Black Eyed Peas interview

“We are everywhere,” jokes Taboo in reference to the fact that he’s on the phone with me just minutes after his Black Eyed Peas have finished performing on back-to- back television shows on the same morning. But the hip hop quartet does in fact seem to be everywhere these days, having recently pulled off the rare feat of scoring the #1 album and #1 single on both the iTunes and Billboard charts.

When you’ve having one of these crazy days like the one you’ve having, with performances and interviews all over town, do you enjoy those days and feed off of it or does it wear you down?



As soon as we hit the stage and we see all the peabodies coming out and supporting the Peas, it brings us to life whether we got three hours of sleep or whether we’ve had eight hours of sleep, the fact is that we are performers and we love to be amongst the peers and the people who support the Peas. So we’re excited. We’re happy to be back together as a foursome. We all did individual projects, but now to be doing the Black Eyed Peas experience for the next three years or whatever it is, it’s going to be amazing.



You went four years in between album releases this time, as opposed to sometimes only a year apart in the past. How is it different when you come back together and it’s been that long since you’ve worked on an album together?



Within the time period that Fergie did The Duchess, and will.i.am did Yes We Can and Songs About Girls, and I did Street Fighter, and Apl did Subject: I Love You, we’ve always been involved in each project. We were on Fergie’s record on the song called Hands Up, and then we were involved with the Yes We Can campaign because we were doing the Democratic National Convention, so we’ve always been in each other’s lives, and it was a natural progression for us to be back into the studio because it was like we never left.



On the day that The E.N.D. debuted at number one in iTunes, you also had the number one and number two singles in iTunes. We all knew the album would do well, but did you imagine you’d have that kind of chart dominance right out of the gate?



We were just excited to be back in the public eye as a foursome, because we all want to share the Black Eyed Pea experience around the world, but to have such a great appreciation here in the States, which we’ve never really had that kind of reception, we’ve always went overseas and built a foundation on creating an international movement.



And now to have Boom Boom Pow come out straight out of the gate, it dominated everything, and we didn’t expect it to be so humungous. And now we have I Gotta Feeling. So it’s good to be home and have that love and appreciation from our own people here in the States.



We know this isn’t your last album. Is there any symbolism in putting the phrase “The End” in the same of your album?



“The E.N.D.” is the end of an era as far as conventional ways of selling music. Before, here in the States we used to have Sam Goody and Virgin Megastore and Tower Records. We don’t have that no more. So the days of going to get a tangible CD and having that in your hand, now you go to Best Buy and Target to get those type of CDs. And now everything is online. You have iTunes and all these different programs on the internet that will take you into a different way of looking at promoting your record, and how to get your record out there. It’s not just about having a CD no more, it’s also about creating components on the internet or on our site dipdive.com so that we’re not just giving people the CD, we’re actually creating opportunities for people to remix songs and to upload different ideas and content.



It’s also the end of the rumors and misconceptions that the Black Eyed Peas were breaking up, or that we’d broken up, because we’d done solo individual projects. It’s also the end of, possibly, this is the last physical CD for any group, let alone a Black Eyed Peas CD. Because four years from now, we don’t know what it could be.



So you think it’s realistic that your next release in 2013 could be just iTunes and MP3? Do you think all of your fans will be willing to go digital by then?



It’s one thing to just have a CD and need to live with that CD, but what if you were able to take those fifteen songs, and then you got ten songs the next month that you couldn’t have on the CD? And then we just keep on giving you new material and keeping it fresh and reinventing the song. Like with Boom Boom Pow, the Boom Boom Pow Invasion had about five different remixes off the same song.



It’s not too often you see a band like yours that has all four members taking turns on lead vocals. When you’re in the studio, is that a democratic process where you say “you take this part, I’ll take that part”?



It all depends. For example there’s a song called Rockin To The Beat on our new album, and it’s only “Rockin to the beat,” that’s all it says at the beginning, and then there’s only my verse. So I wrote that verse, and Will was “we gotta keep this like this, no more verses, just you rock this song and we’ll just have this hook at the beginning and let the music play.”



And then you have other songs like Out Of My Head where Fergie’s talking about being tipsy and all that stuff, and she brought that to the table, like “I want to play this character.” Or else Will will come up with Now Generation, and he’ll lay down the hook, and Fergie will come in and write something. It’s a collaborative effort. We all get a piece of different songs, and some songs are directed toward already having a formula, and some songs everybody brings their own idea and we compromise.



You guys are going to be touring with U2 for some dates in the fall. Are you looking forward to that?



I’m so excited, man. It’s an opportunity for us to be on tour with one of the greatest bands to ever step on stage in the history of music, U2, and what Bono has done as a humanitarian, he’s an inspiration to us and the group is a great inspiration. We’re signed to the same record label, so we’ve been fans of U2 and friends with U2, so we’re excited.



Any chance of any on-stage collaborations with them?



