’s camping and stuff. It’s really cool. And they wanted us to come, like, at 8 and do our sound check. So we got there … and we did our sound check and then we got offstage. And (Sia) and a friend came up to us and they’re like, ‘Wow, that was really good. You woke us up, but we’re not really mad about it.’ … So, we kept in touch and she invited us to do her tour, so basically we asked both groups, would it be OK if (we did them both).”

Signed to Joan Jett’s Blackheart Records label, Girl in a Coma embodies the same girl power mentality of their mentor.

“I want to invite as many girls out there to start a group. I think the more we have, the better,” Alva said. “I feel like a lot are popping up. … We’re meeting all-girl groups. It’s really cool. It would really be awesome if there just was this explosion. You know, you might as well.”

Girl in a Coma tour dates:

4/20            Vancouver, BC                         The Biltmore Cabaret*

4/21            Seattle, WA                        The Crocodile Café*

4/22            Portland, OR                        Doug Fir*

4/25            Chicago, IL                        Vic Theatre**

4/26            Detroit, MI                        St. Andrews Hall**

4/30            Montreal, QC                        Club Soda**

5/1            Boston House of Blues**

5/2            Philadelphia, PA                        Theatre of the Living Arts**

5/4            Washington, DC                        9:30 Club**

5/5            Northampton            Pearl Street Ballroom**

5/6            New York, NY                        Terminal 5**

5/7            Richmond, VA                        The National**

5/15            Houston, TX                        Fitzgeralds

5/22            Austin, TX                        Pachanga Fest – Fiesta Gardens

5/28            San Antonio, TX                        Josabi’s Helotes

*w/ The Wedding Present

** w/ Sia

MTV.com reported that the rapper, whose real name is Keith Elam, died from cancer. He had undergone surgery for a heart attack.

Born in Boston, Guru’s fame rose in the late 1980s when he was half of the duo Gang Starr with partner DJ Premier.

The duo was a major part of the underground rap scene in the 90s.

Peter Steele, the lead singer and bassist of the goth metal band, Type O Negative, has died, according to multiple news reports.

Steele, who’s death was faked in 2005, battled drug abuse and depression for years but had been appearing to turn his life around in recent years.

Steele, 48, reportedly died of a heart attack.

As a singer, Steele was known for having a rich, baritone voice that resonated with the band’s Gothic style.

The rockers’ newest effort, “Travellers in Space and Time,” is due out April 20, and the first single, “Dance Floor,” complete with a cameo appearance from Simian Records’ founder Elijah Wood, is already making viral waves. Blast got to talk to bassist and long-standing member Eric Allen, about the new album, unfair categorizations, and the Powerpuff Girls.

BLAST: Does it make you proud to see this explosion of electro, psych and indie-pop en vogue now? Do you see yourselves and maybe the whole Elephant 6 scene as luminaries for what’s going on in popular music today?

ERIC ALLEN: Well I couldn’t speak for everyone, but I could speak for myself and maybe my band a little bit. I don’t know about luminaries, but maybe if we’ve influenced bands like MGMT then that’s a great thing because they’re a great band.

BLAST: Do you get frustrated when people try to categorize your music?

EA: It’s not frustrating as long as they’re characterizations I’d agree with, which all of the ones that you said I would agree with. You know, it kind of varies, like you said, from album to album and even song to song. I guess it’s frustrating if someone tries to categorize our entire catalog of music as only saying Beach Boys or kind of categorizing us by one band, because it’s short-sighted, but I also understand that you try to boil things down for people that haven’t heard a band before, so you know, indie pop or psych pop, all of that is agreeable with me.

BLAST: Does the stereotype of the Apple’s music being childlike bother you? Was Powerpuff Girls a mistake?

EA: Well the Powerpuff Girls, kids listened to that, but at the time it came out it was a pretty hip cartoon and, you know, and adults were watching it too. But that’s just a little segment of our career, we’ve been a band for fifteen years. It kind of goes back to your question about descriptions of the band, and it’s just a limiting description, I don’t think you could listen to the Apples and say it’s childlike music. I mean I do think there’s a certain innocence and beauty in Robert’s songwriting, but there’s also a lot of sadness and there is anger in it sometimes, other emotions and sounds that I wouldn’t associate with being childlike.

BLAST: Your signed to Elijah Wood’s record label and he’s in your new video for “Dance Floor.” How did you meet Elijah, what was the process of signing with Simian Records, and what’s the relationship like now?

EA: Well the first time we met him, he came to a show of ours at SXSW and he was a big fan, and it was kind of like, “Wow, really? Ok, cool,” and so we sort of kept in contact with him over the years and then we heard about him wanting to do a record label and he talked to us about it. And it was at the point where we had ended our relationship with spinART, our old record label, so it just kind of worked out well. It’s been a really good relationship so far, you know, he doesn’t help us musically or anything but as far as PR and wanting to do videos with us and stuff like that, and just being a great person, it’s been great.

BLAST: He seems pretty normal and down-to-earth for a guy that’s been in some of the highest grossing movies ever.

EA: (laughs) Yeah, he’s ridiculously normal for a guy that’s been in Lord of the Rings and been acting since he was a little kid.

BLAST: I’ve heard that a lot of the difference between Velocity of Sound and New Magnetic Wonder was what you guys were listening to at the time; that you were kind of disenchanted with baroque pop and then made Velocity of Sound. What are you guys listening to now and how has it affected Travellers in Space and Time?

EA: Well, I wouldn’t say that we were disenchanted with baroque pop, it was more that those were the records we were trying to make, those orchestral pop records, and we just wanted to do something different, and with Velocity, do something that sounded a little more like we did live at the time which was more stripped down. I think with the new record, part of the change is we’ve got two keyboard players now, so it’s really more of a heavy keyboard album, so that’s really what has changed, just sort of a natural evolution.

