musical mondaze

Sarah Shook doesn’t write music for fame or adulation, she writes because she has to. An outlet for emotional purging, the songs she creates – gritty and authentic – are part of her own internal healing process. And while her latest album “Years” may have aided in exorcising the personal demons of the North Carolina native, it is also helping listeners of her brand of twangy AmericHONESTa search for answers to their own questions about the confusing world circulating around them.

We recently sat down with Shook to discuss songwriting catharsis, going boots on the ground, and why it’s necessary for artists to be transparent in what they’re creating.

TrunkSpace: What emotions do you juggle with internally as you gear up to release new material to the masses and is it important to tamper expectations given that once its released to the world, so much of how it is perceived is then out of your hands?
Shook: I don’t make music to please anyone. I make music to exorcise my demons and heal. The people who listen to my songs and feel connected to me, this music is for them, too. Their pain and suffering, their failures and victories, are every bit as valid as my own. My band and I worked incredibly hard to make an excellent record with “Years,” not because we want accolades, but because we challenge ourselves personally and collectively to be the best we possibly can. That’s its own reward in many ways.

TrunkSpace: Is there ever a moment when you finish an album and you feel a sense of loss or sadness because the experience is over and those songs no longer require your attention? Is it difficult to let go of the creative in the process?
Shook: Hell no. These songs are my catharsis, I don’t get tired of howling out the same words night after night because this shit is real and at this point this is bigger than just me, this is about bringing some relief and catharsis to the people who show up for it. Shared experience is powerful.

TrunkSpace: “Years” has been out for about a month now. Creatively are you a different person than you were when you first started writing the material for that album?
Shook: Creatively, no. Same old me. For better or worse. (Laughter)

TrunkSpace: From our perspective, there seems to be a revolution happening in country music with singers/songwriters pushing back against the polished, packaged country that has dominated the genre for the last decade or so. Is that an accurate reading, and if so, why are artists hoping to redefine the country sound and vibe once again?
Shook: There’s a mighty thirst to find something real in a sea of glittery bubblegum superstardom. People are looking for something that speaks to them because it’s authentic and from the heart. Pop country artists might be selling out stadiums, but the little people like us are out here, boots on the ground, working hard AF, connecting with people. Pretty sure you won’t find Brad Paisley doin’ shots at the bar with his fans. We make ourselves available as much as possible.

TrunkSpace: You describe yourself as shy. How does someone who is shy ultimately settle on a career where being in front of people, both physically and emotionally, is part of the job description?
Shook: I’ve come a very long way in a very short amount of time. As an introvert, after a shit ton of socializing, yes, I’m definitely gonna need some alone time to recoup. But I totally enjoy meeting new people and the chaos of touring life. Being incessantly thrown into new and unfamiliar territory with so many unknown factors, this way of life requires fast and lasting change in one’s way of thinking. You just gotta roll with the punches, keep your head on straight, and keep moving forward.

TrunkSpace: With that in mind, if you could spend the remainder of your career making a living writing and recording exclusively, could you walk away from performing in front of people or is there still a draw there?
Shook: I love touring, I love performing, and most of all, I love my bandmates. We’ve worked so fucking hard to get to where we are, I would totally be letting them down if I quit touring. I could never do that. They’re my family when I’m not home.

TrunkSpace: You seem to put so much of yourself into your music. On the lyrics side, do you ever feel like you’re saying too much about yourself and your experiences, and in the process, opening yourself up to third party dissection… especially in this social media age?
Shook: No. Artists need to be more honest and transparent in their art. I make mistakes, I’m not perfect, and when I fuck up I’m not afraid to talk about it.

TrunkSpace: You have a great rock star aura about you, but really, the first “rock stars” with swagger were the classic country artists. What are your thoughts on persona and attitude when it comes to an artist’s point of view? Is it all part of the necessary equation?
Shook: I don’t give a single fuck what anybody thinks about me. I know who I am. I know what my strengths and weaknesses are. I work really hard to better myself. It’s impossible to intimidate someone who has lived through the shit I’ve lived through and clawed their way kicking and screaming towards freedom and independence. Nobody is ever gonna keep me down again and there is no more liberating feeling.

TrunkSpace: We love great music, but within great music we are particularly drawn to great lyrics, the kind that make us curse the universe for not coming up with ourselves. What is a favorite line of yours that you have written and why?
Shook: “I didn’t come here to be seen, but I can feel your eyes burning holes in me.” Because I’ll never forget that feeling with that person in that moment at the bar. Ain’t desire a hell of a thing.

“Years” by Sarah Shook & the Disarmers is available now from Bloodshot Records.

Featured image by: Jillian Clark.

Crafting one of our favorite albums of 2018 thus far, Michael Rault has created a modern-day classic with “It’s A New Day Tonight,” a 10-song masterpiece of vintage rock sounds and lyrical narratives reminiscent of breezy summer days. The Montreal-based singer/songwriter set out to construct a record that could be spun on a turntable and absorbed front to back in a single sitting. He has done just that, and in the process, has left a musical longing within the listener for more.

We recently sat down with Rault to discuss music’s therapeutic qualities, how “It’s A New Day Tonight” is an album about the subconscious, and why he needs to start sleeping with a dream journal.

TrunkSpace: Your new album, “It’s a New Day Tonight,” drops in just a few days. What emotions do you juggle with in your head as you gear up to release new material to the world?
Rault: Oh, a lot of different feelings come to the surface. There’s a little bit of anxiety, a little regret, but mainly, I’m just really excited. It is intense finally letting go of something you worked on for so long, though.

TrunkSpace: We read that the album sprung from a period of creative dissatisfaction. Are you someone who tends to hit walls creatively and then needs to refuel the tank? Do you find yourself taking breaks from music?
Rault: I don’t take very long breaks from music. I tend to take breaks from writing. Sometimes, it can be too much to keep squeezing the toothpaste tube once it has given all its got. I find that practicing instruments and learning songs keeps me in a state of expansion so I can avoid getting stuck in my writing.

TrunkSpace: The album as a whole feels like more than just a collection of songs. There is a cohesive vibe to it – a sense that it was crafted like an album from the ‘70s where each track to track transition was important to the journey of the listener. Did you set out to create more than just a package to wrap your songs in and how much thought was put into the order of the songs themselves?
Rault: At the beginning of the whole thing, I was just writing and trying to come up with enough material to fill a new album. At some point, I noticed there was a theme emerging, and I definitely pulled a handful of songs out of the pile and thought “these ones go together.” A bunch of tunes that might have been pretty good on their own just couldn’t get included, because they didn’t mesh well with what had become the core of the record. We fully tracked eleven songs, and had one other partially done, and once we had finished tracking and got into mixing, we eliminated one of the tracked tunes and opted for one of the other songs that seemed to fit the vibe better. After everything was mixed, Wayne Gordon (my engineer and co-producer) and I definitely put a bunch of work into sequencing the record. It was important for it to sound good when somebody put it on their turntable and listened to each side all the way through.

TrunkSpace: We know the title comes from a hockey pre-game interview, but we found something very music-focused in it, at least from our perspective. Music has the power to impact people in profound ways. Someone can be having a rough go of things and then put on their favorite record and then WHAM, they’re viewing things differently. Essentially, a bad day can become a new night. Yes, we took a long way to get here, but have you experienced a moment where a fan shared how your music impacted them directly and do moments like that help fuel your desire to continue forward with your career?
Rault: Yeah, definitely! Occasionally, someone will message me and say that my music has made them feel better in a hard time, and that’s encouraging to me. I have been helped throughout my whole life by my favorite music, making life more bearable and giving it all some meaning. I also find that working on my own music can give me insight into my own emotional life, and connect me with my inner life in a way that can have a positive impact on my day-to-day experience. I think you are right, that is the more true meaning of the album title. Although it did come from a hockey player’s awkward pre-game interview, the title itself meant something different to me, which is why I wrote the song.

