SXSW 2011
by Brianne Turner and Nick Chaivarlis

Our version of this year’s South By Southwest festival started off indie, energized and enthusiastic and ended with us feeling mainstream, exhausted and still just as enthusiastic. We began SXSW 2k11 by dropping in on BRAIDS at the Red 7, playing their shoegaze-y dream-pop and rounded it out by breaking general Audioholic Media format with Kanye West‘s all-star hip-hop/R&B lineup at an abandoned power plant. We attempted to stay true to our overall mission statement by trying our best to sort the shit from the gold and not judging a musician based solely on gold star ratings or pre-LP buzz or hype.

Between the tacos, the open bars and the severe exhaustion, we scoured the extensive South By lineup to present you with an abridged version of the best of Austin’s most popular music festival, complete with pictures and broken down by day:

Wednesday: Braids, Jonquil, Suuns, Nicole Atkins and the Sea, Stephen Kellogg

Thursday, Pt. 1: tUnE-yArDs, Khaira Arby, WILD FLAG, The Joy Formidable, The Antlers

Thursday, Pt. 2: The Deer Tracks, Yuck, Bobby Long, Suuns, Tony Lucca, Owen Pallett

Friday: Tony Lucca, Keaton Simons, Savoir Adore

Saturday: Millionyoung, Toro Y Moi, Tapes N Tapes, Kanye West

SXSW 2010
by Brianne Turner, Photography by Nick Chaivarlis and Brianne Turner

All good things must come to an end, and like the best of things, SXSW’s finale is leaving us feeling a small void these last few days. The social networks (for the most part) have stopped crawling with ridiculous hash tags and concert updates, and you don’t have to read about how much fun your friends (or the people you envy) are having in Austin without you on a minute-by-minute basis.

We may not have had time to see your favorite band last week in the midst of all the musical chaos, but it’s an absolute certainty that we covered some bands who could definitely become some of your newest favorites. We know this because they became ours. Here is our SXSW coverage, broken down by day:

Day 1: Brazos, Body Language, Visqueen, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, The Walkmen, Broken Bells, Spoon

Day 2: The Antlers, Bobby Long, Delorean

Day 3: Toro Y Moi, Freelance Whales, Local Natives, Solid Gold, Tanlines, Delorean, WhoMadeWho, Cymbals Eat Guitars, The Trews, The Very Best

Day 4: The Morning Benders, Wye Oak, Ben Gibbard, Titus Andronicus, Here We Go Magic, Pictureplane, The Very Best, Sleigh Bells

After nearly two decades as a working musician, Will Hoge has built a fan base that is as loyal to him as they are dedicated to the soul of the music he creates. When the Nashville-based musician was involved in a nearly fatal traffic accident last summer, there was no shortage of support from fans, fellow musicians, and even Perez Hilton — which was weird but, you know, thoughtful. In the same grand twist of fate that kept the singer-songwriter alive and eventually allowed him to pick up his guitar again, rock ‘n’ roll was granted one more opportunity to stop being awful when Hoge released his newest album, The Wreckage.

In a time when music is sinking as an industry, artists like Will Hoge are helping us to remember it as an art form. He is one of the primary artists who inspired me to start Audioholic Media, and he encompasses the spirit of what we’re attempting to create here. While major labels continue to struggle with the idea that the music business is more than just terrestrial radio and t-shirt sales, raw talent is becoming more relevant. Will Hoge is an honest, incontrovertible musician and a consummate example of the kick in the ass that rock ‘n’ roll so desperately needs right now.

Audioholic Media: I know that November 10th is a significant date for you and your career as a musician, so it’s especially exciting to talk to you today of all days.

Will Hoge: It was years ago. 1996, November 10th. There’s a weird phase when you wanna become a musician, it starts off as this hobby thing. I don’t think anybody just picks up a guitar or plays the drums and says, “OK, I’m giving up everything else for this.” Not just right off the bat. It’s kinda like dating and falling in love. You progress in your relationship with rock ‘n’ roll, and it gets to this point where you eventually quit school — or I did. I played in a band and eventually it took me away from school. I stopped school, but I still had a day job. Then you get to a point where you have less of a day job and it becomes more of this really temporary situation and you’re playing music more and more and more. It kinda gets to be this cutoff where you have to really commit everything to it or stop. The 10th of November, 1996 was kinda my day. I just went through a whole bunch of stuff at that point in my life: first real lost love relationship, first time that I was playing in a band… [I couldn't] just quit my job that very second, but I don’t think I worked for much longer. I just decided that this is what I was gonna do. I’ve really worked tirelessly almost every day since. It’s really been long term, and it continues to grow and get better each year.

AM: I want to jump 13 years later and talk a little about The Wreckage. When you were premiering the album on MySpace, it was immediately clear that all of the tracks were independently strong. I know that you re-worked a good amount of the album after the accident happened. What were the previous songs like?

WH: There’s three that made it from the original sessions. “Hard To Love” is the first song that we recorded for the record before the accident and that stayed. The duet “Goodnight Goodbye” was recorded before the accident, and “Just Like Me” was recorded before the accident. We had recorded a different version of “Too Late Too Soon”; it was much more of, like a big, kind of rock, The Who kind of sound, and it didn’t really fit the song. We had some other songs that were just a little more straight-ahead, rockin’ things — all the songs that we were real proud of at the time, but with everything that happened in the time off after the accident, I started writing a bunch more, so a lot of these songs kinda came along. We recorded these and as we started really looking at the overall picture of what we had recorded, it wasn’t that the other songs necessarily weren’t good enough.

I still really believe in albums, and I know that it’s a dying art. There’s a lot of people that say albums don’t really matter anymore, people just wanna buy singles or they’ll buy the songs they wanna hear, and I respect that — I think there’s definitely some truth in it — but as an artist, I still like to hear records. I like to buy records and put them on from the start and listen through the whole thing. I may be the minority in that but that’s something I’m still gonna do. As an artist, it’s important for me to make albums. Really, with these songs, it wasn’t that the first ones weren’t good enough, they just didn’t fit this concept. The songs started kinda finding their way onto the record, and there were certain songs that just got booted off.