BLAST: “Dance Floor” sounds retro-futuristic in that I could believe that the song was made in 2020 or in 1980. How do you guys manage to blend old and new sounds or influences so well and pack it all in a three minute song?

EA: Well I think we try to draw on our influences without trying to steal from them so we end up sounding like the Apples and not like a direct lift off 80’s synth-pop or something like that. So yeah, I don’t know if I can put my finger on exactly how we do it, but hopefully we do do it.

BLAST: The Apples have promised a record of “early seventies R&B as played by a UFO.” Do you feel the record delivers on this promise.

EA: I’ve never been on a UFO, so I can only imagine, so I’m going to say yes.

BLAST: Is “Travellers” your most poppy record?

EA: I guess I would think so, we really were going for a super-poppy record, which Robert in particular, he’s great at writing poppy songs, and he goes for that, so it’s not like anything strange to do something poppy for the Apples in Stereo. But yeah, it almost seems like the pop is distilled on this record, it is just really boiled down.

BLAST: You guys put a ton of different sounds (ie Vocoders, “blips and bleeps,” keyboards and Mellotrons). When do you finally say ok this song is done, because it seems like you could keep tweaking little by little indefinitely.

EA: I think Robert is pretty good about, um, he has a lot of ideas and usually wants a lot of different things on the record, so it’s really more of putting a bunch of different tracks down and then mostly tweaking. I think sort of when it comes down to the nicks he has a pretty good idea of how he wants it to sound. But yeah, every little space, he’s got some kind of instrument that he’s imagining in his mind to go there, even if it is a tiny bleep (laughs).

BLAST: A bunch of indie rockers are covering Apple’s in Stereo for an album called “Future Vintage: Covers of The Apples In Stereo.” Have you heard any of it, and is it a trip that your band will have a tribute album?

EA: Yeah it is a trip, I haven’t heard it yet, but just the fact that a couple bands, like I haven’t seen everyone that’s on it, but like Ted Leo and the Pharmacists and Elf Power, who are two bands that I really like and have liked for a long time, that they would take the time or even dignify the Apples with a cover, yeah, I feel almost kind of sheepish and definitely proud and awe-struck.

BLAST: Are you guys still chasing the perfect pop song?

EA: Yeah, I think there’s probably broader things, though. I think shortly thereafter that Robert was trying to chase the perfect pop album, so in some ways, the vision has gotten bigger. But yeah, it does all boil down to the perfect pop song, absolutely. It’s all about the songs.

Banks has been out of the spotlight as a solo act for nearly four years since the release of his sophomore album Rotten Apple in 2006. He has since been dropped from Interscope records.

In 2008, as a founding member of G-Unit, Banks was featured on every song alongside G-Unit cohorts 50 Cent and Tony Yayo on the group’s sophomore album Terminate on Sight. The album received lukewarm reviews and had lackluster sales. T.O.S was best known for the single “Rider pt 2.” The spotlight — and the public’s attention — appeared to be moving away from G-Unit, Lloyd Banks, and even 50 Cent in what looked like a trend shift.

After 50 Cent’s fourth album, Before I Self Destruct, failed to meet expectations, people began questioning whether the era of gangster rap was finally coming to an end.

Despite his lack of a solo major label release over the past few years, Banks has continuously put out music for his diehard fans and mix tape circuit junkies who still refer to him as the PLK, or “punchline king.” The ambitiously titled 5 and Better Series mix tapes started in late 2008 with Vol 1 Return of the PLK and have created the momentum needed for his return to the spotlight.

In December of 2009, Banks released the self-titled fifth edition to the mix tape series, V, featuring such songs as “Big Bully,” and “Rather Be Me.” For the first time, he was opening up and talking, rapping, about G-Unit’s apparent downfall and disputes with other rappers. Acknowledging that things have changed, Banks confidently maintains that G-Unit isn’t going anywhere in one of the mix tape’s highlight tracks “We Remain.”

On January 10, while in Toronto for a concert, Lloyd Banks was arrested for assault. He was later extradited and released, but with media outlets like MTV, Rapradar, and even Perezhilton covering the story, people began discussing Lloyd Banks’- for better or for worse. With the success of V and the media attention received from his incarceration, Banks thought it was the perfect opportunity to make his calculated return.

Since the release of “Beamer, Benz, or Bentley,” Banks has gone on a media blitz, doing interviews with anyone who requested them. Some of the interviews were with media such as 1515, MTV’s Mix tape Daily, and XXL show. Banks is poised to make a heartfelt return to rap, claiming that he is what the game has been missing.

The Hunger For More 2 has yet to receive a release date and will be released independently through iTunes, although it is clear the people over at G-Unit records hope to find a distribution deal after the album’s first single made such an impact.

Blue October, Furstenfeld’s brainchild, had its beginnings under a different name. He started a band in high school called Last Wish. But the chemistry in the group was off — they all accused Furstenfeld of being too dramatic. “So I fired them,” he said. Naturally.

Furstenfeld eventually formed Blue October as an outlet for his diagnosed depression. “I wanted to do something positive with the negativity,” Furstenfeld said. He describes Blue October’s music as “bipolar art rock; up and down, all over the place.” The content of the music isn’t something meant for dinner conversation. “I like to bring shit up that people don’t like to talk about so we can get it out in the open — the elephant in the room.”

Furstenfeld did just that during our conversation — he talked about his love for “Twilight” author Stephenie Meyer and his disdain for her representation. Rumors circulated last year that Blue October, who toured with Meyer, would have a song on one of the Twilight soundtracks. But it never came to pass, and the reasons behind it remained a mystery.