Right now we don’t really have anything planned, but who knows? Maybe throughout the tour we’ll come up with something.



Butterfly Boucher interview

It’s not every day you hear that an artist is trying to shake their major label deal but that’s exactly what singer/songwriter Butterfly Boucher was doing for three years after releasing Flutterby on A&M in 2003. The album was full of catchy, melodic hooks and Boucher had all the makings of the next indie music starlet. Music supervisors from many popular TV shows took notice and songs were licensed to Grey’s Anatomy and Charmed. With that momentum, Boucher was off on a tour across the globe opening for Sarah McLachlan who was a big fan of Boucher.

Things looked promising but amongst all of the success, A&M, like many labels that fail to see the point anymore in developing an artist or seeing past the next quarters numbers, failed to promote the album. “They’d say that I was too indie for pop and too pop for the indie scene”, Boucher says in her bio. The label even made her go back into the studio to re-record the word “can’t” in a more American accent for radio.

Though those years and chaos Boucher was resilient. Fueled with a passion for music that was born amongst her close knit musical family and indie determination, Boucher sold over 20,000 copies of Flutterby on the Sarah McLachlan tour dates alone. She would stand for hours at the merchandise table meeting fans and signing the CD. 


“I’m sure from the outside it looks very indulgent”, Boucher said, “…it’s a very hard thing to be successful at.” What kept her going was a friend telling her to look up to the people she admires, Patty Smith and David Bowie, and realize “in their careers they never stop, they just keep going, they do music and that’s what they do.” So that’s exactly what she did. Boucher started working on her sophomore album when she finished the tour with Sarah McLachlan. Working in her home studio she recorded the pre-production guitar, bass, keyboard and all vocals tracks for what would become Scary Fragile, Boucher’s newest album released this past June 2nd.

Waiting to get into the studio with producer David Kahne for over a year was worth it. 


“This is exactly what I wanted… he had incredible respect in my project.” Boucher said that in conversations about her vision for the album he never took notes but he always remembered everything she said. “If something doesn’t sound quite right you actually physically feel it – it pains you… my stomach turns” said Boucher. David once spent almost 30 minutes finding a note that was missing in the song they were working on to perfect it and two hours working on a snare fill. That attention to detail as well as his and Boucher’s careful steps to keep the album fresh produced a great record that offers up fun surprises the more you listen to it.

Some of my favorite songs and sounds on the album are the tracks that were recorded in Boucher’s apartment. From the light switch in her apartment closet on “They Say We Grow” to the door closing on “To Feel Love” and there’s more I’ll let you discover! “When I hear that (the light switch) it really takes me back to that time of my life.” That personal, organic imprint is just one of the things that make this album what her fans have been waiting for so long.

Originally intending to record with a live band, David decided that Boucher should play all the instruments herself and they even opted for some of the original home studio recordings on “I Found Out.” The James Bond style guitar lick on “The Keeper” is another personal snapshot of a specific time in a Boucher’s life. She said it was the first lick she ever wrote on guitar when she was just seven years old!

Scary Fragile was originally finished in January 2006, but because Boucher’s label didn’t know how to market it she was led to a UK label where she re-recorded the album for that market because the first version, which is what’s imprinted now as Scary Fragile, was too American. They ended up not being able to release the CD and for the years between recording and being negotiated out of her contract one of the only things that seemed to work in Boucher’s favor was the support of music supervisors. If the last track, “A Bitter Song”, sounds familiar that’s because it was licensed to Grey’s Anatomy in February 2007.

It’s hard to pick one or even a few songs on the album that stand out because they are all so melodically and lyrically beautiful. When I told Boucher how much I enjoyed her lyrics she was genuinely surprised saying that lyric writing is what she is least confident about. “I have to spend a long time on lyrics before I’m sometimes I get a line, or a sentence.” That’s exactly what she said happened with “Gun For a Tongue”, where the first line came to her and then she plotted out the rest over time. It’s a great thing she did, the single is the most memorable song on the album and Boucher’s fans seemed to have a lot of fun recently recording karaoke versions of the song for a contest.

Fans can catch Boucher on Twitter where she posts photos, tweets and replies regularly. She is incredibly humble and still celebrates all the wonderful little successes in her career. You don’t usually see someone at her level appreciating those things so its very refreshing and inspiring to see someone not jaded and overworked by the business but thriving in it and laughing it off. There seemed to be a lot of posts on Twitter about her drinking coffee leading up to the album release so I had to ask her: Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts? I didn’t get a clear answer but she did say she likes Americanos with one sugar sans milk.

And when I asked her what advice she had for other singer/songwriters she admitted what a hard question that is because everyone is so different but that the best advice she could think of would be to be determined. We also talked about the stresses of touring and got into how sad it is to come home to dead plants after being on the road, Boucher’s advice was to get some cacti which I am definitely planning on doing!

Boucher is currently touring on the West coast with more tour dates in the works. You can download Scary Fragile on iTunes or pick up a real CD at a live show.