TrunkSpace: What does “It’s A New Day Tonight” say about who you were as an artist at the time of its inception and have you already moved on creatively and found a new headspace to approach your writing from?
Rault: I am moving on. It is interesting to finish a huge project like this and see how certain ideas or concepts that have been in central positions in your mind for so long start to fade away. I find myself being attracted to different bands and genres and songs after drawing inspiration from other areas for so long when I was gathering ideas for this record. I’d say that “New Day” is a record about the subconscious, and maybe was my way of dealing with some things that I was unaware of. It seems to me like it was a more intimate album than anything I had done before, but also simultaneously was this sort of impersonal fantasy about being a rock and roll star in the sense that the sounds were so heavily based in this classic rock aesthetic. So, it seemed like it was both unglamorously personal, and fantastic at the same time.

TrunkSpace: Do you write primarily from experience or do you take a more storyteller’s approach to your lyrics?
Rault: The most recent thing I’ve been doing is writing subconsciously, and I guess that is something I’ve done since I started writing in my teen years. I try to just let things run their course and sometimes a song just comes out lyrically well-formed. Other times, you need to edit it and do more work on it to bring it together. I guess that makes the songs pretty personal, but in a way they also don’t seem like they are necessarily direct representations of what is going on in my life. It’s more like a reflection of my personal experience, but maybe through a fun house mirror or something. It comes out different on the other side, if it is working right.

TrunkSpace: We love great music, but within great music we are particularly drawn to great lines, the kind that make us curse the universe for not having come up with them ourselves. What is a favorite line of yours that you have written and why are you proud of that particular snippet?
Rault: That’s hard to say. I feel like some of my older material had some better one liners that I could just pull out and quote here. As far as this album goes, one of my favorite little lyrical snippets was from “Sleeping & Smiling,” when it goes “all the days run together like colours in my mind, leaving me looking through a blur, til it’s so hard to see through as dark as night and I wish that things could be just as they were…”, I liked the imagery in that line.

TrunkSpace: Sleeping and dreaming were two themes you focused on while writing “It’s A New Day Tonight.” Are you someone who can shut off the creative brain or are the gears always turning? Do you wake up with a need to jot down lyrics or concepts for songs?
Rault: I sometimes do wake up with ideas, and I often times decide that it isn’t good enough to get out of bed and find a pen for. I think I need to start sleeping with a dream journal / notebook type thing on hand. I wouldn’t say that there are just always great ideas pouring out of my skull, though. Only occasionally something comes up unprompted.

TrunkSpace: Where are you hardest on yourself as an artist?
Rault: Everywhere. (Laughter) I need to be better about that.

TrunkSpace: Finally Michael, if you could sit down and have a conversation with 16-year-old you, would he be happy with the artist you have become today?
Rault: I think so! I’m guessing 16-year-old me would have a pretty good perspective on the amount of work present day me has done to improve and expand my skills and such. I also think I still share a lot of core interests with 16-year-old me, but I bet there would be some musical tastes that I have developed that I wouldn’t have liked at all at that age. It would definitely be a trippy encounter.

“It’s A New Day Tonight” is available May 18 on Wick Records.

For those of you in America who think that rock ‘n’ roll is on life support, it may be time to venture outside of your cozy little comfort zones.

Finnish rockers Santa Cruz are scheduled to return to the States on February 28 as they kick off an opening stint with Fozzy in New Orleans. Their latest album, “Bad Blood Rising,” is filled with big guitars and an even bigger attitude, a winning combination for a young and ambitious band set on a path to becoming amphitheater icons.

We recently sat down with Santa Cruz bass player and backing vocalist Middy to discuss America’s relevance to international artists, why he recorded all of his stuff for “Bad Blood Rising” from a couch, and the most magical experience in his Santa Cruz journey thus far.

TrunkSpace: We read that the band was first inspired by Los Angeles-based acts like Motley Crue and Guns N’ Roses. Both of those bands were part of an era of rock where a look and an attitude were just as important than the songs themselves. When you guys started out, was that important to you as you looked towards the future – finding who the band was and not just the sound itself?
Middy: I think at first those things came kinda hand in hand, but at some point we must have watched Pantera’s home videos on repeat too much or something and started going easy with the hairspray thing or then we just got more environmentally conscious.

Nah! But I think these days it’s more about the music than about the looks.

TrunkSpace: Here in the States, rock music doesn’t have the same mainstream appeal as it once did in the heyday of Motley Crue and Guns N’ Roses. You’re set to return to the States on February 28 as you kick of a tour with Fozzy. From your perspective, what are your thoughts on American rock fans? When you first came here and performed live for U.S. audiences, did the crowds live up to expectations in terms of how you perceived them?
Middy: Well, I think these days the whole musical landscape is more diverse, people have easier access to all kinds of music and the only place to find new bands is not your big sister’s record collection anymore. I don’t see the “rock is dead” in any sense of the brutal word. And as far as we’re concerned, the crowds in U.S. were still living and breathing rock music.

TrunkSpace: For all of our readers here in the States who are unfamiliar with the musical tastes of Finland, can you give us a little insight on how rock music is consumed there? Is it just as popular there today as it was say, 20 or 30 years ago?
Middy: Well rock/metal music has been pretty relevant in Finland since the early 70s, even though back in those days all the mainstream things came to Finland a year or two late. In early 2000, late 90s, this huge metal movement started in Finland cause of bands like Nightwish, Him, and Children of Bodom. I think at some point everyone from a kid to a grandmother was showing the evil horns and maybe that was why a counter movement called Finnish rap music came up. These days when it comes to the younger generations, rap is the big thing out there, but the metal music still has a solid fan base in Finland.

TrunkSpace: There was a time when bands looked towards the States as the promise land in terms of where they hoped to one day make it and break it. Is that still the case or have the changes in the music industry altered the way people view America’s musical viability?
Middy: I think that the American market is still a big deal, one reason being the size of it. And I still feel that many countries are looking for what is big in the States at the moment and it really reflects the markets outside of the States. I don’t see why the changes in music industry would take any credibility away from it.

TrunkSpace: Your new album “Bad Blood Rising” debuted at #5 in your native Finland. What was the journey like to bring that album into fruition? As you look back now at the process, did it go as planned or were you forced to make changes on the fly?
Middy: I think it went down pretty much as planned and for the reason that we made it ourselves. We were not forced to make compromises with anyone else. Even though in the beginning we didn’t have this kind of concept for the album, we just started putting songs together and seeing where it took us. Of course, some of the ideas for songs were more than two years old, but from that point, when we got into our rehearsal place all together with the early demos it took us about a month to put the songs in such a form that we were able to walk into a studio with them. So in some sense the process was pretty swift.

TrunkSpace: For the listener, it’s the album that becomes memorable, but for the people putting it together, the experience becomes just as memorable. What’s one of your favorite memories in recording that album that you’ll carry with you through the rest of your life?
Middy: To me personally there aren’t many stories about recording the album since it took me two and a half days to lay down the bass tracks. But I recorded all my stuff sitting on Johnny’s couch and we had loads of fun during that time. So nothing to put in the great history book of rock ‘n’ roll.

TrunkSpace: If we had a group of people lined up who had never heard Santa Cruz before, what’s the one track off of the album that you’d confidently throw out there to win them all over? What song off of “Bad Blood Rising” sort of says, “This is who we are!”?
Middy: I’d go with “Young Blood Rising” since to me it’s probably the most “Santa Cruz sounding” song there is, and I think the reason is that it sounds more like the stuff that we’ve done before. On “Bad Blood Rising” there are lots of stuff that is at least, in some way, experimental to us and might give people the wrong picture of what the band has done in the past. Not saying that the songs are any less us.

