2:36 am — 

Elsinore is a four piece rock band and Champaign mainstay. With their new material in hand, the band is going to be touring the West Coast for the first time this summer. The band played Summer Camp on Saturday afternoon. Prior to their performance, I was able to talk to lead vocalist/guitarist Ryan Groff, drummer Dave Pride, keyboardist Mark Woolwine, and bassist Chris Eitel.

Eric: I think every artist I have interviewed is one that would not consider themselves part of a jam band. If you are not a jam band and have a different sound than the overall feel of the festival, how do you think you will fit in?

Dave: We’re hoping that people that come to these festivals don’t exclusively listen to jam bands. With the way that Bonnaroo is going, along with all these other summer festivals, people are branching out. I mean, I don’t just listen to indie rock.

Ryan: It seems to be going that way too. That was our hope, and then we got here, we looked around, and definitely the majority is still jam bands, with the same guitar riffs and everything, but then the different bands still have people that are into it. The people like good music, and not just jam band music. We will try to be good music for them.

Eric: I know your first album is a bit rootsier though than the material you have been playing recently. Are you going to try to parlay that towards the audience, since that is more of the direction of the festival?

Chris: Absolutely not.

Ryan: I think the fact that we haven’t seen any acoustic guitars makes me feel like we don’t have to worry about that. We weren’t going to do it anyway, but people here like rock and roll, and all the instrumentation is kind of like what we have. They have a keyboard, guitar, drums and bass and they just play different things on it. We are just going to have the same instrumentation and play straight-up pop-rock.

Eric: What was the mindset behind getting away from the first album’s (Nothing for Design) sound to what it is now?

Chris: It kind of just happened. Ryan started playing electric guitar instead of acoustic, and I added distortion to the bass riffs, and Mark added keyboard and a synthesizer with some new sounds.

Ryan: And Dave plays a real drum set now.

Dave: It made less and less sense to keep Latin percussion setup.

Eric: Did it just kind of happen though? Did it get old?

Ryan: It was really gradual. One of us, at any given show, would say “I really don’t want to play that song anymore” and it was always that really Americana, folky song. Then, as soon as a rocker came out songwriting-wise, we were saying “Man, I really feel that,” so we all were hopping on board. Then all my songs come out that way and all of our part writing comes that way, so everything we were writing, we were feeling. We liked that straight rock tempo here or that distortion there. It just kind of started to happen.

Chris: It went from Ryan and I writing songs and everybody else basically playing whatever part that popped into our head, with Dave playing the straight beat to us really taking a lot of time to arrange the songs individually. Dave stepped up and would say “We need to play it this way right now. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, we can try something else.”

Ryan: We had played our songs simply. We started the songs, and stuck to them. I think that once we started realizing we were fixing and approving songs, we realized we needed to write new songs, because we were trying to make old songs better, when all we need to do is write new ones. Like Chris is saying, we started to write songs together. Chris would have an idea or I would have an idea, and that’s especially with the song that’s on the single we’re putting out in a few weeks called “The General.” Chris had the words, and I had the chord structure, and we changed the feel and added things and this riff came out, and all of a sudden we all got it. We all saw it with this one song. We said “Yes, that’s it. That’s exactly how it happens.”

Mark: That’s been every song since; that’s how we write them. Ryan comes with the riff and with a vocal melody. Then we sit down and hammer it out until it’s in the shape that we want to play it.

Eric: Is it easier to do it that way?

Ryan: It’s great, it’s so rewarding.

Mark: It makes you feel good when you finish it. Everybody will agree that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Ryan: I’d say eight of the 10 songs on the new record have come out that way too, which is good. The two oldest ones were the last of the old group, but all the other ones we feel good about. We’re not sick of any of them, so it really, really helps to keep us going and be excited about the new record.

Eric: At this point, where you are as a band, you may be playing shows where people aren’t coming to see Elsinore. They may be coming to see the headliner. How does the band deal with that when you are playing a show?

Chris: We just do what we do, and if you hit five people, that’s five people that you got that wouldn’t have been there to see you before. We’ve gotten a lot of fans that way, with people that didn’t have any idea who we were before bought a t-shirt and a CD at the end of the show.

Ryan: That’s the mindset that we have to have because of the more extended touring that we are doing. Now that we’re getting out of Illinois, we’re doing the whole Midwest. Then we will be doing the whole West Coast this summer. Now we have to be in that mindset all the time. We have to play exactly how we should so that people know who this band is, and they can say “I really like it. I hope they come back.”

Chris: Nobody starts out with a group of fans.

Eric: When is the new record coming out?

Ryan: We’re trying really hard to not pick a date so we don’t have to finish things. I just got married, so we took a couple weeks off, and I’m trying to finish the lyrics to some of the songs, and there are still some string parts and horn parts we want to put on there, so we want to have time to do it and not worry. We never set a date, we just kind of said “It would be nice to have this in six months,” and then we said “It would be nice to have this in nine months.” It’ll probably be a year now. We started last October officially.

Chris: The single is coming out pretty soon though.

Eric: Has it been a frustrating experience?

Chris: At times. It’s hard to do it, with the work schedules. We all have different jobs, so it’s finding a chunk of three or four days that we can just go spend all that time in the studio, it can be really difficult.

Ryan: Some parts are frustrating, like when you can’t play your part exactly how it should be. If one of us can’t do what we need to do, the other three get kind of frustrated and get pissed off because they have to wait so much, and the one doing it gets pissed off because they can’t get it. It happened to all of us.

