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Angels & Airwaves, Say Anything, Bad Religion Members Discuss the Biz at Panel
HOLLYWOOD — Always verbose and sardonically comic, Alternative Press Editor in Chief Jason Pettigrew knew exactly how to get the party started at last night's Guitar Center "evening of dialogue and insight" event.
[Tom DeLonge during a recent interview with Buzznet]
"How many people here are in a band?" Pettigrew asked from the small stage at the store's famed Sunset Boulevard location, where punk and indie legends past and present were about to discuss all things related to the music business. More than half the assembled crowd, the majority of them shockingly youthful – with the notable exception of a few of the record label execs, managers and publicists buzzing about – raised their hands. At these kinds of events, it seems, the audience is looking for the roadmap to "making it."
The talent assembled had plenty of wisdom to divulge and experience to draw upon. Flanking the esteemed Mr. Pettigrew, whose Cleveland publication has reported on and supported the "alternative" community (from Fugazi to Nine Inch Nails) for years, was an impressive array of folks.
[Warped Tour Roundtable at Guitar Center]
Tom DeLonge sat on the far left, dressed smartly in a tight-fitting jacket and his own Macbeth shoe-wear ... more befitting his current role as Modlife maven and Angels & Airwaves frontman than his prior notoriety as a Blink-182 joke-smith. (Read our recent interview with Tom, in which he says Blink will never re-form.) Next to him was Joe Escalante, the erstwhile Vandals bass player and L.A. radio host whose label, Kung Fu Records, released the very first album from Blink-182.
Then there was Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz, whose Epitaph Records was once home to the Vandals and presently boasts an impressive roster that includes Motion City Soundtrack, Tiger Army and major-label runaways Story of the Year, whose guitar player, Philip Sneed, was also present. Warped Tour, Taste of Chaos and Rockstar Mayhem co-founder Kevin Lyman (does this guy ever sleep?) was on hand as well, sitting next to Say Anything's Max Bemis.
[Warped Tour Roundtable at Guitar Center]
The main topic of discussion was the ever-evolving state of the music business.
While discussing free-falling CD sales, Escalante said Kung Fu Records is in "retreat" — nurturing its catalog but avoiding signing new bands until things settle down. Gurewitz is still aggressively signing and marketing new acts and trying to figure out new kinds of deals. DeLonge mentioned that during his career he's seen four or five of the labels he's been signed to disappear and/or undergo regime changes and said that Angels & Airwaves is "negotiating to get off of Interscope Records." Delonge explained that from their inception, his band has worked hard to be more of a "fine arts project" than a traditional band, with the impending release of a documentary on tap.
On the related topic of the Internet, DeLonge (a self-confessed fan of Buzznet!) thinks his years-in-development Modlife web portal holds many of the answers bands and the business are searching for. Gurewitz proudly confessed to streaming music from sites like Last FM more often than from his hard-drive, while Pettigrew is still proud of the "artifacts," cluttering his house in the form of LPs, CDs and 7" singles.
When it comes to the increasing costs of touring relative to fuel prices, Lyman said many bands are going back to sharing buses, the way bands like Orange 9mm, L7 and Sublime did on the 1995 Warped Tour. Sneed mentioned that a tour bus can cost a band upward of $1,000 per day. Lyman, an early adopter of biodiesel fuel on the Warped Tour, said many have suggested he "raise the ticket prices at Warped Tour to offset rising fuel costs." However, he's reluctant to do so, because he "recognizes that the people buying tickets are just as pressed for cash right now as everyone involved with the tour."
[Warped Tour Roundtable at Guitar Center]
The main thing the audience seemed to want to know was how to get their band noticed. The entire panel was in agreement that local scenes need to be nurtured as in the days of yore and bands should work harder to develop relationships with one another and of course ... write good songs!
Another topic that came up was the ever-present phrase "selling-out," which most of the assembled have read about themselves at one time or another on a message board. Pettigrew said that to him, the definition of selling out is, "When your first album sounds like Black Flag but your second sounds like Nickelback." Bemis and Sneed offered that selling out has less to do with a band's sound and more to do with compromising your integrity. DeLonge joked self-deprecatingly that you "can't sell out" if you "don't have any integrity in the first place," to much laughter from the crowd.