TrunkSpace: Can you tell us a bit about your songwriting process? Does everything come together in a room together, or are parts and pieces worked on separately and then brought together to be fine-tuned?
Middy: On this latest album we had raw demos for about 15 songs made by Archie and Johnny and then we got into our rehearsal place together and we worked daily for a month and walked out with 11 finished songs. Of course during that month we focused on structures and tempos and what not. We kinda baked the cake in that month and in the studio we added the jam between the layers and decorated the whole thing.

TrunkSpace: What about from a lyrical standpoint? What is the point of view of the songs… are they told from a first person perspective or as a storyteller’s perspective?
Middy: Well, actually to that question Archie would be a better one to answer. But my point when it comes to lyrics has always been the “don’t explain them too much, rather let the listeners make their own conclusions and interpretations.”

TrunkSpace: One of the best things about music is that it can bring people together who otherwise see eye to eye on nothing. In a club, you could be standing next to two different people who you may having nothing else in common with other than a love for Santa Cruz. In this day and age where everything everywhere seems so divided, is there anything like a live rock concert experience… because in a lot of ways, it feels like one of the last true communities?
Middy: Since my teens the rock concerts and festivals have probably been the only mass events that I’ve taken part in cause I’m not into Black Fridays or Christmas shopping. But to be serious, I don’t see why the so called “rock community” should be so privileged compared to other music genres for example, cause I bet that people at techno raves feel that they are part of a big community rather than just a large number of people who happened to walk into the same field at the same time. But that is true that rock music brings people together and when you walk into a metal festival you don’t see people fighting each other or anything like that. I think that metal heads have always been proud of belonging to one big family.

TrunkSpace: As you look at your time in the band thus far, what has been the best part about the journey for you? What wouldn’t you give up for any amount of money or fame?
Middy: The past 10 years have been an ongoing chain of great memories and sometimes I even start to feel nostalgic about it, which is kinda scary being a 24-year-old and all. But one day that sticks out was when we got the opportunity to open up for AC/DC in Finland in front of 55,000 people. That feeling when I walked on stage was magical.

To find out if Santa Cruz is coming to a city near you, check out their tour dates here.

Eric Schenkman didn’t set out to make a new solo album in 2018, but when the opportunity – and creative inspiration – presented itself, “Who Shot John?” was born. A diverse and sprawling collection of genre-bending tracks that range from blues to classic guitar rock, the Spin Doctors’ founding member is continuing his mission of creating music, four and a half decades after playing his first gig.

We recently sat down with Schenkman to discuss the business of streaming, the art of writing, and… curly cords.

TrunkSpace: “Who Shot John?” was originally slated for an October release but is now due January 11 after you partnered with VizzTone Records. Has that stop and go made this a unique roll out experience for you? Was it difficult having to pump the brakes on the release?
Schenkman: It was okay with me. I didn’t mind. The way I figure it is, the whole thing about records now is the roll out, pretty much, and then the first little bit and then it’s hard to hang on after that. It becomes repertoire rather quickly. Originally I was completely super-indie and I was just getting ready to put it out, and then one thing led to another and I started talking to people and I was playing stuff for people and I went and saw this friend of mine in Boston. I wasn’t even thinking about it, and then next thing I know the label, VizzTone, is going, “Well hey, we’d like to put it out, but we’ll have to make it a little bit later because of the distributor.”

It’s nice when something starts to snowball like that. You kind of feel like, “Oh, this is cool.” You know it’s working. It was sort of a pleasant experience, actually, to have that happen. (Laughter)

TrunkSpace: Anything to get ears on the music is a good thing because nowadays it seems like having as many different avenues for an album as possible is important.
Schenkman: Yeah, it’s all guesswork, but I would agree with you – the more avenues, the better, which is nice, actually. As an improvising musician, I can say that I like a lot of different avenues because you can go from the same place to the same other place in a lot of different ways.

TrunkSpace: You’ve been a professional musician for decades now. Are there still firsts for you? Do still get that sort of “fresh car” scent with any aspect of what you do, creative or otherwise?
Schenkman: Yeah. I love being a musician because that never changes. It’s always getting to know the thing a little better, or from a different angle, or always relearning or reimagining some aspect of something. Anything that’s worth your time in music, and I suppose you could extend that to business, too… I mean, I’m the type of musician that believes that… I kind of see my job as that I make music. And maybe I like to make ensembles, too. I enjoy doing that. But I make music. I think money and business – that kind of is the secondary thing to that. Sometimes it’ll make some money, sometimes it’ll make some business, but I want to make sure that it makes music every time.

TrunkSpace: The way that money is made off of music changes so quickly it seems. It used to be that tours supported albums, but now it seems like albums support tours.
Schenkman: Oh absolutely. The only hope that we have really as musicians, particularly young musicians, is pretty much to be on the road playing and hawking your wares night after night.

TrunkSpace: Are there more opportunities in the licensing world with there being so much more content – film and TV – in need of song placement?
Schenkman: I don’t know that there is, really. I think there’s still opportunity. I think there’s more home for content. As far as speaking to how that interfaces with business, I’m more the mind of putting a fish in the water – a horse in the race – and then scratching my head and watching it, because I really don’t know. All I can say for sure is the business has changed a great deal since I’ve been in it. I’ve been playing the guitar in a band since I was just a teenager, so that’s a few decades right there, and the music business has changed so much from the time the Doctors were making music. The records we made in the early ‘90s, that was a whole different business, you know? You used to make records to get on the radio. Now you make records, you go tour them, they end up on streaming services, and then you have to play gigs in order to support them. It’s literally like you almost have to support your tunes on the streaming networks by playing live because it’s almost like… I mean .0001 is very, very little.

TrunkSpace: It’s so interesting because 20 years ago there would be headlines about, XX Band Goes Platinum. Now it’s, XX Band Has 1 Million Streams.
Schenkman: Yeah, and on the one hand, streaming is very exciting from the point of view of the currency of it, and the fact that it’s there and it’s available. There’s so much different diversity and amazing talent. The trouble is, in terms of it paying, definitely as time wears on, it becomes quite clear that the musician is definitely the last in line for the buck as far as the streaming services are concerned. So you got to wonder if people are putting music out that’s “free” on the one side, on the other side, somebody’s making money somewhere.

It’s very interesting to me, but I don’t really know the business so well. Like I say, I make music and I love making music, but it’s definitely way easier to get an idea of what’s going on now if you can produce the music and try to set it out there and see how it floats.

TrunkSpace: “Who Shot John?” is very diverse, which is also reflective of your career as a whole. Has that always been your mission, to be able to be the type of artist that you wanted to be in any given moment and not back yourself into a corner creatively?
Schenkman: Yeah, I’m more happy for sure feeling free to be creative. I don’t like being in a corner. I feel very uncomfortable if I’m expected to do a bunch of stuff. So this record, for me, was really kind of a perfect storm for the year, because I didn’t expect to be making it. It really was borne out of playing with friends, playing this gig that I play regularly, really expanding my repertoire – new songs and some old songs, and songs that hadn’t been written yet sort of all bouncing around in my head. And then I realized that I was starting to record a bunch of stuff that I liked and so it was hanging together, and so I just kept following that, very comfortable creatively in that context. Live as well.

I do a gig weekly where I play three sets a night, and the Spin Doctors used to do that same kind of gig. And if you can stretch out, your playing can get to some real, real fantastic depths, and you need diversity to be able to do that. You need to be a student of music to be able to try to get better at dynamics and all these sorts of things. So, yeah, I started realizing that I had a record. I was like, “Oh, I got to put this out. I haven’t done one of these in a long time.”

