Features / One Question Interviews

Eric (Wall of Youth Records)

SPB: If you could universally fix one recurring issue in venues across the world, what would you fix?

Eric: If I had my way, which never seems to happen, I would make the floors of all venues sloped slightly down toward the stage. I'm a pretty tall person so I always feel like a total …

Dave Bowden (Warm Needles – bass)

SPB: What band has the best logo of all time?

Bowden: My favorite band logo of all time has got to be Propagandhi from the How to Clean Everything album. In high school I'd try to draw other bands names on my books using the same cool lettering and it never came out looking …

Dave Castillo (White Widows Pact)

SPB: How do you find new music?

Castillo: Call me old fashioned but usually I find out about new music through my friends. A lot of them are a part of music in one way or another so I get the scoop on a ton of great stuff. It's also part of my job to find great new …

Alex (Wonk Unit)

SPB: How do you describe the band’s changes from Day One into what it is today, sound-wise?

Alex: The biggest change is a total reversal in songwriting style. For our first two albums I was writing lyrics to music, some pretty crazy technical stuff. These days (for the last two records) I'm writing music to poems which …

Bo Lueders (Wolfnote)

SPB: Assign each member of your band to a character from Sex in the City.

Lueders: I think I'm the only one in the band who watched this show, and growing up with a single mother I have definitely seen the entire series a few times all the way through, so I can wield this power …

Andy (Warm Needles)

SPB: What was the most memorable thing to happen during recording Inconsolable?

Andy: Oh geez, good question. Luckily now I can laugh about it. We actually recorded the record ourselves in our own space with our own equipment. This is also the first time I've ever done any real recording or used this equipment so it …

Ricky (Western Settings)

SPB: Who is the most underrated San Diego band right now?

Ricky: The most underrated band in San Diego? There are a ton. One that has grabbed my attention over the last year is a folk-punk band called Plastic City Pariah. They are talented, and kind human beings. Their music is fun, full of feeling, and their …

Sean Schultz (What Tyrants)

SPB: What venue is your favorite to play (and why)?

Schultz: Our favorite venue to play would have to be the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis, the smaller venue attached to the iconic First Avenue, The Entry is where the likes of The Replacements, Hüsker Dü, and countless others cut their teeth. It’s a local treasure and part of …

War on Women

SPB: Basements or bars (or both)?

War on Women: That's like asking “day or night,” “loud or quiet,” “happy or sad.”

You can't appreciate one without the other, regardless of preference. But no one has ever chipped their tooth moshing to us in a bar...but a guy did stick his head inside our kick drum in the …

Robert Gowan (Wasted Wine) 

SPB: Who is your favorite 1990s artist?

Gowan: Probably an obvious choice, but perhaps not for us: Tupac Shakur. As far as characters and universes, I get into Tupac the same way I do Zappa or Tom Waits. He has an extremely dynamic and defined character that constantly evolves, very rapidly, through the breadth of his career almost …

Adam Dyson (Withdrawal)

SPB: How do you choose your album art?

Dyson: I've always felt that the artwork and presentation of a record is just as crucial as the music contained on it. It's important because it immediately sets a mood, and the recorded music itself fulfils the pre-conceived feelings you'd get looking at the cover. We're lucky that we …

Andy Lefton (War//Plague)

SPB: Minneapolis seems very engrained in your sound. How much of that is conscious? Is it purposeful, or does is just sort of happen through osmosis? Do you find the TC scene to be fairly supportive and/or conducive? Are their limitations or frustrations that come with being labeled a Minneapolis band?

Lefton: It's completely organic. We don't …

Anthony Manella (Where My Bones Rest Easy)

SPB: What’s your favorite book?

Manella: I'd have to say the book that has stuck with me and held a lot of weight in helping me process things in life as a young teen/adult would have to be Albert Camus' The Stranger. I first read it when I was 15 or 16. …

Hannah Blumenfeld (White Murder)

SPB: What is the worst job you’ve ever had?

Blumenfeld: Substitute teaching. I was way too young and it was just complete chaos all the time: all grades all categories. One day in the middle school I lost it and called a student a bitch. I was so freaked out, thinking I was going to get …

Brad Perry (Worn in Red, drums)

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

Perry: The first show I ever played was with my high school punk band, Officer Friendly. I was 15 and played bass. Ryan Geis (who works at No Idea and was in Rehasher & Savage Brewtality) played guitar -- it's crazy how …

Way to End

SPB: Who is the first musician whose technique or technicality really stood out to you?

Way to End: Cziffra and, as a consequence, Liszt. When I was very young, my father bought a cd of Liszt played by Cziffra. It was the Hungarian Rhapsodies. I was so struck by the way piano was played, there was something …

Worthwhile Way

SPB: What is the biggest difference you experience between Japanese and American audiences?

Chegeno: I think the biggest difference is the mind of positive or the negative.

Aki: No offense to everybody who is Japanese and American, Japanese audiences [are] rather quiet. American [audiences are] always cheerful.