AM: In terms of the accident, I was reading that you broke both of your shoulders and that you had lost your voice…

WH: I crushed one of my lungs and hurt the other one pretty bad, so I was on a breathing tube for a pretty good while. Obviously when they were rescuing me off the street, they didn’t take the time to say, “OK, this guy might die, but we need to see if he’s a singer first and be very careful putting the breathing tube in.” There’s a certain kind of breathing tube, and I’ve found out since that you can use different things that don’t mess with your throat or your vocal cords. I’m just thankful that they kept me alive, but having this big tube down my throat for a long time did mess with my throat a bit. Then having a lung capacity that is very different than before the accident, it just changed my whole way of singing. I had crushed ribs and a broken sternum also, so my chest just literally didn’t expand the way that it had before and it was months before I was really able to do that. A year or so later I’m still getting some of that back, you know, muscle-wise and bone-wise, and really being able to do all the things I did before. It just changed the way that I had to approach singing. Physically I’d done it the same way for so many years that it had become real comfortable — some of that in a good way, but there were some real changes in having to kinda learn to re-sing, and it opened up some things that I probably would have never done before. It’s certainly expanded my abilities as a singer — maybe not necessarily vocal range, but vocal understanding or willingness to try new things. It’s ultimately been a good thing.

AM: Was there ever a point when you thought, “Holy shit, what if I can’t hold a guitar again, or if I can’t sing like I did before?

WH: It’s strange to say this, but there was never a point when I thought that I wouldn’t do it again, but there was a point when I realized that I could do it again. When I got back home and was out of the hospital, I was still in a wheelchair, I still couldn’t walk, but I was to the point where I could hold a guitar. I couldn’t stand, but I could get my arms around a guitar, so I’d sit in this wheelchair and play. My voice was still real weak. It was the first time that I’d had some time by myself. My wife was able to at least leave me alone for 20 minutes to go to the grocery store, and my son was at school, and I was able to sit in the room and play and sing a song for the first time. It was real weak and all that, but it was a real cool moment for me, because that was the first moment when I kinda heard my voice again and it sounded at least somewhat like me again, I thought. I did realize then, “OK, I will be able to do this again at some point.” So I don’t know that I ever thought that I wouldn’t, but I do know that was a moment when I realized that I would.

AM: Because you’d been notably independent for so long, has it been difficult to share control since you’ve chosen to sign with Rykodisc?

WH: It’s been really good, actually. It’s odd for me to say that about a record label, because I’ve done my fair share of rants against the record labels, but Ryko’s been really cool. They’ve pushed me to just try to be the best version of myself. I’ve been getting a lot of suggestions, some of which have been really good, some of which I’m against and didn’t try at all and they were OK with that, some of them we tried and [they] didn’t work. It became much more of a partnership than a heavy-handed record label. It’s been really good, actually. I’m really excited about hopefully getting to work with them longer.

AM: What is it about them that made them the right fit for you and what you’re doing?

WH: They’ve been real. Record deals a lot of times are very over-the-top, and there’s somebody that’s selling you on what you want most and they’re telling you all of the things that they’re gonna do. There are a lot of fancy dinners and limousines, and it’s everything that you want. It’s a kid at Christmas scenario, but then that dries up. At Ryko, they didn’t really have that. Those aren’t the things that I’m interested in. I want an opportunity to try to write great songs and make great records and [create] true work and be a musician. I’m not interested in being a star, but I’d like to be a great musician. Ryko seemed to want very specific things, and they seemed to just want to give me opportunities to that would help me be a better musician. It struck me as a musical partnership, and that was the big bonus for me.

AM: Rykodisc seems to be supportive of the fact that you’ve really utilized new media to build your career, especially in terms of initially releasing The Wreckage via the Internet and allowing fans to tape and record your live shows. As an Internet-based music magazine, it’s interesting to hear you talk about your thoughts on the importance of giving people free access to so much of your music.

WH: I think the only people that fear taping and downloading are the people that aren’t very good at this. The reason Britney Spears doesn’t want you to tape her show — everybody knows what Britney Spears looks like, everybody’s seen her videos, they’re not concerned that she’s gonna fall during her performance, what they’re concerned about is that you’re gonna realize that she doesn’t sing at her concerts. There’s so much of that that goes on. We don’t discourage it, but we actually play. There’s some wrong notes in our set, don’t get me wrong, and you’re gonna hear ‘em, but they’re played with the most integrity that you can play a wrong note with. The bottom line is, on the business end, a lot of the label people will say it kills record sales to people who trade music or download music, and I just flat don’t think it’s true.

Even when I was growing up listening to records, long before the Internet — we didn’t have computers when I was a kid [laughs] — you’d have friends who would burn you a cassette of an album. There’s been the technology to not buy an album for years and years and years. I had friends that would burn a live bootleg of a show on a cassette and you’d trade it and spread it around and fall in love with a new band, then you’d go buy their record. It’s no different now, you can just reach more people than you could before. There’s gonna be some people that aren’t gonna buy your record, but there’s gonna be a lot more on the other side of that. They’re gonna download your record for free off of some file sharing site, and if they don’t like your record, they’re not gonna buy it, but they were never gonna buy it in the first place. If you didn’t have downloading, they were never even gonna hear your record. The bottom line is that all you’re doing is giving people an opportunity to hear something. If they love it, I firmly believe — and we’ve seen it with our fan base — they’re gonna go and support the artists that they believe in and want to see. I think that people may download your record but they’re gonna come and buy a ticket to a show, probably more than once; if you’re worried about it strictly financially, you’ve gotten more money from them in that than you would’ve gotten from them buying the record. They’re gonna then buy a t-shirt or two, they’re gonna buy your other albums and probably still buy the album [they downloaded] because when they realize that you’re an artist and you actually do your work, they wanna support that. They’re gonna give you the money to buy the record directly from you anyway. It’s not something that I’m afraid of. The music industry and artists as a whole are trying to fight that tide — it’s just silly. You’re just wasting your time. I think you’re better off going and making more records and trying to write better songs than trying to stop that. It’s like arguing gravity at this point.

I understand it to a point. You’re out here and this is the only thing that you have, so you wanna be a little precious with it, but at the end of the day — when you’re arguing about a dollar or two dollars versus [how] you could be celebrating the fact that you could make $50 — it just depends on which side of the argument you wanna be on, and I’m on the other.

AM: The more I speak to people involved in the music industry, the more I realize that most everybody really does know everyone else, but it stems less from the sleazy, networking side of the business and more from how willing they’ve been to take part in the community as a whole. That connection generally thrives most before an artist is signed. I’m sure that being part of the Nashville circuit has helped, but so many other musicians seem to know you or know of you. Is that sense of community important to you and to your career?

