The Vibrators

Bands like The Vibrators are few and far between. One of the very first original UK punk bands, The Vibrators have continued to tour almost constantly since they formed in 1976 and have survived multiple line-up changes. Seeing these punk veterans live is a guaranteed good time and it’s pretty much impossible not to dance to their fun, upbeat music. Keep your eye on their MySpace page for their upcoming tour schedule. They’ll be tearing up Europe with the UK Subs during the beginning of 2009 before heading over to the U.S. in April and May.


I met with Ian “Knox” Carnochan, a founding member and The Vibrators’ lead singer/guitarist, to talk about the band, the punk scene, his affinity for art and the possible end of the world.


How would you describe your sound?

Knox: We’re a band from 1976 when punk sort of started. We’re always tagged as a punk band that’s sort of old-school and we seem to be very well regarded most of the time, so that’s alright. A lot of it’s punk and some of it’s what I call sort of intense rock, but I think that all fits into the same thing.

Have the changes in your lineup had a lasting impact on your sound?

Knox: I suppose they’ve all sort of contributed. When we do the recording and stuff and the way it’s played, it’s probably modeled it. It’s so in the background, you’re not aware of it. It’s like noticing your mother’s gotten older in the last 10 years. To you she looks the same and then you see a photograph of her 10 years ago and go, “Oh, my God!”

Your lyrics vary from songs about girls to more serious issues such as war and politics. Where do you draw the inspiration and is there a theme that you prefer?

Knox: I write about pretty well everything I suppose. I like songs that have sort of black humor stuff in the words. Sometimes the songs sort of write themselves, like “Troops of Tomorrow.” That was an idea that came off one of my friends who said we should write more meaningful songs. That was actually quite successful. Once you’ve got the title and you can put it to music, it just sort of writes itself basically. When I’m in a writing mood, I write down funny things people say to get ideas from that. Sometimes when I watch other bands, they’ll do something and I go, “That’s a good idea for a song.” One of my friends, I was helping him make some demos of this song and he was calling it “Factory Girls” or something, and I said, “Why don’t you do it about office girls, because there isn’t a song about that?” He said it’s got to be about factory girls, but the Rolling Stones have already done all that. So, I thought, “Well, I’ll write a song about office girls then.” So often it’s as simple as that.
[…]You’ve maintained popularity for over 30 years. What do you think makes you stand out from other bands?

Knox: I think just the fact that we kept going, I guess. If we hadn’t kept going, we wouldn’t have been forgotten but we’d be more legendary than obscure. We do 100 to 120 gigs a year, so we’re always touring around and I think people genuinely like to see you playing that music. I mean, there were people [at the show] last night, a couple guys, and they were just standing there and you could tell they just absolutely loved the band and the music and it was a fantastic night for them.

Where’s your favorite place to play?

Knox: I quite liked LA actually. I like bigger cities really, but sometimes in a little tiny village they go mad and you like that as well. As long as it’s got a real nice atmosphere. You know, when you play big festivals, sometimes you have to play to several thousand people and there’s a big gap between you and them, which I’m sort of uncomfortable with. I like to have people right at the front of the stage, even if they don’t really like the band. I’m more used to that sort of environment, I think. It’s more personal.

How has the punk scene changed since you first became a band?

Knox: When we first played, it was sort of when punk became punk. It was quite dangerous. Everywhere you went was sort of a war zone; you never knew what was going to happen. And generally nothing happened, but you’d look out at the audience and go, “My God, there’s some nasty people out there!” But often they were alright and liked the music. Also, because it was new, you had the press thing. You had people coming to see you because of that and they were really into you, but that’s sort of gone now. You still get press now, but it’s not that same kind of initial thing. It’s more gradual now. It’s pretty much evened out. I think the crowds who come to see us now, particularly when we headline, generally are our fans, whereas in the old days some were our fans and there would also be people there just out of interest, just checking out what was happening. When we started there were mainly lots of bands playing covers. They weren’t cover bands, but they played all different sorts of stuff out of the Top 10 or R&B hits, the old R&B, sort of blues stuff.

How have the venues changed? I know that when you started, you regularly played at a pub.

Knox: Yeah, that was where you played, in bars in England. You could pretty well get away with playing anything in there. I don’t think people realized what a liberal environment it was. I think that’s where I think the music often comes from, that sort of environment and playing live. We used to do residencies, so we’d be playing places every Friday or something and as long as we didn’t do anything terrible, we could pretty much do what we wanted.
[…]With your busy tour schedule, how do you find time to paint and what is your favorite medium?

Knox: I like oil paint, that’s my favorite medium, but the last year I mainly painted in acrylic because I paint on tour a bit. When I’m at home, I can basically paint on anything, but I don’t have time because I’m so busy. On the road, I’ve been doing loads of stuff on A4 in a sketch pad. I draw it out and then I just sort of color it in. When I was up in Canada a couple months ago, I was actually painting in the van. It’s easy enough to draw in the van; even though it’s bumping around, that’s not too bad. You can correct it. The painting I was doing was acrylic, just one color at a time. I was doing this futurist looking painting, so you have to color these little bits. It’s really high concentration stuff because the bus is lurching around and you’ve got this little bit of water. It’s just too much effort. But I like doing a half hour here and there and gradually you build up a body of work. I really like doing it. If I had more time, I’d do a lot more of it, but I often start stuff and I haven’t got it finished. I’ve probably got 300 paintings lined up and thousands of drawings. People don’t realize how much I’ve done over the years.

Have you always been interested in art?

