RED: So you've been in State Radio now for a little over a year what have your impressions been so far? MIKE: My impressions are that they are very understanding guys in the band. There's not much arguing that goes on which I feel like maybe I should be picked on a little bit more as like the little brother you know that kinda thing which ever really happened as much as it should of. CHAD: We've been turning it on a little bit lately. MIKE: A little bit lately but not as much as you would expect. It's a rush. RED: When you first started out was it hard to keep up with learning all the new songs? MIKE: Yeah, a little bit, there's so many different styles. It was a little bit difficult. RED: Had you heard of State Radio before you joined? MIKE: Yeah, I met Chad a couple years before. Actually I tried out before it just didn't work. I wasn't good enough. Or cool enough. RED: How did you find out that they were in need of a drummer? MIKE: I got a phone call from Chad himself actually. RED: So being in State Radio since the beginning you have had a few different transitions between band members, people coming and going. How have you adjusted to that? Has it affected live shows or anything like that? Has it screwed up the momentum at all? CHUCK: Yeah, it was a great opportunity to play with a lot of different people. You know get to see how different drummers...do their thing. It was a great learning experience. I mean it was tough as far as the live show 'cause it would always be like sort of a reset back to like a learning period but that was kinda exciting too because then you could go in differently... RED: So would you say where the band is right now is the most solid? CHUCK: Yeah I think so, you know the recording was obviously a big sorta chemistry thing. I think the band is where Chad always wanted it to be as far as a trio and vocals across the board... RED: I know that you play the mystery bass. What kind of bass is it? CHUCK: I don't really know to be honest. RED: So what is the story behind it? CHUCK: In the '70's there was a lot of Japanese companies that would build copies of like fenders and so that's basically, I'm not sure the name the make someone told me once in Germany. It's a copy of a Gibson eb0 or eb3. I got it for $40. CHAD: At a store? CHUCK: On ebay. MIKE: You got it on ebay? CHUCK: Yup, gotta love it. Got a case too. RED: What was recording in England like? MIKE: It was interesting cause we didn't use a click track at all. RED: What is that? MIKE: The drummer usually plays along to like a set timing, like a click. So it was a little nerve racking at first. But it was a lot about energy and it was a great atmosphere. We had nice weather. RED: So what kind of stuff can we expect on the new album? Would it be a good reflection of your live shows or something entirely different? MIKE: I would say more a live feel. CHAD: More so then the last one. RED: Do you guys know when you want it to be out? CHUCK: Hopefully July, in a month. CHAD: As soon as possible. RED: What do you guys consider in picking out a setlist and how far in advance do you write one? (Laughing) CHAD: Not far enough. CHAD: I do these guys a disservice showing them the setlist, scrawling it out seconds before we get on stage. I need to get better at that. RED: Tell me about rehearsals. Do you guys focus on touching up old songs or just focus on strictly new material? CHAD: Sometimes there are trouble areas that we need to go back on but it's a lot more fun to work on newer stuff. We may go over something, try to revamp something, an old tune but mostly we have a bunch of songs sorta slated for the third record that we are sort of... MIKE: We will go back and kinda rearrange an old one a little bit too, add a new part or something. RED: And also, how do you guys fit a rehearsal in when you're touring so often? MIKE: Oilcan...umm... CHAD: Yeah we don't rehearse that much...it's really fun when we do. Like when we have a few days off, we have to relax and rest our ears... MIKE: Yeah and we actually rehearse a lot in sound check, or before shows Chad might bring his oilcan down, and I'll bang on a drum pad or something- we rehearse a little bit like that, too. RED: So what songs do you guys really enjoy to play? MIKE: It changes with what's new and what's fresh or what we like to bring back. A song like Mountain, I had never played Mountain...so yeah... RED: I feel like there's been a shift into the harder songs, like Mountain and Ill Advised, and not so much the reggae stuff. The reggae is still there, but not overwhelmingly. Was this a conscious decision? Has anything inspired this transition? CHAD: Mad dog's inspired us...I think like where the band is now...it's the most fun for us. It's the most fun to play the heavier stuff. It's [reggae] still in there, but [heavier songs] are more fun and we had to bring it to the table. RED: Have you thought about releasing any live album or concert DVD in the near future? CHUCK: Yeah, a DVD right? I mean with live albums, you have the internet... CHAD: I think that at some point we could try to work on a DVD and try to release a live CD around that time, too. RED: So, all of the songs that we've heard have Chad singing lead...Do you guys write too or is it just Chad? CHAD: They do too, I just don't let them [Chad laughs]. They have some cool songs. They're in their own bands, like you know, they're sort of the "Chad" of their own band, you know? [Chuck laughs]. You know, Chuck's in Bizarro- MIKE: Yeah they wear blonde wigs. Yeah Chuck's got some good stuff... CHUCK: Yeah so does the Dog...Well, I'm too underground now. Too underground for ccbSayIt. CHAD: [laughing] Not for long... MIKE: Yeah mine is nothing to speak of, but Chuck has some pretty cool stuff. CHUCK: [Mike's band is] Star Power. MIKE: Yeah, Star Power and Bizarro. RED: So lyrics, it's primarily all Chad? CHAD: Yeah, but there are parts that I'd like to do more of like, integrated parts, like in As With Gladness, or in...Fight No More. We could do stuff like that where like the vocals are leaving, and they're singing after each other. I think that would be cool. RED: So how did you choose what songs went onto Barn Sessions? CHAD: Well, it was sort of like, we had a bunch of material, we didn't put it all on, but we had some cool takes that hadn't seen the light of day that had older lyrics or different feels. So, we just wanted those songs...like in some ways we feel some of those takes are better than UATC, so we wanted them to get out there you know? I don't think that will be something we do with every album...Us Against the Crown was like, massed, over a year and a half, so we had so many different takes. It was a little painstaking...so we had to try to get that out there. I mean I know we did State I & I for the...I know that was the iTunes exclusive track, but it was always a dream for that- I always loved how that sounded, especially the beginning. I really just wanted it to open. It's a great beginning with so much energy, it just pops out...I remember we were reading some critiques we saw on Red Letter Tribe--like "Barn Sessions was great" or "Barn Sessions was terrible" like we had State I & I as first, which everyone knew already, so that set the tone. And then Black Cab was pretty-like the mix is pretty extreme- canned up drums. RED: How often do you guys read the message board? CHUCK: We're on there like, three or four times a week... CHAD: Sybil reads it a lot. MIKE: And my mom reads it and tells me about it. RED: You had said you actually liked some songs more on Barn Sessions than Us Against the Crown...RLT had a big response to Camilo. Everyone loved it more than Us Against the Crown. Do you think you'll take that into consideration when playing a live show? CHAD: Yeah, maybe. It'd be cool to have it in our bag to bring out. RED: What about Biscuits and Tea or Madusa? Would those ever see the light of day again? CHAD: Yeah, hopefully on the next album. RED: I read a journal entry that was written in 2003 about a song called "Flag of the Shiners". Is that ever going to make it back? CHAD: [laughs] I don't know...That song is- I think that there's a sketch somewhere of that song on a tape or something...I mean but there are some [other songs] that I would like to go back and change... ------ This interview is © Michael Lantow 2007. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reprint without permission.