Eric: Who have you guys seen so far that you have enjoyed?

All: Flaming Lips.

Dave: Girl Talk was good.

Ryan: For me it was the Flaming Lips that made the whole weekend worth it. We could not like any of the other bands and we would still think about the Flaming Lips last night. So we’re just hoping to get blown away by The Roots tonight.

Chris: I’m looking forward to seeing Blind Melon I used to be a fan before their singer died, so I’m interested to see what they do with this new guy.

Eric: Finally, what have you guys been listening to lately?

Chris: I’ve been listening to The National and Okkervil River pretty much nonstop for the last month.

Mark: Spoon.

Ryan: The new Radiohead.

Dave: Bon Iver. Sigur Rós. I had never really listened to them before and I just got their CD Takk…

 

11:33 am — 

Okay, I will spill the beans: I have a story I plan to write about my experience with Gregg Gillis/Girl Talk. I will save that for until I get back and have more time. It involves Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips. I may be hyping it up a lot, but still, I want to write it. For now, here is the interview:

Eric: How do you, as a DJ, approach a festival such as this?

Gregg: For me, my background, with the earliest music I made, was very experimental, and no one would even classify it as me DJing, it’s more like it’s production using samples, because the material is so far-removed and transformed from the original sources. All of my early days of playing were still at performance-style venues. I’ve never played at dance clubs. I’ve always opened for a band or for a rap group or whatever. For me, it’s like playing for a festival is very natural. I’m used to people staring at me, it’s the format I’m used to.

With normal club shows, I really like to interact with everyone, and get people onstage. It gets pretty crazy, and it becomes impossible to be concerned about everyone at a festival. You just can’t do it; you would get swallowed up in the concept. For me, playing a festival is almost like an underhand pitch, an easy performance. I’m always ready to go, 100 percent at every show. At a club, I can feel it can go really bad or really good. With a festival, it’s like I’m going to be going, and people are going to be with me or they don’t. You can’t be as concerned. For me, it’s very relaxing compared to a normal show.

Eric: Would the interaction be considered part of the show though?

Gregg: Yeah, hugely. I feel like it’s like that with any band. A band like the Flaming Lips does an excellent job of playing at the grand scale, where you don’t need that level of interaction because you put on such an extravagant show. That’s amazing, but you see most normal bands that don’t have such a visual show, and any time you see them at a club there’s a level of interactivity, and it’s very approachable and very exciting, and you can’t really replicate that at a festival. It’s kind of grander than that. It loses that to some degree, but there is where you can’t be close to everyone, but there are so many people there, there is a greater energy that can help overcome that sometimes, so it has a potential.

I had never played festivals until last summer, and I thought it was going to be really shitty, because the smaller the show, the better for me, so I can be as crazy as I can get, but I experience festival shows where everyone was just together. It’s not that everyone was being crammed into a small space, but more like its how massive can this get. It’s a whole different thing for me.

Eric: Can you still feed off the audience and do something you wouldn’t necessarily do?

Gregg: Yeah, to a degree. I usually allow people to get onstage just because I like to break it down as much as possible. But in all honestly, the club shows are so chaotic that the level of mistakes on my end are higher. Not that they’d be that audible, but I may not be able to go through the material in the exact way I’d want it. With playing a festival, I have so much room physically, and I’m not being bumped into and it’s not so chaotic, and I almost always overall play a better set. I feel like people wouldn’t know the difference between the two.

Eric: Do you have a preference though?

Gregg: Ideally I’d play a small club. I enjoy this, but I think the real magic is in a small venue. This is very fun to me though, on a very physical level because people are so crowding at a normal show, and then here it is physically very easy to play. It’s relaxing. It’s like I go through training all year long to do a couple of these shows, and then it’s a lot easier for me.

Eric: Is it better musically?

Gregg: It depends. It can be massive. I feel like a lot of bands sound better than electronic performers on a grander scale, but it can sound really cool depending on how it’s done up. Some of the stuff at Coachella, like the place set up specifically set up for electronic music sounds amazing, so it all depends on how it’s set up.

Eric: Take me through the process of when you’re mixing on stage.

Gregg: I don’t use songs; it’s all just sampled elements. I do the arrangements beforehand and I have freedom to jump around, but I know what I want to play together, but it’s just a matter of executing it. Live there’ll be a loop for a high hat rhythm and maybe a kick drum and a melody and a vocal. At any time, there are probably three to 10 loops going, and it’s me mixing and mashing and flowing. The main thing is the vocals and the music but there are always these kinds of subtle elements and transitions that are always going.

Sometimes at the club show it’s so hectic I’ll forget I’ve been playing the same handclap for the last 10 minutes, whereas at the festival it’s easier for me to pay attention. I write the songs before hand and try to get through them. I don’t want it to be an exercise in improvisation or anything like that. I want to play these arrangements I came up with. Even at that, most of it goes into putting it together and then actually performing it isn’t necessarily difficult if you spent the time to memorize it and be familiar with what you’re doing.

Eric: How many samples do you think you have on your computer?

Gregg: I don’t know, I checked recently, but I really can’t remember. It’s funny, because there is a cutoff point. I’ll do stuff in my house, and some amount of that, maybe a quarter of that, will make it to my live show…actually more like an eighth of the samples will make it to the live show, and maybe a quarter of that makes it onto an album. I sample a lot more stuff that never sees the light of day. It’s endless. For example, whenever I sample a piano melody, I cut up half of it, chop it, so even if there’s one part you are hearing, there are probably about 10 other variations of that on the computer. I really couldn’t say how many individual loops I have though off the top of my head.