Knox: I was always quite interested in it. When I was in school, when I was about 17, the headmaster suddenly said to me one day, “You’re quite good at art. Why don’t you do art?” So I went to art school. I’m quite grateful to him for even noticing that and suggesting that, otherwise I probably would have gone to university and done mathematics or something. When I went to art school, I was in a band. Everyone was playing guitar, so I got a keyboard and suddenly I was in three bands because they all wanted a keyboard guy. I couldn’t really play but it looked good.

Have you ever created art for your band, such as promo pictures or album covers?

Knox: Yeah, but funny enough, a couple of times people have gone, “Who did that terrible painting for the cover?” and I said, “Oh, that was me.” One time the guy actually said, “That’s the worst cover I’ve ever seen. Who the hell painted that?” and I said I did. It was a guy from a record company and he didn’t really know what to say. He said, “Well, perhaps it’s not that bad then.” I deliberately painted a bad cover because I thought that was kind of a thing, like the Ramones used to have sort of jokey paintings. It was for Energize. I think when we re-release it, we’ll have a new cover.
[…]You have loads of albums which can be a bit overwhelming for a new fan! Which would you recommend to start with for any readers who want to check you guys out?

Knox: Probably the first two albums. We’ve got a greatest hits album out and I think Hunting for You is quite good. Actually, Energize is a very good album. That was out about ’99. The last album is a cover album, sort of ’77 covers. So I think the first album, Pure Mania, and Energize and maybe the greatest hits. I think the covers one is quite nice, but it’s not typical of us. It’s just us ruining other people’s songs instead of our own.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

Knox: You haven’t asked if I think we’ll be around in 30 years time.

Do you think you’ll be around in 30 years time?

Knox: I don’t think we will because computers will have taken over and killed us all, you see, because we’ll be an enormous threat to them. Technology is increasing at an exponential rate. Last century there was 100 years of technological advance. This century there will be the equivalent of 20,000 years. People don’t realize how fast it’s going. You only have to look at the iPod thing that looks like backward alien engineering. It’s a very big thing with me, computer takeover, but my girlfriend very cleverly worked out that if we don’t have free will then we are robots, too, so we have nothing to fear from these other robots!

Read the full interview on Pseudononymous Webzine

Neal McCoy: Rednecktified

Neal McCoy got his start in country music working with Charley Pride at 21-years-old and released his first album in 1991.

His discography now includes 10 records, including three platinum albums and one gold. He was voted Entertainer of the Year both in 1998 and 1999 and won Video of the Year in 1997 for “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye.”

However, McCoy says the acknowledgment that he is most proud of is the Academy of Country Music’s Humanitarian award, which he received in 2005.

“That’s a real recognition of helping folks, helping your community, the good things you do in life,” he says. “You don’t do it for the recognition, but for someone - especially a great organization like that - to pat you on the back and say, ‘we know you’re not doing it for the recognition, but we see it and thank you for it,’ it feels good.”

McCoy and his wife started their own charity foundation 14 years ago called the East Texas Angel Network to help children with serious and life-threatening illnesses.

“It’s something were very proud of,” McCoy says. “We’ve raised a lot of money and helped a lot of families. We’ve raised almost $5 million dollars and we’ve helped over 400 families in our community. It’s a real honor to the folks of East Texas who want to help their own.”

McCoy has been on somewhere between 15 to 20 USO tours over the last seven years, visiting soldiers across the U.S. and around the world. He has been to Iraq seven times and Afghanistan twice.

“There’s nothing like having an opportunity to thank our soldiers,” he says. “There are great soldiers all over our country and all over the world who are taking care of us and doing their job, and we just think it’s very important to thank those folks. I appreciate not just those who are serving now, but also our veterans who have served I the past. Anyone who has served in the U.S. military, I’m very proud of.”

McCoy spends 7 to 8 months out of the year touring. As he doesn’t prepare a set list before he performs, no two Neal McCoy shows are exactly alike.

“It makes every show fun for me and for my band because we don’t know what’s coming next,” he says. “We all have to concentrate on what’s going on. With some musicians that have set lists, everyone knows what’s coming next, and I think you just kinda get into a rut. You lose some of that excitement.”

McCoy is known for on-the-spot covers of other songs as well, including some that he has never rehearsed with his band.

“We just do whatever comes to us,” he says. “Sometimes I’ll just start singing and maybe a band member or two will know it and maybe they won’t. Sometimes we screw it up more than we do it any good, but that’s fine. Our shows are just real honest.”

So what can audiences expect from his set at this year’s Jamboree?

“Who knows?” McCoy says. “I don’t know because we don’t have a set list. Just expect to have fun. If you’re a Neal McCoy fan, you’ll probably hear the songs that you’ve hopefully grown to know and love from us, our hits. Other than that, it’s just going to be wide open. There’s no telling what you’ll hear, but we think if you stick around for the whole show, you’ll have about as much fun as you’ve ever had.”

Published in the 2008 Oregon Jamboree program

Glen Campbell: Rhinestone Cowboy

Maybe you know him from his numerous hit songs, such as “Wichita Lineman” or “Rhinestone Cowboy.” Maybe you know him from his television show, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, which aired from 1969 to ’72. Maybe you know him from his role in the 1969 John Wayne film True Grit. Or maybe you know him from his session work with numerous artists, such as Frank Sinatra or the Beach Boys.

However you know Glen Campbell, it’s hard not to admire the man whose versatile career has spanned four decades.

“I think the singing and the playing probably come out on top,” he says. “I [was] just blessed to get the songs that hold up over time, basically the Jimmy Webb stuff. You know, I think Rhinestone Cowboy will be a fixture for ages to come.”