I’ve kind of been waiting to do the next Spin Doctors’ record, actually, for the last two years, and one thing led to another and we just didn’t get started. We had some hang-ups and, I think this is another thing, some of the creative energy probably would have put into the band had we started working last year.

TrunkSpace: Would the Eric Schenkman who first picked up a guitar be surprised by this album or would it seem like a natural progression from where you started?
Schenkman: Yeah, I’d be quite happy. I would not be unhappy with where I’m at now. There’s one picture I have from the very first gig I ever played with an electric guitar, which would have been… I was 10, I guess… so I think 1973. I’m wearing a tennis sweatband around my head and a cowboy shirt with a Kent guitar. I’m sitting on the stage and… remember curly cords? I had a curly cord coming out of my guitar.

Anyways, yeah, I think for me, it’s the combination of trying to beat the fear of standing up on the stage and trying to sort of play your heart out… or sing your heart out… in other words, feeling like you really do have something to say or sing, but king of being just almost just too tepid to really take the first step. But you know, I have never been able to help myself. (Laughter) And so there you are, right? And that’s really a great place to be in the music because you’re really having to grab what works and stay afloat. And I think this record… it shows that throughout, and that’s all my former self would be looking for, would be validity in that. Truth in that.

“Who Shot John?” is due January 11 on VizzTone Records.

Not many bands have the creative stamina and indie credibility of Reverend Horton Heat, but then again, not every band has Jim Heath at the helm. With over three decades of writing, recording and touring under their belts, the psychobilly pioneers are showing no signs of slowing down, releasing their 12th studio album, “Whole New Life,” just a week ago on Victory Records.

We recently sat down with Heath to discuss the importance of persistence, inflatable reindeer, and why he’s looking forward to taking guitar lessons before hitting the studio for the next record.

TrunkSpace: “Whole New Life” is the 12th studio release for Reverend Horton Heat. How do you feel this album sets itself apart from your previous albums?
Heath: It’s the most positive album I’ve ever done. Some of my stuff in the past was dark, maybe too dark. I guess I’m not the awful vindictive jerk I thought I was!

TrunkSpace: A dozen albums is no easy feat. What has been the Reverend Horton Heat key to musical longevity? Is there a secret sauce?
Heath: Well, I’m not sure. Luck is part of the equation, but not as important as persistence. I’m not giving up – ever.

TrunkSpace: Speaking of longevity, you’ve stated that you’re on the Willie Nelson retirement program, meaning, you’ll never retire. As fans, we couldn’t be happier to hear that. Is it just as exciting for you to step onto the stage or slip into the studio as it was when you first started your musical journey? What keeps you going?
Heath: I actually enjoy playing music now more than when I was younger. Back then, there was always the pressure to perform well. Getting asked back for a return gig, agents, label reps and all that made every gig pretty important. Now, none of that stuff matters much at all. I get up there, let it rip and have fun, even if it’s 20,000 people. That being said, I don’t enjoy the travel as much, but that’s what has to be done. I do still love hanging out with the guys in my band and crew. We have a lot of fun joking around and stuff.

TrunkSpace: It’s difficult to say what the future holds though change is always a part of the equation. How do you feel your music – both lyrically and sonically – has changed over the course of your current 12-album journey?
Heath: Well, I think I’ve gotten better as a singer and storyteller. Certain aspects of my guitar playing have improved as well. But in general, there’s a lot of my style that is there and will always be there as long as I’m breathing. I’m still trying to improve though. I got a vocal coach before I started writing this new album. I’m going to keep going to him when I can, but I’m going to focus on guitar playing before the next one. I’m going to take guitar lessons Omaha.

TrunkSpace: Do albums become a bit like chapters of your life? Does it become, “Those were my ‘It’s Martini Time’ years and those were my ‘Revival’ years?” Are they musical yearbooks?
Heath: Maybe in a way that is subconscious. But in all honesty, I’m a fifties singles kind of guy more than a seventies concept album kind of guy. So, I’m more song by song. If I feel I’ve got a good song that doesn’t necessarily fit into the scheme of the album I’m still going to put it on there if it’s better than the ones that I think are weaker. In all honesty, sometimes the songs I think are not that strong are the ones people like.

TrunkSpace: The band tours relentlessly. With all of that time out on the road, do you create while traveling or is your writing reserved for specific spaces when you’re tour dormant?
Heath: I’m always thinking of concepts for songs. Either lyrics, a little melody, a chord sequence or a drum beat can hit at any time. Then, I have a little studio in Dallas where I go in and really work the concept into a completed song. I’ll crank my amp up and start caterwauling. I’m sure it sounds terrible, but something good always comes out when I least expect it.

TrunkSpace: With 200 shows annually, do you still experience firsts when you’re touring? Is there still some magic to be found beneath the wheels of that bus?
Heath: Yes. There’s always something new. Actually, we only play about 150 shows a year. Yesterday the new thing was that we have a giant inflatable Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer that’s 10 feet tall. It’s huge. We got a lot of laughs yesterday setting that thing up.

TrunkSpace: Your music is so infectious it could make Bernie from “Weekend at Bernie’s” get up and dance! When you set out to establish your sound all those years ago, was there a plan of attack or did the band’s sonic identity come together organically?
Heath: I wanted to have a fun band and play fast rock and roll songs and fast rockabilly and country type stuff too. So, I had this in my head before I even started the band. My albums have slow songs that I think are some of the best songs I’ve ever written, but live we don’t play very many slow songs. We keep the energy as high as possible.

TrunkSpace: Every time we fire up our phone, television or computer, it seems we are bombarded with terrible news that gives us yet another reason to escape through music. Having a band like Reverend Horton Heat around during those moments is a breath of positive, foot-tapping, fresh air. Is playing music as much of an escape for you as it is for the audience to listen?
Heath: Yes. After I read the news in the morning, I escape by reading about recording techniques, and recording equipment. I’ve built some microphones and microphone amplifiers. Then I go to my studio and listen to music, practice and record. The worst thing I can do is go on Facebook. That ruins my day. I feel sorry for people who are trying to learn to play a musical instrument nowadays. The smart phones are such a distraction. When I was a kid learning to play music, all we had was a television with only five channels, a radio and a record player. So music was kind of all we had.

TrunkSpace: What do Reverend Horton Heat fans have to look forward to in 2019? What’s next on the Willie Nelson retirement program?
Heath: This year is going to be deep into promoting the new album “Whole New Life.” We’re playing Viva Las Vegas Festival this year. Also, Summerfest in Milwaukee. Weâ™re going to Canada. Probably doing videos and such…and a lot of joking around.

“Whole New Life” is available now on Victory Records.

With four studio albums under their belts, including last year’s “Lost In Translation,” New Politics has amassed a passionate international fanbase through extensive touring and by dropping catchy singles like “Tonight You’re Perfect” and “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.” Currently the chart-topping trio is in the final stretch of a US tour, partnering with Music Saves Lives to bring awareness to the ongoing need for bone marrow donors.

We recently sat down with drummer Louis Vecchio to discuss revisiting the band’s sweaty basement roots, being a collective voice for positivity, and why he’d have a difficult time imagining his musical career without his fellow New Politics bandmates.

TrunkSpace: You guys are currently on a tour that has (and will) take you to about two dozen cities. Do you enjoy hitting the highways and byways as much today as you did when you first started out? Is there still some magic to be found beneath the wheels of that bus?
Vecchio: The magic of touring and performing for our fans is something that the three of us enjoy tremendously and never gets old. The ultra magical thing about this current tour is we are going to parts of the country we haven’t played in years. We decided to book exclusively clubs and small theaters in these markets, to re-create the sweaty basement show vibe our fans enjoyed when we first started.