“Me and Stephenie Meyer are great friends,” Furstenfeld said. “I hate her camp, but I love her. Stephenie Meyer had the balls to take me to dinner…she said, ‘I wanna put your songs in my movies…’ and I was like, ‘Wow. That’s my dream — let’s do it.’ First movie comes out, no song. Second movie comes out, no song. Her management was like, ‘Everything we told you was a lie.’”

The other elephant in the room that Furstenfeld wanted to talk about was his highly publicized breakdown and tour cancellation last year. After not seeing his daughter, Blue (“I didn’t name her after the band”), for three months, Furstenfeld blacked out in an airport and had to be hospitalized. “They don’t like it when people go crazy in airports,” he said.

After recuperating, Furstenfeld is ready to go back on the road again with the Pick Up the Phone Tour. Blue October, in conjunction with To Write Love On Her Arms and Postsecret, are touring to spread suicide awareness. He’s got his mind set on his daughter and on is own mental health. “Believe in the Lord. That’s what my mom says. Trust in God.”

Be sure to catch Blue October along with Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and Stars of Track and Field at the House of Blues this Wednesday, April 14.

StABBA has made quite the impression on the Austin music scene, named sixth best cover band by The Austin Chronicle; their shows are a spectacle not to be missed. Jon Chapman, the epic, imposing, cuddle- bear of a front man, usually takes to wearing a full-body furry bunny suit while performing. The jury is still out on whether or not this behavior classifies him as a “furry.” This year his fondness towards ball-sweat inducing costume-wear turned to the tiger variety, not to mention his other stage ensemble which includes a large set of foam boobs, a crowd favorite. The other members of the band don’t let all the fun go to Jon as they dress up in all sorts of tom-foolery, from fancy ladies silk shirts to prom dresses, and even shaving elaborate designs into the shag carpet that drummer Greg calls his chest hair. Their sound is loud — very loud — and fast. Get a few hardcore guys drunk at a StABBA show and watch in amazement as they scream all the words to every ABBA song.

If you like punk songs about pink socks — if you do not know what they are DO NOT Google it — and getting man-juice on you, then The Contact High Five is for you. Formed in 2008 the band makes rounds at Austin venues like Red7 and Beerland regularly. Their 7 inch is out now and a tour is in the works for this summer. Both bands have a MySpace that deserves a look and a listen. All members are long time Austin residents, so SXSW is old hat. Blast takes a look at how SXSW is from the artists’ point of view.

BLAST: How was the show you played?

BOBBY NALL: Both Jon and I had basically completely lost our voices by Thursday — earlier in the SXSW week than usual. But Jon’s tiger suit was enough to win over the 4-year-old little girl in the crowd. And they’re our target market, really.

GREG MCDONALD: Bobby is right about our target market being 4-year olds, but it’s for a reason — I think they are the only people that really get Jon.

KIKI POWELL: Both shows were played with frayed nerves for me. However, that’s probably a better state of mind to play in rather than blindingly drunk. The first set was during an unofficial lunch break that required me ditching my work uniform, playing the set and running back to work immediately after our set. The second set that closed out SXSW saw me without sleep and shaking. Total destruction…

JON CHAPMAN: I feel the tiger suit is a tool to lure people into a false sense of what’s about to happen. It’s great for lady’s night!

BLAST: Do the huge crowds at SXSW suck?

DREW WILLIAMS: For some reason, everyone actually seemed to like us.

BN: Well, if you avoid total douche shows like Yacht or something, it’s fine. Douche band equals even douchier crowd.

GM: I kinda like the crowds, they do stupid shit and I get to laugh. SX for me is like a comedy festival filled with morons!

KP: They’re not so bad. Besides, the fashion comedy makes the influx of the oh-so-cool almost tolerable.

JC: I couldn’t agree more with Bobby. It’s all about playing in places where it’s the lowest common denominator of crowds.

BLAST: What is your guys’ favorite part about SXSW?

DW: Getting pants shitting drunk for five days straight.

BN: Hanging out with Lemmy (Motorhead) for an hour in his hotel room, watching car chases and listening to his new solo album. Really!

JC: Fuck you, Bobby.

GM: Getting to see bands that I wouldn’t normally get to see like Man or Astroman, and all the free beer.

KP: The absolute best part of SXSW is when it is over. I think SXSW will be partially responsible for a shortened life expectancy…

BLAST: What’s your least favorite part of SXSW?

DW: Everything else.

BN: Missing all the Andrew WK parties.

JC: Watching all of Andrew WK’s parties.

GM: Having to take a crap in a port-a-pottie. Bratwurst and beer equals stomach rumbling that waits for no man!

KP: I always work during the festivities. Oh, and the obnoxious sense of entitlement the quasi hangers-on of the cool and artistic world seem to have bullshitted themselves into projecting onto the rest of us.

BLAST: Who are the worst kinds of people that come to SXSW? New Yorkers, right?

DW: Skinny jean-wearing assholes from LA.

BN: What Drew said.

GM: Ditto!

JC: Please see above.

KP: I also have to strike out against the burn-outs in their 40, 50 and 60s that seem to have a story for how much cooler things used to be.

BLAST: What others bands did you see during the festival?

DW: DJ Jazzy Jeff.

BN: More than I can rattle off, but highlights: Voivod, Howl, Hollerado (amazing Canadians), Sistema Solar (ridiculous Colombians), Jenny Owen Youngs, and Fighting With Wire (like Husker Du from Ireland).

GM: Gwar, 7seconds, Motorhead, Fucked up (Canadian punk, with a big fat guy hanging from the rafters), tons of Japanese bands etc…

JC: GWAR, Mariachi El Bronx, The Bronx and a bunch of shitty bands at Rachael Ray’s party for her husband.