In the ’60s, Campbell was part of the Wrecking Crew, a group of session musicians who worked with a variety of well-known artists in Los Angeles.

“We were all in the Musicians Hall of Fame because we played in all of the sessions that came out of L.A. at that time,” he said. “Strangers in the Night, Nat King Cole, the Beach Boys, everybody. We were the band.”

Campbell’s solo career took off when he released “Turn Around Look At Me” in 1961. He is recognized as one of the first cross-over artists and he made history in 1967 by winning Grammies in both the pop and country categories. In 1968, he won CMA’s Entertainer of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year.

In addition to his music career, Campbell broke into television with his television show, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, a musical variety show that featured numerous guest stars, such as Neal diamond, Buck Owens, Johnny Cash and Ella Fitzgerald.

“When I had my TV show, I worked with about everybody,” he says. “The TV show was great because I got the big artists singing with me and it was fun.”

In 1969, Campbell costarred in True Grit alongside John Wayne. He had no acting experience before the part and he says his “record’s still clean.”

Campbell’s daughter, Debby Campbell, has been performing live with her father since 1987.

“We have a lot of fun,” he says. “Our relationship is great. We basically like the same kind of music.”

This summer, Campbell will release a new album, titled “Meet Glen Campbell.” The record, which will be released August 19, features covers of songs from a variety of artists, such as Tom Petty, U2, Green Day and John Lennon.

“It really came together,” Campbell says. “There are some good songs in there. We chose them for the songs that we wanted to do rather than any particular artist or any particular writer.”

Campbell says his set at this year’s Jamboree will feature his classic hits as well as a song from his new album.

“You’ll see Glen Campbell and whatever it is I do,” he says with a laugh. “Playing and singing.”

Published in the 2008 Oregon Jamboree program

Eugene's Metal Mayhem

The dynamic local music scene you've probably never heard of (but will).

“Make some noise for yourselves, not for us. We wouldn’t be shit without all you motherfuckers,” growls Paco, vocalist of local metal band Only Nightmares, during their set at Goodfellas in Springfield.

Metalheads gather to the left of the stage, smoking cigarettes and drinking PBR tall boys. To the right, bar regulars play pool and drink whiskey. Directly in front, fans - both male and female - rock out, moshing and throwing horns. Up on stage, Only Nightmares take out their aggression through their music – loud, fast, deep heavy metal that reverberates off the walls of the dive bar.

Goodfellas is one of many local venues that regularly features bands from Eugene’s metal scene - a scene that, while still somewhat underground, is growing rapidly. Fans and musicians comprise a tight but open community that has spawned talent from a variety of metal genres, from death to doom to thrash and everything in between.

“It’s metal, but it’s also a brotherhood that we’re forming,” Paco says of the local metal scene. “This is our family. These guys [in Only Nightmares] are my brothers… It’s giving people a way to vent, you know. People will automatically think, 'oh, metal, stigma,' but we’re actually trying to get people together and have a good time.”

Local metalheads have shown over and over that their goals are not anger or alienation. “They’re really respectful of each other and really polite, which really creeped me out at first,” says Andy Larson of Monday With A Bullet. “At punk rock shows, which is mainly my background, they’re spitting on each other, saying ‘fuck off’ and whatever. There’s not as much of that here. They’re here for the music, not the party, which is so much better.”

While there are definitely cliques within the scene, for the most part the bands and fans make up a pretty close community. The terms “brotherhood,” “solidarity” and “family” are thrown around constantly. And because of the small number of bands and venues, groups of varying metal genres often play together on the same bill with harmonious results.

“We love the music," says Tobby Lugo of Grynch and We Have Guns. "We just want to go up there and headbang, go in the mosh pit a couple times.”

The downside of the close-knit community is that rumors and gossip spread like wildfire. For example, when Boots of New World Sinner’s former band Severein broke up, it didn’t take but half an hour for the first MySpace message to roll in: “Dude, I heard.”

“You’ve gotta be careful what you say because you represent your band wherever you go,” says Angie Anderson of New World Sinner.

The majority of the bands in the Eugene scene feel a sense of camaraderie and help each other out in any way they can. Bands help each other book gigs and loan each other equipment at shows in times of need, says Nick Harris, who is currently in three local bands - Digital Violence, Side of Right and Desteria. Larson says that most of the time, Monday With a Bullet doesn’t even book its own shows; instead, other bands ask them if they would like to play.

“You’ll see a lot of the same bands on the same bill a lot,” says Blake Owens of Northwest Royale. “It’s a real grassroots thing as far as I can tell. It’s the same thing as it was when we were first coming up. Bands just call each other - ‘Hey, what are you guys doing this weekend? Want to
get a show together?’”

Approximately 20 bands rent storage units at West 11th Archery as practice spaces. “In my opinion, the heart of the Eugene metal scene stems from the West 11th Archery jam rooms,” Harris says. “Almost every single garage there is home to a band...I started jamming out there around 2001 and I met a bunch of cool people. I’d just be hanging out there [and ask,] ‘Oh, nice guitar, can I play that?’ or ‘Can I beat on your drums a little bit?’ So I know a lot of people that way.”


News of upcoming shows spreads mostly by word of mouth. Venues usually place show listings in the Eugene Weekly, but bands are now employing more aggressive promotional tactics to draw in new metalheads. Local metal band The Athiarchists have started what they call “rogue flyering” for their upcoming CD release party: grabbing handfuls of flyers and posting them everywhere, even in the bathrooms at WalMart and Fred Meyer. But overall, band MySpace pages are considered the best way to promote as they list all upcoming show dates and can be updated regularly.


