Finish Ticket - Music

When I first contact an artist (usually on the phone) to interview them, there's this kind of nowhere land after the initial introductions where everyone isn't quite sure if the interview has started yet. Sometimes this is my fault. Interviewing people is social, and the last thing I want to do is come across as clinical when I have to be friendly.

The life of a working musician sucks. The last thing they usually want to do is talk to the press. Usually, their agent is making them talk to me, and it can't be that fun to do when you've been partying/working/traveling until 3 am, and I'm babbling at you at 8:30 am.

That's not always the case, but I will say I've spoken with some very tired musicians. So I try to get to the point and not waste their fine time, but also ease into the "official interview" so they don't think I'm some sleazy hack.

I've even had a few artists ask me, "Has the interview started, yet?"

One gentleman I interviewed a very long time ago basically had a freak out on me, once. He was not a celebrity or musician, he was a union rep, but for a guy who had spent decades dealing with journalists, he sure couldn't talk to me.

That's ok. I certainly do not want to ever bore or scare anyone, but he basically stopped me mid-question and said, "Can I just do what I normally do and read you our official press release?"

I didn't mind, the interview still worked out ok, but I'm glad that the musicians I usually talk to don't have to read prepared statements to me, and instead just answer my interrogations as naturally as possible. With the union rep, I may as well have just done a copy-and-paste job from his press release after he emailed it to me.

It's more fun to have a real conversation with a talented artist, you know what I mean?
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Brendan Hoye (lead guitar) and Alex DiDonato (lead vocals) are both members of the band known to the world as Finish Ticket. Where do they come from? The San Francisco Bay Area. What is the music scene like around there? Pretty cool, according to both of them. “Most of our band is from Alameda, so we’ve played a lot of shows in that area,” says Hoye.

Playing shows throughout the area is a great way to network. “There are a lot of talented bands coming up out here,” Hoye says. “It was like being part of a big family of musicians. Just a lot of the same kids going to a lot of different shows. The whole scene is really thriving out here. It’s also very competitive, which has been so helpful to our band,” he adds.

DiDonato also appreciates the environment. “Definitely having a big music scene was a huge help. We played at a lot of shows, which is how so many people got to know us, up here.” Are there any particular ones that stand out? “Bottom of the Hill,” he says. “It’s a big hot spot for a lot of local bands. We've played there a lot. A lot of great bands have got their big break there.”

There’s a lot of ways to tag the style of music Finish Ticket plays. While the band certainly professes to being pop, like a lot of modern musicians they play a sound to multilayered to place in just one pocket. “We could describe our music as indie pop,” DiDonato says, but that’s being thrown around way too much, now. There are so many bands that are indie pop, or who call themselves indie folk rock. We are definitely a rock band. We play alternative, edgy and melodic, but not bubble pop.”

Finish Ticket’s previous album, Shake a Symphony (released in 2010), is a highly-charged collection of tracks that rock with a positive spirit that makes you feel like driving your car fast with a smile on your face. “New York” brings to mind the uplifting hits bands like U2 created with songs like “Where the Streets Have No Name,” or “Beautiful Day.” Other songs like “Miss Woe, I’m Glad” carry a more somber, sad tone that still possessing a driving force, thanks to aggressive drum work and an imaginative mix of anthem-worthy vocals, keyboards and guitars. When is the next LP?

“We are working on it. It’s going to be a lot darker, though,” DiDonato says. “Our last record felt like the first time we were able to write songs that had a definitive sound.” What’s the title? They can’t tell anyone that, yet. “We are still debating the album title,” Hoye says. “We’re actually nervous about picking a title for the album right now,” he adds.

“It’s pretty much in the same kind of vein as our last record, but it’s a little less pop.” DiDonato says. “It’s a lot more mature, too.” Their next album, set for a release sometime in the spring, is about gazing forward towards an uncertain future and not quite knowing what to do. “There have been a lot more obstacles for us in our career lately, and we’ve had to do things differently,” Hoye says. “Maybe that’s why we’ve experimented so much with the sound of our new album.”

Little Faith - Music

When I'm interviewing a band, there are only a handful of questions I can usually ask. More often than not the article is about the artist's latest album, tour, where they came from and where they are going. After that, it's not like we are going to talk about fly fishing, mud wrestling, or why Kara Thrace came back after getting frackin' blown up to smoldering giblets while flying her Viper on Battlestar Galactica. Was she a Cylon? A Messenger? I don't know, and neither does the band, so I stick to the music.

The real key is to save the best quotes the artist gives me, and making sure the reader gets to enjoy them. If they start to talk about what it was like playing strip clubs in Detroit, Michigan, fine, that's what we are talking about. Otherwise, when I just have 550-600 words to work with, I have to stay on target while at the same time entertaining the audience, or else I don't get paid.
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Jack Maeby, keyboardist for Little Faith, has been a professional musician and producer for decades, having previously worked for industry greats such as Carly Simon, Otis Rush and Buster Pointdexter. How would he describe the music he creates along with his fellow band mates Nelson Blanton (guitar, steel guitar), Nadia Christine Duggin (vocals) and Paul Vitolins (drums and co-producer)?