Eric: Do you consider yourself making an album when you are onstage?

Gregg: No, it’s a lot looser, pretty free-form. A lot of that stuff goes onto the album, a lot of the core ideas, but I’m open to experimenting. If I play something tonight, and maybe something that’s off-key but I like the way it sounds, and if I’d want to see how people would react to it, I’ll do it. If it fails, or if I don’t like the way it sounds, I don’t have to do it again. There’s not as much pressure, but with the album I labor over every individual second. I’m more open to experimentation, I change my set up every weekend or so with the live shows. Just little bits, like a minute each weekend, if that. Then, if you change a minute each weekend and you play every single weekend, after three months you have a new ten minute segment of your set. And I never really play over an hour, because I like to keep it like a band, so if you change a minute each week it amounts to significant stuff over time.

Eric: Would you even consider yourself a DJ then? Because, a DJ would be playing in a club for three or four hours…

Gregg: I’ve never considered myself a DJ; I’ve always considered it producing with samples. Most of my people I look up to as contemporaries or people I have been influenced by are people who work with samples that aren’t necessarily referred to as “DJ’s.” People like John Oswald in the 60s and newer guys like Kid 606 who was my main influence getting into this stuff. These guys who all work with samples were all considered producers, with electronic shows. Right now, it’s at the most successful point and using the most blatant samples.

I’ve been at this for eight years, so it’s gone through transitions from there. I feel like I’m using the same exact applications I used to use whenever I started, but back then no one called it DJing. They used to say that this guy is performing his music, and it happens to be sample-based on a computer. And along with that, I can’t just play a song. The goal on the albums is to make music that’s mine. I want people to come to my shows and request Girl Talk songs as opposed to “play Justin Timberlake.” That’s the goal; I want to make my own musical identity out of component parts that have already existed before.

Eric: Do you consider yourself jamming onstage then?

Gregg: Yeah, definitely to a degree. As far as the structure of it, that is completely applicable. I have a structure that I want to get through, and there are a bunch of variables. I can go a bunch of different paths with it, but the general structure remains there. I have songs I work around, but how I work with it changes every night. Occasionally I will be very busy for a couple weeks and play the same material, but if you listen to every show, it will be different. I think that’s definitely relatable to a lot of the bands playing here, or how I imagine I play.

Eric: It kind of makes it less strange to see you on the bill when you say you change it up every night.

Gregg: Yeah, I think I’m still strange on this bill, but I’m really into it. I’m happy they included me; I like to be an outcast if possible. I’d hate to come to a festival where there are 80 guys playing laptops and doing remixes. I can’t even justify why they have me here though, I don’t know why.

Eric: is there an element of punk to what you do?

Gregg: I think so. I never really got into it hard. I mean, I like The Ramones as music but I never got into having a Mohawk or leather patches or anything. But, when I was in high school I got really into noise and completely abrasive avant-garde stuff. The reason I got into that was that it was the most “fuck everything,” and to me that was punk. These guys aren’t just playing their guitars shitty, they’re not playing guitars; they’re smashing them. This is as raw as you can get, you don’t even need any musical training at all. Artists like Merzbow from Japan and Cocky SP, a band from the Midwest. My favorite right now is Wolf Eyes, which is a popular one these days.

It’s a lot more acceptable now to show up at a rock club and do remixes of pop music. Everything has crossed over, it’s okay to be into Madonna or Justin Timberlake these days and be in underground music. But when I started in 2000, when I was playing shows, it really wasn’t like that. I would go around and open for a band and play in a bar, and go up and do Hall & Oates remixes, everyone thinks you are treading. It was like us versus them, the pop underground.

Eric: So being postmodern wasn’t cool?

Gregg: Yeah, and that to me was punk. You guys are up there rehashing ideas from the past, and you aren’t doing anything progressive. In my mind, I am the one challenging the way we are thinking here a little bit. Maybe not that much, but more so than you guys playing your guitars and sounding like the Pixies again. I was very punky in the early days, and I think I have that in some of my roots that I am very open to fucking with the crowd. I try to make this as accessible and digestible as possible, but I am open to pushing the boundaries if it’s not going the way I want it to go.

Eric: So you would be okay with that?

Gregg: I’ve been there a lot. Especially in the early days, there were a lot of crazy shows. I’ve been kicked off stage multiple times. The band I was in in high school was all about pissing off people and seeing how far we can push them, and I think when I started Girl Talk, it was specifically about doing the opposite, saying, “Okay, how far can we please the crowd?” That was more significant as an underground thing, like if you are playing a basement show and 10 people show up, it’s crazier to see how over the top we can make this show. That’s more of the roots of it, and that’s where I’m at now. I’m still like that, and I still want to make stuff that people enjoy. I don’t want to be pretentious and a dickhead, but I still have the roots of, if a show gets shut down prematurely, or everyone hates it, I am completely open to that at least.

Eric: When is the new album coming out?

Gregg: It will be done within two weeks. It will be online then too in two weeks, on Illegal Art. Then, in a couple months, it will be physical, but the moment I finish it, I’m getting it mastered and then it will be available online.

Eric: Sticking around, what are you excited to see this weekend?