Davy Knowles interview

A few years back, a lanky British teenager named Davy Knowles took the indie stage at Lollapalooza, and with guitar chops reminiscent of Hendrix and a voice closer to B.B, King, he quickly demonstrated to everyone in the crowd – including me – that he was the top young bluesman to come along in some time (we then hastily arranged an interview that ended up taking place in the parking lot of a restaurant on the other side of town, but that’s another story). Since that time others have caught on as well, and he’s gone on to collaborate with Peter Frampton and tour with the likes of Jeff Beck.



Just before he headed back out on the road, this time with Sammy Hagar and Joe Satriani, I got to chance to chat with Davy about his new album Coming Up For Air, the changes that have taken place within his band Back Door Slam, and the evolution from a teenage prodigy to a young adult who’s still playing the blues.



Before we talk about the new album, I do have to ask you about what happened with your bandmates, Adam and Ross.



The whole point in being a musician for me, and for Adam and for Ross, is you just have to gather as much information as you can, absorb as much, you have to grow as much, progress as much, and it just really got to the point where we needed to go off and do different things in order to grow, in order to further ourselves. I’m trying to think of an analogy. I’m not comparing ourselves in any way, just kind of like a smaller version of the situation, but Cream. Cream were amazing musicians, better than all three of us will ever be. But even though they had the creme de la creme, for them to move forward creatively, they just had to play with different people. And to a certain extent that’s the same as what’s happened here, but obviously not on the same scale.



You’ve been living in Los Angeles for awhile now, right?



Yeah, in between there and where my girlfriend is in Chicago.



Is that a culture shock, since you come from a small island?



It is, but you know what? I love it. I love the Isle of Man too. But it’s great because it’s exactly the same as with the band. It’s throwing yourself into different situations, and you learn from it and it’s wonderful. I’ve had a great time living there. But as much as I love LA, it‘s nice to get out of it. It’s wonderful to work out there. I like Chicago because it’s got this organic feel to it, it’s really buzzing.



What strikes me about Coming Up For Air is that your first album was patently a blues album, and there were a lot of different directions you could have gone in this time. I imagine there are some people whispering in your ear “you know Davy, if you’d just make a pop album you could get on the radio and you could sell a million albums” – and yet Coming Up For Air is another blues record.


People always think, especially when you’re a young musician, people always think they know best. They always do. I’m lucky to work with people who take me for who I am and they don’t try and mold me, and that’s what I really like about them. But you do get some people saying “you need a hit.” You know what? I’d rather have peace of mind, rather keep my integrity than go chasing after some little thing like that.



How did you get involved with Peter Frampton?



We have a mutual friend in Nashville who said Peter was up for doing some co-writing. And I was like yeah, absolutely, he’s one of my heroes. We were both out on the road a lot, it was nearly a year in the making. And then he came round to my little cottage in LA and then we just sat down and wrote a song the first day we met. And then we just thought wow, this is a really good writing relationship.



We wrong three songs together and two of them got on the album. And with the producing, I said would like to produce the songs that we’ve written. And once we started talking through what we wanted them to sound like, I thought wow, he’s describing what I want my album to sound like. So I ended up roping him into producing the whole thing.



He was the life of the party. If the studio was a party, Peter was the head of it. Just so much fun, it was great. And because of this great vibe that he created, it made the performances that much better. It was also pretty terrifying playing guitar in front of him.



There are a number of people who’ve said or written that you’re one of the most talented young bluesmen out there, period – I know because I’m one of the people who’s written that. Does that sort of thing put pressure on you, or are you able to brush that kind of thing aside?



The only pressure I think it puts on me, I think, is the blues part. The one thing I’m pretty conscious about is I don’t want to be strictly blues. I don’t want to just play twelve bar blues for the rest of my life. I like James Taylor, and I like Joni Mitchell, and I like people like that too. I think that’s the only pressure. On Coming Up For Air there’s an acoustic song called Amber’s Song. The only question is I get nervous if I release something like that, will people like it? That’s the only pressure I find.



You’ve been on Facebook for as long as I’ve known you, but you’ve recently taken up Twitter. How’s it treating you so far?


I really love it. It’s not as much maintenance as Facebook, anything like that. You can just put one line up there from your phone, and it’s a good way to stay in touch. It’s a great way to stir up a bit of a buzz. If you’re really excited about something like the album or rehearsing with different guys or a new guitar you’ve got, it’s a really good way of stirring people up and getting them to have a look. It’s kind of addictive.



Endless Hallway interview

Endless Hallway is a rock band from Los Angeles, California. Their debut album, Autonomy Games was released in April 2009 and they are currently touring to support it. Endless Hallway incorporates various elements of rock and diverse musical and cinematic influences into their music to create rock soundscapes that are diverse and complex, yet accessible and harmonious. Recently, iProng’s Matt Saye had the opportunity to speak with Joe Mullen.