TrunkSpace: As part of the tour, the band has partnered with Music Saves Lives to bring awareness to the ongoing need for bone marrow donors. Why was it important for you guys to make the tour about more than just the music?
Vecchio: Yeah, we’re super excited to be working with them again! They are a wonderful organization and have helped so many people in need – it’s incredible, really. Honestly, the music is a vessel and we consider ourselves three lucky passengers. If nothing else, it gives us the opportunity to do good and bring awareness to a great cause.

TrunkSpace: Do you feel it is important for artists to use their platforms as a way to connect fans to causes and ways of thinking that are perhaps outside of their social/community circles? As a band with a large following, do you have a megaphone that plays more than just New Politics music?
Vecchio: Yes, we think it’s very important – any positive and informative voice is great. Having that platform comes with a huge responsibility and we are always up for it, and we are grateful to be in a position to do so.

TrunkSpace: You guys have experienced a lot together as New Politics. After everything you’ve been through… and the point of view changes that come with age… do you see the band differently now than you did when it first came together? Does it serve a differently purpose in 2018 than it did in 2009?
Vecchio: That’s a great question, and the resounding answer is YES. Ultimately, as a band, as artists, and an entity, New Politics to us will always serve the same purpose – to make great music, connect with people and hopefully pay off our mortgages. Of course, as we’ve gotten older, life becomes more complicated, more challenging, but ultimately, exponentially more rewarding, in so many ways… but the core of New Politics, the music and the fans, will never change.

TrunkSpace: What has been the highlight of your musical career thus far – the moment that you will carry with you through the rest of your life?
Vecchio: Every single day we get to do this for a living is a highlight. Certainly there have been select moments in our career where we all had to pinch ourselves. Our performance on Jimmy Fallon was a huge milestone. Touring Japan and Russia where big moments too. Again, being able to do what we truly love for a living is something I still think we haven’t gotten over and probably never will.

TrunkSpace: What do you get writing and performing within a band, and this band in particular, that you can’t access from a solo mindset? What are the benefits for you personally in having a group of people fighting the fight alongside of you?
Vecchio: David, Søren and I are basically a family, complete with its share of peaks and valleys. That familial vibe plays heavily in the writing, recording and touring process equally – maybe even a bit more when it comes to touring since we have to share what is really a two bedroom apartment on wheels. But it would be hard to imagine most aspects of our career without one another, and that makes it all that much more inspiring.

TrunkSpace: As the band has become more popular and the music has continued to spread to new ears, has that impacted the songwriting process at all? Does it become more difficult writing and tracking new material when you know there are people who will gobble it up instantly? As humans, we’re all capable of second-guessing ourselves, and does that ever creep into the creative?
Vecchio: Not so much in terms of songwriting, since as individuals with our own experiences and perspectives, we will always continue to write what is meaningful to us based on our place in the world in which we live. However, there will always be that element second guessing ourselves. That’s just part of the process, the challenge of writing and knowing people are going to grab onto what we do, so we try and harness that emotional juxtaposition and change it into inspiration.

TrunkSpace: Can you envision a day when music is not a part of your life? If the band and the fans all went away tomorrow, would you still be working on new material for yourself alone?
Vecchio: Unimaginable. Music is the universal language that binds all of our greatest gifts as humans together. We’ll ride until we die.

TrunkSpace: Outside of another artist, was there someone in your life who inspired or supported your creative endeavors that you feel was important to you getting where you are today with your music?
Vecchio: I speak for all of us when I say our families and everyone who has every supported us as people and as a band.

TrunkSpace: The band released “Lost In Translation” about a year ago. Do New Politics albums become a bit like chapters of your life? Does it become, “These were my ‘Lost In Translation’ years and those were my ‘A Bad Girl in Harlem’ years”?
Vecchio: Definitely, our influences change as our lives change. Harlem was written when all we had was a dream and each other. David and Søren being from Denmark, lots of the early records were significantly influenced by the “cultural shock” the two of them experienced by moving not only to the United States, but to New York City. Thousands of miles, shows, fans and hours and four albums into it, we are fond of where we came from but also very excited about where we are going.

The remaining New Politics tour dates can be found here.

Their latest album, “Lost in Translation” is available now.

Like certain shark breeds and their inability to remain still even while sleeping, Canadian pop/punk rockers We Were Sharks are constantly swimming, touring relentlessly in support of their infectious music. Their latest album, “Lost Touch,” was released earlier this year on Victory Records to both critical and fan praise.

We recently sat down with guitarist Jason Mooney to discuss the comfort of life on the road, how “Lost Touch” is directly influencing what they write next, and why they always try to make themselves as accessible to fans as possible.

TrunkSpace: Some bands hit the road out of necessity, but we get the sense that you guys still love it as much today as you did when you first got together. Do you find you’re still experiencing “firsts” out there on the highways and byways as you tour? Does it still feel fresh?
Mooney: That’s a really great question! Touring is definitely a necessity, but we definitely still love it. We still have firsts! Even if that means stopping into a different WaWa/Sheetz for the first time. For me, personally, I actually love coming back to the towns and venues that we’ve played before. There is this strange feeling of comfort and appreciation for this lifestyle that I get when I can navigate my way around a place that is so far from home.

TrunkSpace: A lot of people use writing music as a form of personal therapy – a way to work out whatever demons they have. Does performing have therapeutic benefits as well? Can you get in front of a crowd and come off the stage a different person than as you went on?
Mooney: I find performing to be absolutely therapeutic. I hit the strings a little harder, shout into the crowd a little louder, but that just describes aggression. There’s also the moments while performing when I look across the stage and share a laugh with one of the guys in the band. I can definitely say that there have been times where it feels like a “bad day,” then I look forward to the show because chances are I’ll get it all out within 30 minutes and come off feeling a little lighter and in a better headspace.

TrunkSpace: Is there a song that you dig playing live that maybe you weren’t as happy with on the record? Can a tune have a different personality on the stage than it does in the studio?
Mooney: I love all of the songs but there definitely are songs that take on a different personality when played live. For me, one song in particular is “Never Looked Better.” It’s a track that I love listening to, but I didn’t think it was going to make it into the live catalog. We began playing it live and it has had an awesome reaction. We’ve had show-goers tell us that it’s their favorite song, or they come up before the set and tell us that they hope we play it.

Instead of writing set lists, maybe we should just take requests live.

TrunkSpace: Your latest album, “Lost Touch” was released earlier this year, your first on Victory Records. Did having a label change give the experience, both in the studio and post release, that fresh car scent?
Mooney: It was definitely a different experience. What made it all the more different was having a team working on making sure that we have a successful release, as well as a team making sure the songs were the best they can be.

TrunkSpace: Do albums become a bit like chapters of your life? Does it become, “These were my ‘Lost Touch’ years and those were my ‘Not a Chance’ years”?
Mooney: I think that they show chapters of our experience of being songwriters. The experience we had writing and recording “Lost Touch” and seeing what works live has definitely influenced us in what we need to do next.

TrunkSpace: What do you get writing and performing within a band, and this band in particular, that you can’t access from a solo mindset? What are the benefits for you personally in having a group of people fighting the fight alongside of you?
Mooney: From a solo mindset, my voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard. So, solo for me is impossible. (Laughter)

But it’s the feeling of sharing your passion and drive with like-minded individuals. Nothing comes easy and being able to work together with a group to overcome challenges and then share those wins together — that’s what I have always loved about being in a band.

TrunkSpace: You guys have no doubt experienced a lot together over the years. After everything you’ve been through… and the point of view changes that come with age… do you see the band differently now than you did when it first came together? Does it serve a different purpose in 2018 than it did at the outset?
Mooney: I don’t think the point of view has ever changed. We accomplish goals and set new ones. Being in a band is a lot like pushing a boulder up a hill. When it comes down to the fundamentals, I think from the beginning it’s always been about writing music that we enjoy that can create a great live experience for those who come and see us.