Gregg: I’m pumped for the Flaming Lips, who I haven’t seen since eighth grade. It was amazing then, and it was very different from what they are doing now.

I am also very excited to see some of these jam bands who I have never heard that many of before. I always feel like if you don’t necessarily like something on the surface it’s probably because you don’t get it. I don’t believe in good taste versus bad taste or critical acclaim overriding anything. I think that’s all bullshit. I’m not saying any of these bands are or aren’t critically acclaimed, but I’m saying that I’m not that familiar with these bands. I know they’re huge and popular and have their fan bases, so I want to dive in and understand as much as I can and what’s going down and how I can get into this.

Eric: What’s on your iPod lately?

Gregg: My parents got me an iPod for Christmas, but I don’t use it. They put all my dad’s music on it, and I got into that, but this week I bought five new CDs this week, which is big for me, since I don’t buy that many CDs in a week. I’ve always liked The Beatles, but I’ve never actually owned any of their stuff. They are like my favorite band I’ve never dived into, so I bought the 1 album because I was in a Wal-Mart at 2 a.m. and decided I really wanted to hear all these songs. I bought the 8-Ball and MJG greatest hits album, which was amazing. I bought the new Stephen Malkmus album (Real Emotional Trash), just because I may be in a video for an upcoming song off of it, and I heard the song. I was just in a house and they were just filming the video in Portland, and I love the song, so I bought the album but I haven’t heard it yet, but I’m excited to check that out. I also got the new Mariah Carey CD (E=MC2), which I think is amazing. I think she’s respected, but people take her for granted right now, but I think she’s going to be one of the legendary artists of our time. She just tied Elvis for her number of number one hits, she’s making history, and it’s an impeccable career. Also, I got a Sam Cooke album I’ve never heard before that I’ve been getting into. I like Sam Cooke a lot.

11:29 am — 

After their stellar Friday performance, I was able to talk to a few members of the Chicago Afrobeat Project, and find out a little more about how the band came about. I spoke with guitarist David Glines, keyboardist Kevin Ford and baritone saxophone player Garrick Smith

Eric: How did the band arrive at an Afrobeat sound coming from Chicago?

David: I would say we all came to Chicago first, and everybody in the band fell in love with Afrobeat independently. The first time I heard Fela (Kuti) changed my whole perception of music, and I knew instantly that’s what I wanted to play. I had come from a rock background, and for me it was a lot of the elements of rock and funk and jazz all mixed together. The drummer and I had played in a group together prior to this one, and when that group ended, we said we would do our own version of Afrobeat, which is why we have “project” in it, to show it’s not just straight Afrobeat. We do have our own twist in the music.

When we did that, we found Kevin, the keyboard player, and the original bass player at the time was one of Fela’s old bass players. We had the four of us and then we brought in a horn player and that guy brought in a couple people. The next thing you know, we had 7 solid members and we have had a lot of people coming in and out. I think some of the players in the band were turned on to Afrobeat as a result of this band, so they heard us and joined the band and listened to all of Fela records and the late 60s/early 70’s Nigerian Lagos scene.

Garrick: Chicago’s got a diverse amount of people. If you get up north, there is a very big African community; there are a lot of Ethiopians, a lot of diversity there that you may not realize. It’s an amalgamation of a bunch of the stuff there, the stuff we were starting to check out. I was into a lot of Brazilian stuff, and a couple friends of mine turned me on to African music, and Afrobeat was the natural thing, so we started mixing it with Chicago house music and stuff like that. There’s a lot going down there, but it’s a good city, with a lot of people to play for and a large amount of African people there.

I had been into more Brazilian and salsa and Latino stuff, and a cat was telling me to check this stuff out, and I listened to Fela. I wish I could say I have been into it since I was a kid, but I got into it a little bit before I joined the band.

Eric: How hard is it to go from Latin or salsa to Afrobeat?

Garrick: There’s a lot of stuff that goes between them. A lot of those rhythms made around, but they changed slightly. So it’s different, but African music that has a swing but not the way we think jazz has it. It reverses it a bit, and takes a little while to wrap around it, because it’s not your native music, so to speak. It’s all about feel.

Eric: How hard is it to get noticed in Chicago with your style?

David: I would say that not being known for Afrobeat in Chicago has given us a greater chance of getting known. People would see the name and want to check out the group. Even though there’s not a big Afrobeat scene in Chicago to begin, we’re kind of hoping we started something and bring attention to the genre.

Garrick: It’s kind of here or there. If you can make people dance in Chicago, you’re all good. That’s the big thing, people like to dance in Chicago, it was the birthplace of house music, and people like to get out and make it happen. The most skepticism we have gotten is admittedly white journalists that get on our case about playing African music. They ask why we are doing it. We’ve had people insinuate that we are not allowed to. We have a pretty big African fan base in Chicago and as we travel we meet other Africans that dig what the band does. If somebody that came from there digs what we do, that’s more important than if five hipsters dig it or not.

Eric: Do you guys enjoy playing festivals?

Kevin: People tend to be fully submerged in the music scene when they are at a festival. They’re not just out at a bar, or working the next day. It’s a little more intense than your typical shows

Mike: Playing outside is a blast anywhere, and with the fact that everyone is here to see music and hang out is nice. You’re not competing with the TVs in the bar. It’s also a great chance to see other bands we hear about. We can talk to people, and see friends of ours we don’t normally see because we are on the road.