First of all, thanks for taking the time out to do this interview. You’re on tour supporting your debut album. What’s the experience been like so far?

It’s been great. We’ve toured with two really awesome bands. Gavin Rossdale was the first tour we did and we just finished a run with VAST and it’s been really cool. It’s been a long tour– going on two and a half months now– and we’re actually starting another tour today in Sacramento with the band Dance Gavin Dance. We haven’t done any heavy touring before and it’s been good to be promoting the record that we’ve been working on for the last year.

The album is getting very positive reviews how’s it been received at the live shows?

It’s been a positive response. The bands we’ve toured with so far have kind of drawn in a bit of an older crowd. Gavin Rossdale was in Bush so he’s pulling in the older 90’s alternative rock fans, which is awesome because that’s kind of the music that influences us. Same thing with Vast. We’ve gotten a little bit of strange looks from those people because our generation expects a different style of music, but overall it’s been a great response and I’m totally stoked on the response with both the record and the live shows too.

As far as live shows go, do you have any special thoughts on performing live? Do you try to capture it the way it was recorded or do you experiment around?

The recording process was very much like a science lab, experimenting with tons of different sounds and it was extremely focused. With the live show we’re inspired by the visceral raw energy of a rock show like Nine Inch Nails or Nirvana. We really try to have as much energy as we can and put on a good performance. We definitely approach the live show differently than the recording process; we try to do what feels right and what is more natural as opposed to analyzing every little note. It’s definitely a lot different than the recording but it’s cool. It’s more like a physical expression, which is how I address a live performance.

On your homepage you say that you try to write each song as “a location in a world” would you mind elaborating on that?

When we were writing the record we all met up. Ryan [Jackson, vocals] and Jono [Evans, guitar] are the primary song writers, but when we would talk about the record and what we wanted to do with it we were really influenced and inspired by visual stuff. We’d go songwriting in a park, and we went out to the desert a few times. We just looked at wherever we were and where we wanted to be and where we wanted certain songs on the record to exist.


For example, “Remora” or “Shallows” are really influenced by underwater landscapes so we kind of built these little worlds for each song that we thought were really cool and that we wanted to the song exist in. We did that for every song and that’s how we approached it. The goal was also to be able to provide enough of that for the listener to be able to create their own world around each song. That was the main goal for the record, to have a kid be able to put it on and imagine a space the same way that our favorite bands and records have done for us.

Speaking of the experience of other bands, what particularly do you draw from? Who inspires your music?

We all have our own things that are more personal to each member, but collectively our biggest influences are Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, Bjork, a lot of soundtracks like john Williams. Ryan’s really into a lot of Japanese composers.

Are there any non-musical influences: movies, books, etc?

I would say Disney stuff is a huge inspiration. That’s another thing with the whole idea of creating a world around each song. You go to Disneyland and there’s all these different rides and each one has a completely different world. We made our record in that formula: a different ride that has a different feel or visual soundscape. We love this Japanese filmmaker named Miyazaki. He did Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. So movies are also a big inspiration.

Since iProng Magazine is focused around the iPod, the iPhone, and 21st Century music in general, I have to ask about iTunes and the online availability of music. What do you think about them in terms of being a band supporting a debut album? Has that helped you or did you take it into consideration?

I think it definitely has helped a lot of new bands. There’s such a vast plethora of bands that are out right now and it’s so easy for a group of kids to get together and record on their computers and put it up on MySpace and iTunes as well. I feel like the opportunity to get your music out is much easier than it may have been back in the 90s before all this madness started.

It’s helped us a lot. For example we put our demo up on our MySpace and from that we got a record deal and that’s the way it’s been going for a lot of bands. It also makes it easy for someone who may not have a record store nearby to get the record. So that’s definitely helped us out. At the same, there’s so much going on that I feel like you have to work a lot harder to stand out by delivering quality music and media and everything else that goes along with having a band.

One thing we at iProng have discussed among ourselves is that since iTunes allows you to buy on a song-by-song basis, many bands are now making concept albums. Did this have an influence on you when writing Autonomy Games?

Definitely. I feel like the best bands out there are creating solid records and that’s the way it’s always been. The great bands have always put out great records. I really feel like if we stick by that standard we’ll be successful. There’s a lot of bands that just focus on one or two songs and that also works for awhile but as easy as it is to deliver the bare minimum, the record as a whole being a quality product will really prevail regardless of all the single promotions and focus on one songs.

The single promotion and the way you’re able to just buy the one song you like on iTunes or wherever, I feel like a lot of bands are just dropping their standard of quality because they can put two songs on their MySpace and do well off that. It’s misleading at times. We’re trying to make our record as strong as possible.

I have one last question for you: do you have any advice you’d give to anyone trying to get into the music business?

Of course. If you’re wanting to start a band or get into the music business, don’t ever compromise any sort of artistic integrity you have for the sake of achieving a quick in. For me, it’s not settling for what could work. We try to maintain that honesty and integrity. I feel like those are the strongest traits you could have in this business. Just work hard and tour.



