Grand Ambitions

After watching Bayside rock The El Rey on Halloween night, I decided to approach Nick about an interview. He said yes and it was really great to talk with him. Bayside and Nick are both on twitter and you can follow them at www.twitter.com/baysideband and www.twitter.com/nickbayside

As always, you can download the Grand Ambitions podcast at www.grandambitions.mypodcast.com

Thanks for listening!

I Hung out with Ty from Broadway Calls on Halloween before they rocked the balls and girl-balls off everyone at The El Rey Theater.  It was great hanging with him in the van as we talked about their newest record and their plans for the future.

Visit Broadway Calls at www.myspace.com/broadwaycalls  or www.twitter.com/broadwaycalls.  Don’t forget to pick up their new album from SideOneDummy records.

By the way. They were babies for Halloween. Check it out.

I’m interviewing Frank Turner at the San Francisco, CA stop of his tour with The Gaslight Anthem, Murder By Death, and The Loved Ones!

Download at www.grandambitions.mypodcast.com

Check out Frank Turner at www.Frank-Turner.com or www.myspace.com/FrankTurner and buy “Poetry Of The Deed” out now!

Enjoy!

 A good friend of mine, Armando Olivas aka Mondo of Mondo’s Music Box on KUCR, aka WackyMondo, aka Awesome, told me that I had to cover The Swellers for the blog.  I looked into them and really dug what I listened to. It was also intriguing to find out that they were supporting Paramore on their upcoming US tour. So, I shot them an E-mail and got a quick response from Nick.  Enjoy!

P.S. You can see the awesome that is Mondo at www.twitter.com/wackymondo or www.tumblr.com/mondosmusicbox.

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Grand Ambitions: Howdy! Can you introduce yourself and what you do in the band?

Nick Diener: I’m Nick and I sing and play guitar in The Swellers.

GA: One thing I’ve noticed after watching your Youtube videos is that you guys seem like really good friends and you guys are always cracking jokes. Is this something you do for the videos or are you just that funny all the time?

ND: I think that’s the only way for us to stay sane on the road. We’re a bunch of goofs, so we have to find out how to entertain each other on 9 hour van rides. The camera only picks up about 5 percent of how ridiculous we actually are. “Funniest band on the road” was a title given to us by our tour manager, Dave Kloc.. but he’s about 75% of the wittiness.
 
GA: You recently signed to Fueled By Ramen. Tell me a little bit more about this decision. Were there any other labels you were considering?

ND: There were a couple labels we were talking to, and a few that were talking to us and we didn’t talk much back.. but FBR was the label that felt most like home. They stuck by our side for like 8 months before we signed, constantly seeing how we were doing, they came into the studio while we made our record, etc. Just all really great people. Felt like they’d be able to really grow WITH us, instead of just put out record after record of doing the same old thing.
 
GA: What has been your favorite tour so far?

ND: This summer might have been our favorite time. We did the Western US with Living With Lions and became best friends with those dudes, then the Gig Life tour with Four Year Strong, Set Your Goals, Fireworks, and Gravemaker was RIGHT after. The Lions tour was amazing because we got to headline a lot of the shows, then the Gig Life tour was amazing because we got to play to so many people who had never seen us before. It’s great being on the road with good friends.

GA: You’re touring Paramore at the end of September. How are you feeling about that?

ND: We’re ecstatic. We’re all big Paramore fans, and Hayley has been a big help getting us comfortable with Fueled By Ramen and just being a great supporter of our band. We’re gonna be playing to an entirely different type of crowd, but given the style of our new record, I think it’ll go over really will with those kids.
 
GA: Did you expect when you began playing as a band, that one day you would tour with Paramore?

ND: When we began playing as a band in 2002, Paramore didn’t exist. But after we saw them live and got their record in 2007, we knew we’d be a good match and have a blast playing with them someday!
 
GA: You have a new album coming out on September 29th, Ups and Downsizing, and you recently put up the cover art, album art, song lyrics, and explanation of your inspiration for every song.  What prompted this? How will this enhance the experience of listening to your new record?

ND: We wanted to give everyone a heads up that we care about things like that. Our lyrics mean something, our album art means something… we put a lot of blood and sweat into our work (no tears, we’re tough). So when people hear the record, we hope they understand a least a LITTLE bit where the song came from, and what it means to us when we’re playing onstage.
 

GA: Have you gotten any negative feedback from your fans in regard to you signing to FBR? If so, what do you have to say to these fans, if anything? 