WH: Nashville’s a small town, geographically and population-wise, just in general. It’s not a huge town in the first place, but within that small community, there’s an even smaller collection of people that are musicians, so you know a lot of the same people. Music kinda comes and goes in waves in every community, and I’m sure Portland’s the same way. In Nashville you go through this thing where everybody’s getting signed in Nashville, then it kinda dries up for a minute, then it comes back. I was in between this wave of bands that had gotten signed and either gone onto bigger things or had gotten dropped. I was in between that and the success of, like, the guys in Kings Of Leon or something like that. When I was first starting, it seemed like it was a lot more cutthroat. It was guys that would want their band to succeed but they would kind of discourage people from liking your band. It was much more about, “What can I get?” And then somewhere in there, I really saw that change when it became this community where everyone kind of works with everybody again . “I want you to succeed because I wanna succeed.” It just became a really cool thing to see. It’s great for everybody if that’s the case. How important is it? It’s hard for me to say. I’ve had some opportunities to play with other people. It’s one of the things I still like to do, unfortunately we haven’t gotten to do much of it in the last couple years, but I like to go out with other bands on tour. It’s a nice thing to go out and be the opening band for a while. I hope that those relationships at some point pay off. It’s nice to go out and support some friends and not have the focus necessarily be on you 100% every show.

AM: The idea of sharing the spotlight and being part of the community seems like a lost idea to guys who want to be in a band just to tell chicks they’re in a band.

WH: Yeah, exactly. You either wanna be in a band or you wanna play in a band. I wanna be in a band because I wanna play music, I wanna make records, I wanna be a musician. There’s a lot of reality television, with American Idol… There’s still this false hope. There’s a lot of people that are out here, like you said, because they wanna nail a chick so they wanna be able to be famous or whatever. Of the people that I grew up admiring as artists, I don’t think any of them had that as their goal. I think that it’s always been more about the music. Obviously I wanna make a living, I wanna support my family and things like that, but I’m not willing to sell my soul to do that, to be on MTV or anything like that. There are a lot more music fans that don’t watch MTV than there are music fans that watch MTV. I mean, there’s a lot of people that watch MTV, but they’re just consumers at this point, they’re not music fans. They may like whatever MTV’s playing, and maybe at some point again MTV will actually play music and turn those people onto what is great music, but at this point, it’s just marketing. And whoever that star is, their music is more a souvenir of their stardom than [a result of someone] buying it because it’s a great record. I want to be on the other side of that. I want people buying it because they think it’s a great record and they connected to something that was said in the lyrics or something that they saw at a show, because those are the people that are gonna come back time and time and time again and buy record after record after record. That’s what I’m interested in trying to do.

AM: Having been part of the band Spoonful, are there any primary differences between being the lead singer of a band and a solo artist who travels with a band?

WH: Oh yeah. Spoonful was my last attempt at “a band.” A band is fake, don’t let anyone fool you. There’s always one guy who does the majority of the work, two guys who do the majority of the work, and there’s a bunch of dudes just kinda hanging around not doing shit.

AM: They just show up for the shows.

WH: Yeah, and take all the benefits. The only real difference to me was that I decided that this is what I was gonna do, and I was gonna do it. The thing about bands is that you get somebody that leaves and you’ve gotta change band names or you’ve gotta change something. I always knew that this is what I wanted to do, and I was gonna be the constant through it, so it was more important for me to just find guys to play with me, then it can always be Will Hoge ’cause I’m not gonna quit. I’m not gonna go and get a day job. So I kinda get both worlds, but I still love the consistency of having a group of guys that I can fall back on and rely on musically.

AM: When you have people leave your band, the change in the sound is a noticeable one. I know that some people have been sad to see guys like Dean [Tomasek] and Jefferson [Crow] leave because they were huge assets, but you do get this new sound with each transition and that’s a cool progression.

WH: That’s my favorite thing about it. People will say that it’s not the same, and it’s not the same. It’s never gonna be the same, and I don’t want it to be the same. When someone leaves or they’re fired or they quit, I’ve never tried to find a replacement band member, I’ve always tried to find another band member. No one’s ever gonna play the same exact same as someone else does and I don’t want them to. I want every person that comes in to bring something new to the party, and with each incarnation, there’s certain things that you go, “OK, this guy does this better than we did before. And there’s other things he doesn’t do as well, and we need to try to work around that.” It’s always a challenge. It’s never the same, and I don’t think it should be.

AM: Being on the road as much as you are, I know that you rotate your set list every night, but “Woman Be Strong” has kind of come to be expected at every Will Hoge show. Do you ever get sick of playing that song?

WH: I don’t think we’ve played in a few weeks. I’m real fortunate in that there’s no songs that I’ve written or recorded or that we would play that are cringe-worthy at this point. That’s one of my favorite things. To do a show and have someone come up at the end of the night and say, “My favorite song is ‘Woman Be Strong’ and you didn’t even play it, but this is my favorite show that I’ve been to.” That, to me, is something that’s real important. If you’re coming to just hear one song and we don’t play it and it ruins your night, we didn’t really do a very good job. I love for somebody to leave and say, “I just had the best time that I’ve had seeing music, and they didn’t even play my favorite song,” because then they’re gonna come back again, and go, “Maybe they’re gonna play it next time,” and they’ll be that much more excited. There’s nothing that I feel like we have to play.

AM: Considering that so much of your success has been based around the work you’ve done as an independent artist and a lot of touring and word-of-mouth promotion, you’ve done remarkably well for yourself. Are you taking everything as it comes or are you do you strive to accomplish specific achievements based on some sort of time line?

WH: I think you have to sort of take it as it comes. You have to, obviously, have some goals. I mean, I want things to be bigger. There are people that are doing this forever and there are people that are doing it temporarily. And I think that it starts to become a lot more temporary when you start to put time lines on things. Like, if I’m not playing to 1,000 people a night by October of next year, then I’m gonna quit. There are people that do that, and I would understand it to a certain point, but I’m not doing that. I suppose at this point, if I had to tour with just a Volkswagen and an acoustic guitar, it’s what I do, so I’d find a way to make that work. I think you have to be smart and work towards something, but to put to put a time frame on it is suicidal.

AM: What do you have planned for 2010?

WH: We’re working on some songs, trying to get some stuff together for another record. We’re doing the Rock Boat thing in January the seventh through the 11th, come home and do a show in Nashville on the 13th, then we go to Europe and do that for a few weeks. I’m hoping we’ll do some more touring next year, but there’s nothing scheduled as of yet.

