| This interview was conducted via email October 2003...directed to each of the members, Vince, Chris and Dwight.
Great
first track "Right On" has my favorite moment among high favorites..the high-revving solo, the quick cut to the chorus..and boom, off to the next track. Did you have a formula in mind for creating the songs, or was it rather spontaneous when you got to the studio?
Well... first...you have our demo. We have a record released only in Scandinavia and available at shows and our website in which “Right On” is not the first track....
Thanks for the props. DD
wrote the riff for that one. I love that riff. We used to play it at Meow Mix when we were first starting out, and Pete the sound guy used to tell us how much we loved it, and it made us smile.
The basic attitude in the studio was loose and fun. We did 3 takes maximum. “She Got Off” and “No Sympathy” was done in one.
All the songs were written
before we got into the studio. We actually wrote No Sympathy the day before we recorded it and thats why there's a fade out at the end. We didnt have an ending. We don’t really know....we just kinda make it a live moment and see what happens...
You've recently received the title of 'Best Unsigned Band' by the New York Press. Comments?
We're flattered. We kinda thought people forgot about us around here after
we started touring so much. It was a nice thing to say. There are so many bands here, you know? We hope we can back it up. There is so much in the way of hype with so many bands nowadays. We don’t have a label, or a publicist or a manager
to toot our horns and pay off the right people with drugs and booze. We save that for ourselves, I guess..ha..It was great that J.R. Taylor thought that and we hope we can live up to it....We dont think about it. We’ve got more music to write and shows to do.
Any good stories re the recording?
Hazy..lotsa whiskey and cocaine. We ordered coke and dinner at the same time. The drugs arrived first and the diner was across the street. So
we didnt eat....another reason why we love this city..
We recorded 5 songs one day to make a demo to get gigs and another 8 the
other day. We kept 11 on the actual album. We also did 3 tracks at a childhood friend's in New Jersey.
Took about two days for overdubs and made the record for less than $1000 at Junkroom Studios in the Village. We never did more than three takes.
We didn’t think it was going to be an album. We just wanted to play out live. It just kinda turned into an album. There was no plan or anything.
We are gonna start working on a new record over the winter, I think. We gotta couple of new ones that are ready to go.
Dwight, Chris: You were in sickFM in a previous rock incarnation, back in New Jersey .What's become of the group? Do the Bamboo Kids continue the fight for what should be heard on radio?
Ha. Actually Vincent was part of sickFM as well. The Bamboo Kids are sickFM without a lead guitar player. sickFM didnt work out in the end. The guitar player Ronnie and all of us were childhood friends. He got married and had a change of life that was needed.
We were at first apprehensive to start the Bamboo Kids because Ron was such a huge part of it then. He co-wrote many of the songs on the sickFM record. He is a great guitar player...then we decided that if what
we did made us happy, then it was worth it. Well, that and the fact that no one else would play with us.
The Bambooo Kids are about simple rock and roll. Its not pretty, its not fancy, and its not trendy. So in that case,I guess we do fight for that. We just think that we undersatnd what rock and roll is but it is all subjective. We ain’t gonna sit here and bash anyone else on their success.
It's difficult to get anyplace playing rock and roll.
The songs on the album are about
our lives....girls, lust, loneliness, breaking up, being an asshole...
Junkroom Studios is where it all started. What mics, pre amps, EQs did you
use for the album?
Not really sure. It was pretty ghetto at the time. There was a take I did where there was a baby cockroach in my headphones that went in my ear during the take. I felt like Chekov in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”. The album is recorded digitally because we couldn’t afford analog. We used our own instuments. Glen at Junkroom worked hard to engineer it the way we wanted. We didnt want a digital-sounding crystal clear recording. We wanted it to sound like a late 70's basement recording. We did the best we could. I don’t think that anyone is totally satisfied with the sound of the record yet.
What prompted the decision to release on Big Dipper Records and in Europe before the stateside releases?
I met Bjorn from Big Dipper at a bar in Oslo when I was traveling last year to visit some firends. We got totally loaded together and hit it off. I only found out as we were leaving that he owned a label. He came all the
way from Norway to
sign us. He isn’t a high-powered music guy. He just loves rock and roll. In turn, we love that about him. Our deal was simple.
He wanted distribution in Scandinavia; in turn we would get CD's to sell here which helps on the road plus a profit share. We also wanted to tour outside the States as well.
We just returned from Europe and appeared on national TV and radio. It was a blast. The Norwegians were a great audience.
We haven’t found a label in the US that has made us a
favorable deal yet. We are talking to a few labels about a possible release but we just have to wait and see.
Bio request: Fill in age, birthplace, astrology sign. How did the three of you get together?
We’ve been friends forever. DD is a Leo,I (Chris) a Taurus, Vince is a Gemini...
We got together to form sickfm. Vince was a songwriter and my best friend since I had been 12. He had the best record collection of any of our friends.
We asked him to play bass. He said yes. He's the easiest-going person I have ever met. He also wrote about half of the songs on the album...
People seem to compare you with the mid-70's NYC sounds of rock and punk.
Comments?
Not really...people think what they wanna. There are worse comparisons
to make. At least someone is talking about us?? Dunno.
How do you keep the energy going on the tours?
Good question. It’s hard
because we don’t sleep much and have to drive from city to city ourselves.
The answer is that we love doing what we do. If I didn’t have energy to
play, I would stop playing. I don’t wanna play a bad show for anyone.
Its about having a good time. And...it beats working.
There is a song on the record, not the demo you have, called “Continuous Go-Go. It’s about never stopping...ever...because if you stop....well, you stop.
You've already done the cross-country tour and just got back from Europe.
How is life on the road away from NYC? Surely it must present a bit of a learning curve.
Life on the road is great all in all. We don’t make the kind of money in
the US and have no label behind us to get good fees and hotel rooms. We just kind of network and have played with so many cool bands all over. More importantly we make friends everywhere. The friendships usually last.
People admire the fact that you can go into their sometimes little town and rock for
an hour for little or no money for 100 people. What the fuck else would we do?
The learning curve is that no show is unimportant. No town is unimportant.
People pay to see you. You better give them a great show or they will tell
everyone you suck. The best shows aren’t necessarily the biggest...For
example we played a show in Austin the day after our first club date for
free..at a pizzeria of all places. the AC was busted...Texas heat...sweaty...people were going crazy
on the pool table having a great time...that’s what it is all about.
The tour in Europe was different. We never had a label behind us. We got hotels, food, booze, and crowds at every show because they were able to get press and promo going. We were treated better than the glorified homeless people we are...
It was great. The people wanna rock and love great music. A great time...We're going back in February.
What was the inspiration for the back to basics in the
sound and the design of the CD?
The demo you have has just two rubber stamps on it. That was DD's or
Vince's idea...I think DD's....
The record isn’t a sonic masterpiece. Why have a fancy cover? Does that make the songs better? It’s about the songs, isnt it? Doesn't anyone care about that?
Did Adam and Ronen (Cristina Williams Band) add their own sounds to the
recordings?
No. Ronen did the first mix and we later remixed it. |