The radio provides another outlet for getting out the word on metal happenings, especially KFLY FM’s Local Lixxx, which announces upcoming shows in addition to keeping an online concert calendar and message board.

“I like to think of Local Lixxx as the bat signal of local metal,” DJ Carl Sundberg says. “I want to provide a forum for local bands to get their words, ideas, shows and music out there.”

One of the best ways for local metalheads to find shows is just to show up at venues and see what’s going on. The Downtown Lounge, John Henry’s, Samurai Duck, the Black Forest and now the Oak Street Speakeasy all host local metal shows on a semi-regular basis.

“I think there was only one time that I went out on the weekend looking for a show and didn’t find one in the whole three years I’ve been really involved in the scene,” Boots says.

Of all the venues that host live metal shows, Samurai Duck is far and away noted as everyone’s favorite.

“Everyone keeps referring to Samurai Duck as the heavy metal Cheers,” says Abe Nobody of Rye Wolves. “Our town is small enough where we can all give each other a smile and a nod.”

Samurai Duck has live shows every weekend and often during the week, and when there is not a band playing, metal blares through the stereo. A television flickers behind the bar, a picture of Dimebag Darrell taped to the screen. It has not been turned off since the day he was fatally shot in 2004.

“Samurai Duck is the only bar that caters to nothing but metal,” says Brandon Dunnavin of Only Nightmares. “Fuck hip hop, fuck making a bunch of money, we want to have a place just for metal. That’s the only place here that’s done that. I’d like it if they’d upgrade their toilet facility, at least get the door to close, but that’s metal.”

The biggest problem with the Eugene metal scene is the lack of all-ages venues. Other than the WOW Hall and the McDonald Theater, the only other regular venues are bars.


“It sucks all around for everyone,” says Albert Evans of Ladon. “You have the WOW Hall that charges out the ass to rent for shows and is very selective on who they let in. The McDonald Theater is going under and still won't cater to local metal bands. You have a couple of community halls in town like the Irvine Grange Hall, but the locations really suck for kids to get to and you always risk the cops shutting you down.”

Samurai Duck plans to become an all-ages venue, says Stephanie Osburn, who is in charge of booking at the Duck, but it will be a long and expensive process, mainly because as it stands, alcohol is visible from everywhere in the bar. The entire bar will need to be remodeled before it can be opened up to minors.

The main reason metal bands have a hard time finding venues that will host all-ages shows is the stereotype that metalheads are violent or unpredictable. “They think all the kids are going to go crazy and start breaking shit and starting fights,” says Wes Beanblossom of Tormentium. “Metal is an insurance liability.”

But Osburn says that she rarely sees problems at the Duck. “The metalheads are the nicest group of people,” she says. “You see your brother or sister get knocked down in the pit and people pick them up, dust them off, make sure they’re comfortable and everything’s okay...They just want to keep it a calm scene. They want to make sure they continue to have a place to play and enjoy.”

Even though Eugene is a college town, Aaron Tunnell of the Athiarchists says that he rarely sees people from the university at shows. The lack of college students could be partially due to the shortage of outside promotion. Last fall, Lugo attended an open seminar at the WOW Hall with members of the local media and asked the Eugene Weekly why they continued to downplay the local metal scene. Their response? According to Lugo: “Who’d want to listen to that anyway?”

But apparently a lot of people do, as the Eugene metal scene continues to flourish and keeps growing with more bands, more shows and more venues.

“I have always felt like metal is in my heart, (and) the bands here in Eugene have put it into my soul,” says Aimee Manley, a local metalhead. “I just hope that someone reads this and decides to take a chance and come out and see a local show and pass the word. It's our scene to make bigger and we are the ones that can launch the bands here to greater things beyond.”


Photos, top to Bottom: Mitch and Paco of Only Nightmares; Shane Hepner of Monday With a Bullet; Boots, Nick Marquez and Angie Anderson of New World Sinner; Ray of Tormentium headbangs to New World Sinner's set at Samurai Duck.


Published in the Oregon Voice

Shameless Self Promotion

With the growing popularity of social networking sites, bands are bypassing traditional promotional steps to reach out to their fan base on a whole new level

It used to take years of hard work, grueling tours and a restrictive record contract for a band to “make it” in the music industry.

Not anymore.

On April 28, 2007, just fourteen months after forming, rock band Neurosonic announced via MySpace that they would be playing on the Family Values tour alongside their childhood idols Korn.

Neurosonic front-man Jason Darr is a master at online promotion. He uses social networking sites, especially MySpace, to personally communicate with fans and post up-to-date information about the band.

“We’re on there all the time, constantly interacting with our fans,” he says. “It’s spreading for us right now. [Our page is] getting up to 5,000 hits a day…We’re new and the fact that we’re still bringing in that number of people every day to check us out is a really big deal.”

With the growing popularity of social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and PureVolume, many bands are choosing to bypass traditional promotional steps, such as radio, television and magazines, and are instead using these sites to keep in touch with their fans and reach out to new listeners on a more personal level. Bands no longer need record companies or PR agencies to gain publicity. Instead, they are able to promote themselves and speak with their fans directly.

“It’s a one-stop shop,” says Bobby Alt from Street Drum Corps. “You can go to MySpace and you can get the band’s videos, you can talk to the band, you can leave comments, you can buy music now right from MySpace. It’s a great way for people to check out when our shows are…I have been a musician for 20-some-odd years now and when MySpace came around, it absolutely changed my life.”

