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| ::Interviews:: |
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| review & interview content, as well as web site graphics & design, copywrite 2003-2004 Euphonia Online. use of materials granted only with reasonable purposes. |
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| interviewed by robby sumner |
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| Interview with Mike February 17th, 2005 |
Casey Linstrum - Guitar, Vocals Mike Wright - Guitar, Vocals Cory Linstrum - Bass, Vocals Dave "Opey" Provenzano - Drums |
| E: Fighting Jacks released a full-length as part of the Tooth and Nail Records family--how busy has the band been lately?
Mike: Well, we are actually not on Tooth and Nail Records anymore. We had a one album deal with them and decided to part ways with the label recently. We have been very busy these past two years, touring the country and stuff. Very recently, we have just been at home in San Jose, CA, writing new music and playing locally. E: Have you been making any sort of conscious effort to alter your musical style in new songs you compose? Mike: We have just been pushing ourselves and our boundaries. Getting a new drummer last April has totally made an awesome difference in what we can do as a band. We are still keeping our general sound, but we've grown as musicians and as a band and you can hopefully tell in our newer songs. For the most part, the new music is a lot less straightforward and a lot more complex. E: Is the method you go about with songwriting the same as when you were just starting out? Mike: Yeah, it still is pretty much the same. Casey writes a lot of the basic song parts, vocal lines and progression, and then we all add our parts and rewrite the song until it is where we want it to be. Some songs are written and finished in an hour and some take months. It all depends. E: Where are you now in comparison to where you dreamed of being a year ago? Mike: Well, I think we might have thought things would be different, but we are happy with where we are now. We are a lot tighter now and we are completely excited about our new music. I think we might have liked to have been pushed harder by Tooth and Nail, but it just didn't work out and that is okay with us. E: How important do you think it is for a band to have some knowledge of a band's history prior to hearing the songs? Mike: I don�t think it really matters that much. Sometimes it is detrimental. If you don�t like a band the first time around, you might not want to check out their new stuff. We strive to just let the music do the talking instead of an image or something. E: In what ways do you think that your days starting out had an impact on how you are as a band now? Mike: Well, from the get go we had already been in a few bands and so we knew exactly what we wanted to do since our first show back in 2000. Being in older bands helped us to know how things work in a band, how to prioritize our time, book shows, make merch, write music, etc... We still are striving to be creative and original, maybe even more so than when we first started. E: Have all of your touring experiences been what positive? Mike: No way. We have had quite a few bad experiences, especially in the past two years. Being a touring band is really really tough. The past two years have all been very hard on us financially. We have had tours get cancelled while we were out on tour. We have been stiffed multiple times at shows, broken down in the middle of nowhere with no money to get fixed, and dealt with zero-degree weather and a lot of very small turnouts for shows. There are some pretty tough times on the road, but it is also an awesome time as well. Getting to do what you love and make even just a small amount of money is awesome. We have met so many awesome people, great bands, a lot of friends, see the whole country, grow as friends, and as a band, make an impact on people. It is great. E: Do you think that touring is the most productive way to promote an album? Mike: Yeah, it totally is. As a band, that is the best thing that they can do, and if the label that they are on promotes the album, then there isn�t any better way, in my opinion to promote. The only other things I would say is to use MySpace.com and Purevolume.com to network with people and promote that way too. E: Is your strongest fanbase still generally closer to where you started out as a band? Mike: Yeah, probably just cause we play the most in our home area. We play like 3 times a month in the bay area, where as we play only 3 times a year on our other strong cities around the country. E: Who will usually get to hear a new song before it is recorded to an album, and how? Mike: Well, our close friends and family will get to hear our demos and new songs before they come out. Usually we will post a new song or two on our website www.fightingjacks.com and on our purevolume site www.purevolume.com/fightingjacks. E: In what ways do you think that the band rewards its fans for their commitment to the music? Mike: We will always play new songs as well as older songs live. We won�t abandon our older music, because we know people will always want to hear it. We try to give people on our mailing list more info about our shows, new music, etc... And our street team will always get to hear our music earlier than the general public. We have been way behind on our street team for the past year and a half, but we are trying to get it going again and we would love to have help. E: Thanks a lot for doing the interview. Is there anything else you can think of to say -- people to thank? Mike: That�s it man, thanks a lot. Look for a new website, new music to be online, upcoming tours, and overall general new info to be coming very soon, like within the next two months. Make sure to check out our site at www.fightingjacks.com for all news and info. |