ND: A couple people were confused. I don’t blame them. a DIY touring aggressive fast band signing to a label that spawned the success of paramore, fall out boy, panic at the disco, etc etc.. hardly makes sense. We’ve gotten some concerned emails like “you guys won’t change or sell out, right?”. I think anyone who knows us personally knows the answer to this question.  We just want to play our songs and hang out with our friends on tour. If anything, i’m glad we get to branch out and show our music to a lot more people. the more people we reach, the louder our voices are. can’t wait to see what happens!

GA: Anything you’d like to add?

ND: Thanks for the chat, I hope everyone picks up “Ups and Downsizing” when it comes out on Sept 29th!

I recently contacted Jordaan Mason about doing an e-mail interview. This then turned into a phone performance, which then turned into a half hour long interview AND performance!  Enjoy!

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An interview and podcast with Jordaan Mason:

Grand Ambitions: Hello Jordaan. How you doing?
 

Jordaan Mason: I’m doing alright. my ears are a bit buzzy from going from a very loud show tonight.

GA: Where are you at right now?

JM: I’m sitting in my bedroom at 3:30am. I just finished re-reading part one of “Angels in America” by Tony Kushner.
 
GA: You recently released “Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head.” It seems like this has been a long long time in the making. What was it that took so much time to finally complete?

JM: ‘Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head’ took approximately three to three-and-a-half years to make, for a few reasons. Firstly: I write songs very slowly. So, writing the songs took up the major portion of almost two years. The album is really concept-heavy because basically the whole ‘story’ came to me all at one time and I wrote the whole record as one long song at first, and it took a while to figure out where things needed to really be, how to tell it as a story in individual songs. I wrote the words (as per usual) before touching an instrument. Then, a band started to form around the songs, we had to find a permanent drummer, more and more people kept getting involved…. a lot of the people in the band have very busy schedules and lives and are doing their own projects… and our friend, Bryar Gray, who recorded and engineered the whole thing was in his final year of university the whole time… etc etc etc. In the end I think the recording mostly took so long because it was difficult to organize everyone’s schedules.
 
GA: I’ve been listening to the new album a lot recently.  From what I’ve noticed it is very sexual. [from “Bird’s Nest”—“My mouth is filled with his ovaries.”]  Where does all this come from? What is your inspiration? (by the way, I love how you refer to a man’s testicle as a bird’s nest.)

JM: The album is a story based on real events in my life. I say “based on” because the songs are definitely fiction, but they borrow heavily from my own relationships. I tried to be careful not to exploit those people, though (time will tell on that one). However, one of those relationships was with a male-bodied person who, over the course of our relationship, came to terms with herself as female. The record, then, is essentially about the confusion of this process. Also, I had a lot of questions about sex that I wasn’t really sure I knew how to answer. I was (and maybe still am, to some degree, but I think less so now) very confused, mostly, about how a homosexual relationship should or could be structured versus the traditional structure of a heterosexual relationship, what are two people really supposed to feel for one another, what does it really mean to share your body with another person, especially when the body you’re in isn’t the body that you want or think you should have. I think in the end this is why the record might come off as confusing: essentially, that’s exactly the feeling of the songs. The songs are over-saturated with sex because that’s the language it felt necessary to use to talk about this confusion. The first line of ‘Bird’s Nest,’ however, is actually meant, then, to be almost exactly what it sounds: a boy cannot have ovaries. so what does a boy have instead? What am I supposed to have in my mouth if the boy is actually a girl but there are really no ovaries? There are a lot of question marks on this record, really.

GA: I seem to remember you saying that you are gay.  Does this is ever bring about negative feelings when you are in tour in certain areas?  

JM: I suppose I am gay, yes. I am attracted to primarily male-bodied people. For the most part, in terms of performing, it hasn’t necessarily been much of an issue, but there have definitely been shows where I have felt uncomfortable or I can tell that I am making the audience uncomfortable. Profanities (faggot, mostly) have been yelled at me while I’ve performed; this usually just makes me yell more.
 
GA: Do you ever have to scale back some of your songs that are very blatently homoerotic?

JM:  I have only really scaled back the songs twice. Once, while playing in Charleston, South Carolina, I asked the audience what they would prefer, since they were mostly younger and I didn’t really know anyone there - and the hosts parents were there. But everyone encouraged me to say what I had to say. and another time, in a very small town in New Brunswick, I played at a bar where I felt very uncomfortable, so I only sang covers.
GA: Let’s discuss touring.  Jordaan Mason and The Horse Museum is a 13 piece band. It seems like it would be impossible for the entire band to tour.  How do you handle tour? Who comes with you? Do you go it alone?