AM: You’ve talked about your father once sneaking you in to see Bo Diddley play and how that really informed your idea of live music, and your live show has had the same experience on me and, consequently, on Audioholic Media.

WH: That’s cool. That’s real cool. Music can be such a spiritual experience and it’s funny because there’s a point where people see it and realize it. Unfortunately there’s so much bad music that a lot of people don’t experience it. It doesn’t have to be at my show, but I see it at my show because that’s when people will say that to me. We had some girls in Chicago that were big hip-hop fans and a friend of theirs had said, “Look, I’ll buy your tickets, you just have to come.” And they bought every album and said [they've] never listened to rock music, or country music, or whatever the hell it is that I do. It’s a wonderful experience. It’s changed my life forever, and if you can ever have that effect on somebody, it’s great.

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For more information on Will Hoge, visit willhoge.com.

photography by Justin Patterson

Musicfest NW 2009
by Brianne Turner, Photography by Justin Patterson

Dominating Portland, Oregon’s primary music venues, Musicfest NW began Wednesday at Berbati’s Pan with a lineup featuring Fences, Portland Cello Project, Damien Jurado, and Will Sheff of Okkervil River. Not so much a “Let’s get this party started!!1!” vibe for the festival’s inaugural show, but Portland Cello Project covered Britney’s “Toxic” (on cellos!), and Will Sheff had the venue packed by the end of his soundcheck.

Just off the plane from a show with his band in Tel Aviv and a subsequent 23-hour flight back to the States, Sheff used his Musicfest NW set to create a place where the grizzliest, beardiest bastards in Portland could sing along and sway with every WASP with a fairly credible music collection.

Thursday was the only day during the festival that called for any amount of planning and sacrifice. Torn between being an indie music blogger (Cymbals Eat Guitars, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart), an indie music blogger (We Were Promised Jetpacks, The Twilight Sad, Frightened Rabbit), or participating in a sweaty mess of an underage (hi, all ages venue) dance party, we opted for Girl Talk at the Roseland.

Too sweaty and crowded to take notes with a pen, I took notes with my mind and with our Twitter account.

If Hot. As. Fuck. is not yet a scientifically recognized measure of body heat, someone should look into taking a thermometer to the next Girl Talk show. With the audience dancing and sweating all over each other below him, Gregg Gillis played maestro-dj while he extended his dance party to the stage and buried the crowd in toilet paper and confetti.

Friday’s obvious show choice was Sunny Day Real Estate, but we instead ventured out to Mississippi Studios for Weinland, Port O’Brien, and Deer Tick. For the last song of their set, Port O’Brien handed out pots and pans to anyone willing to sacrifice his PBR hand and become an extended member of the band’s rhythm section. When Deer Tick emerged for their set, lead singer John McCauley lifted his mini kilt to flash his gray briefs to the audience, so that was a special moment. The crowd spent the remainder of the evening dancing it out and enthusiastically shouting McCauley’s lyrics back at him.

[ Side note: Before the Beach House show at Berbati's Pan Saturday night, a van pulled up across the street and ninjas came spilling out to play two punk songs, draw a crowd, then drive away. Guerrilla ninja punk band (not "from outer space" because this really happened). If you know what that was, email me. I'm serious. Odd (and also awed). ]

Opening for Beach House were Avi Buffalo, The Morning Benders, and John Vanderslice. The crowd for Avi Buffalo and The Morning Benders was sparse, but the full sound of both bands helped to fill the empty space. Neither band was big on banter, but the crowd made up for it by talking both between and during songs. John Vanderslice and Beach House kept the vibe mellow and rounded out the last full night of Musicfest NW for us. We cover that more extensively here.

The apex of the week was easily Girl Talk at the Roseland Theater, because sweating all over yourself and also strangers has never been more enjoyable. If nothing else, Musicfest NW effectively created a lineup for eclectic music fans who don’t need big-name headliners to carry a festival.

Monolith, 2009
by Nick Chaivarlis, Photography by Jon Bielecki, Angora Holly Polo, and Jake Cisneros

“She’s a bitch in September,” I heard a bystander mutter to whoever was listening. I was listening. “Who’s a bitch?” The dedicated music fan looked up at the clouds and without even thinking, answered me with, “Colorado.” It didn’t take long to figure out that he was talking about the weather.

Autovaughn put on a decent show for being one of the first bands playing for the smaller crowds outdoors. Festivals are created for the mere fact of supporting musicians, so why be there if you weren’t planning on checking out bands you have never heard of? The indoor stages were cramped regardless of the artist’s mainstream popularity. These United States were playing inside at the WOXY.com stage and the room was packed. Between both days, the Fire Marshal had to step in and regulate the crowds (safety is so lame) between acts.

Girl Talk, of Montreal, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs all put on stellar performances regardless of the rain sessions during their jam sessions. By the end of the night, no one cared how drenched they were, as long as the headliners were able to keep the party going. Girl Talk entertained the audience by allowing a handful of fans on stage to dance their asses off, while of Montreal put on what seemed to be a one-act play (creepy costumes and lights included).

The Knew kicked off day two with one of the first shows of the day (and it was one hell of a show). Everything seemed to be rolling according to plan (sun, cool crowd, reasonable security) until an announcer informed the entire amphitheater of the cancellation of MSTRKRFT‘s show (the word on the street is that they were a no-show due to illness), which sent an uproar through the amphitheater (but not for too long, as everyone then dispersed to go see another act or two).

Due to MSTRKRFT‘s last-minute cancellation, the lineup changed a bit and some patrons missed a show or were late to one due to not being informed of the schedule change (or due to drugs and alcohol, but who is really keeping tabs?), but for the most part, I think things went smoothly. Passion Pit, Phoenix, and Savoy were all equally tossed around the lineup, but everything worked out in the long run (and it worked out better for Phoenix, as they were moved to the main Esurance stage [which proved to be ideal since everyone in Colorado showed up for their set]).

We all learned that Passion Pit means “to dance,” because that’s exactly what everyone did as soon as the band hit the stage. Right before ending their session, Michael Angelakos took the time to inform everyone to go see their “friends” (Phoenix) down at the Esurance stage (as both bands were originally supposed to play back-to-back on the Southern Comfort stage). The crowd followed suit down the many flights of stairs of the amphitheater and filled in the main stage to hear Phoenix and The Mars Volta end a perfect night.