Before the advent of social networking sites, bands had to think of new and creative ways to reach out to listeners. Mailing lists, while costly and time consuming, were often the most popular form of communication between bands and fans. Mark Jansen of Epica promoted his previous band After Forever in the mid-’90s by sending spam e-mails to potential fans. At the time, the response was positive, but now spam email has such a negative response that bands can no longer use it to their advantage.

“I’m a little proud that I was one of the first people to use spam email,” Jansen says. “I collected e-mail addresses from the guestbooks of other bands and I sent emails mentioning After Forever. I got emails back saying ‘thank you for mentioning this band,’ but if you do it nowadays people just say ‘fuck off!’”

Social networking sites allow bands to send out similar emails without being deleted or ignored and, unlike more traditional forms of promotion, social networking sites are absolutely free for bands, promoters and listeners. They are easy to use and anyone can create a page, leveling the playing field and providing any band with the opportunity to promote themselves.

“It helps bands who are just starting out to really virally spread the word and it gives everybody the opportunity to flick a spark and see if it catches fire,” Darr says.

In the past, record labels have had a monopoly over new up-and-coming acts but due to the rapid expansion of social networking sites, grass-roots promotion has taken the lead and anybody with the right amount of time and motivation can gain popularity without needing a record company or PR agency to back them.

“Any computer you buy nowadays has some kind of recording software on it so anyone can start a band, write songs, record them and have them up online within a day and start drawing their fan base,” says Eron Bucciarelli of Hawthorne Heights.

The benefits are evident for listeners, too, as social networking sites are making underground music more accessible to the public. Whereas in the past unsigned bands had to individually pack and ship demos to fans who contacted them or hand out CDs personally, they are now able to upload songs directly to their networking pages for fans to check out. Better yet, they are able to see how many hits each song has received to gage their popularity, whereas with demo CDs there was no way of telling who actually listened to their music and who just threw the CD into the nearest garbage can.

This type of feedback is embraced by bands and now, thanks to social networking sites, they have the opportunity to easily see their fans’ responses and use that to decide what direction to go in.

“You are so in touch with your fans that you can put up a little survey asking ‘What did you think of our last album? What was your favorite song?’ You can totally gain from that where you should go and what are people liking,” says Robbie Kirkham of The Vincent Black Shadow.

Neurosonic have a poll on their MySpace page that asks “What’s your favorite Neurosonic experience?” and lists “Live Show,” “Album/Single,” “Music Video,” “Meet and Greet,” “MySpace/Official Site” and “Other” as its choices. The site also features a Google map of their current tour and a chance for fans to “demand” that Neurosonic play in their town.

“It’s at it’s germation stage right now; it really needs to blow up,” Darr says of the show requests, noting that once enough people start voting, the band will use that information to plan their tours.

Social networking sites make it fast and easy for bands and fans to communicate on a personal level, adding a whole new dimension to the music-lover’s experience.

“It’s sort of taken that pedestal away from the bands,” Kirkham says. “I think the majority of bands now that are starting out and are trying to get somewhere use MySpace as a way to make life-long fans…We write back to everybody who writes to us. Why wouldn’t you?”

Neurosonic also make a point of personally writing back to every message they get.

“[MySpace] gives us a chance to interact with our fans a lot more. If we didn’t have that, we’d be getting fan mail and have to write back. This way, with the internet, you can just ‘boom, boom, boom,’ respond back to someone,” says bassist Jacen Ekstrom.

While communication with listeners is a huge part of the promotional process, already established bands like Hawthorne Heights use social networking sites as a way to keep their fans updated on their lives.

“Back in the day, bands just had actual mailing lists and by the time the message reached the fan, it was already old,” Bucciarelli says. “As soon as something happens with us we can send a message out to our MySpace account and everyone knows the second we know.”

With so many bands readily available to the public free-of-charge, the competition and pressure to keep listeners interested is growing.

“I think it’s just forcing bands and artists in general, song writers and everybody, to just really hone their craft and offer their fans value,” says Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed.

“The thing about social networking sites and the internet in general, is that you can get what you want when you want it,”says Jake Janzen, a college student who uses MySpace to find up-to-date information on his favorite bands. “It doesn't have to appeal to a wide range of people, so people can watch, listen, and read whatever they want. However, since there is so much stuff on the internet, it's sometimes difficult for potential fans to find [bands].”

In addition, social networking sites, especially MySpace, tend to have irrelevant clutter on the band pages.

“I don’t care about messages from friends saying ‘thanks for adding me’ or any of the spam that they usually get from other bands,” says Sharon Lewis, who prefers looking at bands’ official websites to their MySpace pages. “It takes up too much space and doesn’t mean anything in the band context.”

While MySpace pages may help bands reach a wide audience, some information (such as bulletins and photos) are exclusive to other MySpace users. Although use of the internet is growing rapidly, some people still don’t surf the web regularly or have their own social networking page. Therefore, traditional media is still a vital part of band promotion.

“I still think there are millions of people who aren’t on any of the social networking sites,” Jasta says. “They listen to college radio, specialty radio and the commercial stations, go to shows or hear it word of mouth.”

Radio in particular remains an extremely important medium.

“I honestly feel radio is still a lot more influential [than social networking sites] because a lot of people are in cars or by cars and there’s always a radio no matter what,” says Ronnie Winter of Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. “It may not be the best radio, but it’s still a radio. Not everybody has the internet, so I still feel a little more towards the radio side personally. If there were more radio stations playing unsigned bands, it would be a better industry.”

DJ Carl Sundberg, host of The Edge and Local Lixx on Eugene’s KFLY FM, helps local unsigned bands gain publicity by playing their songs on his show. Although some bands still send in demo CDs, he uses MySpace as his primary tool when searching for new bands.