JM: The entire band has never toured. For a long time I played, wrote, and toured alone - that was pretty easy. I’ve also done some tours where friends have played with me but we weren’t necessarily ‘The Horse Museum.’ There have been two tours done by ‘The Horse Museum,’ where the band has been five to ten members depending, and they have been extremely short. As I said before, most of the band members have very busy lives - our drummer is in his master’s program, our accordion/piano player lives about an hour and a half away, several of our members live in New York state… and they have jobs, and other bands. So it’s hard to get away for too long right now, and also none of us owns a car. Mostly upcoming tours will be myself and the banjo player, Dee Addario, as a duo, and probably some more short five - eight piece tours randomly spaced out until it makes enough sense for everyone to go.
 
GA: What are your future tour plans? When you coming back to beautiful Southern California?

JM: Tour plans are pretty iffy right now. A lot of them are very hypothetical. I took a break from touring for almost a year (which I only broke once because the band had an opportunity to hit the road for about six days with our dear friends in the band Klessa, from New York state, who also make up part of The Horse Museum) and I’ve gotten equally comfortable with where I am and also restless for the road. So I don’t like to say things too definitely in case they change. But we are hoping to tour as a duo in the fall sometime and hit up most of the states, including California. Next year, we are hoping to leave the continent a bit and go to Australia, since a record label there is going to be re-releasing our album on vinyl there, and the guy who is helping us is really friendly. I’m not totally sure about that yet since it’s a lot of money. We also want to go to Europe. I would maybe like to see if we could make that a band thing.
 
GA: I read that you are a part of a side project. HUGS HONEY HEX.  What is the future for that project? Co-headlining tour with Jordaan Mason and the Horse Museum?

JM: HUGS HONEY HEX is a new project with four Horse Museum members: Jason McCrimmon, Kristina Born, Dan Scarfone, and myself. It’s a pretty new thing; we’re playing our first show in a few weeks. Essentially it’s a project where none of us is the ‘frontman,’ and we switch instruments and roles a lot. We’re all learning new instruments for the band, also. The four all had a lot of free time these days to practice and write songs so we did. It’s really fun. I’m not at all sure what our plans our considering it’s so new…. right now, I suppose it’s just to play at all. I’m playing clarinet, accordion, and drums in this band.
 
GA: Anything you’d like to add?

JM: I can’t think of much to add right now. It is 4am now and HUGS HONEY HEX has to practice tomorrow afternoon. So I think its time for bed. 

Questions from real life humans:
 
1. Were you breast fed?

JM: I think I was breast fed. I will say yes.
 
2. What inspired the album title Mantra Songs?

JM: The title ‘Mantra Songs’ is basically exactly what the songs are. Every song on that album has a repeated phrase or line, and each of those were things I would say to myself in my head a lot at the time.
 
3. Do you use Twitter?
 

JM: I do not use (or understand) Twitter.

4. Do you like Lady Gaga?
 

JM: I do not own a television or a radio, really, so my knowledge of popular culture, and thus also Lady Gaga, is basically limited to what I hear from friends and the internet. I don’t really have an opinion, pretty much all I know about her is she refers to a cock as a “disco stick.”

5. Are there more gay rights in Canada than the U.S.? How do you feel about gay marriage?

JM: Gay marriage is legal in Canada, so I suppose that means homosexuals have more rights in Canada than in America, currently. To be honest I don’t know as much about America’s current state in a government sense, right now. Gay marriage is a very complicated issue. I don’t really believe in marriage period so it’s not something I really care about, but I see the reasons why it should be a “right,” I guess - in that it means everybody has the same rights. I get that. But I think that the idea of gay marriage is damaging, though, to an extent, because I think it really re-enforces the traditional heterosexual narrative. I just don’t think that narrative works for everybody, and it definitely doesn’t work for me, so it’s not an issue I find necessary to fight for myself at this time.

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Remember you can check out Jordaan Mason at www.myspace.com/jordaanmason.  You can buy the new album on iTunes and Amazon. 

Don’t forget you can download the podcast at www.GrandAmbitions.mypodcast.com. Please Please Please download and subscribe!

Thanks for reading/listening.

Podcast 2 of Grand Ambitions Blog & Podcast. I review new music from Cobra Skulls, Jordaan Mason and the Horse Museum, and end Fake Problems month with one of my favorite tracks.

http://www.mypodcast.com/fsaudio/grandambitions_20090725_2057-468933.mp3

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