Phoenix had a late start but were totally worth it, seeing as how they filled up the entire arena and had the crowd up and moving regardless of how chilly the night had become. In terms of energy, it seems as if the final acts of the night delivered more than enough. Phoenix‘s Thomas Mars decided to redefine crowdsurfing by taking his ride into the fans (but at an incline) and making his way up the amphitheater rather than through it.

Regardless of the shifty weather, the Monolith Festival was a complete success. It offered a variety of artists to be appreciated by a variety of different music fans. When you’re surrounded by good music, people, food, and alcohol, you can’t really go wrong. Festivals are for music and Monolith proved just that.

There were no reports of devastating weather, tragic deaths, or even threats on national security at 2009′s Outside Lands Festival. There was just some good old fashioned fun in the sun (with music, of course).

If you couldn’t make it to Outside Lands this year, the festival’s lineup is something that you should be so jealous about missing that it will force you to get off your ass and make a trip to San Francisco next time around. It’s not every day that you get to see such a wide variety of acts. I mean, you’ll probably never have a chance to see the likes of The Black Eyed Peas tearing up the stage on the same day as Dave Matthews, much less in a twelve hour window from where The Dead Weather would later give everyone exactly what they came for.

If there is a possibility of ever having too much fun, you can witness it when Matt & Kim make the stage (and the crowd) their own personal playground. If you look hard enough, you can see genuine contentment on their faces (OK, you really don’t have to look that hard), because they make it abundantly clear that the stage is their home and that they’ll treat any guest in their home with the highest level of hospitality (even if that means crowd surfing).

To regain and maintain everyone’s chi throughout the festival, Os Mutantes were there to make sure everyone was doing OK in between bong hits, and Jason Mraz was there to make sure everyone was doing bong hits. John Vanderslice, Lenka, and Modest Mouse made very memorable appearances as well.

In the midst of everyone being collective, M.I.A. came in to stir up a little rowdiness. In her attempt to cause commotion, she handed out blow horns to the audience. Let’s face it though, what’s a festival without an obscene amount of blow horn in unison? After The Beastie Boys had to cancel, Tenacious D were there to fill in the pieces by covering “Intergalactic” and “Sabotage.”

Outside Lands was a promising place if you enjoy good music, art, and food. All of the acts pulled through to give everyone the most accurate definition of a festival. Sure, you can look it up in a dictionary, but I think the only way to really know what it means is to immerse yourself in it. If you couldn’t make it to Outside Lands this year, there is no need to worry (– a need to feel regret and to sulk is a different story) because you still have about a year to make plans for next year’s festivities.

Torrential rain earlier Sunday morning delayed the entire event by at least 4 hours, but those adamant on seeing Coldplay or MGMT (two of the night’s big acts) waited it out. Unfortunately the late opening canceled a few sets including Jersey locals, The Gaslight Anthem. However, the show went on with lots of mud slinging and memorable performances by The Black Keys, Echo & The Bunnymen and Lykke Li. Depending where your loyalties laid, Coldplay — who also performed a piano version of the Beasties’ “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)” and an acoustic rendition of “Billie Jean” by the late Michael Jackson — and MGMT’s almost simultaneous performances made for a great ending to an otherwise soggy festival.

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To view more festivals, visit our archives.

Nashville is considered one of the America’s music meccas. Although the city is known primarily for country music, it is actually a breeding ground for an array of different styles. Enter Paper Route — a band who see the artistic potential in everything and fuse that inspiration into music. With a number of EPs under their belt, this group of friends has fused pop, rock, and electronic sounds with thoughtful lyrics and created Absence, Paper Route’s debut album on Universal Motown. We had a chance to talk to JT Daly of Paper Route and found out more than what propels the band’s music.

Audioholic Media: From what I’ve read, it seems like Paper Route came about pretty organically. You were friends who loved to jam, and then you turned that into a career. Can you talk a bit about that?

JT Daly: We kind of all came from another band that kind of ended because of a drought of inspiration. And I went on to — and took — a whole other medium. I went on to do some film stuff. Andy [Smith] left and went to finish up his degree in the study of people. And Chad [Howat] went on to finesse the art of recording and finish his degree in that. We all just gravitated back towards each other. Very naturally, Chad was recording on his laptop, and I was writing at home. And I think it was much more healthy because the songs were writing themselves again. That’s something we always made a point to do in this band. We serve the song and are just along for the ride.

AM: So, before. you guys were forcing it and now it’s just coming out?

JD: Absolutely. If you feel like you’re forcing something, I feel like that’s just a sign with art that you need to call it quits.

AM: I got your Are We All Forgotten EP last year, and I’ve always thought your sound had this ethereal and haunting quality to it, which is something you don’t normally hear from Nashville. So was that initially what you guys were going for or was it something that just happened?

JD: Yeah, it just kind of made itself. We’ve always just loved a lot of those ethereal groups like My Bloody Valentine. We’re all huge daydreamers, and we all come from a history of all having sleep disorders. And all of those groups are things you can listen to you when you’re in that stage between consciousness of being asleep and being awake. I think we wanted to try to make music like that again or make music like that for the first time. It just sort of happens. We fell in love with the instrumental kind of ambiance music because it said something with our lyrics. Moving to Nashville, I’m not sure if we really got it, but we respected it. And now we get it, and we’ve fallen in love with the songwriter perspective where it’s just an intimate song with just vocal and guitar. And it puts more emphasis on the lyrics where the artist is forced to say something. I feel like it just all came together for Paper Route for the first time because it just became what we wanted to try and do.

AM: So do you think it took a while for the instrumentation and lyrics to fit together and become what it is now?

JD: Absolutely. It was again a very accidental process.

AM: I noticed when you play live, there are interesting instruments like the toy keyboards and samplers. Bringing that into the sound and adding a kind of nuance to rock music, was that something you guys wanted to play around with?

JD: I mean being in Nashville influenced in that regard as well. There are just a lot of different types of musicians and a lot of incredible musicians as well. We are people and artists that love electronic music. I mean we have four or five samplers onstage all playing at the same time at some points in our set. But in Nashville, when my neighbor is the guy who thinks that anything that has to be plugged in isn’t an instrument, it definitely forces you to take a different perspective on our live show performance because we are musicians that respect the craft of forming an acoustic instrument. And that’s incorporated in the way we create our songs and in the way we record these acoustic instruments and put them into these machines and manipulate the songs that way. I think it’s a challenge in the way we play our live shows. At the same time, it’s something we enjoy and something that we love is to recreate those songs on the instruments that they were originally recorded on.