Garrick: Hanging with all the different musicians, and getting to talk with everybody. We’re all on the road, so we like these things where we get to relax and hang for a couple days.

Eric: Do you guys play with loose song structures or very orchestrated?

David: It’s orchestrated. The room for improvisation is in the soloists, and the energy of one song from night to night can have different energy to it, and based upon tempo, but the arrangements are not something we stray from.

Garrick: It’s oddly enough a bit of both. Because the group is so big, there has to be some moments where it’s very set. Then there are other times where we leave it very open-ended and loose. We try to add new tunes and change our set up to keep it interesting. With a big group it has to be slightly orchestrated, but we know each other well enough that onstage there is a level of openness.

Eric: What have you been listening to lately?

David: Vieux Farka Toure is my favorite African artist right now. He’s from Mali and the son of Ali Farka Toure.

Kevin: There are bands that have an Afrobeat influence to them like Budos Band, who we played a show with in New York not too long ago. There’s a band called Poets of Rhythm out of Germany that kind of has an Afrobeat influence to them. Some of the other soul-jazz stuff like Sugarman 3 too. Others like that too, stuff that runs the gamut. A lot of it has that 70’s vibe to it.

Mike: I think all of us like that vibe, with the late 60’s/early 70’s music. That’s my favorite Fela period, that and his really late stuff.
Garrick: I still get into a lot of Brazilian stuff. Seyu, Suba, Zuko 103. Also, anything by Fela. I’ve been listening to a lot of 80’s Fela. He had a bigger band and more money at that point, but well after Tony Allen had left the band. Budos Band out of Brooklyn, they are one of my favorite groups right now. Also, anything on that Daptones label. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Sugarman 3, all that kind of stuff.

11:26 am — 

By the graces of Warner Brothers Records and the Flaming Lips, I was able to sit down interview the bass player for the Flaming Lips, Michael Ivins. Their show was tonight as well, and the review and debacle will be posted soon. For now, here is the interview:

Eric: How did the Flaming Lips get to be a festival band?

Michael: I think with a lot of things we do, it comes out of dumb luck. [Pause] Ummm…not that you have prepared answers, but it’s sometimes things you think about a lot, so you can rattle them off, but I don’t think I’ve thought about it. We do it so much, and I think “Sure, we’re doing this thing” but I remember when we first started doing these sorts of festivals, it was purely just, for lack of a better word, “jam band” festivals. I’m not sure if right around that time it seemed like it was, not changing, but rather diversifying. People asked “why are you doing these festivals?” and I would always bring up Europe of having this long tradition and of having these sorts of festivals. I think in its first incarnation, with the first three or four Lollapaloozas, they tried to take that idea of Glastonbury or Reading from Europe and do it here and have it travel around because the states are so big. I think that’s what put people off for a long time. Not that there haven’t been festivals, but you can’t see me doing air quotes on the tape machine, but this idea that it’s becoming a sort of a tradition, especially Bonnaroo and Coachella and Lollapalooza having it not tour the country. It’s a huge three day event, with a million people showing up for three days or whatever the outrageous number of people that show up is.

I think it was at a Bonnaroo that we played and for some reason, people just liked it. It wasn’t like we changed anything or did anything different, but I think as far as fitting into a jam…well I don’t know how to say it because I really haven’t thought about it. I don’t want to be disparaging to people who like jam bands, and again I put that in air quotes, because even meeting some bands like Midlake would do a lot of the festival circuit. But there seems to be some sort of split in the jam band community. Some would be going for sort of the Grateful Dead or Phish route, and some were going for more of the Pink Floyd. Nothing wrong with either one of them, but it seems like even inside the whole community, for lack of a better word, it was starting to diversify, just as all music was starting to diversify.

What we found at festivals like Bonnaroo and Coachella was this diversity of music, where you could see Gov’t Mule to George Clinton to go to Disco Biscuits to Flaming Lips to whoever else is there. It’s just a wide range of music, and that seemed to be, as opposed to the Warped Tour where it’s just one genre of music. There’s nothing wrong with that either, but that diversity is what we’ve always liked. Here, it ends up being like The Beatles’ White Album as an actual festival, where you get all sorts of stuff. And if you don’t like one thing, you can go across the field and check something else out and get turned on to something that you wouldn’t have in the first place. I think that in some ways that happened to us at Bonnaroo. I think some people who didn’t know who we were or what to think came and saw our show. I think the way our show has evolved sort of lends itself to this setting.

I think it’s cool that America has the beginnings of a tradition. There are people who went to Reading in the 60s and now they take their kids as a shared experience. They are 50 with their 20 year olds, or even younger. It’s one of the best shared experiences you have, whether it’s family or friends or your made-up family to come and do something like this. Especially this one, all the tents are right here. A lot of the festivals have the campground to the side and you come to the festival, but this is cool. You just are walking right through stuff.

Eric: Well, with knowing that, what’s different about playing a festival than, say, a show at a theatre in Chicago?

Michael: I think it’s different. I don’t think one’s better, but we just like playing in front of people. That’s our thing, otherwise we wouldn’t be out. It just depends; there are some things you can do. We always try to squish a much bigger show into a container, but there is something crazy about being outside. There is the potential for the crowd to be an unlimited amount of people, and once you’re in here, you’re outside. That has, for the audience, a bit of freedom, especially when you are camping. When the show’s over, you can just roll into bed, as opposed to the Aragon where you have to make the trek home. It’s different. Also, they sound different, so there are different aspects to that.

