ADRIAN DYER w/ MOON TAN

—————- How did you get hooked on rock & roll?   I’ve always been drawn to music that has either a really catchy melody or something that gets me pumped up. Back when I was younger the iTunes library at the house was riddled with tons of classic rock bands from my sister and brothers tastes (Zeppelin, Sabbath, Hendrix, Beatles etc.) so before I even had my own music player these guys had been priming my brain. I think the major turning point was when my brothers friend Eric had popped by the house and pulled up the music video “Dani California” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers back in 2006. That ended up dragging me down the rabbit hole of music and becoming a musician, and I can honestly say I don’t know where I’d be if I hadn’t discovered RHCP.

———- What’s your favorite live album of all-time?  I haven’t listened to too many live albums, more so watching live concerts on YouTube. I’ve probably clocked a few hundred hours of watching live Red Hot Chili Peppers concerts, so if I had to pick one (which is tough) maybe I’d say “RCHP Live at Slane Castle”, “RCHP Live at Pinkpop 2006” or “RHCP Live at Pinkpop 1990”. In terms of CD’s, Iron Maiden’s “Flight 666” is pretty solid. Brady and Nick introduced me to Thin Lizzy “Live and Dangerous” which I also thought was excellent.

———- Is there anything about the band that could have only emanated from Winnipeg? or Canada for that matter?  A crippling fear of being attacked by a bear, a large wolf, or a pack of coyotes whilst leaving the jam space. 

——— Was bass your first instrument?  Years back my brother had a guitar laying around the house that I would pick up and mess around on. I’d actually watch RHCP’s “Live at Slane Castle” on my computer and try to learn certain licks by ear and play along. Later that year I asked my parents if I could rent a bass, to which they replied “they’d think about it”. At Christmas there was a bass starter kit under the tree, and my mind was blown.

————- How did Moon Tan come together?  The band originally emanated from Nick Knock’s desire to start a cover band along with another singer at the time. I heard about the band from a guitar player who I had jammed with a couple times. I auditioned along with him, and I got in, but he was not selected. Nick’s Dad (who is a music teacher) knew the music teacher from the city of Gimli, which is about an hour away from Winnipeg, and that music teacher recommended a guitar player from Gimli High School – Brady. Brady auditioned and was selected. Eventually we decided that we wanted to do original material, and ended up parting ways with the original singer in the process. After a few years of enduring a revolving door of Kijiji-sourced singers, I decided to take on the task of singing. We’ve been truckin’ ever since.

———— Originality aside, did you guys have a vision for yourselves a definable brand or is it all natural?  I can only speak for myself, but the main thing I’ve always focused on is creating music that I actually like listening to. That’s the most important thing to me. Everything else is secondary. The live presentation developed from us wanting to make our shows more of an experience, and in turn THAT has naturally led to us developing into more of a definable brand. In my opinion people go see shows, watch movies, play video games etc. to de–stress /  have a good time / seek inspiration / escape reality, so if you can do a good job of providing an opportunity for this with your brand then you’re well on your way. We have some interesting ideas for live production we would like to experiment with in the future. 

————— What do you think Moon Tan fans have in common socially?  They’re all heavily into Baccarat. Other than that, lots of them seem to like Rush, prog, sci-fi, be musicians themselves, or have a genuine love for rock n’ roll.

————– What gets you off more — writing, recording, or playing live?  1,000,000% writing. Sitting alone with nobody around, my laptop & Garageband open, and just freely creating with 0% judgement but my own.

————— Since you have a prog rock thing going on, is there any pressure to do shorter numbers for more airplay or a ‘hit single’?  It’s interesting, because in all honesty I don’t really see Moon Tan as a prog band, but people who watch us tend to categorize us in that way. I guess that brings forth the question: “What is prog?” Maybe I don’t even know.. haha. I find my natural songwriting style is actually in a pop style format, perhaps disguised by the odd time signature here and there or a flashy lick from one of us. Circling around to the question with all that in mind, you need to give the song enough time to mature and finish, and if can we find a way to do that in 17 seconds, we will.

————- You guys won Indie Week last year in Toronto and got to play in Manchester as part of your bounty: how did it go in England?  England was fantastic. It was our first international gig, and we received tons of great feedback from everyone over there. I think I ate a whole margarita pizza every night for six nights straight, and Brady and Nick we’re hooked on the fried chicken. We are definitely planning our return as we speak, so fans of rock – and vendors of margarita pizza & fried chicken – beware!