KP: The best thing I saw was that band that had that guy that did that thing with that drummer with all those distortion pedals.

BLAST: Who was the best band at SXSW?

DW: Probably StABBA. Those guys were terrific.

BN: Honestly, probably that Hollerado show. That was a fucking party!

GM: Getting to see Japanese bands and how awesomely weird they are is pretty cool. One Guy played all his songs on hand held gaming consoles.

JC: I don’t think I saw one of those.

KP: Zlam Dunk, local kids that will get big.

BLAST: What’s something you’d do differently if you put on SXSW?

BN: Free handjobs for ABBA cover bands.

JC: Can I agree with Bobby?

GM: I’m with Bobby. It really helps you relax and focus.

KP: Special badges for “Locals Only.”

BLAST: What’s one thing people should know about your band?

DW: We’re fucking great. Hopefully we (Contact High Five) will have a full length out by the end of the year as a companion for the 7 inch that no one bought.

BN: We are so handsome, that people don’t believe we’re an actual band. They think Calvin Klein put us together, like that guy that started Menudo and New Kids and N*Sync and then touched their wieners.

GM: Yeah, Again I’m with Bobby on this one. We had a weiner toucher as well, or a fluffer, if you will.

KP: Some of us don’t care whether we live or die. Try to guess which ones!

JC: I’M JON CHAPMAN! I’M LOUD AND YELL A LOT! GIVE ME A BEER! AND A JAGERBOMB!

BLAST: Drew, were you lying when you said Gay Place, a section The Austin Chronicle, recommended you? If not, who has the most homoerotic air of the group?

DW: Gay guys love ABBA. Maybe not as much as Lady Gaga, but who wouldn’t wanna see punk rock versions of ABBA songs performed by sexual beasts such as ourselves, right?

BN: He wasn’t lying, and to answer your question — probably Kiki.

GM: Yeah, definitely Kiki.

JC: Yeah, Kiki always ducks out when we play the biscuit game.

KP: They’re only writing that because I got a lot of man milk in me and I’ve got to get it out somehow.

BLAST: Who is the most likely to fuck up during a show?

DW: Greg.

BN: Greg.

JC: Greg.

GM: Everyone else.

KP: Greg, you’re fired.

BLAST: Jon, what would be the worst thing to happen during one of your epic performances: a strap holding your massive fake tatas up breaks, the bar runs out of Jagermeister or your mic explodes (safely)?

JC: I would say last year’s performance, when my make shift T-shirt underwear fell off during the show and a girl grabbed my sweaty balls. WAIT!! WORST?! Oh. Um. I don’t think anything could stop the Juggernaut that is I.

BLAST: So, why should the people reading this listen to you guys?

DW: We are the best band in Austin. Period. Haha.

BN: Because your readers will love us. Most of your readers are deaf or masochistic, right?

GM: Seriously, we kick ass!!!

JC: MY NAME’S JON CHAPMAN AND I’M LOUD!

KP: Because it will be there in 30 minutes or less or it’s free.

Here’s a look with some Blast staff photography:

Rudd, an accomplished guitarist, percussionist, didgeridoo and harmonica player, among other instruments, chatted with Blast from Melbourne, Australia, about the new album and his musical background

BLAST: Your new album has an African influence correct?

XAVIER RUDD: Yeah, yeah.

BLAST: Many artists had incorporated this type of influence in the 80s ( Peter Gabriel’s song, Biko, after South African activist Steve Biko, particularly stands out)  Do you feel that with so many issues going on nationally, individuals sometimes forget global conflicts not directly presented to them, and that directing your musical energy to a culture will bring awareness to it?

XR: Yes, I think so, yeah, I do. I think that over time there’s a lot of issues that are almost in and out of control. I think that music is …a way to bring awareness in society. I mean music has the ability to sort of…to break through barriers. Draw connection, connect culture…and religion and country…and people and…oppression and happiness.

So yeah, I think that it’s an important thing. Directing energy…yeah, I think that…musicians can direct their energy to a cause and bring it to their heart (to bring awareness to their cause).

BLAST: In turn, how do you think music brings awareness to another culture’s beauty, as opposed to its social issues? Which one is more difficult to bring across?

XR: I don’t know, I haven’t noticed…well I guess my music focuses on environment and cultures and a lot of my music unconsciously respects that, it’s what sort of comes in my heart. A lot of times I’m not doing it for any reason; I’m not trying to write lyrics for (any reason). It just comes naturally. I haven’t really gotten involved musically in any conflict situations. I support a lot of environmental causes, but I haven’t been really on the front line with conflict. So I’d have to say I don’t really know.

Blast: So…I have read articles suggesting that playing the didgeridoo reduces the impact of snoring and sleep apnea…

XR: All the didge players that I know snore!

Blast: But really, I have watched various performers…well, mainly music students playing the didgeridoo at recitals or jamming. Many had stated that it was difficult to convey a melody through it—versus the rhythm. True? False? I’ve seen some didgeridoo players try very much to create a melody.

XR: Oh yeah, it’s impossible to play melody, it wasn’t made for it. You can voice harmonies through it. But in a sense it’s one note.

BLAST: In respect of that, being a…didgeridoo virtuoso is deemed as very difficult in terms of breath support with circular breathing….I found records of players sustaining notes of up to forty minutes! How did you come to get involved in this instrument?

XR: I sort of played it most of my life and Yirdaki is the traditional name of an instrument that the didgeridoo derives from. (The instrument) is a message for aboriginal cultures, the strongest message that’s ever existed, and that connection is very important.

BLAST: Do you think most people are aware of the musical intricacies of this?