“I use [MySpace] now in more of a business way than a personal way every single day,” he says. “It’s my contact point for so many bands that don’t have any other way to communicate…If a band is legit enough, they have a MySpace page, so I can check out their songs and determine then [if they have] something I’d like to play.”

While there is definitely some competition between traditional media and the internet, Sundberg doesn’t think the popularity of radio or television will ever completely diminish

“The radio will always be there, just like network TV channels,” he says. “They’re always going to be there because it’s a free medium.”

Johnny Evil, founder of promotion and booking company Evil Live, says that printed flyers are still his preferred promotional method as they are invasive and hard to ignore.

“Don't get me wrong, I use the internet quite a bit for communication, but for the most part you need to have a lot of physical flyers and posters to bombard people with,” he says. “If it's all electronic-based, the user can wipe the promotion you've thrown at them from their memory the second they walk away from the computer.”

Although Jason Hale of Chiodos says that one of the best things about MySpace is that you don’t need to tour as much to gain publicity, many listeners still argue that touring is the most gimportant thing a band can do. As social networking sites can be so cluttered with bands, seeing a band’s name on an upcoming show list can drive listeners to search for their MySpace page, especially if they are opening for a band that the listener already likes.

Neurosonic agree, continuing to tour almost non-stop, hoping to build up as much awareness about their band as possible and give something back to those that helped make them a success. After wrapping up their month-and-a-half gig on the Family Values tour in early September, they spent a month touring Europe, documenting the trip in video blogs which they posted online for fans. Upon returning from Europe, they began to tour the U.S. again and have dates booked until early December. Despite their busy schedules, they still check their networking accounts regularly and don’t plan on stopping any time soon.

“The Nintendo Generation is beginning a takeover,” Evil says. “We've been scammed our whole lives into thinking that we need capitalism, that in order to be a ‘success’ in the music industry we need big business. Well, I think there are many people of high intellect that are shaking off that brainwash and are writing a page in history all their own.”

Lordi: "Bringing Back the Balls to Rock"

Not many bands that have performed at Ozzfest alongside Lamb of God and Ozzy can say that they have something in common with ABBA and Celine Dion. Not many bands that were once shunned by their entire country can sell their own brand of cola and candies a year later.

But Lordi can.

Since its first live show in 2002, Lordi has mesmerized audiences with its energetic hard rock, horror-inspired costumes and extravagant pyrotechnics. In 2006, Lordi shocked viewers all over Europe as it represented Finland in the annual Eurovision Song Contest.

There used to be a saying that hell would freeze over before Finland would win Eurovision, Europe's oldest and most-watched televised music competition with 37 participating countries and an audience of up to 600 million each year. Not only did self-proclaimed “monsters of rock” Lordi win both the semi-final and the final, the band's anthem, "Hard Rock Hallelujah," also received the highest score in the 50-year history of Eurovision.

Although Finns were initially skeptical about the image of their country that a metal band in monster costumes would present to the rest of the world, opinions changed dramatically once Lordi's song became a success at Eurovision.

“When we actually went to the finals at Eurovision, the whole thing changed,” says Lordi's vocalist Tomi Putaansuu, who goes by Mr. Lordi when in costume. “Over one night we became national heroes and just the other day we were national shame.”

After Lordi's Eurovision victory, the band received an award for exemplary work from the Finnish president and a square in Putaansuu's hometown, Rovaniemi, was renamed “Lordi Square.” By breaking Finland's 40-year losing streak at Eurovision, Lordi had helped its home country gain international recognition.

For a hard rock band like Lordi to win the Eurovision Song Contest was a surprise to many viewers, as the contest normally showcases what Putaansuu refers to as “brainless pop.” Occasionally, however, Eurovision can help more progressive artists gain publicity. “The first band that was really different here was ABBA in the 70's and then I think the next one was Celine Dion in the 80's, and then there was us,” Putaansuu says. “It seems that every 10 or 15 years there is something that really makes a difference.”

Despite the popularity Lordi gained from Eurovision, Putaansuu notes that the band is glad that it is over. “Even though it opened really good windows and opportunities for us, in some ways it's already like a really big burden,” he says. “There has been enough Eurovision for one rock band's career already. We were a rock band before Eurovision and we continue to be a rock band after.”

Lordi formed in 1992, but it took Putaansuu ten years to find a record label willing to sign the band. “No record label really understood the whole concept,” he says. “They thought that the music was crappy but the image was good or the music was good but the image was crappy.”

While at first glance Lordi appears to be just another hard metal band, its music is actually far more melodic than the monster image may imply. It can best be described as heavy metal meets 80's hard rock with killer guitar riffs and catchy choruses. Among the band’s influences are Kiss, Alice Cooper, Twisted Sister and W.A.S.P. According to Putaansuu, a paper in Europe “intentionally misheard or misunderstood” Amen, Lordi's guitar player, and quoted him as saying that Lordi is better than Kiss or Alice Cooper. “Now some parts of the media are taking up on that and are really trying to provoke Alice Cooper and Kiss fans,” Putaansuu says. “There are thousands of other interviews where we say they are our big idols and then there's this one where it says that we are better than them, which is something that we never would have said. But, of course, that creates a scandal and sells papers.”

Lordi played its very first show five years ago at a major venue in Helsinki, just after its first album was released.

“For a band like this to go out and play before the album was out in little clubs would have definitely watered down the whole thing. It has to be kind of 'big' from the get-go,” Putaansuu notes. “Of course, that was a huge gamble in a way, but it paid off.”

It was at this very first show that Putaansuu’s worst pyrotechnic mishap occurred.

