James Riswick
Assistant A&E Editor
For those of us who aren’t musically inclined, it’s pretty easy to take the tunes we listen to for granted.
But have you ever wondered what it’s like literally behind the music? How does one write a song? What it’s like to play live on stage? How is an album recorded?
To try and answer some of these questions, we sat down with two members from the two top winning bands from January’s Pepperdine Battle of the Bands.
Lead guitarist Dan Yoder of The Sindicate and bass player Brian Bushway of Soundmind, both seniors, have known each other since freshman year when they lived together in A-Suite of Dorm 17. Back then, they would sit around and jam together. Today, both of their bands hopefully stand poised to burst onto the music scene with their equally solid, yet decidedly different sounds.
Playing music in a band is a long, arduous and often frustrating process they say, but in the end, there’s nothing they would rather be doing.
Graphic: Do you ever get tired of playing the same songs every performance?
Dan Yoder: You don’t really play the song the same way, at least we don’t. We mix it up, like, put extra bars here and do different things there. You have like this skeleton of a song, and what can you do to make it cooler? So every performance of the song is a challenge to see where you can throw things in. And when you throws things in, you wonder how the other guys are going to react to this. Are they going to react to the cues and drag it with me?
Brian Bushway: We definitely get tired of practicing songs at night, but when you’re at a show, it’s like a whole new event. The songs have a whole new life there that evening because there’s new crowds, a new scene. You never play the same song. Even if the song has the same structure, it comes across differently every time.
DY: Yeah, a little faster, a little slower. How will the audience react?
BB: Exactly, where (the song) is in your set, the audience reaction is, where you’re playing, what’s the audience like. Are they sitting there listening intently, or is the entire room talking? The whole experience of playing that show is very different every night.
Graphic: So is it like reading out loud in class? You can read it, but you can’t always remember the information you just read?
BB: Yeah, you don’t really hear the song in it’s entirety. You start hearing different things that you normally don’t hear because you’re mind is half paying attention to you playing the song and the other half is listening to everything else that’s going on. So you’re mentally multi-tasking to what you’re listening to. There’s time when I play and get done with the entire set, and I don’t even remember a single thing that happened.
DY: Really?
BB: Yeah, I can remember highlights and points but it went by so fast, cause you were in the moment. It’s a very momentary thing. The music is alive. It’s happening right then and there, and if you’re feeling it. You’re stuck right there and you’re consumed by the music around you.
DY: Maybe it’s because you’re more intoxicated at the shows. I mean, I can remember them pretty clearly.
BB: No, I mean I can remember what song and stuff, but it’s just, “That was a whole hour set?” It just seems like mere seconds. That three-minute song feels like 30 seconds.
Graphic: How do you write a song? Do you play a chord on your guitar, do you come up with a beat or do you just come up with the lyrics first and then come up with the music?
BB: I think it’s all of the above.
DY: It depends
BB: Writing a song starts from inspiration. You play like a chord progression or a riff, and someone says “that’s a cool riff.” The cool thing about playing a song is, if you’re in a band, everyone else in the moment responds to that riff and they’re all inspired. Someone throws down the next element to it and before you know it, you’re all on the same page. So they hear that idea and the entire band makes it even better. Now it’s an ownership of everybody.
DY: We’re like a cheese blocker. One of us will come in with an idea and somebody will be able to say “that is the stupidest, cheesiest thing I have ever heard in my life. That’s ridiculous.” We would have written so many terrible songs had it been me alone writing songs. Being able to tell somebody in the band that that is the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard, but at the same time having them understand that you have the most respect for their musical abilities that you could possibly have for another person, that’s what a true band is.
BB: That’s very true. There’s a comfort level. There’s a relationship amongst the band when you could do anything and they’ll be honest with you. It’s tough. When your band mate calls you out and says you’re sucking, there’s nothing that hurts more, but there’s nothing that’s more respectful of that person. Cause you hear it and you want to perform for them. You want to play at your best ability all the time for them. Just to please them.
DY: That’s true, man. That’s what it comes down to.
Graphic: Your bands both have their own sound. Do you find that you write songs to match that sound, or does it just naturally happen?