XR: Not a lot of people know, because it’s sort of swept under the carpet A lot of the culture is very unknown.

Blast: Now your new lineup sounds like a rhythm overload—in a good way. Is there something in particular that drew you to this?

XR: We met in Australia and had this heavy connection-spiritually, musically, emotionally. We’ve become great friends. That’s basically the story, you know, I just feel really blessed, and they’re such beautiful people to be around. I feel really, really blessed.

Blast: Do you think working with these … what many would label as ‘world beats’, as opposed to American or European styles, is something you always had an ear for? Are there certain feelings of syncopation or timing you’ve been more attuned to?

XR: I think so, yeah. The way I play, or approach my instruments is very rhythmical, more percussion based. So, I think so, for sure. This is a perfect match for the way I play.

BLAST: Are there any other types of music or cultures you see yourself delving into in the future?

XR: I don’t think too much about that stuff. What happens happens and you can’t really predict it. I’m interested in a lot of cultures and a lot of different music. I like to play, I like to learn about that culture and music, I don’t really have aspirations to any particular style, but at the same time I find that I am very blessed on my journey. There are a lot of cool opportunities that arise.

BLAST: Anything you’d like to add?

XR: Where are you from?

BLAST: Boston!

XR: Oh wicked! Well, Boston, Massachusetts is one of my favorite places; people are very friendly and fun and I look forward to coming through there.

BLAST: Thanks!

Here’s what you do: comment this post with a picture you take or draw (free hand or digitally) between now and April 20th. A representative from Blast and Warner Brothers will judge the picture and the winner will be announced on April 23rd.

The winner will then be contacted so they can get their tickets, meet and greet info (for the winner, and a plus one!) and their photo pass (only for the winner).

And don’t forget to stay tuned to Blast for the upcoming interview with Christofer Ingle!

Artists and stages

This year, the festival took place March 26-27. It included over 200 artists, eight stages and over 100,000 fans and party monsters. It marked largest number of performers and the largest amount of attendees the festival has seen.

DJ Carl Cox had a stage named after him, “Carl Cox & Friends Arena,” offering one of the best performances at the festival both days.

The Crystal Method, performed Friday at Bayfront Stage, but unfortunately had problems with the sound during their performance. Several fans were understandably disappointed, but the show was still enjoyable.

Electronica act Rabbit in the Moon performed Saturday at the Root Society Dome. This band is known for its artistic performances, and this year’s was just as expected, with a show featuring dancers, unique costumes and exceptional music.

The day glow stage was for smaller musicians such as the String Cheese Incident offshoot EOTO. Ahead of a 42-date U.S. tour, they performed brilliantly at this year’s Ultra Music Festival with especially distinctive percussion beats.

On Saturday, at the main stage, Benny Benassi played with guest performer Kelis, driving fans insane with his perfect beats. The main stage’s sound was so impeccably clear that every beat could be easily heard. The closing band for the main stage was Deadmau5, who performed wearing a mouse mask. He also surprised the audience by appearing with Tommy Lee. By then, just about all the festival attendees ran to the main stage, leaving every other stage empty for the first 15 minutes of the show. Unfortunately, due to the amount of people crowding the main stage, the sound started to distort and the people at the back could not listen to the performance. Perhaps this will result in the organizers of the Ultra Music Festival having to find a bigger location for future years.

Those listed above were only a few of the extraordinary performers that brought so much power to the irreplaceable festival.

Hospitality

Few people realize how much work goes into putting on a show such as the Ultra Music Festival. For example, in order for artists to get to and from their respective stages from the artist’s entrance, there are backroads especially designed for the six passenger golf carts that drive around all day — from 9 a.m., when the venue opens up, until the last concert is finished. Each stage needs to be fully stocked with supplies, including water, ice, sodas and alcohol. There are several single passenger golf carts driving around all day making sure everyone is comfortable. A team of about 2000 individuals is responsible for making sure the  festival is successful.

Although artists are assigned their own dressing rooms to get ready for their shows, they usually have some time to relax before or after their performance, and like to spend that someplace else. Because of that, UMF made available an artists’ VIP area, a space located right in front of the bay with comfortable seats, exceptional bathrooms and a full bar. The media tent was situated right near the artists’ VIP Lounge, making it convenient for performers to stop by.

The crowd

The Ultra Music Festival gives the audience an opportunity to show off their wildest outfits, one of the most important elements of the show, and one that gives the festival its unique character. This year, the streets of downtown Miami looked like a circus all weekend long. It’s impressive how much effort, time and money attendees put into their attire, leading people to wonder if UMF is not only about the music anymore. The crowd had its own show going on, with a kaleidoscope of colors- mostly in neon, and day glow. At times it seems as if they wanted to be the show itself.

After a long weekend of terrific music and brilliant performances, it can be said that the Ultra Music Festival has become not only the best event during Winter Music Conference but more than simply a music festival. It has become an experience. Many unforgettable performances were given by unique musicians to their public. At the end of the show, it was announced that Ultra Music Festival 2011 will be a three day event, which gives everyone present a full year to get ready for the madness that UMF 2011 is sure to bring.

Guitarist/vocalist Ben Talmi and bassist/vocalist Binod Singh Jr. comprise Art Decade, a band that has been in existence almost as long as they have. Fresh from a trip to this year’s South by Southwest Festival, during which they headlined two shows to much acclaim at the Austin Museum of Art, the guys seem relaxed but focused about what’s to come.