For our show, I don’t think we try not to let that limit us. We’ve walked into places where we ask ourselves how we are going to fit this in here, and we sort of cram it all in and can still have fun with the confetti and balloons. I think we are always seeing how far we can go, whether it’s outside or inside. Obviously, there are differences, like you aren’t going to get wet at the Aragon, and it was pouring down rain earlier this morning, but I have a feeling that once we get to play, the clouds may even part. It always happens when we play. We have had it to where it’s time for us to play and the rain stops, and the second we play the last note, it starts raining.

Eric: Does that make you think?

Michael: Not really, it’s just a coincidence, but it’s kind of crazy. Also, this is the first show we have played since New Year’s. We have also been finishing up the Christmas on Mars movie, which we are going to premiere at Sasquatch. We are going to build our own tent, and we have a 5.1 sound system. We spent quite a bit of time working on that during the first part of this year.

Eric: What’s the mentality behind the band setting up your own equipment?

Michael: It is our way. I know, and I don’t have anything against it, because I know people are going to do what they want and I am not saying our way is better or worse, but we are used to doing it, from the old days, where you roll in and set up your gear. I think some of it has a weird specialized thing about it, especially with the sound. We know what’s going on, so why wouldn’t we set it up? We’ve always liked being part of the ambience. We roll in here at 8 in the morning, and why would we just stay on the bus or roll into Peoria? You’re out here, we can go out and take a walk and see what’s going on. Just to be connected in that way, instead of playing for an hour and a half and show up 20 minutes beforehand and then leave. Is that fun?

Eric: But some have the mentality that people get into music just to not get a full-time job. With the way you guys work, it is a full-time job.

Michael: Well, whether you are a journalist or whatever, it’s work. We happen to have jobs we really like, and I think that’s more of the point. If you get a job in accounting, and you like it, you win, because a lot of people don’t get to do what we like, and we like what we do. Everything about it, and it’s just not playing, you find out that playing is that much, and I am holding my fingers very close together. All this stuff, the setup, that’s all part of it. We come out here, and it’s not to have a good time playing with each other. It’s cool, we do, but that’s not why we’re here. We are here to put on a show for an audience. There is so much stuff vying for your attention. You can go see a band, buy an Xbox, go see a movie, or stay home and surf the internet.

There is so much to do these days, and that’s why we spend a lot of time before we go out on the road. It’s not just rehearsing, because we don’t want to get up here and find out a guitar falls apart, or an amp falls apart or the video screen doesn’t work. It’s not that we’re control freaks, but the more you can contain and oversee at the very least, the more you know it works, it’s probably going to work, and if something doesn’t work , you can know that you did everything possible, instead of turning around and putting your hands on your hips and say “Hey, put me down.”

Eric: Election in ’08, what can the Flaming Lips do as a band, if anything?

Michael: I think in a lot of ways, we are preaching to the converted. I think the people that come see different bands are interested in different cultures, kinds of food and lifestyles, people that are young or keep an open mind. I think there’s a contingency of the free thinkers, air quotes again, who don’t vote. That’s a problem. Go and vote, even if it’s just in the presidential election, be a part of what’s going on. I think after a while it becomes that we are just people. I know what I’m doing and I know the choices I’m making, because I am curious. That actually, if somebody is reading this, just be curious, go on the internet and get information on stuff. I happen to be a big fan of the internet. I’ll think of a question, and I can get the answer right now.

What I’m starting to see a little bit, and I know younger kids who might not have families or be thinking of children, but me and my wife are taking a big role in raising our niece. She’s just finished preschool and my wife volunteered helping out at the preschool and stuff. Big forest vision is great and looking at the presidential election is great, but there are a lot of things in your own neighborhood. What are your schools doing? That is just as big of a deal as getting out of Iraq. Instead of rebuilding our country, we should be fixing our country. From what I can tell, there seems to be a systematic gutting of the public school system, pushing it to home schooling or private schooling or religious schooling. I happen to be a big proponent of the public school system. There’s the whole idea that teachers don’t get paid enough, and if you look at it one way if that’s a problem you get another job. But you find out a lot of these people are teachers because they love it.

I don’t know what we as a band can do. Wayne can present our case, which we are all basically on the same page, just sometimes it gets a little silly with four guys onstage yelling and screaming. I think it comes down to avenues like this. I think a lot of people do know. I think either way it’s fine. There are aspects of Hilary Clinton I like, and there’s a lot to Obama I really like. I’d be fine with either one, but there’s the element of the dynasty aspect of Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton happening that maybe with Obama that may be good to have a fresh start. But people shouldn’t vote to think they will get a Democrat in or whatever and think that gas prices will go down or the war is going to end anytime soon.

That’s why, and I know Wayne onstage and in interviews makes a big point of it being all about you with a capital “Y” and the people around you. I think if people can start thinking more locally, and thinking about things, where you shop in stores with local produce or farmer’s market. I think naysayers who say ‘oh, changing light bulbs doesn’t do anything’, but I think even doing something like that is on the path of thinking about what you’re doing, and I think if you at least can be thinking all the time about what you’re doing. Live in the moment, and I think if people are doing that, it makes people nicer. If you think about what you’re doing, then you know and other people know if you are nice or if you are an asshole. If you think about what you’re doing, and you go ahead and do things that, say, Dick Cheney do, that’s just an evil man, but everyone knows where he stands. Think about what you’re doing, because there’s nothing worse than someone who’s evil by accident. That’s the worst thing.