TrunkSpace: What has been the highlight of your musical career thus far – the moment that you will carry with you through the rest of your life?
Mooney: There are dozens of highlights and we are always creating amazing new memories. I think the release day of “Lost Touch” is something that my memory always returns to. We worked so unbelievably hard to create a full album that we are so proud of, and on that day, it was made available for everyone to hear.

TrunkSpace: What are your thoughts on the status of the music industry as a whole in 2018? Are you optimistic for the future in terms of the torch being carried by the next generation of kids coming up in the musical ranks?
Mooney: I do feel optimistic. Popular music genres, styles and musical tastes will always change. Technology will always evolve. Music is the one thing that will always bring people together and no matter where a person is, or the state of the world, music will continue to be made, and someone will always want to share it. I never think that a torch is passed down, or passed along. I think we all carry the torch together, and every year, there’s new determined artists who want to join in carrying that torch.

TrunkSpace: Fan feedback can often be the fuel that powers the creative brain because its evidence that the art is hitting its mark. What’s the most powerful fan feedback or interaction you have received that has made it all worth the journey?
Mooney: Someone at a show in Long Island, NY once told me how much they appreciated how we interact with everyone when we’re off stage.

As an artist, we try to meet and thank as many show-goers as possible. We do our best to take time and speak to as many people as we can at shows. When someone comes to the merch table, we focus on the experience. Even for the band member who grabs a beer at the bar, you may have an opportunity to talk to someone hanging out nearby. We’re all human, I believe we all try to be good people. Meeting someone and taking the time to talk to them can do wonders. You never know what life experiences a person has gone through or the steps they took prior to getting to your show. We always have the opportunity to be the shining light in somebody’s day.

“Lost Touch” is available now on Victory Records.

When Axis: Sova first began its journey, it consisted of only founding member Brett Sova. Since that time, both the sound and internal creative mechanics of the project have gone through a musical metamorphosis with the addition of Tim Kaiser (guitar) and Jeremy Freeze (bass). Their latest album “Shampoo You,” out November 16 on God? Records, is their most collaborative to date and it shows in the trio’s superb songwriting synergy.

We recently sat down with Sova to discuss the communal atmosphere that spawned the album, creating dense jams that everyone can enjoy, and why three heads are better than one.

TrunkSpace: “Shampoo You” is due to drop November 16 on God? Records. Do you experience the same level of excitement releasing an album at this stage in your careers as you did when you were just starting out with your music?
Sova: Hell yeah – this time in particular, even. “Shampoo You” is significantly advanced beyond anything we’ve done before, it’s very collaborative and it was a blast to make. If we weren’t excited to share it we’d have kept it in the basement.

TrunkSpace: Did you actively set out to make a different kind of record than your previous offerings, particularly “Motor Earth,” which was released in 2016? Creatively, what were your goals with “Shampoo You” and did you feel like you accomplished those things when you wrapped production?
Sova: We did. We wanted to make music that was sharper, sleeker and more immediate than ever before. We wanted to push tempos and push vocals, and push ourselves. “Shampoo You” is really communal, it’s very much a band record, and we each reached beyond ourselves to places we’d never been while writing and arranging it together. There was no winging it, or Frankensteining parts into songs in the studio, as was the case with “Motor Earth.” We didn’t let any song out of the rehearsal bunker until we felt confident it would be of the highest possible impact and we were ready to record it. We wanted to make a dense batch of jams that would be visceral enough for those that wanted to feel it deep yet playful enough for the surface dwellers who just want to party.

TrunkSpace: Focusing on the songwriting itself, is there an overall theme to this album, a particular headspace that is reflected in the tone and messaging of the songs themselves?
Sova: Collectively, the songs are a swirling amalgam of today’s shit, coming through in stories about identity, relationships, vices and consumerism, among other things. “Shampoo You” has a real up-front vibe, its songs are meant to be relatable on the surface as much as they are felt down in the depths. And part of the fun of making music is knowing that once it’s out of your hands and into someone else’s, the listener gets to come up with their own version of what a song might be about, or what it means to them. I don’t wanna spoil that for anybody.

TrunkSpace: What are you most proud of with the album?
Sova: One thing for sure is the collaborative execution. “Shampoo You” could not have been made without full-blown contributions from each of us: Tim (Kaiser), Jeremy (Freeze), and Cooper (Crain), who engineered, and me. I’m also pleased with the fact that we made perhaps the finest examples of prototypical Axis: Sova songs alongside songs that step far outside the realm of what we’ve done previously. We proudly expanded our sonic territory.

TrunkSpace: “Dodger” was the first single off of the album. How do you approach choosing that first track from a new record? Was “Dodger” the obvious choice or did you have other tracks in vying for the first slot?
Sova: We chose “Dodger” because it’s a good bridge vibe-wise from the previous album (wah-wah; a lot of guitar action), and because it demonstrates the attention to detail in songwriting and vocal harmonies we emphasize on “Shampoo You.” We wanted to show off a song that has a pre-chorus, in 3/4 time. All the songs on the record were viable candidates. They’re all good.

TrunkSpace: What do you get writing and performing within a band, and this band in particular, that you can’t access from a solo mindset? What are the benefits for you personally in having a group of people fighting the fight alongside of you?
Sova: If left to my own devices it’s easy for me to default to places where I’m comfortable and stay there. Working with Tim and Jeremy, who have strong ideas and opinions, and great melodic and harmonic intuition, enabled these songs to be better than they could’ve been coming from just one person. Three heads are better than one!

TrunkSpace: There are people who believe in love at first sight and true love. Is there such a thing as creatives at first sight? Can people connect over art in a way that has no real explanation and has Axis: Sova been that for you?
Sova: Absolutely.

TrunkSpace: We love great music, but we also love great lines – lyrical snippets that stick with you beyond the macro of a song or album. What is your favorite line from “Shampoo, You” and why?
Sova: I particularly like the line, “My head’s a tray for ashing, a pool of electric thrashing” from “Dodger,” because I felt wildly electric and kinda like a trash receptacle while I wrote it. Feelings aren’t always so easy to articulate.

Also, “Never be the same person twice.”

TrunkSpace: The cover art for “Shampoo You” is mesmerizing. We find ourselves staring at it, but we’ll have to be honest, we’re not exactly sure what we’re looking at. What is it and where did the idea for the image come from?
Sova: We wanted the cover to be bold and vivid, like pop art, and also tactile. It’s very analog. If it’s mesmerizing and appealing to you, then we must’ve gotten something right.

TrunkSpace: Do you enjoy the other aspects of working in the music industry that stretch beyond the music itself… choosing album art, shooting videos, booking tours, etc.?
Sova: That stuff is fun, but I prefer working on the music and playing it, in terms of pure enjoyment.

TrunkSpace: Beyond the release, what’s next for the band and its members as we finish out 2018 and look forward to the new year?
Sova: More touring, probably a pallet-cleansing noise/jam tape or something… and keeping “Shampoo You” bubbling throughout 2019, too.

“Shampoo You” is available November 16 on God? Records.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Rich Jones, a prolific creative figure in the Chicago hip-hop scene, turned a series of personal hardships into the artistic fuel he needed to get his music career back on track. Setting a plan in motion, Jones left no stoned unturned, reconnecting with producer Ryan Lofty and exploring a more pop-infused aspect of his music. That eventually lead him on the path towards his latest album, “The Shoulder You Lean On,” which he is self-releasing tomorrow.

We recently sat down with Jones to discuss silver linings, creative rediscoveries snatched from the jaws of defeat, and how he has learned to trust in his abilities and not give into his fears.