Gretel in the Podsafe Cafe

Hailing from Boston, the trio that makes up Gretel delivers eclectic Americana-folk music full of instrumental surprises that fit together seamlessly. I love the description of the music off of their website: “Gretel’s songs evince an honesty and directness usually reserved for confessionals and bathroom stalls.” In that directness, their songs lyrics paint beautiful pictures and scenes that seduce you to keep their CD’s on repeat. Their latest release, The Dregs, was released June 2, 2009. Reva, the lead singer talked to us about making of the album, being on the road and finding inspiration.

Each song you perform and record is perfectly arranged with sounds that set the song apart from the others while bringing them all together in your own eclectic sound. How much time do you spend crafting each song and what risks did you take on this record?



Recording is a long and involved process for us. We started the recording process over on each song on this record at least twice (after they were well under way), and most of them didn’t start sounding right until after the third attempt. Even just writing the songs takes me a while. I tend to spend at least twenty hours on a song before it’s ready to play for the band, and then it usually goes through many incarnations before we settle into how we want it to sound as an ensemble–harmonies, instrumentation, dynamic changes, and the like.  

Recording is a really terrifying and exciting thing to do when you’re doing it yourself. All the chances you take will fail or succeed based on your own skill sets and vision. It’s very scary to know that if your record sucks, you can’t just say, “Well, the producer thought…” or “The label said we had to…”  If any of our records suck, it’s my fault.  I’m the producer. We’re our own label. There’s no wizard behind our curtain to blame things on, which makes my knees knock.  At the same time, it’s kind of exhilarating. When you have an idea–no matter how farfetched it seems–you can try it and see if it works.  I just make sure that the players I record with (my bandmates Phil and Melissa fall into this category) are really exceptional at what they do, so that I can make a harebrained suggestion and know pretty quickly if it will work or not.  If the idea is a good one, a good player will be able to do what I ask and it will hit in the way I wanted it to.  If an idea sounds bad when a good player plays it, I know my idea was off.

A good example of a successful, sorta weird idea that worked out (in my opinion) is when the cello comes in during the middle of Renegade.  I told Emily Hope Price, the cellist, that I wanted it to sound like our ship was going to go down and she was the storm that was dragging us to the bottom.  I sound like a crazy person when I say things like that, but when a good player listens closely and tries to put into sounds the things described, the idea takes on a real and valid shape.  Her interpretation of my description really worked because she’s a great player and a good listener.  I can’t make records without people like that.

How is The Dregs different from your last two albums?


The Dregs is darker–in terms of theme and soundscape–than our last two records.  I think it’s the best songwriting I’ve done so far, and the arrangements are much more full.  I’m also a better engineer than I was before, so things just sound better at their fundamental wavelength level. The songs are a lot shorter, and they travel a more appropriate distance within themselves and within the record as a whole.  We’re getting better at making things sound like themselves. We’re getting better at making us sound like ourselves. Overall, I think this is the record that shows the band most accurately.

Where do you find inspiration?


Inspiration from a songwriting perspective is something that I think I just bank and wait on until I have the necessary time required to turn out a song. Life is so full of heartbreak and wonder.  My friends’ lives, the world’s chaos and confusion, my own incompetence at being a human being, good books and poems–these things all lend themselves to song.  I also feel inspired by my friends and the musicians around me–to keep working and to keep the quality of the work high. Some of my friends make records with really inventive arrangements.  Some of my friends put on really great, high energy live shows.  Some of my friends can let loose in a song like they’re possessed by the devil. All these things go into the hopper of what is possible and what can be attempted. Art is a peeling back of a cheap veneer to reveal the true grain beneath, and when I see and hear people doing that, or hear of things in their lives that force that upon them – those things are inspiring. Not inspiring in an uplifting gosh-now-I-feel-better way, but in a way that makes me contend with reality anew. Reality – when it gets really specific – is inspiring.

How have you used social media to connect with new fans and promote your music?


We’re trying to do better with this one.  I work a lot to try to pay for things like making records and going on tour, so the time I could be spending on utilizing facebook or twitter as marketing tools doesn’t happen like it does with some acts. For this last record and release, we had some good friends really throw their energy into online promotion, and it worked really well. It’s still something I’m coming around to because I didn’t start making music in order to spend a lot of time on the computer (or for that matter, to work a ton as a waitress to pay for making music), so the thing that I try to make sure I do enough of and do well is the music–writing, arranging, recording and playing out.  Things stack up and don’t get tended to in ways that I’m sure would really help us out, but I don’t want to forego the music in order to do the marketing.  But yes, we do use online social media outlets on a regular basis and hope to expand into using them more.

The personal touch you take to your music with the Deluxe edition of The Meteorite and the hand stitching on your posters is refreshing. What inspires you to go that extra mile?