Eric: Have you been listening to any new music?

Michael: You know, it’s been a little bit of a genre change, especially since our niece is old enough to go places. We started off around Christmas, and ballet is a new format. This year, I happened to be home for the Cincinnati ballet season and saw five ballets and really enjoyed them. I got to see a live orchestra play most of the music each time. I actually have an appreciation. Our niece loves The Nutcracker, so we have the CD in the car and I know it by heart now. A lot of the music is really great, and that kind of spurred us to listen to more classical music around the house as well.

I don’t dig as deep either. I go through phases since I’ve become a fan of music. There’s catching up, and there’s the new stuff, and there’s the dry area, and then you dig back further or find other stuff. I think I’ve been watching of TV shows and movies.

Eric: What’s your favorite TV show?

Michael: My favorite is Battlestar Galactica. I’m a big sci-fi fan. And, just speaking of the whole everything vying for your attention, the guy we do our records with, Dave Fridmann, he’s a big videogame fan, he loves playing them. I sort of play in the studio, and he’s got every of them at the house and three in the studio. Now it’s all gone online, and Call of Duty came out. I would play in the studio and think I should just get one of those, so I’ve been playing a lot lately. I’m not great, but I know a lot of people like to play video games. That’s what I’ve been doing a lot of.

1:39 am — 

I was able to talk to Erin Fein, keyboardist and vocalist for the band Headlights, prior to leaving for Summer Camp. Here is what transpired:

-Eric: One of the first things I saw on the Summer Camp bill is all the jam bands. Do you feel Headlights is going to be unique on the bill?

-Erin: Well, I guess we won’t know for sure until we get there. I know that Summer Camp tends to have a lot of jam band-type stuff. But I think they are expanding their roster of bands to open it up for some indie rock. I think we will probably stick out a little bit, but hopefully that will be a good thing.

-Eric: Compared to the first album (Kill Them with Kindness), the second album (Some Racing, Some Stopping) doesn’t have that same propulsive energy. How do you think the new album will translate live in a big venue, such as Summer Camp?

-Erin: Well, I think that our live show is a little bit different than the way we recorded it, so there’s a lot of energy in the set, even though it’s a more mellow record overall. I think we will be fine.

-Eric: What have you done to have more energy on stage? Any more instrumentation

-Erin: We have two new members in the band now. We have a second guitar player who also does extra percussion, and all sorts of crazy noise stuff with pedals. We also have a bass player who also does really interesting things with pedals and also has another keyboard. It has really opened up our sound. So even though I think our second record is a little more subtle in the way we produced it, there is a lot going on. When you bring it into the live setting, it can be pretty interesting.

-Eric: How do the songs change live?

-Erin: I think it’s all about who’s playing what. The energy that comes from a live show kind of naturally gives the songs more beef. We allow ourselves to work from the new recordings and create new parts. The songs are not exactly the same when we play them live. It is something you’ll have to hear. It’s hard to describe. There is more going on instrumentally and I think our drummer is playing a lot of the cues with a little more “oomph”

-Eric: One of the things I have read is that you recorded this last album in a farmhouse. Did that make it more of a subtle record? How did that influence the recording?

-Erin: I think that definitely influenced the recording. I guess I can’t speak for the entire band, but every time we come to the recording studio, in some way it is a reaction to the last thing we did. When we came off of Kill Them with Kindness, we had to record the record really fast, and it was a pretty sterile studio environment. We’re pleased with that record, but we felt like we wanted some more space, some room to breathe. I think we brought that idea to the second record, and being out in the farmhouse surrounded by corn and soybeans with lazy summer days just brought this mellow vibe to the whole thing.

-Eric: When I think of recording in a farmhouse, I think of a more organic sounding thing, a raw vibe. That’s not something I heard with Some Racing, Some Stopping. I was wondering if that is just a different way to approach it, or how does that work?

-Erin: I think that’s just what we were looking for. You want to move and change as you go, and I think we’re definitely the kind of band that is interested in each of our records having a distinctly different sound, as well as some sort of a thread that remains throughout everything that we do. So I think that if you hear our old tunes and new tunes, there is still an indie pop/indie rock vibe that is laced throughout the whole thing, whatever that means, but I think come together with a batch of songs, I think there is a flavor that winds up going over everything you’re doing. That’s what makes an album sound like an album.

-Eric: I can hear a lot of sublety on the new record. Was any of this made for vinyl, on a good stereo, to hear a lot more than you would hear on an mp3 or a CD?

-Erin: Absolutely. I would think that most musicians are going to hope that people are listening to their music on something other than their computer speaker. When you put the headphones on or listen to it on something where you can hear the moments, you are going to get a lot more out of Some Racing, Some Stopping than you would if you were listening to it on your computer speaker. Even if our record is produced in a hi-fi way, you are still missing a huge amount when you listen through a computer. I would recommend everyone shut down the iTunes and put on the headphones.

-Eric: Was that something you and the band were conscious about?

-Erin: I know we definitely enjoy the headphones-record element to what we were doing. We didn’t sit down and say “Hey, let’s make this not easy to listen to through computer speakers.” because some people listen to the songs on the computer. We don’t want it to sound like shit. Still, it’s not the kind of record you are going to be putting on at a party. It’s the kind of record you are hopefully going to sit down and pay attention to. In that way, I think that was conscious, it was something that you would have to spend some time with.