“Of course when you have pyrotechnic shit something happens every once in a while,” Putaansuu says. “I have this dynamite stick on stage that I point to the audience and it shoots fire and explodes over the audience, but I was holding it upside down, so it actually blew to my balls! But then again, I have lots of leather and latex covering me, so I just felt the warmth for a little bit. All the costumes are so thick and heavy and they are made of rubber so they are not flammable at all.”

Lordi's costumes, made from a layer of latex over foam rubber and leather, are influenced by a variety of its favorite bands, horror films and comic books, including Kiss, Alice Cooper, Freddy Krueger, Leatherface, and the Incredible Hulk. “I like to think that I have taken a little bit of each of my favorite monsters and put them all up together,” says Putaansuu.

Although the Lordi characters always remain the same (a mummy, a bulltaur, a vampire countess, an alien manbeast and Mr. Lordi as “The Most Fearsome Khan of All”), their outfits are redesigned for each new album and need constant repairing. “It's prosthetic makeup really, not costumes, so it's not meant to be used day after day after day,” Putaansuu says. “So, of course we need to do constant repairing all the time...like every two days or so.”

While wearing costumes onstage sets Lordi apart from most metal bands, it takes a significant time commitment to get into character. Putaansuu spends five hours putting on his makeup and costume to before each show and ninety minutes afterwards to take it all off.

The band members repeat this process before all photo shoots, interviews and performances because they refuse to show their real faces. In 2005, a Finnish tabloid posted photographs of the band members without their makeup, causing a huge backlash from fans.

“[How we look is] not relevant at all. That's not the band, that's not what the whole concept is about,” Putaansuu says. “If you go to Disney World, how cool would it be if Goofy took off the head?…Our fans are really, really strict on this. They don't want to know about our personal life and they don't want to know about the way we look because they are fans of our characters and our music and this band, but not of our civil personas.”

Despite, or perhaps because of, never having been seen without their costumes, the Lordi characters have become sex symbols in some countries. “I don't know what it is about them but the thing is, the uglier you are, the more girls you get,” Putaansuu says. “Think of Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead or even Gene Simmons. He’s not the prettiest boy on the block.”

Because Lordi is so heavily influenced by the horror genre and Putaansuu is a former film student, it seems only natural that the band would create horror films of its own. In 2004, Lordi released a short film Called “The Kin” on the album Monsterican Dream. In February 2008, its first full-length horror film, will be released. The film, titled “Dark Floors,” stars a young autistic girl who must save the world from a monster attack. Putaansuu wrote the script and designed the monsters for "Dark Floors," which will be directed by Pete Riski, Putaansuu's best friend since childhood, and filmed by Jean Noel Mustonen, who has shot all of Lordi's music videos. “Dark Floors” will not be released in US theaters but Putaansuu hopes that it will eventually be distributed in the US, at least on DVD.

To add to its music and film repertoire, Lordi has taken after its heroes Kiss and created a variety of different Lordi merchandise. “I've always thought that it doesn't take anything away from the band and it's the other way around if you have something else on the side, even though the band and the music is the main thing,” Putaansuu says. “It just makes the thing bigger.”

Finnish fans can buy Lordi-brand cola and a variety of Lordi candies. Copies of the single “It Snows in Hell” (a tongue-in-cheek reference to those who believed Finland would never win Eurovision) can be purchased at Finnish post offices. Lordi even has its own restaurant in Finland, Lordi's Rocktaurant, serving what Putaansuu refers to as “all the good stuff,” including reindeer, steaks, burgers and a la carte food.

Lordi has definitely come a long way since 1992. With a new album out in 2008 and the plans for more tours on more continents, Putaansuu is optimistic about the future of the band.

“Lordi has been going on for 15 years already so I don’t see us stopping,” he says. “It’s the only thing I know how to do and the only thing I want to do. As long as there’s a record label who wants to put out our music and as long as there are venues and people who want to see us live, I think the future is bright.”

Published in the Oregon Voice

Warped Tour 2007

The Vincent Black Shadow
Robbie Kirkham, guitars

How would you describe your sound?
I like to describe it as gonzo music because my writing idol, who is Hunter S. Thompson, the late great Hunter S. Thompson, called his journalism "gonzo journalism," and it was basically based on the fact that when he would write a book or a collection of something, it would be autobiographical, it would be fictional, it would be letter writing, it would be poems, all mixed into one thing, all into one medium. Essentially what we do is we take from rock, pop, jazz, metal, anything we love and we sort of mush it into “our” sound. So rather than saying, "we're kinda like rock-rap-punk-funk-jazz-soul-metal," you know, we just say it's gonzo music, which means we take from styles and make them our own.

Where do you draw your inspiration?
It comes from wanting to be different. I’ve always – when I was young all the way to now – I was always a weird kid. Whenever my brothers would show me music, it was like, “here, listen to this. You’re weird, you’ll like this.” Primus, Oingo Boingo, Devo, B-52s, stuff that was like, “everybody is listening to this, I’m going to go over here.” I have the same approach to the way I dress, the way I act and the way that my music comes out, because who wants to be the same as everyone else? I mean, everybody wants to be different but they want to be different in a conformist sort of way, you know what I mean? Like, “I’m gonna be different by getting the same haircut that everybody has.” All my musical influences have come from people like Mike Patton, Glen Dazing, Les Claypool, Fiona Apple, people who were the badass in their own way. It’s just like, I’m going to do what I want to do and if it means the end of my career, whatever. If it was the way I wanted to do it, cool.


Killswitch Engage
Joel Stroetzel, guitars

How would you describe your sound?
It's kinda heavy but kinda goofy; kinda melodic, I guess. A bit of everything.