I think the things I/we do always go back to trying to answer the question: What do we want to make?  If I’m not interested in the thing itself, I don’t know why other people would be. I don’t like mass produced things very much.  I like one-of-a-kind items–from clothes to coffee mugs. If the packaging of a product is specific and unique and one-of-a-kind, I think it says to a potential owner of that product that the thing (in this case, the music) housed inside that packaging is also specific, unique and one-of-a-kind.



I try to make things to sell (or promote us with) that I would be excited to own. For us, the extra mile isn’t really an extra one–it’s part of the mile we’re already trying to walk. It does take more time, that’s true, but it fits within our overall aesthetic. The reason to sew on every flyer is the same as the reason to change the harmonies at the end of a song, or add an extra measure of silence in the middle of another one–it’s to refresh the eye and ear, pull the audience and ourselves in closer; it’s an aiming for the beautiful for no other reason than that it’s beautiful.  It’s a strike against utilitarianism and against a cost/benefit analysis that would trade good art for bad art if it meant the stack of dollars would be higher.  As individuals, we’re after a high quality of life for ourselves and everyone else–the good, the beautiful, the loving and the true. Our music – what it sounds like and looks like – reflects that.

What are your tricks for being on the road for long periods of time in close quarters? What do you listen to on the road?


We actually spend a lot of time on the road in silence.  We do listen to music together (full albums) and podcasts (our two faves are This American Life and Radio Lab). We’ve found that for us, the trick to being on the road is not doing it for over three weeks at a time without a good break.  People weren’t meant to live in cars or vans.  It can be tough, but playing shows every night for people who love to hear us is amazing.

What are you most looking forward to in the coming months now that the CD is released?


We have no idea what our next steps are, but I’m looking forward to writing a bunch of more songs, getting them into the set, trying to get out on the road again, and making another record.  Being in a band–unless you’re content to be a local band only–is kind of like flipping a coin to figure out your next move.  Except, when you don’t have any funding besides what you provide yourself, you have to hustle like mad to find a coin to flip.  What’s next?  More music.



Kingsfoil interview

It was a cold November day when I decided to sit down with Jordan Davis to talk about his band.  We met in a local Starbucks, and as he walked in, there was no one screaming his name or acting like he was Brad Pitt. He was just an average guy that was in a local, unsigned band. He and his band, Kingsfoil, are based in York, Pennsylvania, and they have quite a fan base.  For having no record label to support them, it is remarkable how many people come out to support them. They are involved in the music because it is their passion.  Though the money would be nice, surely that is not their sole motivation. Comprised of Tristan Martin (vocals, keyboards, guitar), Joe Cipollini (drums), Tim Warren (bass), and Davis (vocals, guitar), Kingsfoil is a force to be reckoned with. As I talked with Davis, it became apparent that they are doing their thing in hopes that more people will find out about them. This is what he had to say about growing up, the music, and life being in a band.


Growing up, what inspired you to get into music? Like, was it always around you?

JD: It was always around. My dad’s a piano tuner, and my parents used to sing to us a lot to us in the car to me and my sister. I would always sing and annoy everyone else. I’d sing all the time and everyone kind of hated it. I would make up my own melodies and just sing to myself. When I was growing up, my parents played a lot of Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, and The Beatles, so I really got into that. I love Bonnie Raitt. Also, I had a different growing up experience than most people do, and that affected my writing a little bit. I was home schooled so it was like I had so much time to be in my head like I think the music was different. My early songs kind of reflected that. There was a lot of trying to figure out who I was, but in a different light than someone that might have gone to high school. That’s not to say that I was a geek, well, maybe a little bit.

Fair enough! Who came up with the band name and where did it come from? I actually read this today, but I’ll let you answer it.

Ah yes, it’s from Lord of the Rings. Tristan actually came to me with it and he had found it in there-read it in there and kind of liked the sound of it you know, and I liked the sound of it. And that was before the movies came out a long time ago. I like the feeling that it gives when you say it.

How did the band start? That’s a loaded question, I think.

Tristan was actually in another band. I was in a band with two other guys called Essence, I think. Horrible band name. And that band broke up, and me and Tristan started doing stuff but he was still in this other band. It was actually with Chris Merritt. Tristan used to play drums for him. At that point, he was doing two bands and it was kind of rough for him, so finally, he quit Chris Merritt. Me and him just started playing a lot of acoustic shows, and then from then we added Joe and Darren, our old bass player. That was roughly 3 or 4 years ago. And then Darren left and we added Tim just less than 3 years ago. Something like that. You probably know this better than I do.

How did Joe come into the picture?

Joe was in a band called Squeeze Theorem that was out of Millersville and my sister went to Millersville so we used to play a lot of shows there. When that band broke up, we were like “let’s try it out” and at first didn’t want to play full band because we liked the acoustic thing. It was a really big step for us. It was horrible at first but then it got better.

How did Tim come to be the new bass player?