DAVID KEMPER

What was the first album you ever bought and how do you rate it today? 

It was either:

a)    Steely Dan, Can’t Buy a Thrill

b)   Kiss, Alive!

c)    Thin Lizzy, Nightlife

I was a very mixed up boy.  As for the rating part…

a)   Aaa  (Moody’s doesn’t go any higher, or I would, too.)

b)   C (Moody’s doesn’t go any lower…)

c)    A2

What does your 8-track collection look like?

It looks like a poltergeist taking a polygraph (as observed by seven blind pygmies from Paducah).  The only time I ever saw 8-track tapes in person was when we went to visit some distant cousins in Wisconsin – Sonny & Cher Live, Bobby Sherman, that kind of thing.

Was bass your first instrument or an evolution?

It happened all at once.  I awoke one morning to find myself transformed in my bed into a giant, grotesque, bass fiddle.  I couldn’t move.  I couldn’t speak.  My family and all the neighbors shunned me as the sickening vermin I’d become.  Those snooty violinists and cellists wouldn’t play with me.  All I could do was lay there, staring at the ceiling while sawing away on pithy quotes from Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben.  Very weird.

Bass is my only real instrument, actually.  I often do “play” other instruments on my recordings, however the word “bad” has to be appended to the front (Badguitar, Badkeyboards, Badmelodica, etc.) to get an accurate description of the kinds of sounds I tend to make.

Does being the guy holding down the low end frequencies inform your personality in any way outside of music?

Hello, cowgirls.  I like being on the bottom.

What came easiest to you early on, playing or writing?

The only writing I did when I was young was in the sand traps of certain North Shore country clubs I won’t name.  We used to jump the fence late at night, run around wild on the fairways, throw all the patio furniture into the deep end of the pool and steal all eighteen flags from those immaculately manicured greens – but not before using them to write “ZZ TOP” really, really BIG in all the sand traps.  That’ll show ‘em, eh?

So…I guess the answer would be: Playing.

What’s Brahms’ 3rd Racket all about and is it true you have an affinity for concepts?

Brahms’ 3rd Rocket is all about the concept of having an affinity for calling all God’s creatures (inanimate or otherwise) by the name of which they truly, in fact, are, and should forever be, including (but not limited to) calling kettles Kettles, calling pots Pots, and calling my band by its correct name, which is Brahms’ 3rd Racket.

(Editors note: David was kind enough to catch my error…. “It’s RACKET not ROCKET!!  But don’t sweat it.  I hear even Yoko was in the habit of repeatedly referring to her husband’s band as “Beatles” (“Beatles this, Beatles that”- errantly omitting the “The” every time).  So “Rocket” I can understand.  Hell, I used to know this one guy who kept calling it “Brahms’ 3rd Reich.”  I’ll take “Rocket” any day”)

What’s more enjoyable for you, writing a good pop song or developing the picture music you create for tv n’ film?

I like it all.  I don’t distinguish.  Do I write pop songs?

Sometimes just a simple twist in the arrangement of a song can make a huge difference, is that tinkering part of why you enjoy the role of producer or is it a more technical fascination for you?

I’m an arranger, basically, a collage artist, making sound mosaics.  This inevitably encompasses many different sub-disciplines: composing, performing, scoring music, recording, setting up mics, pushing “Record,” buying beer, asking very nicely for the drummer to hit harder, etc., etc., etc.

That said, I couldn’t give a shit about “technique,” “technical”-anything, or any other derivation of that cold and lifeless word.  Ever try kissing a dead fish?  It’s a means to an end.  I’m not infatuated with methods or systems or techniques.  And I really don’t think of myself as a “Producer,” either.  I used to think it was cool to call myself that (“Yo, bro, didya check out that one young chick that I produced?  Man, did I produce her!”)  I used to like it.  Not anymore.  “Producer?”  Yuk.  Let Bob Rock have it.  Sounds like a guy with nice hair who sells insurance.

Since you aren’t famous drummer David Kemper, do you think this is a good time to challenge him to bass n’ drum throw down to stop all of the chatter between camps?