-Eric: On your website, looking at your touring schedule, it’s just a non-stop thing. With the amount of shows you are playing, at what point can you say “Okay, that’s enough.”?

-Erin: We do like to tour a lot. Still, I think after the Mates of State tour we have lined up, we got invited to play at the Sled Island Festival in Calgery (Alberta, Canada). I think we’re touring now until July 4. We have 35 shows right now. For us, the way we look at it is that when we put out a record, the only way to really get it out to people at the level we are at is to go out on tour and play for real people and take our music around with us. I think we’re due for a break in July. It’s hard though. We’re crazy for touring, and it may end up killing us someday, and I hope not. We love to tour, even for opening for other bands. The Mates of State tour is something we’re really thrilled about. It’s a band we like a lot and they are doing well. It’s good exposure for us. At this point, I think we are going to be looking at package touring with bigger bands. We’ve spent so much time touring with ourselves or with smaller bands. But it’s not exactly an easy thing to come by, there are a ton of good bands out there. Our plans usually come one step at a time, with the understanding that we are all dedicated to touring as much as we think is necessary.

-Eric: But with those package tours, how easy is it to play a show like that if the audience isn’t necessarily coming to see Headlights? Would that be more of a challenge? How does the band approach that?

-Erin: It’s definitely more of a challenge, because when you’re an opening band, the majority of the people are going to come see the headlining act. You do have this sort of challenge to try to win over the crowd every night, which can be really stressful. I think that it can sometimes end badly for bands if they are opening. Sometimes you get packaged with a band where their audience just doesn’t understand you. That can be frustrating. The hope though, is that that when a smart package gets put together, the crowd that comes will be open-minded to what you’re doing, and then of course that helps by giving you exposure to people that have never heard you before. I think we are definitely at the place where some exposure to another band’s fans will be really helpful to us.

-Eric: On a day though, where the audience is unresponsive, how hard is it for the band to go out there and put on a smile?

-Erin: It’s difficult. It’s really difficult. At this point, I think we can read a room, so you usually know what you’re in for. The crowd sends off some pretty strong signals about whether or not they are excited about something. Still, sometimes you can change that. Performing live is a strange beast. You can have some of the highest moments while also experiencing some pretty incredible lows because you are exposed. So if people don’t like what you’re doing, you can feel it.

-Eric: What are some of the coolest places you have been to?

-Erin: On this last tour, we got to go into Canada for the first time as Headlights. We played in Toronto, which I think is a very exceptional city. We got to see Niagra Falls, which was pretty awesome. Coming up, we are going to Montreal, which I have never been to, so I’m excited about that. Still, I have toured the country so many times now that it’s strange, but the whole country is starting to become familiar to me. I love San Francisco, I like Austin, I like Missoula. It’s a great little college town. I’m very partial to the Northwest too. I like Portland (Oregon), and I think the backdrop is so different than what I am used to in the midwest. It’s exciting to be here. I like the East Coast too. Playing in New York is always exciting because it’s a huge city, like being in a maze. It’s different than Champaign, Illinois.

-Eric: Have you met any cool musicians, celebrities on tour?

-Erin: We once played in Norfolk, VA, with a band called The Silent Years, that I think are doing some really cool things. Also, I got to meet Michael Stipe (of R.E.M.) briefly at South by Southwest. I was hanging out, getting a drink at one of the showcases, and he was just sitting there. That was exciting. I love R.E.M., I have a lot of respect for them as a band, and that they are still going. Michael Stipe is somebody I respect politically as well. Still, I think when you tour with a band, you get really attached to them. I know I’m supposed to be thinking outside of that, but Page France and The Evangelicals are two bands that I just really admire. I also remember playing a few shows with a band called Viva Voce. I thought they were doing some cool stuff. We all love the band Mazerati, from Athens, Georgia. They are doing some cool things.

-Eric: You are known as a Champaign band, like Bright Eyes is known as being from Omaha (Nebraska), Wilco from Chicago, and The Decemberists and just about every other indie band from the planet is from Portland. Is it okay to be known as a Champaign band?

-Erin: We are very proud of being from here. I was born in Champaign, and I grew up in Urbana. I have nothing but pride for being from this town. I went to the U of I too, so I kind of have the full circle experience. We tell everybody we’re from Champaign. We’re not one of those tricky bands that live around Chicago that tell everybody we’re from there even though we’re not. The music scene is small, because it’s not that big of a town, but I think there are some really cool bands and really nice people working hard and doing things here. I guess there is an advantage for being in a bigger city that when you start getting attention, you probably can capitalize on that a little more. Magazines and news media kind of search for scenes of interest, like Omaha, New York, Toronto, but I think Champaign has a little spotlight on it. I think we are bringing some attention to Champaign in a cool way. I am certainly very proud to be from around here.

-Eric: What are you listening to on your iPod?

-Erin: Well, I actually don’t own an iPod, because I can’t afford to buy one. I’m not anti-iPod, but I don’t have one. I do classically listen to vinyl records. I got a best-of Emmylou Harris vinyl recently that I’ve been listening to a lot. Tristan and I have both been listening to the new Aloha EP (Light Works) from last fall. I really like those guys. I also liked the Panda Bear record (Person Pitch) a lot. I am a huge fan of The Beach Boys, and he definitely did some new take on that California vibe. My taste is very eclectic, it goes all over the map.

Headlights will be playing at Summer Camp at 11 a.m. Friday. If you leave now…you may just get there in time.