[Tom DeLonge during a recent interview with Buzznet]
"How many people here are in a band?" Pettigrew asked from the small stage at the store's famed Sunset Boulevard location, where punk and indie legends past and present were about to discuss all things related to the music business. More than half the assembled crowd, the majority of them shockingly youthful – with the notable exception of a few of the record label execs, managers and publicists buzzing about – raised their hands. At these kinds of events, it seems, the audience is looking for the roadmap to "making it."
The talent assembled had plenty of wisdom to divulge and experience to draw upon. Flanking the esteemed Mr. Pettigrew, whose Cleveland publication has reported on and supported the "alternative" community (from Fugazi to Nine Inch Nails) for years, was an impressive array of folks.
[Warped Tour Roundtable at Guitar Center]
Tom DeLonge sat on the far left, dressed smartly in a tight-fitting jacket and his own Macbeth shoe-wear ... more befitting his current role as Modlife maven and Angels & Airwaves frontman than his prior notoriety as a Blink-182 joke-smith. (Read our recent interview with Tom, in which he says Blink will never re-form.) Next to him was Joe Escalante, the erstwhile Vandals bass player and L.A. radio host whose label, Kung Fu Records, released the very first album from Blink-182.
Then there was Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz, whose Epitaph Records was once home to the Vandals and presently boasts an impressive roster that includes Motion City Soundtrack, Tiger Army and major-label runaways Story of the Year, whose guitar player, Philip Sneed, was also present. Warped Tour, Taste of Chaos and Rockstar Mayhem co-founder Kevin Lyman (does this guy ever sleep?) was on hand as well, sitting next to Say Anything's Max Bemis.
[Warped Tour Roundtable at Guitar Center]
The main topic of discussion was the ever-evolving state of the music business.
While discussing free-falling CD sales, Escalante said Kung Fu Records is in "retreat" — nurturing its catalog but avoiding signing new bands until things settle down. Gurewitz is still aggressively signing and marketing new acts and trying to figure out new kinds of deals. DeLonge mentioned that during his career he's seen four or five of the labels he's been signed to disappear and/or undergo regime changes and said that Angels & Airwaves is "negotiating to get off of Interscope Records." Delonge explained that from their inception, his band has worked hard to be more of a "fine arts project" than a traditional band, with the impending release of a documentary on tap.
On the related topic of the Internet, DeLonge (a self-confessed fan of Buzznet!) thinks his years-in-development Modlife web portal holds many of the answers bands and the business are searching for. Gurewitz proudly confessed to streaming music from sites like Last FM more often than from his hard-drive, while Pettigrew is still proud of the "artifacts," cluttering his house in the form of LPs, CDs and 7" singles.
When it comes to the increasing costs of touring relative to fuel prices, Lyman said many bands are going back to sharing buses, the way bands like Orange 9mm, L7 and Sublime did on the 1995 Warped Tour. Sneed mentioned that a tour bus can cost a band upward of $1,000 per day. Lyman, an early adopter of biodiesel fuel on the Warped Tour, said many have suggested he "raise the ticket prices at Warped Tour to offset rising fuel costs." However, he's reluctant to do so, because he "recognizes that the people buying tickets are just as pressed for cash right now as everyone involved with the tour."
[Warped Tour Roundtable at Guitar Center]
The main thing the audience seemed to want to know was how to get their band noticed. The entire panel was in agreement that local scenes need to be nurtured as in the days of yore and bands should work harder to develop relationships with one another and of course ... write good songs!
Another topic that came up was the ever-present phrase "selling-out," which most of the assembled have read about themselves at one time or another on a message board. Pettigrew said that to him, the definition of selling out is, "When your first album sounds like Black Flag but your second sounds like Nickelback." Bemis and Sneed offered that selling out has less to do with a band's sound and more to do with compromising your integrity. DeLonge joked self-deprecatingly that you "can't sell out" if you "don't have any integrity in the first place," to much laughter from the crowd.
| Posted by superherohq on 06/13/2008 12:58 PM | Visits: 533 |