TrunkSpace: You’re based in Chicago, which is a city rich in musical history. Does a city – a musical scene – directly influence an artist and how has Chicago influenced you?
Jones: From my experience, very much so. From the age of 14 on, I was very gung-ho about supporting what was happening locally, particularly in Chicago’s underground hip-hop community. I was enamored by not just the music but also the idea that the talent from my city merited the attention and accolades that a larger audience could provide even if the spotlight seemed to more often then not fall just short of us. The silver lining that comes from an environment like this is it puts the onus on rolling up your sleeves and doing things for yourself. I feel like pre-internet it manifested itself in a more dog eat dog sort of way, but I’m thrilled to say that this has changed immensely in recent years. People have begun to see the strength in collaborating and supporting one another, so it’s a very exciting time for us.

TrunkSpace: When you first set out to give life to “The Shoulder You Lean On,” what were your overall goals, and when you called wrap on the production, did you achieve those things you set out to do?
Jones: Initially, whether I was in LA with J. Kelr or was receiving production via email from him, I was mainly focused on creating a reservoir of records. Eventually, I realized that we actually had a project on our hands! From a creative/writing perspective, I wanted to earnestly address some of the changes that have happened the last few years – I’m older, slightly “wiser”, I’m a bit more settled then I was even a year ago, and most importantly, I’ve made great strides as a lyricist. I would say I achieved that with this album.

TrunkSpace: What are you most proud of with the album?
Jones: I’m proud of the fact that I feel like we crafted something that’s eclectic and truly reflective of where we are not only as artists but also as fans of music. Both of us have catalogs that initially were primarily rooted in hip-hop but we’ve branched out considerably over the years. This project tips its cap to our previous work while also acknowledging who we are now!

TrunkSpace: The album talks about the various paths that life can take, often heading in directions that we’ve never expected. Where has your life and career zigged when you intended it to zag?
Jones: I was seriously considering moving from Chicago four years ago to see how I might be received elsewhere. I’d spent some time in New York and was also looking into what living overseas might look like. That all ended when some unexpected financial hardships befell me out of the blue. I was pretty devastated. I’d been feeling a little stuck but now I felt I’d hit a very serious wall. After living in a daze for what felt like an eternity, it was time to make a plan and get things back on track. I did the only thing I knew how to do and threw myself into making records, calling in favors as I went. I also made a call to my friend Ryan Lofty, a producer who has had great success in sync/licensing, to see if he was open to bringing me in to work on music that we could pitch for placement. He enthusiastically said yes, thus beginning what would be the first of several sessions that would see us explore a more pop-oriented side to my music. This would eventually become the “VEGAS” EP, a project that would in many ways set me up for where I’m at today. From the jaws of defeat, I truly snagged the W.

TrunkSpace: When discussing topics through music, particularly those heavy life subjects, does that become a way for you yourself to process the many questions we (as humans) have on a day to day basis?
Jones: 100 percent. I’m very lucky that I’ve found a meaningful way to at the very least try to work through my shit so I don’t just feel totally lost all the time. And catharsis doesn’t just come from the act of making the song; it can also be from the dialogue the music generates, whether it challenges or supports the message at the heart of it all.

TrunkSpace: What aspect of songwriting do you enjoy the most and what do you struggle with? Where are you hardest on yourself in a creative capacity?
Jones: I love the moments where I know I’ve finally articulated something integral to my experience as a human and get even more excited by the prospect of other people being moved similarly. On a more light-hearted tip, I heavily appreciate people having fun with words. (A big reason I was so attracted to hip-hop in the 1st place.) My biggest struggle and the thing I’m hardest on myself is trying to find words that are unique without being overly complicated. I hate the idea of dumbing something I’m writing down too much, but I also don’t want to confuse people if I can avoid it.

TrunkSpace: We love great music, but we also love great lines – lyrical snippets that stick with you beyond the macro of a song or album. What is your favorite line from “The Shoulder You Lean On” and why?
Jones: Off of “Drone Kids,” I say, “I’m fighting hard to not feel paralyzed by the weight that I put in my stride/You see I’m fighting hard, for a piece of paradise and bad news don’t go down nice.” I’ve worked very hard over the years to earn my place in a highly competitive environment. Part of that was learning how to trust in my abilities as an artist and as a person and not play scared or give into my fears even in the face of adversity.

TrunkSpace: We started our chat by talking about Chicago and local music scenes. As a career progresses and a fan base grows, does it become difficult for a single city to support the music? Does it become a juggling act to nurture a career within a scene but not to over saturate?
Jones: It depends on where you are and what your goals are. I feel like in Chicago, there’s a higher level of diversity in our artistic communities then a lot of places. This means there are more groups of people to do your thing for and lessens the chance of over saturation since you have options! Where over saturation occurs is when you’re trying to appeal to the exact same group of people every time. Sure you might develop a die hard following, but unless you’re really mixing it up, enthusiasm can wain. For me, I’ve always felt inclined to explore what’s out there and to do my best to put myself in new spaces whenever possible. Even so, I have felt more pressure to be selective with the events I agree to perform at. If I’m on a bill, I want to be respectful of the opportunity and make sure I carry my weight on the promotional end.

TrunkSpace: You are very involved in the community and politics. Given how divided we are right now as a country, is one of the benefits of this period of social uncertainty that it is inspiring musicians and artists to say more? Are there more voices speaking up today than there were even five years ago?
Jones: Artists have been vocal about the issues plaguing this country long before what faces us now. If them speaking on the causes they’re passionate about inspires more people to challenge the status quo and push for a real transformation of this country and world, I’m all for it. It may be that more people are indeed sharing their opinions, but I do know that the platforms available to artists now allow for their opinions to be far more widely disseminated then five years ago.

TrunkSpace: Beyond the release, what’s next for you as we finish out 2018 and look forward to the new year?
Jones: I’m looking forward to hitting the road a little bit and getting back in the studio to make some more records/finish up some things I’ve put on hold while I’ve been getting “The Shoulder You Lean On” ready.

“The Shoulder You Lean On” is available tomorrow.

Throughout their career, 98° has been labeled and marketed as a “boy band,” but their creative roots stretch much deeper than that. Inspired by R&B acts like Boyz II Men, the Four Tops and Stevie Wonder, the vocally-driven quartet began their musical journey as an a capella group before becoming international pop stars thanks to hits like “Because of You” and “I Do.”

Currently returning to their vocal influences, 98° is kicking off a 36-date tour of holiday music on Thursday November 1, highlighting songs from their 2017 Christmas album, “Let It Snow.”

We recently sat down with Jeff Timmons to discuss how life on the road has changed for the group, why an 11-year hiatus was necessary to refuel the creative tank, and how performing the Christmas classics has opened them up to an entirely new audience.

TrunkSpace: You’re kicking off a 36-date tour in just a couple of days. Do you enjoy touring as much today as you did when you guys first broke and everything still had that new car scent?
Timmons: That’s a really great question. I think that when we were younger, the tour was 98°. That’s all we had. We were young guys who didn’t have families. It was a lot of traveling, certainly – we toured for about five years straight, consecutively on the road, worldwide, and we never had a break and it became arduous and certainly stressful. We were blessed and fortunate and had exciting, great times and got to share experiences that not a lot of people get to go through in their lives, but it was really hard being a young person and sort of thrown into the fire… into that mix.

I think as we get older, all we do is have fun. We all have different areas in our careers that we pursue outside of this. We all have great, wonderful families and wives… except for Justin, he’s still single. (Laugh) But you know, we’re enjoying it more than ever. I think the fans, they’re still turning out for us and they’re having more fun than ever. A lot of them, they’re not young, little kids anymore. They’re adults. They go out and party and have a good time with us and we live as a sort of nostalgic part of their lives and it just makes us feel better. We’re having a lot more fun with each other as well. It’s sort of a renaissance for us.