I don’t want to stop the chatter between camps.  Perish the thought.  I just sent off a four-page letter in response to some lawyer dude in San Francisco who mistakenly emailed me some kind of artist agreement (complete with royalty breakdowns) for the “live” Jerry Garcia Band album they’re going to be putting out soon.  Four pages.  Arguing for a better % (the drummer plays four times as many notes than the bass player, etc.)…PowerPoint charts and graphs in support of this theory…bogus legalese…more prissy rock star demands than Van Halen in the dressing room…in short, pure balderdash!  I had that lawyer dude doing figure eights around the page, revealing only in the last paragraph that he had sent his little agreement to the wrong David Kemper.  Stop the chatter?  Hell no!  If all the chatter were to suddenly stop – and I no longer had a reason to write goofy letters like that – whatever would I do with all the empty hours?

If you could be the first artist to perform a song on the moon, on behalf of mankind, what song would you choose?

I wouldn’t perform it myself.  Assuming – since I’d been selected for this great honor on behalf of all mankind – that I would then have the full financial and technical resources of Planet Earth at my disposal, I would graciously defer and instead use those combined resources to have Andrea True exhumed and resurrected so the Andrea True Connection could do “More, More, More” on the edge of the Aitken Basin while Evel Knievel (since money is no object, right?) jumps back and forth over it riding a giant neon dildo.

Get the action going…get the cameras rolling…holy, shit, can you imagine that on the fucking moon?  But…hey…realistically…if the resurrections didn’t work out?  In that case I’d just get Carl Douglas to do “Kung Fu Fighting” and be done with it.

NATHAN BIGGS

bassist of THE PEAR TRAPS

1.0 – How did the band come together? 

Bryant had written a number of songs before moving to Chicago and went to craigslist to find some bandmates. Within two months we were regularly playing in Billy’s basement, drinking, booking shows and recording.

2.0 – Did you expect your the Pear Traps EP to turn out how it did or did it take on a life of it’s own?

Bryant continually writes and we are always adding new songs to our live sets, so we had been playing out for over half a year with most of the tracks from the EP and had a good idea as to how we wanted them to sound. This makes our overall sound really based around Bryant’s guitar work and the next type of song we want to add to our live set.

3.0 – Can you talk about the cabin you recorded it; how did you track it?

We all took off on a cold Thursday, two vehicles full of equipment and went to Nashville, Indiana. The cabin was a small two story with a huge fireplace that we ran mics around to do all of our tracking as a live band. Bryant (guitar) set up in the main hallway, Billy’s drums in the large bedroom, Josh (guitar) in a small bed room, Stephen (keys) and Nathan (bass) in another room off the hallway. We spent Thursday night and Friday morning testing different mic and amp positions, hanging mics over the drums and eventually tucking Josh’s guitar amp in a closet. Then we spent all of Friday and Saturday playing, grilling, listening and drinking.

4.0 – Do you have a favorite song on the disc?

(Free Download)“Come Home” is probably our favorite song. It has sort of set the tone for how we come up with songs now- in that Bryant comes to the band with an idea and chord structure that we all turn into a song. Between Josh’s guitar licks, the warm, overdriven tone from Stephen’s keys, and some crackle from the fireplacebleeding through in the background, it was the easiest choice for the first track.

5.0 – Is the ‘EP’ the band’s preferred mode of communication?

As of right now yes, but we are always talking about taking the time to put together a full album.

6.0 – What do you guys sing about?

Bryant’s final lyrics to a new song typically follow the completion of a songs structure and the melody he wants to sing too. I think in general just something that’s happened or happening or a vague idea he’s been thinking about.

7.0 – Is it difficult to duplicate your sound live?

Not really, as we just typically ask for more reverb on the vocals and, guitar wise, Bryant actually built the heads that both he and Josh play through to get the sound we want. I think people are actually surprised when they first hear us because we’re a bit louder/more energetic live than our recordings tend to seem.

8.0 – How do you know when a tune is ready for prime time?

When we’re excited to play it and reasonably confident we won’t fuck it up.

9.0 – What bands were you listening to in high school and do they still influence you?

This runs all over the place for us. We were all pretty into 80s alternative (Replacements, Joy Division, The Cure), but mix in a need for some Kinks, Guided By Voices, and Roy Orbison and you start getting warmer.

10.0 – If you could jump on a tour next week with anyone, who would it be with?

Deerhunter would be awesome. Or maybe Atlas Sound. Or French Kicks. Or J Mascis. Too many.