When asked about the band’s background, Talmi smiled and said, “That’s a long story.” The condensed version is that the band started as Channel, Talmi’s eighth grade brainchild, and quickly garnered acclaim after two EPs. This led to funding and a tenuous record deal. Talmi, who was in high school at the time, admits he did not fully understand the levity of the money and support that was being tossed around him. He changed the band’s name to Art Decade, citing the need for the band to take a step in a different direction. Shortly after recording and releasing their first EP as Art Decade, Innocence/Experience, Dave Matthews Band’s LeRoi Moore, a major backer of the band, died, and the deal fell through, leaving the band once again on the outside looking in, without a record deal or funding.

Talmi’s next move was to Berklee, one he was less than thrilled about. “I had always thought that if I went to college, I had failed,” Talmi said. But it was at school that he met his equally talented classmate/bandmate, Singh. He first saw Singh play in a basement jam session.

“Binod (Singh) was the only person, when I was tossing around riffs, that could really keep up with me,” said Talmi. The two recorded Art Decade’s most recent EP, Royalty, a huge-sounding effort that puts the band’s technical mastery and songwriting ability on display.

Talking to Talmi, it’s easy to see that the last thing he wants to do is rehash all the trials and tribulations of his musical career with the band that has led him to sitting in a coffee shop on this sunny afternoon. Soon, it becomes obvious why. They’re excited about where they are now and where they’re headed. Talmi admits that he is learning a good amount attending Berklee, but throws in the caveat that he would still leave now if he could, and that his education always takes a backseat to his musical career.

Later this month, Talmi and Singh are headed to Atlanta to record their first LP with producer Dan Hannon, about which Singh says, “The planets are sort of aligning around making this album.” That will be followed by a probable tour in support of the album (after school’s out, of course).

Talmi and Singh are wise beyond their years. They have no qualms about drawing on their past experiences to make “art that is honest.” This is something that is clearly important to them, as they continually insert the phrase in their answers during our meeting. Royalty is a clear example of this.

“The EP isn’t a concept album but it’s entirely conceptual,” Talmi explained. “There are some reoccurring characteristics, and the overall theme of something being built up and its subsequent let down, whether it’s a record label or a relationship, is definitely in there.”

When asked if there was any apprehension about making a record that is so personal, the guys answer, once again, with astounding maturity. “You can’t be apprehensive when you’re going into the process or you won’t create something honest. But once something is complete, one of my great fears is always playing what we’ve done for close friends and parents.”

The members of Art Decade are also unafraid to be original in their sound, which Talmi describes as, “If David Bowie fell through a cloud of smoke exhaled by Thom Yorke as he played a game of tennis with Beethoven,” or in their live setup which features a stringed quartet and a drummer.

Classical influences have a profound effect on the band’s musical direction. Talmi confides that he listens almost exclusively to classical music now, despite having been enamored with the concept of a power trio when he was younger, and says that the stringed quartet, “are inspirational,” and “the best thing we’ve done musically.”

Art Decade is playing two shows this weekend, one at the Guru Room in Plymouth, MA on Friday night, and a matinee show at The Middle East Upstairs on Saturday afternoon with The Dirty Dishes, Southern Belle and Shapes and Numbers, a show Blast will be covering. Check out Art Decade’s mature and unique sound now, and be sure to be on the lookout for their debut LP this summer.

Event information

The Haitian people have emergency needs now as Hôpital Sacré Coeur has many patients still assigned to cots and stretchers for lack of hospital beds. But many are long-term patients and will need physical therapy, rehabilitation, and surgeries. Additional medical conditions will result from lack of durable beds. Also, Hôpital Sacré Coeur must expand to meet the needs of an increasing population. By sending more quality beds, nurses and doctors can ensure that patient recovery happens faster and meet the populations’ needs. Quality hospital beds are durable and, in the long run, are an economical investment into Haiti’s overall long-term recovery.”

For information on how you can help, please visit 100bedsforhaiti.com.

There may be many reasons why military inspired clothing is becoming so popular, but one reason that stands out is the music industry. One band in particular that is contributing to the influence of military attire is the Street Dogs.

Based in Boston, the Street Dogs are a true punk band. They were originally formed in 2002 by front man Mike McColgan (ex-member of the Dropkick Murphys) and Johnny Rioux. McColgan and Rioux originally started the Street Dogs as something to have fun with and stay busy. But with the 2003 release of Savin Hill, the Street Dogs realized that what was once just for fun was taken very seriously by their fans. After the release of their debut album, the Street Dogs decided it was best to add to their lineup. With a fuller band, the Street Dogs were finally ready to take to the streets, touring the United States. The band currently consists of Mike McColgan as lead vocals, Johnny Rioux as bassist, Paul Rucker as drummer, and Tobe Bean III and Marcus Hollar as guitarists.

What makes the Street Dogs so different from other bands is their ability to incorporate ska, street punk, and Irish punk into a unique, yet distinct, sound.

The Street Dogs’ third album, Fading American Dream, dropped on October 24, 2006. It was the band’s most political album to date. Not only are the lyrics on Fading American Dream war related, their merchandise is inspired by the war and military as well.

The Street Dogs aren’t one of those bands that sing about politics to try and be punk rock. Having spent five years as a firefighter, two years in Iraq (as part of an artillery crew during the first Persian Gulf War), and six years in the reserves, McColgan actually has a justified stance behind his political viewpoints.

The main logo for Street Dogs is the insignia for a private and for a brigadier general. The Street Dogs’ logo can be found on nearly all of their merchandise, including their CDs, t-shirts, and wristbands. Other military inspired designs that can be found on Street Dogs’ apparel include the American Eagle, a hand grenade, an AK47, skulls, a coat of arms and the United States Capitol.

“We actually try to steer away from using guns,” said Bean, in an interview with Blast. “When we start designing new merch we throw out a bunch of ideas based on lyrics, songs, and our message as a band. From there we try to pick the boldest and strongest designs and the ones that most represent our band and what we are trying to say.”

