Rustic chat 7/24 4:30-5:00 PM

[patpatriot]

I just saw this in my bullmoose newsletter:

"Chat with members of Rustic Overtones, As Fast As, and Paranoid Social Club on the Bull Moose Facebook group. www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=19478863743
4:30 - 5:00pm Thursday 7/24."

[Jeff]

Bummer, I won't be able to get on then. I did post a few questions though, basically the same ones I had on the myspace dvd blog where they asked for our questions..

[bullmoose]

Just to let folks know, if that time doesn't work out for you, you can log in later to see the answers.

Hope to see the rest of you there!

[josephkmurphy]

That was fun, lutsa fun indeeds.

JKM

[Darek]

Definitely a fun read. Good work to everyone who was able to participate and big props to the folks who set it up.

[jeff]

For those of us who have no interest in signing up for a facebook account, was there anything interesting said?

[Darek]

I'll paste in some of the answers real quick, most of them should make sense even without the questions. Dave and Jon logged in from Dave's account and Spence and Zach from Spencer's. If I miss something important somebody fill in the holes.

1) our style is as eclectic as the tastes of the musicians that form the group. i like to call our music rock, much in the same way bands like the beatles and the police crossed genres but were still considered "rock."

2) between AFA and RO i've played both large and small venues and there's a thrill in both for sure. larger aspirations? who knows, just want to make music and play it for whatever size audience wants to enjoy it.

3) i have no desire to work with a record company in today's climate. not unless we were offered a revolutionary deal where the labels took their role as distributors and simply left the creative aspects to the artists.
-spencer


It is no more or less annoying for us to have you request our older material than it is for you to have us not play it. Seriously though, In a lot of cases, ie Rocktopus songs, it's not that we don't want to play them, it's just that Andrew wasn't there for it and we have never played the songs together before. Either that or we haven't played them together in a long while. We just don't want to sound like crap for you. Well, any crappier than we usually sound.
-S+J


Hi Peter. We would rather post pictures of our private parts on line than play some of that old material. Its kind of like hooking up with an old girlfriend thats become less desirable. Plus we also forgot how to play alot of the old stuff. We do however try to keep a healthy mix of old and new in our set.
-Dave


We were working to put on a festival in Lincoln Park in Portland, ME called MACHIGONNE at the end of this summer with Ray Lamontange. Unfortunately, due to some pretty crap reasons I won't get in to, we've been forced to kick it off next summer season. Both RO and Ray were very dissapointed to have the festival fall through for such paltry reasons.
-Spencer


We are currently working on both the DVD and a Rustic record. PSC axis 4 out in october. The new PSC has a number of guests including Gavin,Nigel Hall, and Chris Moulton from The Cambiata.
-Dave


Question from Chris: Isn't that kind of the deal Rustic has with Velour and Fontana? I assume that Fontana is helping you get the CD into many more hands than you could with just Bull Moose. Also, I assume that Velour's PR and radio people are able to help spread the word. Are they doing much for you now, though?

Chris,
yes and no. there were a lot of unnecessary changes made to our work even with a company as open as Velour. THose guys are very laid back and conversational, but still, too many cooks...

Zach and I had a similar experience with Octone for the Open Letter album. They signed us because they liked the music, but then set about changing it so drastically. Very confusing. Were I the head of a label, I'd like to think I'd sign artists I liked and believed in, and allow them to do their thing. Unfortunately when you get millions of dollars involved, people get nervous about losing their jobs and expense accounts, so they tend to get meddlesome.
-S

Zach?

It's true, we were signed as a pop band who were then molded into a rock band. Our music was marketed toward modern rock radio listeners who prefer Disturbed or Korn to what we do. We are a rock band on stage but, left to our own devices we make pop records. One of the most common commments I hear about the Destroy album is about how different it is from the Open Letter album. If you were to listen to the original Open Letter and Destroy back to back, you'd hear that it is a quite natural proggression from one record to the next.
-Z


Absolutely. Touring is expensive on many different levels even when gas prices are somewhat reasonable. It's so hard for a band to break even on the road with everything that being on the road entails. Most of the time you're playing in front of an audiance that has never heard you before which, is why you are there, but until there is actually a demand for you to be playing there you're not making a ton of money at shows. Hopefully, you sell CD's and T-shirts if people liked you but you still have to consider: You're driving a van and trailor which get's terrible gas mileage, Then food and sleeping arrangements for everyone, Dealing with the inevitable mechanical difficullty or break down, keeping all the gear up and running, etc. It all adds up pretty quickly. So, Yes. With gas prices the way they are right now it makes traveling to Boston almost as exspensive as it use to be to travel to New York before you even get into the other things.
-Zach


Wasted is basically like a journal of being in clubs full of drunks every night. The message is humor. We get sick of it but after a few shots the song goes down a little easier.

Dave doesnt have an i pod or a computer. Clash,Jimi Hendrix,James Brown,Spoon,Ray Lamontagne<Flaming Lips,Hebie Hanckock,The Beatles,Led Zeppalin,Portishead,Beck,Radiohead,Muse,Nas,Jay-z,Stan Getz,Baden Powell,etc...................

I think Maine has some of the best bands anywhere.

Our advise is listen to good music and make good music. Good luck.
-Jon