“I call it roots gospel music,” he says, “because it’s closer to the kind of music people in the South still play.” The music Maeby refers to is often based on the same gospel music being played in churches throughout Louisiana or Alabama. “Traditional American spirituals all have a common link to gospel,” Maeby says. “That’s how we started, as a roots gospel band playing traditional church spirituals.”

Maeby points out that while the band does play gospel music, most of the members of the band are actually atheists. “For all of us, it’s about who is investing in the music. I also like to say we are a secular gospel band.”

On Oct. 1, Little Faith released Shelter, a compilation of traditional American folk spirituals including the classic, quietly incendiary song, “John the Revelator,” served up with style alongside more frenetic fare like the, rocking, thumping and rolling thunder of “Memphis Rising.” Shelter also has funky guitars, bumping drums, seductive vocals and the sweet, signature, country sound of the steel guitar or the juke-joint wail of a saxophone to remind the listener of how truly timeless finely crafted music can be.

Now that the band has had a few months to think about it, how does its members feel about the LP? “We’re really happy with it,” Maeby says. “We’ve gotten a lot of positive response for this album.” As a result of the success of Shelter, potential fans have had more opportunities to tune into Little Faith. “We get really good radio play, including KCSN 88.5 FM and a lot of other local Los Angeles gospel stations,” the veteran musician adds.

The life of a professional musician is often a roller-coaster ride of successes and failures, where the path to a career is never completely predetermined. Why does Maeby do it? “For me and a lot of band members, we just have to play. It’s what we do for pleasure. If we can make a little money while we’re doing it, great.”

The downside of the career is that sometimes people want too much of something for nothing. Maeby likes to work and play, but bills don’t pay themselves. “A lot of club and venue owners believe music should just be free, and they don’t want to pay you,” Maeby says.

With the big local success of Little Faith, the band is planning its tour to spread the good word. “We’re planning a regional tour,” Maeby says. “We’ve all done our best to promote the album, working off of our business connections to plan it, and we also got our own tour bus.” The musician reports that more updates will be available on their website. “So far, we’re heading over to Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona, and after that, wherever we can go.”

Imagine Dragons - Music

Wayne Sermon is the lead guitarist for Imagine Dragons, an indie rock group hailing from Las Vegas, Nevada. If you’ve listened to the radio, browsed the Internet, watched television or been anywhere near a CD player, iPod or smart phone, you’ve probably heard Sermon’s band’s song, “It’s Time,” a track so pervasive it even ended up on the hit show Glee.

“I haven’t actually seen the episode yet,” Sermon says. The band is on the road so often it doesn't really get a chance to own a television, much less watch one. “When we hear one our songs in ads on the TV it’s a surprise.”  Does Imagine Dragons feel less cool because of its popularity? Nope. Sermon and his cohorts enjoy sharing their music. “Our stance has always been that there’s no reason to hide our music from different groups of people,” he says.

The rock scene in Las Vegas exists, but you have to look for it. “There actually is a really cool, kind of underground music scene out here,” Sermon says. “There are a lot of venues and cool bands that play a lot in Las Vegas.” Many of those groups, Imagine Dragons included, perform at the casinos to make ends meet. “You either have a side job or do that, if you are a musician working in Vegas,” the drummer says.

As a result, Sermon and the band played a lot of hours for a many different groups of people, often mixing in their own compositions next to the popular singles the crowds at the casinos wanted to hear. Sermon is glad the group does because the practice certainly paid off. “We’d play six hour sets every night, all week long.  A lot of bands don’t get that opportunity.”

It wasn't long before Imagine Dragons signed up with Interscope and ended up touring the world over as one of the most talented and popular indie rock bands of the modern era. All that hard work and long hours entertaining near-exhausted, inebriated tourists and gamblers is why Imagine Dragons and its debut album, 2012’s Night Visions, is so damn near perfect—songs from it are everywhere, including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Listening to Imagine Dragons can impress from the sheer range of styles in each track on its debut LP. Sermon admits that the band likes to perform a wide range of music because it had to when it was entertaining the crowds in Vegas. “When we were working in the casinos, we’d play everything from back in the day. The Cars, The Cure, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles . . . anything that people would recognize, we’d play it,” he says.

As a result, the band has a keen understanding of what makes a hit, well, a hit. Sermon and the group have played enough of them to know. “When we write a song, we try to make it the best one possible. If you couldn't enjoy hearing it played on acoustic guitar, it’s probably not a good song,” he says.

What’s next from Imagine Dragons? Everyone likes to hear about new albums, but Night Visions was just released in September of 2012. Sermon promises there will be more albums in the future. “Our goal was always to be an album band. We never wanted to just be some flash-in-the-pan. We grew up listening to solid singles and great albums, the kind you enjoyed from the moment you pushed play on track one,” he says.

The group wants some off time before it starts recording the next album, but there are certainly future plans. “We’re always writing melodies or songs and coming up with ideas,” Sermon says. “For every song we write, there are probably a hundred that don’t make it.”