AM: That’s actually one of my other questions. I mean I’ve heard other albums where you hear all these different layers in the sound, and then when you hear them live, it’s a completely different band. But with you guys, the transition is so seamless. It’s like I’m back home listening to Paper Route through my headphones but I’m really watching you guys live onstage.

JD: Thank you.

AM: How do you guys manage to do that?

JD: Hours and hours of rehearsal. We are perfectionists to a fault. That’s probably our greatest strength and also our greatest weakness. We’ve thought of every possible way of playing that song. And a lot of times we’ll switch it up in every tour. It’s something we like to take back to the people who have seen us multiple times.

AM: Going back to the songwriting process, how does the Paper Route songwriting process work? Do you guys have a specific way of going about it? Do you lay the track first then put the words later or is it the other way around?

JD: It really is all forms for us. All of us are writers individually, and all of us pitch in songs. But the end result is always the group sort of shuffling through it together — pulling apart the song and piecing it back together. We’re definitely a group where the song is greater than the individual parts. It would sound completely different if one of the members was removed.

AM: I was looking at your MySpace page, and your influences include Jurassic Park, magic tricks, Alice in Wonderland and the Titanic soundtrack — very varied choices there. So what else influences you guys?

JD: We read a lot. We’re always reading. I mean we always have the time to read. So we’re always passing around books. We watch a lot of movies as well, and we listen to a lot of soundtracks. We’re a visual band, and a lot of our songs are written around a visual that we all kind of have like a scene from a movie or something that we want to communicate with sound and what we’re seeing. And that’s why we love soundtracks and why we love film.

AM: What was the last book you read?

JD: I just finished The Devil in the White City [by Erik Larson], which is about “The White City,” which is a brilliant World’s Fair in Chicago. And it’s a true story and is this remarkable group of artists that got together and crafted the World’s Fair, which, at one point, Chicago was the center of the world’s attention. It’s where the Ferris wheel was invented, and at the same time, this was where one of the greatest or worst serial killers of all time lived. The book pretty much opens up with this quote like, “Some men are born with genius inside of them. I was born with the devil inside of me.” It’s just on another level.

AM: So there might be a song that’s inspired by that book really soon?

JD: Well, Chad’s from Chicago and the musician that travels with us and helps us create these songs live was architect and creating buildings.

AM: Well, hopefully the next album or even at your next live show, I’ll be waiting for that.

JD: All right. I’ll find you and let you know ahead of time.

AM: About your debut album, Absence, I read that you guys said that the songs are more hopeful compared to the songs on the EPs. How are they more hopeful now compared to the old stuff?

JD: Honestly, I think the only reason the album as a whole is saying that is because we have more songs to say something with. Also it was the time in our lives. Things were sort of being wrapped up; some loose ends were finally being taken care of. And we had more time, and we have more of the listeners attention to say exactly what we wanted to say. You know, an EP is more of what people have more patience for these days, and blogs are taking over the music scene. We only have the people’s attention for so long, and I think the EP really serves that purpose. But it’s really a shame. As a music writer, you really just need an album to communicate and instill exactly what you’re trying to say.

AM: As far as other people saying, “You sound like this. You’re synth-pop, electro-pop…” — all these different categories are thrown at you guys. How do you describe your music?

JD: I would say electronic alternative. I’m not really into combining these really long descriptions — saying what our music is.

AM: You mentioned the whole idea of blogs, and I’ve seen your music circulating around. Aside from the fact that you guys have been touring a lot, how have you seen the Internet helping bands? Has it even been helping you get your music out there to as many people as possible, the way it’s supposed to be doing?

JD: Well in the beginning, it was amazing. We weren’t even a touring band, and yet we had a lot of people’s attention. Our music had a life. Its heartbeat was the World Wide Web. We’re connecting with the music, and I think it forced us to play live because we realized that people were connecting with it. And that gave the songs more of a life. Now, I don’t really know. I think honestly we’re really trying to figure out exactly what the Internet is doing for us, and we’re trying to figure out what kind of band we want to be. As the era of the rock star is dying because of the World Wide Web, we’re trying to figure out how to embrace it and how to evolve but still how to keep our integrity.

AM: There are so many bands that come out every day, every second. How do you separate yourselves from the rest of the pack?

JD: That’s a really good question. [pause] You know, I think one thing that we’re particular on is that what we’re saying in the songs we’re presenting is always us because I think that the listener can tell. They can tell between what is a front and what truly comes from inside the artist. I feel like when you’re moved by a certain song and when you’re moved by a show, that is beyond us just performing. It’s on another level – spiritual even. And that starts with a seed of truth in that artist; they have a choice on whether they’re going to be honest or whether they’re just going to craft the song for the sake of melody or even craft the song just for the listener because they know it will get them anything from radio play to a specific tour. I think that’s something we want to stay true to.

AM: And what is Paper Route’s ultimate goal for music?

JD: To keep making albums.

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Absence is currently available in physical and digital formats.
For more information on Paper Route, visit paperrouteonline.com.

As with most musicians, it’s easy to compare Diane Birch to the legendary female musicians who’ve come before her. With a sound influenced more by Motown and less by, say, the Pussycat Dolls, Birch is right on track to become one of music’s most prized possessions. Her debut album, Bible Belt, is romantic without being sex-driven. Maybe not the best news for pervy old men, but there is still hope for you yet, young America– you just have to know where to look for it…

AM: I’ve read a lot about certain aspects of your childhood, but can you tell us about your background in music?

Diane Birch: I grew up in South Africa, I lived in Australia… My dad was a preacher so we traveled around quite a bit. Then I moved to Oregon. I started playing piano when I was seven and started playing classical piano. I studied an ear-training method, so I played music by ear, and I just started picking up stuff by ear.

AM: You’ve been playing since you were seven, so you’ve been playing for–

DB: About 20 years.

AM: OK, because I was wondering how old you are. A lot of people make mention of how mature your sound is.

DB: I have an old soul. I used to be convinced I was from the 18th century, so I’m then 300-and-something [years old]. [laughs]

AM: So this is your first full tour?

DB: This is my first tour ever. I’ve never been on tour, so it’s like a whole new thing.

AM: Everything pretty much began with the SXSW shows, then.

DB: Yeah. We started in SXSW. We did everything from interactive media stuff to– we played Austin TV, which was cool. We probably, all-in-all, did about nine or ten shows, so it was busy.