What do you think is more important: a killer live show or a great album?
It's hard to say. Thing is, if you don’t really have a good record, people aren't going to come to your live show, and if you don’t have a good live show, they're not going to buy your album. They kinda work together I guess. But, I mean, as far as building up a kinda grassroots following, doing it yourself, I guess having a live show and just playing as much as you can is probably more important. Thing is, it's really hard to make money selling records, to make a living like that today, because nobody buys records any more. It's all download and iTunes. If you have a good live show and you can sell some t-shirts, you make a living that way.


Street Drum Corps
Adam Alt, Bobby Alt, Frank Zummo

How would you describe your sound?
Bobby: Beautiful noise! It’s high energy drums. We’ve got everything now though. Our sound is heavily drums, but now we have vocals, we have other instruments – a theremin, I think our friends played some guitar on this new record we have coming out, bass, keyboards, lots of programming. It’s all there.

Where did the concept for SDC originate?
Bobby: Mainly from street drumming, All of us were playing theme parks and private parties for years, playing hand drums, buckets, garbage cans, drum sets.
Adam: Bobby and I had a show called Experiment, Frank had show called Re-Percussion.
Bobby: We kinda joined forces 3 or 4 years ago and started doing work and ended up on the Warped Tour, Taste of Chaos, on the road with The Used, 30 Seconds to Mars, Matisyahu, little bit of everything now.

What do you use to make music?
Bobby: Everything from regular household appliances to things you might find in the garage – grinders, pieces of motorcycles and cars, real drum sets, electronic instruments, buckets ...
Adam: Trash cans
Frank: Marching drums
Bobby: Everything from a junkyard to a drum shop.

Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Ronnie Winters, vocals

How would you describe your sound?
Basically, as stupid as it might sound, we kinda consider our CD to be like an iPod Shuffle. We tried to cover a lot of different things from piano rock to screaming metal to punk rock to power ballads, so that’s how we kinda consider it, if that makes any sense.

What would you say is your biggest accomplishment as a band to date?
Well, we did a tour called the Take Action tour in February/March. It’s a tour to raise awareness about youth suicide. They give out free samplers and if you put it in your computer, you have the option to become a youth counselor. On the tour that we headlined, there was a 500% increase in people that not only put the CD in but signed up and took the course than all of the existing years of the tour put together. I think that was pretty rad. That’s probably the best thing that we’ve done so far.


Still Remains
Jordan Whelan, guitar

How would you describe your sound?
Anything diverse. If you like bands like HIM, In Flames, Stone Temple Pilots, I think you'd like Still Remains.

How has Warped been so far?
It’s a great opportunity for us to tour with bands and meet bands that we would never tour with otherwise. There’s a band on tour called the Rocket Summer, an incredible band but Still Remains would never tour with the Rocket Summer on a regular tour! So it’s cool for us, it’s cool for the fans.

Do you prefer the creative process of writing the music and seeing it all come together or playing it live and watching the crowd’s response?
I love playing live and I love being on tour, but for me, the most accomplishing feeling is being in the studio and making something out of nothing. It’s obviously not the same as birthing a child, but it’s the same sort of thing. It’s like taking your thoughts and ideas and composing them and compressing them and making this beautiful piece of work. So definitely the creative process is my favorite part about it.


Chiodos
Jason Hale, guitar and Matt Goddard, bass

How would you describe your sound? Jason: Diarrhea
Matt: It’s a mixture of a bunch of stuff. I don’t really know.

How has Warped Tour been so far?
Matt: It’s been great, just really hot. I cant wait to get back to my own toilet. [To Jason] Why are you looking at your…[Jason holds up his finger after picking his nose] Oooooh, gross! Um, I’m looking forward to not being in a bus on Warped…that’s gross. I’m seriously distracted by that, I cant stop looking at it.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Jason: Halo rocks!
Matt: I can’t even think straight right now we’ve been playing Halo so much today. One day we were driving and we played for 4 hours straight. I had to pee so bad but I couldn’t get up.


The Matches
Shawn Harris, guitar/vocals

How would you describe your sound?
I have no idea what the description comes up as.

So tell me a bit about co-directing your new music video for "Salty Eyes."
I co-directed it with my art partner and our manager and this guy who was the Director of Photography for the video. It basically came about because we shot our video for this album, Papercut Skin, which came out about the same time as the album. Being on an indie label, you pretty much get a bunch of promo videos. We had this concept for "Salty Eyes." It was an appropriation of the Bob Dylan "Subterranean Homesick Blues" video, and we had this really good spin on it that went with the song perfectly. We ended up making it for less than $1,000. We wound up finding all the TVs in junkyards ourselves. We collected between 50 and 100 televisions that all worked and practiced for a week using cardboard boxes. We finally shot it all in one take. There are no cuts; it's one take straight through. We had one chance to get it right.


Hawthorne Heights
Eron Bucciarelli, Drums

How would you describe your sound?
I would describe it as rock with emo inflences, pop-rock influences, hardcore influences, metal influences, classic rock, pop, the whole spectrum. I think at it's core, it's rock music, but if you listen hard enough, you’ll be able to pick out where were drawing inspiration from.

What’s life on the Warped Tour like?
Its like camping. It's long, hot days. You've gotta figure out when you’re gonna eat, when you’re gonna shower, and sometimes the facilities are just as good as camp facilities. But it's really fun. There’s a lot of really great bands here that we’re friends with and that we’ve become friends with and the crowds are amazing. You cant beat the crowds. Warped tour is the best summer festival out there, hands down.


Published in the Oregon Voice