BB: The ideal thing about the band is that each individual plays their instrument differently and has their own touch to it, so naturally, if everyone is being true to their own self, then it is the combination of these individuals coming together to make a unique sound that you really can’t reproduce. You really couldn’t take my band and put another guitarist in there who would have the same touch that (lead guitarist Jon Thomas) does. The sound would change slightly. I mean if we had Dan in our band, our sound would be very different. Each person’s individual playing style is where the sound comes from. So if everyone is playing how they play, you’re going to stay true to the sound, even if a song is going to change feels.
DY: Yeah, the only law we have is it’s got to be legit, it’s got to have integrity, it can’t be cheesy. As long as it fits that, it will sound like us.
Graphic: How does writing lyrics work? Is it usually the lead singer?
DY: It depends. Anyone can come up with them. Sometimes I’ll write some. We all do. But you can hear lyrical differences in our music. Like the beginning of “The Cycle,” I wrote that, and they’re ones I wrote a while back. Then Austin does stylish, blues-like things within the songs like in “Long Legged Lover.”
BB: I know when it comes to singing a lyric, whatever the lyric is, if Jon created the lyric, (lead singer Travis McClain) tries to talk to Jon to understand where Jon’s coming from … then Travis in his mind creates an image in his head that relates personally back to him, so that when he’s singing the song, he’s trying to keep it personal to himself.
Graphic: As time goes on, do the meaning of the songs change if the meaning is no longer relevant to their lives?
BB: Yeah, for our band, that song is “Real World.” When we first heard it, we thought it had potential and it was catchy, but we hated it — we thought it was corny. But that’s one of the songs that people come back to us and say, more times than not, they like. It’s such a square song, but people for whatever reason respond to it, so as a band we have to learn over and over again how to relate this song back to meaning so we can play it honestly. What is the mental place that we can go to sell this song where it means something and we’re not being hacks about it.
DY: That’s how “Injun Song” is for us, but it’s by far the most requested. It’s the first song we ever played as a band.
Graphic: How do you go about recording an album?
DY: That’s a question mark.
BB: Yeah, it’s something we’re both trying to figure out … But I think how it works now and what we’re looking at is a live setting. We start everyone off live, everyone on different tracks so you can get feel, and then you can add in things later.
Graphic: What’s the hardest thing about making it today in the music industry?
DY: There’s three things that really are hard. First, there’s so many (bad) bands. If you go to the market and 50 percent of the lemons are filled with mold and insects, you’re probably not going to try and find the good 10 percent of the lemons, even though they do exist. And I don’t blame people for that.
The other thing that’s really hard about it is that who can you trust to get you to the top? Because eventually you’re going to have to relay some of your product onto somebody else to help you. You can’t do it all by yourself. Like going to a studio. You are giving the person there control over the product you’re putting out there. How do you trust these people?
BB: People aren’t necessarily these days about making the best quality of music. They’re more interested in what will be best for themselves.
DY: Yeah, that’s basically the third point. Nobody cares about the art. It’s all about the scene. People don’t go to a concert anymore to enjoy the richness of the song, they go there because all their friends go there or their friends want to go there. So they hold up their cell phone into the air when the song they heard on the radio comes on. It’s just stupid.
BB: Another problem is that today it’s all about making money, it’s about selling stock, it’s about whatever will make you the quicker buck. That’s where the music and art suffers.
DY: Yeah, anytime you mix art with commerce you get a train wreck.
Graphic: What do you hope to take away from your time in the band?
BB: When (I) look back on my life and even if my band doesn’t make it, if two years down the road we’re done … there’s really nothing I’d rather be doing with my time right now than playing music with these guys.
DY: Exactly.
BB: There’s nothing that brings (me) more happiness or joy, and if that’s what it’s about, then it’s worth every minute of it.
It’s like spending a Friday night practicing rather than going out to some big, huge party or something like that. When I’m playing music with these guys and we’re all just loving it, there’s nothing better than that. That’s a good time.
Soundmind and The Sindicate will be performing tonight at the Dume Room at 10 p.m.
02-10-2005