AM: I saw your schedule for that run and it seemed like you were doing about two shows each day.

DB: I know, it was crazy. But it’s almost like, once you get in that flow, it’s nice. When we’re driving and we don’t have a show the next night, I’m always kind of bummed. I’m like, “Oh, we don’t have a show tomorrow?”

AM: So you wrote Bible Belt entirely on your own. How long did it take for you to write the whole album? Because it’s your first, did it take you years to compile songs?

DB: Well, I think what really took the most amount of time was just sort of finding myself and developing myself as a songwriter. I didn’t really know what I was doing, I just sort of stumbled into it. I did write all the songs on my own. I think that the songs are really taken from the last few years; the oldest song on there is probably about three-and-a-half years old now.

AM: I’ve always wondered if it’s weird to share your songs with people for the first time as a songwriter. I know that, as a writer, you have to really get into your head and reach deep, so is it difficult to turn yourself inside-out for an audience?

DB: It’s actually great. I just never am sure why people are into it. I’m like, “You mean you like that?” [laughs] It’s kind of a weird thing that people actually like it, because I’m just always like, “Oh, yeah, I’m sure it sucks.” Then people respond to it, and it’s really worth it.

AM: How did you come to be involved with S-Curve Records?

DB: Steve [Greenberg] found me through Betty Wright. I was doing some writing sessions with her when I signed a publishing deal with EMI Publishing. She called him or he called her, and I sang over the phone for him, then he flew me to New York.

AM: As a solo artist, is it difficult for you to create a band who can interpret your music as you hear it in your mind?

DB: No, I think maybe it could be difficult, but I’m really fortunate, and my band is amazing. I feel like they all have an old soul, too. They’re just incredible players, and they’re really great at interpreting what the music needs. I think that I really lucked-out finding them.

AM: Over the past few years, music went through a very provocative, “sexy” phase when it came to female musicians, where there were a lot of midriffs and suggestive lyrics. Do you think there’s been a recent shift in the industry which has allowed people to reacquaint themselves with women who take more of romantic approach to their music?

DB: I don’t really know if it’s the industry, I feel like it’s people in general. I feel like the time and the era that we live in is kind of like, “It’s OK to just be real and be honest.” I think that that my records conveys a lot of strength. It also conveys weakness, and I’m not afraid to say that I’m weak in a certain moment. I think it’s about honesty. I think honesty is really current and trendy. I think… [laughs] honesty is the new punk. [laughs] Just say it how it is sometimes.

AM: A lot of musicians have discussed wanting to make more upbeat music to reflect that the current time is a time of hope and that we seem to be on more of an upswing. Even the ballads on Bible Belt seem to reflect that in their lyrics or in their tone. Is that purposeful?

DB: I mean, I think there’s always this element of hope with everything, but at the same time I really gravitate towards rhythmical elements. I think the chord changes are often times quite uplifting, and I think lyrically, often times they’re pretty sad. I think there’s a juxtaposition in the musical aspects of it. It’s kind of uplifting. I never planned it, but it seems like it just speaks to a lot of people and maybe even current times. We’re in a recession and people gravitate toward things that sort of identify with their pain, you know? So maybe it happened at the right time, I don’t know. [laughs]

AM: You’ve referenced your goth days and how “Valentino” was a product of that chapter in your life.

DB: Basically it all stemmed from my classical background. I was really obsessed with classical music and that was the only music I was exposed to as a kid. I didn’t hear any pop music or anything. So I sort of gravitated to the whole goth phase because I, a) I loved the goth movement. I loved a lot of the goth bands and bands that are associated with goth, and I sort of was obsessed with the 18th century. In my boredom I created this imaginary friend, Valentino, who kind of resembled Mozart. I used to wear huge wedding dresses and dance around and think about the days when Valentino was… whatever. [laughs] But maybe he was a love in, like, a life past or something like that. And in a way the song actually represents sort of saying goodbye to that childlike innocence, where your imagination is so vivid and clear, and it’s not censored by media, or society, or whatever. It’s just really, really free. Essentially that song represents that kind of purity of imagination.

AM: It seems that people are desperate to try to classify your sound. I see such a wide array of genres attached to your music, from jazz, to soul, to pop, and I even saw something that said you’re a gospel musician. I think calling what you do “gospel music” speaks more to your background than to your sound.

DB: I do have to say, I’ve invited everything. I kind of think it’s everything and nothing all at the same time. I think there’s definitely a huge gospel influence, but not “gospel” in a Motown kind of a way; not really in a Christian type of way, necessarily. I think that there’s a huge sort of soul influence. I think it sounds– I don’t really know. I have no perspective. But a lot of people make references to early ’70s singer-songwriters, you know, like Carole King. I get that a lot, the whole Carole King thing, and she was very gospel-y. That’s what I tend to gravitate towards.

AM: It seems as if “soul” has taken on a completely new meaning now. When I saw it in reference to your music, it made sense, but not in terms of the modern definition of soul music.

DB: Yeah. I identify with a lot of the music that was happening in the late ’60s/early ’70s, so I think that kind of soul– I think now it’s defined by something like an Amy Winehouse or a Duffy. I think that’s a modern interpretation of soul, you know, and I probably stick to the older references.

AM: Have you had the time to put any thought into your next album yet?

DB: I love so many different kinds of music. I love disco, you know, the house music, the electronic stuff. I wouldn’t really want to do something like that necessarily for me, but I’d love to do, like, side projects. I’d love to play on peoples’ albums. I probably want to do another record, but I don’t think I’m done with this record yet. There’s a lot of songs that I feel like didn’t make this record that I still feel, like, need to probably have a home on another record. I just have so many songs at this point that we didn’t want to shove it all onto an album. I think there’s a lot of songs that speak to another side of myself that I’ll definitely be putting on another record.

AM: It’ll be fun to see because Bible Belt is brand new, so who knows what will happen next?

DB: [laughs] I know, I’m getting ahead of myself. [laughs] Well, on the fourth record, I’ll be doing, you know, disco beats. Or I’ll be going through my rap phase.

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Bible Belt is currently available on iTunes.
For more information on Diane Birch, visit myspace.com/dianebirch.

If you want the short version, Bobby Long’s initial success was catapulted by only a few verses. Having co-written a song that may or may not have been featured in some unknown indie film which involves vampires, his name has spread like wildfire in a very short amount of time.