But the band clearly has a fashion sense that’s military-issue.

“We draw from that for a number of reasons,” Bean said. “Obviously our stance on soldiers is one. I personally like the military look live because it reminds me and hopefully others that there are still kids overseas fighting in an ugly war that seems to have no point. It also gives us a more unified look as a band. Also, when you’re on the road, Army-Navy stores are a great place to rummage through and pick up some cheap clothes.”

The band decided to have the majority of their merchandise designed with military themes because “simple and bold logos just look great on shirts, so we try to use those whenever possible. A lot of our other designs are tied in with song titles and content,” Bean explained.

The band didn’t think they would be influencing fashion trends by putting out an album like Fading American Dream and by selling their merchandise.

“I really would never think of us as a trend-setting band when it comes to clothes,” Bean said. “But then again the Clash, who is one of our biggest influences, had a tremendous impact on the way punks dressed back in the seventies.”

The question remains: Are the Street Dogs trying to get a point across by having military themed merchandise and if so what is the point they’re trying to make?

“We are always trying to get a point across, whether it’s workers’ rights, the lost soldier overseas that is far away from his family, or just the social injustice that is heavily present in our country today,” Bean said.

In a sense, the merchandise is also a way to express the band’s thoughts and feelings towards the wars. However, Bean suggested that, “One listen to Fading American Dream and you know where we stand on the war. We do support our troops, though, and would love to see them home safe and as soon as possible.”

Bean explained that Fading American Dream is “a social commentary of what is going on in our country and world today. Times are bad. We are in the middle of an ugly and undefined war and losing innocent lives every day. We are sitting under the largest U.S. deficit of all time. Jobs are disappearing daily.” That’s the kind of stuff that can be found on the album.

Although the rest of the band doesn’t have a military background like McColgan, they are still very passionate when it comes to their political views.

“We are a unit,” Bean said. “A machine behind a mouthpiece that we believe in and will back up any time.”

Bean believes that the heart of the Street Dogs is “five guys who believe in what we are doing and love playing music for anyone who will listen.”

Last month, the Street Dogs began recording their fifth studio album. It is the band’s follow-up to their 2008 State of Grace which was their first album with Hellcat Records. The latest album will feature Rioux as producer and Rick Barton (original guitarist for the Dropkick Murphys) as co-producer. The Street Dogs will be recording at the Blasting Room, an infamous punk rock studio built by members of All, Black Flag, and Descendents, in Fort, Collins, Colo.

The Street Dogs have been headlining tours in the US and UK. They have been performing with bands like Anti-Flag, The Offspring, Reverend Horton Heat and Alkaline Trio.

On March 10, the Street Dogs released their single, “War After the War,” exclusively on iTunes. All of the proceeds for that song will be donated to Homes for Our Troops, an organization that builds specially adapted homes for severely injured veterans at no cost to them.

If you’re looking for the latest Street Dogs merchandise, look for an El Battalion t-shirt, in which the skeleton of a soldier is dressed in full uniform, holding a flag, and a rifle. Another design is the Final Transmission t-shirt, the front bears the band’s name as well as a battlefield cross. The back of the t-shirt features some of the lyrics and the title Final Transmission (one of the single’s from Fading American Dream). The band’s logo is located on the back of the t-shirt as well as the sleeve. There is also a War After the War poster (all of the proceeds will benefit Homes for Our Troops) that features a soldier in uniform carrying his rucksack.

Media credit/Erin Yunes/Abbott Imaging

Listen to the White Rose’s “Take Back your Mind,” and you might not know the lead is a 21-year-old from Berklee College of Music, until you get past the Grace Slick vocals and the intricate, driving blues-rock guitar, and listen to the vocals on “Drive.”

Yes, she’s talking about being a recent college grad, flailing around for a job in one of the worst recessions the country’s ever seen.

Is it a new theme? No. But coming from someone who, herself, is wondering where she’s going to go after she’s done with Berklee, it resonates much more than Jay-Z rapping about money problems.

Hearing “Drive” is unique for a 20-something: immediately you know Heather Rose, lead guitar, vocals and band leader, knows what you’re going through — because she’s there too. “It’s funny,” she said laughing over the phone. “Poking fun at this whole situation — I’m all about, if something sucks, laugh at it.”

While Rose doesn’t see herself in the in-crowd of Boston’s rock scene, with its harsh rock and jangly pop, she said her music does fit in to a larger aspect of the city’s tapestry: its youth. Boston is a young, young city, with many residents who stick around for four years, tops.

“One way my music does fit in with Boston is it’s targeted at young adults,” she said. “It’s hard, life is hard, and we’re all figuring it out at the same time.”

The White Roses leader has been recording since she was in high school in San Francisco, experience she continues to draw on as her career gets off the ground.

Rose grew up with music, listening to the Doors, Rolling Stone, Pink Floyd, the classics. She discovered Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane in college. Since her first record, she said, she’s made two albums since, and each time she learns something.

So where did it start? On the streets, at open mics, wherever. In a telephone interview, she told me she and her friend Emily, the first White Roses lineup, “performed every week at this open mic, we played the streets a lot, and at the end of high school we put an album together.”

“We were very young when we made it,” she said. “I was 17 when I made my first record. It’s not my best work, but I had a lot of fun doing it.”

She’s watched herself grow up in her music, and called it a revealing experience. “It’s a good and a bad thing, watching an artist develop into the person they are.”

Will retrospection continue after college? Maybe, she said. Her latest record is very much forward-looking, wondering about her place in the “new economy,” something Rose freely admitted she’d have a different perspective. “Most of the songs were written in my naive state,” Rose said self-effacing, “being a young adult, trying to figure my life out. Maybe I’ll look back and say, huh, I didn’t have to worry so much.”

