M: Thank you for taking the time to work with me on this. Based on your touring schedule I can’t figure out when you even have time to sleep! Will you have time to finally go home to Brooklyn, New York for a break following your May Washington D.C. date?
B: We sort of don’t have time to sleep! We all actually just woke up from a long nap, since our show in LA tonight (as the house band for hipster comedy night “The Tomorrow Show�") doesn’t start until midnight, and could conceivably go on until 3 or so. Sleep is a pretty hot commodity these days.
We’ll be home in Brooklyn mid-April, and then will be busy finishing up our new album (due in September on NYC’s Hugpatch Records) until the first week of May, at which point we plan on just spending a week or two doing all the normal stuff we’ve missed on tour – watching the news, eating vegetables…
M: How long have you been together? How did you all come together? Your sound is very natural and that makes it sound like you have been making music together for a long while.
B: We’ve been together – in a few different incarnations – for about 4 years. The band essentially started when a friend of ours (original Besties guitarist Mike Singer) gave us a huge Hammond organ that he didn’t have room to keep. Marisa and Kelly were living in a huge industrial loft in Brooklyn and had room to spare, so the original Besties songs were written on this gigantic, antiquated instrument. Mike moved to LA a year or so later, at which point Rikky joined the band. We originally used a drum machine – Frank joined the band a few years ago on drums. Frank joining the band was a real turning point – not only did it change our sound a lot, but it also marks the time when we decided to take the band a little more seriously.
Band aside, Marisa and Kelly have been friends for 20 years – maybe the ‘natural’ element has to do with how (possibly creepily?) close the two of them are.
M: You just finished playing various venues at Austin Texas’ South by Southwest (SXSW) festival. How many years have you played there? In your opinion, is the festival still as important to your success as it once was? Is it easy to get lost in the midst of the hundreds if not thousands of performers that play the event annually? Did this year’s event garner you any unexpected results whether welcome or unwelcome?
B: This was actually our first year playing SXSW. This time around we had basically nothing at stake – our stop in Austin had more to do with it being a logical stop on our already-scheduled tour. I’m not sure how important the festival is to success – I think we’ll have a better idea when (if?) we play next year, when we’ll have a new record out. I definitely feel that it’s easy to be lost amongst the thousands of performers – personally, we found it hard to focus on seeing any particular bands. There’s just too much going on.
SXSW for us was much more about seeing friends and having fun – which we did. Success!
M: You count Green Day, Archers of Loaf, The Clash, Elvis Costello, R.E.M, The Replacements, Split Enz, and Rancid (I love Ruby Soho by Rancid) among your influences. That is a pretty diverse crowd. How important is it that you listen to other music for inspiration? It is a real possibility (if it has not happened already) that The Besties will be listed as an influence of another band. How does that feel?
B: It’s so funny that you mention Ruby Soho – our cover of that song was one of the very first Besties songs to be played live. I think there’s no doubt that we come from a really wide range of influences, and (hopefully) that’s reflected in our sound – though we rarely set out to write a song that sounds like anything in particular. Marisa tends to bring a really pop-punk element to the band, while Kelly is more influenced by 60’s pop music and Rikky tends to draw from country and southern rock. Collaboration is such an amazing thing, and it’s amazing that, as a band, we’re constantly surprising each other.
Thinking of our band as an influence on anyone else is, at this point, sort of a hard concept to grasp. Next question!
M: In all of the places that you have played, do you have a favorite? Where have you received your best reception? Have you been able to tour outside of the states? Is there one place that you are most excited to play?
B: We have lots of favorites – Portland, ME, Burlington, VT, Jacksonville, FL. It’s interesting this time because we’ve never played out west before, so we really feel like we’re in uncharted territory. We had an unexpectedly great show in San Diego last night.
We toured outside of the states last summer, playing in Sweden, the UK and Iceland (!). It was – as you can imagine – INCREDIBLE. The best experience ever. We can’t wait to go back. We’re most excited this time to play in Spearfish, South Dakota!
B: What influences the songs that you write? I personally really enjoy the song, 'Rod ‘N Reel' How did that song for instance, come about?
M: A lot of our songs – including ‘Rod n’ Reel’ – are very influenced by place. ‘Rod n’ Reel’ is about the island where Marisa and Kelly grew up (Anna Maria Island, FL), ’79 Lorimer’ is about our loft in Brooklyn, ‘Bone Valley Deposit’ has to do with the part of Florida where Marisa’s dad grew up. The songs that we’re writing now have a lot to do with places and relationships… They’re all pretty literal.
M: Has there been a point where you wanted to just give it all up? So many bands tell me about the long battles that tend to be discouraging, but they usually end up laughing about it and telling me that they won’t ever quit. I love that dedication. That is rare nowadays.
B: I think a huge part of that has to do with the way in which you think about your band. We don’t really have any illusions of being huge rock stars, which takes off a lot of pressure. We’re really only focused on writing good songs and having fun, which makes it really hard to get discouraged.
M: I like to ask established acts to offer advice to the kids that are cruising Guitar Center stores (like my daughter) all over the nation and trying to find themselves. What would you tell these up and comers about the business of making music? What decisions should be made before they jump right in with both feet (and Daddy’s check book)?
B: First of all, don’t go to Guitar Center! Shop at your local music store! One of our biggest philosophies about being in a band is that playing music is for everyone – not just trained musicians. None of us are truly incredible at our instruments, but – really – it doesn’t matter. Buy a cheap guitar, learn E minor right away… there’s nothing wrong with jumping in with both feet!
M: I am looking forward to meeting you all on Sunday night here in Modesto. I hope that you get a solid crowd. Hero's has become a great venue for live music (and a place to get a killer pizza) and Claude of Pop Song Romance is rapidly becoming one of the more respected promoters in this area. You should have some fun here!
This is an all ages show.
-Mojo