Tim found our “looking for a bass player” flyer in a music store near him and sent us an email. And he turned out to be the perfect fit. We’re super lucky.

How do you feel about being with a major label, and do you think that it changes bands for better or worse or not at all?

That’s actually a cool question. I think it can definitely change you for the worst if you’re not careful. A good example might be Death Cab for Cutie. They released a lot of CDs on their own label, a small label, and then they released their last CD on a major label and they still were able to keep their creativity and their freedom. So as long as you don’t sell out, or let them dictate how you’re gonna do it and how you’re gonna write, then it’s not a bad thing. But that happens so much and it definitely can affect you in a bad way.

You cater to a younger audience. What do you think the reason is?

I think it’s just Tim’s good looks (laughs). No, I think we’ve always written about stuff that’s accessible to younger crowds. A lot of relationship type stuff and we’ve always been sort of open with our fans and like you know we want to be able to talk to them and be friends with them. As much as they’re our fans they should be our friends. In that way, a lot of young people were kind of drawn to us. We also started out pretty young doing this and we were like 14 or 15 so you know there’s people that age that were there when we were that age. They’ve grown up with us but as we’ve grown we still get younger fans. It’s really awesome that our young fans from long ago are still coming to shows and there are new young fans thrown in there too.

How do you react then to “star struck fans”? Does it bother you when there are a lot of people asking for photos and signatures?

No, it doesn’t bother me at all. It’s flattering obviously and we never want to let it get to our heads. It’s something we’ve always said because there’s always somebody better than you. We just feel lucky that people do like our music, and we try to do whatever we can to help them and make them happy. Make them feel like we gave them some time. So it’s not annoying at all. And I don’t want us to ever come off like we’re too cool for school. We’re gonna try to cater to them because they spent the money and time to come out and appreciate us and listen to us, so the least we can do is talk to them and say thank you.

How far has the band traveled geographically? Who did you tour with?

As far as me and Tristan, we went to the west coast. That was our first tour as a duo. As a full band, though, we went to Florida and back. But the thing with us is that we’re in a good position location-wise with New York, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and Baltimore all being so close. We can drive there on the weekend without spending a whole lot on gas, or hotels, or anything else.

You didn’t have a TV as a kid, right? How has that influenced you and your writing and musical ability?

It was just a different childhood. One of the main things is that I ended up reading a lot, I was read to a lot, and I liked reading a lot more than most so that had a big impact one me. I got to read a lot of books and learned a lot from it. You can’t really get that from television. I love television. I still don’t have one though. I think it made me a little more unique basically.

How would you describe the band’s sound?

We’ve always had trouble with that. It’s hard to compare us to people. There’ve been random comparisons like Coldplay. I think we’re just indie rock that likes melody. The melody is important to us. We play indie pop rock. The pop is the melody part, not the pop candy stuff. That’s what we want pop to mean-the melody that someone wants to sing, that we feel good singing.

Why should people give your music a listen?

Besides being awesome? No, it’s genuine and not at all put together or staged or coerced at all. We’re proud of our music and it’s exactly what we want. We don’t cater to anything, and we don’t copy anything. We just play what feels right and it shows. You can tell when bands aren’t being real, and people still listen to them. But, if you’re smart, you’re gonna know. Anyone’s gonna know. You don’t have to have some amazing musical taste to know. You just feel it. When it’s good it’s good and you don’t have to know anything about music. You just know if your heart, you’re like, “this is good.”



The Crystal Method interview

There are a number of reasons why The Crystal Method is perhaps the most recognizable name in electronic music over the past decade and a half. While the duo’s studio albums have built a large following within the electronic genre, their cross-genre collaborations over the years have expanded their presence even further, along with their work on everything from movie soundtracks to the original Nike+iPod soundtrack. Having just released their new studio album Divided By Night, I caught up with Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland to talk about Divided By Night and more.

Last I heard you guys were building your own studio so you could make this album, and that was a few years ago. So what took you so long?



Ken: Well two years is actually not bad time for us, you know? (laughs). Up until we got into the new studio we were busy with a lot of other things. We did a soundtrack album, a mix CD, we did a project for Apple and Nike called Drive, and so that kept us pretty busy. And then when we got into the studio we started working for real on the new album.

Divided By Night is a phrase that could apply to a lot of things that have gone on in this decade as far as division and darkness. Is that a worldview statement, or is there something else to the name?

Scott: It was more borne out of this beautiful sunset that we saw flying from one DJ gig to another. We were coming over the city of El Paso at night with the lights on, and above you could see the stars and space and the moon and sort of off on the horizon was this sort of bend of beautiful color and lights that obviously was the sun setting on the west coast. And being from the west, the beauty of it all was something to behold. And then “Divided By Night” just popped into my head. It was more a reflection of there’s my family, my kids, my wife, reflecting on them, you know, probably sitting at the table and eating and sort of wrapping up the day, and here we are at night flying into another city to spend the next four or five hours living this alter ego, these characters of this band that comes in and takes over a club and plays music two or three, and the two different worlds sort of seem to be divided by out late-night personas, if you will. Album titles are difficult. You try not to have, at lease we try not to put too much meaning into them, and kind of feel that that should be left to the consumers or the fans to add their own meaning to that. It does conjure up a bunch of ideas, and I think that’s cool that we can come up with a name that does have little bit of mystery and intrigue behind it.