Aerosmith has accomplished tremendous world-wide success with over 100 million albums sold and sold out shows all over the world. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001; they’ve received two People’s Choice Awards, six Billboard Music Awards, eight American Music Awards, 23 Boston Music Awards, 12 MTV Video Awards, four Grammys, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Song, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.” They were also selected as one of the Best Rock Bands by Rolling Stone and Hit Parader magazines and were chosen as the first rock band to be honored as MTV Icons.

Blast got a chance to talk to Joey Kramer who disclosed his personal breakthrough to success by releasing his own autobiography last year.

BLAST: You released your autobiography “Hit Hard: A Story of Hitting Rock Bottom at the Top” last year. In the book, you mentioned many issues, such as your drug abuse problem, relationship issue with your father, and the battle with Steven Tyler. When confronting all these issues, what did you try to let the audience know?

JOEY KRAMER: Well, you don’t have to be a rock star to crash…and you know, those things can happen to anybody. And they happened to me and I had to deal with them.

BLAST: Aerosmith released the autobiography “Walk This Way” in 1997. What made you want to write your own autobiography as “Joey Kramer” not “Joey Kramer of Aerosmith”?

JK: Well because I wanted people to know about all the stuff I had gone through and combination with what life is like being in the band, being in Aerosmith. So the combination of the two I thought was interesting to read. And that’s why I wrote it.

BLAST: You’ve talked about that your father’s strict attitude towards you really gave you an opportunity to play the drums because you can actually hit the drums. Could you tell me how influential he was?

JK: Yeah, because of the way he treated me, the drums became the outlet for me. And that was the fuel, that I was abused, to play the drums because you know, the way he treated me was a bad way and I needed some place to go with it. So when I discovered the drums, that was my cynical outlet for the abuse that I took from my father.

BLAST: So would you say it ended up being positive?

JK: Ummmmm, well, yeah, I would say so, yeah. Definitely. I think so, yeah. The way ended up being positive even though it was, you know, the father’s attitude was mean. You think it’s as an outlet, you know, for my aggression and my anger but it definitely…end[ed] up being a positive thing.

BLAST: When your father passed away, Aerosmith was making the album “Nine Lives” and you took a break because of too much depression and anxiety. But you overcame the situation and came back. What would you want to say to those people who have been suffering from the similar problems?

JK: Well, yes, do stick with it and you have to have a desire to wanna get better, you know. A lot of people are lazy about that and complain about what is wrong, but a lot them are not willing to really do anything about it.

BLAST: Parents tend to say something like “do this” or “do that” to their kids when they are young. And they really struggle and suffer but they do not always find the solution like your drums and they might shut them down.

JK: Oh yeah. Well, if you have a dream, I would say, “Go for it.” And then you can make dreams come true. But you have to really have a desire and believe in yourself. And you know, that’s basically what I had when I was a young kid. I was awakened enough to believe what it is when I was doing. You know, I would rather attribute it to being a young kid because I didn’t know about the stuff that I know as an adult.

BLAST: You revealed your personal fragile side in the book. People might tend to see you as “Joey Kramer, a drummer of a monster rock band Aeromsith.” But how would you define your identity as “Joey Kramer”?

JK: Umm, you know, I think of myself as just a man, an ordinary man, just, you know, try to make my way in the world. And, I don’t consider myself to be anything special.

BLAST: Your iPhone app just came out!

JK: Oh yes!

BLAST: Are you an iPhone user yourself?

JK: As a matter of fact, I am really not! I am just a drum user.

BLAST: How is it different to do a show with another band as you did with James Montgomery Blues Band two weeks ago?

JK: Well, it’s definitely lots of fun just because of the fact it’s different. You know, I just need to do something that’s fun when we all too often don’t do anything.

BLAST: It was great, by the way. I had so much fun.

JK: Oh exactly. You were there?

BLAST: Yes I was in the front row.

JK: Oh great!

BLAST: When Tom Hamilton was singing, I was like “Wow.” Yes, it was. He just came by without a bass guitar and I wondered what he was gonna do, and he started singing so I was like, “Oh my gosh.”

JK: Yeah, right! (laughs) That was pretty funny.

JK: Yeah. (Laughs)

BLAST: Aerosmith just announced a tour in South America, Europe, and the UK this summer. Aren’t you excited to be back on the road?

JK: Oh yes, really. I am looking forward to be out there and playing again.

BLAST: What’s the theme of “Cocked, Locked, Ready to Rock” tour? Who named it?

JK: Ah, Joe. Oh just we are ready to go, ready to get out there and kick some ass.

Joe Jackson’s lawyer, Brian Oxman, told Reuters that the amount of prescription drugs given to the star amounted to second-degree murder. “That is Russian roulette,” he said. “That is loading six bullets into a gun with only six chambers.”

MJ’s doctor, Conrad Murray, has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter as part of a criminal investigation.

Joe Jackson’s legal action is to be a civil case because the civil lawsuit’s main purpose is winning monetary damages against Dr Murray but the criminal action could result in a jail sentence.

According to the publication., Mr. Oxmand also said Michael Jackson had been given Propofol every night for six weeks and said it was “reckless, and it amounts to second-degree murder.”

Earlier this month, California’s attorney general Edmund Brown said Dr. Murray should not practice while he faces charges over the MJ’s death.

In the meantime, it has been revealed that large quantities of general anesthetic and dozens of tubes of skin-whitening creams were found in MJ’s home during searches after his death.

The creams are usually used to treat vitiligo, a skin disease MJ suffered from that causes patches of skin to lose pigmentation.