TrunkSpace: In terms of experiences, are there still firsts for you guys out there on the highways and byways?
Timmons: Look, you’ve been through so many things, but you’re never surprised by anything, if that makes any sense. We’ve been through it all. We’ve been though the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. You’re in entertainment yourself, a journalist, so you understand how competitive it is and how hard and how cyclical everything is and how technology is always changing. It’s stressful. We’ve experienced huge crowds and great turn outs and we’ve experienced no crowd and low turn outs and everything in between, but for us, it does still feel fresh.

It was new coming back after being on an 11-year hiatus and immediately going on a major arena tour with New Kids and Boyz II Men for 20,000 fans a night. That felt new and fresh, although we had experienced that before. And then us headlining our own summer tour was like, “Okay, can we still do this? Are they gonna come out?” They came out. And now with this Christmas tour and us doing a more intimate thing, a more specialized theatrical side in a more family-friendly kind of show, that’s fresh and new for us.

TrunkSpace: Do you think that it was necessary to have that 11-year hiatus in order to keep it feeling fresh and new? Did you need the time to refuel the creative tank?
Timmons: Yes, I think we were just burned out. When you’re a young guy in college you’re thinking, “Oh, I wanna be a rock star.” And most guys think that for various reasons, and not necessarily business reasons. You want to start a group so you can get the girls or be famous or get rich. You don’t necessarily think, “Oh, this is a business. This is a business and we’ve got to put our business man hats on as young men and put the right team around us and write current tracks and make sure we don’t find this and make sure we do this sort of promotion…” And so all of those things can be really, really stressful and I think that when you’re able to do this business and you kind of get an idea of what it is and it becomes fresh and exciting for you and more of an experiential kind of thing rather than a business, it’s always more fun in that respect.

TrunkSpace: We know that your passion is being behind the scenes in the studio. Does being out on the road take away from that part of your life?
Timmons: That’s a good question. I’m glad you know that because a lot of people don’t know that, so I appreciate you knowing.

That’s my favorite thing to do. I’d rather be in the studio. I love performing and all that, but I feel… it doesn’t matter, I can get in front of 12 people or 1 million people on TV and I get nervous every time. It’s something that happens to me. It’s a process I go through. I feel like a fight or flight kind of thing and then once I get on stage it’s cool. But I love being in the studio. I love cultivating other artists. I love creating and tweaking knobs and pressing keys and playing music and putting samples together.

Fortunately now, you can do that with a laptop. I used to lug around a big suitcase worth of equipment, set it up in my room and it would take me 15 minutes to put all of the hardware together in my hotel or in the bunk. I’ve always been able to bring that with me, but nowadays technology affords you the ability to bring a small laptop, a small keyboard, and a small interface and you can create records in your bunk on a tour bus or in a hotel room, so I always make sure that I have that outlet with me whether people hear it or not. It’s something that I have to do. Whether it’s 3 in the morning on a tour bus or in a hotel, or in between shows, I always bring that with me. It’s something that’s part of my being and again, fortunately now, you have the technology that it’s not that imposing and it doesn’t take up too much space and you’re able to be more creative than ever.

TrunkSpace: Has that love for tweaking knobs and pressing buttons changed the way you approach your own role in 98°?
Timmons: Yeah, I think so. You just learn more. I love the internet and I love YouTube. I used to have to sit in the studio with these amazing producers… and 98° was very fortunate to work with some of the best, so I used to just study them and watch what they did and take mental notes in my mind or write things down. Now you have the ability to go on the internet and watch tutorials of some of the best people and what they do and their tricks of the trade and I think it just makes you better. And certainly nowadays the resolution of the sound is better and the sonics are better. You become faster at what you do and you don’t have to spend time literally cutting tape. You can edit in certain ways. I think all of those things have helped me in a way to develop our sound or work in conjunction with the producers in the studio. We all do that. We all just use our ear to arrange and put our two cents in or go tweak a knob. You learn in the studio just by watching great talents – and sometimes emerging young guys that are just brilliant. I think all of those help to get you a little bit better – hone your craft a bit.

TrunkSpace: In terms of the holiday songs, from a production standpoint, does holiday music lend itself to what you guys do best, which is the four part harmonies, or did the songs themselves take some tweaking and massaging to get right for your particular sound?
Timmons: Well, I think it’s both. You answered your own question. We modeled ourselves after the R&B groups like Boyz II Men, which had sometimes eight part harmonies in their music. Certainly music has become a lot more simple. And I’m not downplaying it – I love current pop music, so I’m not saying it’s not as good, I’m just saying it’s not as complicated. They’ve made the songs a lot less complicated – a lot more music-driven than vocal-driven. It’s a lot less complicated in regards to harmony, so modern day music and mainstream music today, in regards to pop and crossover, it doesn’t stimulate us as much as some of the older R&B with saturated harmonies, thick vocal production and stacking vocals… and Christmas music does just that. It’s more choral and it’s more complicated with the progressions and the changes, and lyrically sometimes it’s cool, and not necessarily for the religious aspects but just the overall design of the songs. I think that’s one of the main reasons we decided to do another Christmas album.

TrunkSpace: As an artist, there’s got to be something exciting about doing a take on a song that so many other iconic artists have worked on over the years – Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra. The list goes on and on.
Timmons: Oh yeah, and for us, we were always influenced by all of those guys. I know we ended up being considered a boy band, but we loved the vocal groups. We loved the Four Tops. We started off a capella doing ’50s and ’60s doo wop stuff. And Stevie Wonder was a huge influence. And then we did the Beach Boys stuff. And then you have the classics like you said, renditions that have been done by Johnny Mathis, who is just an amazing vocalist. It’s given us a chance… not to show off, but to show off how much we were influenced by all of these people. It’s hard to match legendary productions of those songs but you can certainly pay tribute and homage by putting your own twist and spin on it with your own talents and resources that you have creatively and with your skill set.

TrunkSpace: Has this recent Christmas album and these tours, which you also did last year, opened you up to a new audience?
Timmons: I think it has and I think it’s for a variety of reasons. One, a lot of folks don’t know that we have a much younger fan base than is expected. We’re all in our 40s, but our fan base… we were doing so many things with Nickelodeon and Disney, sometimes playing for really young kids in the audience. We had one with the Nickelodeon tour where sometimes there would be 7 or 8 year old kids in the audience. And we were like, “Wow! This is cool, but what are we doing here?” Well, now those fans are in their late 20s and 30s. Also, by doing performing arts centers, we have exposed ourselves to an older audience, people who are seasoned ticket holders for some of these places that might not be familiar with 98° because they were in their 20s and 30s and they liked older music like I did like the Guns N’ Roses of the world or The Bangals and all of these ’80s acts that were out. It was the generation before us. So I think that holiday music gives you that flexibility and that most people enjoy holiday music, can relate to it, regardless of their religion. It’s a time of year when a lot of people come together, celebrate their lives together, families, and sort of relate to that music. I definitely think that we’ve grown the fan base with this tour.

TrunkSpace: Do you see the holiday tour becoming an annual tradition?
Timmons: Well, it’s our second year. Last year we were like, “Okay, let’s see if it works. If it works, we’ll do it again next year.” And it did work, so we’re doing it again this year. We all have kids – except for Justin – and we like to be with our families quite a bit. The tours before, when we were younger, took us away from our families for a long time and so we care so much about our families. Christmas, that holiday, it’s tough to be away, but again, we’ve had success with it, we’ve had fun with it, it’s something different, so I can see it happening again, but I can also see us, maybe next year, foregoing the Christmas tour and maybe doing another summer tour, a national tour. Maybe a more mainstream event that allows us to bring our families with us like when we got back together and did the package tour with New Kids and Boyz II Men.

So, it’s something we’re trying to take day by day and just kind of see if we want to do it. As long as the fans want us to do it, I think we’ll do it, but we want to keep all of our options open. We’re fortunate enough to have options.

For a full list of tour dates, click here.