We met with Bobby before his show at 3rd & Lindsley in Nashville, his last gig amongst a handful of American tour dates before making his way back to London to finish college. During our time with him, we learned that the kid is smart. He’s thought more about the future of the music industry than some of the most respected veterans in the business. He’s taking his career seriously. He has a genuine respect for his fans. His music and lyrics show no signs of youth but are instead sometimes cryptic and unnervingly wise. Of his writing style, Bobby told us, “I don’t think there are easily-accessible lyrics on a lot of the songs.” He’s not kidding. And, as with his lyrics, Bobby Long isn’t opposed to a bit of complexity in his career. “You shouldn’t go straight into it and be playing a 2,000-seat stadium. You should go in at the bottom and work your way up. That’s the way to be respected.”

Audioholic Media: I read that you recently signed a publishing deal with Bug Music. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Bobby Long: Bug are this really wicked company that have been around since, I think the ’60s, and they started off with this bloke called Del Shannon. It’s expanded and expanded into, like, Ryan Adams, and Gram Parsons, and… who else? Kings Of Leon, they publish all their music. They’re a really big company; a really cool company. A lot of country artists work with them, as well. Quite folk-y kind of stuff. They’re going to take care of all my publishing, and they’re going to help me out with America.

AM: Do they own the rights to your songs, as well?

BL: They own the rights for a period of time, and with handing over that quite small percentage, they go out and put you on the roster and they put you into the situations where you can do the things you want to do.

AM: It sounds as if you get all of the benefits of being on the record label without any of the obvious drawbacks that come with it.

BL: Actually, it is kind of like that. They don’t necessarily do anything with the album, but they help with everything else.

AM: It seems as if your lyrics are very honest and come from an introspective place. Is it difficult for you to hand your music over to someone else to produce and interpret?

BL: I think you can only write from an honest place, otherwise people see through it and don’t believe it. But in terms of handing [the songs] over to Bug, for them to do stuff with, it’s completely cool. You like who you’re working with, and it’s all really great stuff.

In terms of recording with a producer, as long as I’m always in control, I think that would be OK. I would never just go, “Here’s the song. Record it however you want.” I think you have to be really careful with your songs and be really protective.

AM: Does the experience of working with a producer allow you to see your songs in a different way?

BL: Yeah. In a nice way. I always take my music really, really seriously, but once somebody who has that kind of history behind them is taking you seriously, it’s like, “Maybe I have got a real opportunity for doing this kind of stuff.” It’s a real nice confidence booster, do you know what I mean?

In terms of the experience changing you, or anything else, I’m not resting on my laurels, and it hasn’t gone to my head that a few girls shout my name [laughs]. All that stuff is fickle.

AM: In today’s version of the music industry, there’s a lot of oversaturation with MySpace, and YouTube, and everything else. How have you been able to rise above that and stand out?

BL: I think all that comes to is just the live show. It’s so important for a musician to put on a good live show, and if they’re not good live, it’s just not gonna work. When people come to my shows, they see that I am honest. I’m an honest musician. I really like what I’m doing. I’m really passionate about what I’m doing, and that comes across. If not, I’m just some kid.

But I do work with the oversaturation thing. You’ve got MySpace, YouTube; it’s so accessible now. I think it’s really important, as a musician, to keep a little mystery about you. You should be attainable but unattainable.

AM: With your career, your fans have gotten to see the whole process. From the demos recorded in your bedroom to professionally-produced tracks. Has this had a noticeable effect on the relationship you have with your fans?

BL: I think one of the reasons people are interested in this and why people come to the shows and are really loyal is because you don’t often get an opportunity to watch an artist start from this, with very little recorded material and slowly working up. Not since the 1960s have they been able to see an artist slowly do an EP, then do an album… An artist now is determined to be in the limelight. They’re like, “Here we are. This is it.” Two albums, and they’re gone. This is an opportunity for me to have a long career. With all of my favorite bands, I love going from the first album to the last album, just seeing how they grow, seeing what happens, who dies, and all that kind of stuff. [laughs] Do you know what I mean? That’s what is really interesting. And Dylan was like that. You could see Dylan really start to explore with each album.

AM: You’ve listed artists like Elliott Smith and Jeff Buckley as your primary influences, and their influence is present in the depth of your writing. The industry has changed a lot since their time, and the Internet has made music accessible in a different way. Do you feel as if your writing and artistry can be interpreted with the same depth as music was back then?

BL: Yeah… well, it’s just going to have to be, because that’s the way I am. [laughs] As an artist, you can’t just start changing anything because… people are fickle, and record labels are kind of watching what’s taking over and seeing who’s big at what time.

I think there’s just as much good music around now as there ever has been.

AM: I agree.

BL: I think music’s more unattainable– and more accessible at the same time. I think people are always trying to find good music, and they always want that slightly deeper stuff, I think– I hope. Otherwise, it’s back to college.

AM: What are you going to school for?

BL: I’m just finishing up my degree in sound in film. I just did it to move to London, really; to get a student loan. I’m just desperate to finish. I’ve got 7,000 words to write. I have to go from New York, to L.A., to Nashville, doing some really cool shows, then go back university. It’s going to be a real head fuck. [laughs] I got an extension on my work because I’m doing it on American folk music. I said I’m going to America to research. [laughs]

AM: The appeal of your music is that your sound isn’t packaged for a certain marketability or streamlined to be be mainstream, yet you have garnered a mainstream following rather quickly. Is that a difficult balance to wrap your head around?

BL: Yeah. I think some songs could be radio songs, but that’s just happened naturally. I just kind of do what I want to do and write the songs I want to write. But it is quite weird having an audience that perhaps wouldn’t have usually listened to my music, I don’t think. But I’m extremely lucky for that fact. You can’t buy people, you can’t beg them to come to your gigs, and especially in today’s climate where people aren’t buying records, you need to sell out shows, and you need to have that support there.

AM: Your lyrics are a little cryptic sometimes, so it is surprising that your music has been received really well by such a large group of people, but nothing about your songs is at all…

BL: Obvious?

AM: Yes.

BL: I think you should be able to interpret it any way you want to. I really hate when singers go, “This song is about Tracy, and she took me to go bowling, and I got my finger stuck in the hole. It’s called ‘Trapped.’” I find that boring.

I mean, sometimes you write songs and people might go, “Man, that’s deep.” And it’s just about a bad day or rain. It’s just your interpretation of it.

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Bobby’s live version of “Being A Mockingbird” is now available on iTunes.
For more information on Bobby Long, visit his MySpace page at myspace.com/musicbobbylong.