You guys are no strangers to collaborations over the years, but this album has a ton of guest stars even by your standards. Was that the plan going in, let’s get a bunch of people to work with, or did it just end up happening that way?

Ken: I think it was overall a little bit more of a plan. We wanted to have more song-oriented tracks and a little more vocals. It’s not overwhelmingly more but it is more than we usually have on our albums. A lot of times we’ll try a lot of collaborations and they won’t work out, but only a couple we tried this time didn’t work out, and no one will hear those. But these are the ones that came out really great.

You told me last year that you were really looking forward to working with Peter Hook. You ended up getting him on two tracks on the album. What was the experience like of bringing him into the studio and recording with him?

Ken: It was really great. Some of the collaborations on the album, it was people that had their own studios or people that were not available to Los Angeles, but Peter Hook was in LA for a couple of days. I think it was when he was doing some promotion for the documentary side of the whole Control / Joy Division, you know, the two films that came out. So he was in town and we got him to come by, and he was just a really amazing guy. He was really funny and played well. He’s not afraid to play his signature sound.



The Matisyahu song turned out great. But it’s almost wall to wall vocals and he’s got such a unique identifiable sound. Did you have any thoughts about that when you chose that as the first single, that people are going to think it’s just a Matisyahu single, they’re not going to realize it’s The Crystal Method?

Ken: We still feel like it really feels like a hard-driving Crystal Method track with a lot of electronic elements in it, but yeah, you know, we did pare down the vocals some. But it was going to be our first single, and singles for the most part have vocals. We were pretty comfortable with it.



Scott: Yeah, I had never heard him do a vocal like that. The vocal and the treatment of the vocal and the lyrical direction fit the track really well. Anytime bands that don’t have a lead singer and you use someone that has developed their own sound, you run the risk of that. It was just about putting out a song that we thought sounded good.



You guys have done so many things, soundtracks, collaborations, remixes. What have you not done yet that you still want to do at some point as a Crystal Method project?



Ken: Playing the Super Bowl wouldn’t be bad.



Scott: So many things have happened to us that we’ve been a part of that early on we would have had no idea these thing would have been a possibility. And the reason why that has happened for us is that we’re always in the moment, we’re always sort of focused on where we are at the time.



Macworld Mobile App Showcase

iPhone and iPod touch users will be pleased to know that Macworld 2010 will include the Mobile Application Showcase, a special area of the show floor dedicated to the innovations being brought to market by iPhone and iPod touch developers. iProng Magazine caught up with Paul Kent, General Manager of Macworld Expo, earlier today to talk about what this means for iPhone and iPod touch users and for Macworld 2010 attendees in general.

iProng: First things first - what led you to move Macworld 2010 to February instead of its traditional January date?

Paul Kent: A few things led to this - but the essence of it is customer feedback. And by customers, I mean exhibitors. We’ve heard for many years how difficult it was for developers to get ready for a major tradeshow through the holidays. Getting development done on new products, logistical issues with getting marketing materials and a booth to a show. It’s been an issue we’ve been aware of, but really Macworld had held this spot for so long (25 years) there was a always a feeling of “first week of January is Macworld time.” This year, we are on a quest to reinvent the show to create the most relevant event to the community. Listening to customers is Job 1. Date change was the top of the list of suggestions - we listened, made the change and the response has been fantastic.

iProng: What makes apps so important to the iPhone and iPod touch platform that they deserve their own pavilion at Macworld this year?

Paul Kent: Clearly, much of the excitement and innovation in the area of software development that we’ve seen over the past year has been in the area of mobile apps - apps designed for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Ever since Apple opened the iPhone and iPod touch up for software development and put the SKD in developers hands - the app market has been roaring. Apple announced there are over 50,000 apps in the store now, and over 1 billion downloads! All this in essentially an 18 month period - it’s amazing. We’ll be capturing that excitement at Macworld by giving users a fun way to discover apps and meet the rockstars who develop them.

iProng: What can attendees expect from the pavilion once they enter it?

Paul Kent: The Mobile App Showcase will be “App Store Live” experience! Attendees will be able to try out hundreds of apps, meet the developers, and talk to other app uses. The App Store, while a good channel of distribution, doesn’t really have great mechanisms for trying before you buy, or for comparing features. The Mobile App Showcase at Macworld 2010 will let attendees get their hands on the latest and most popular apps, and give them an opportunity to discover new ones!

iProng: Macworld 2010 is still eight months away, but can you give us any hints about what kinds of additional new features are on tap for February?

Paul Kent: In addition to the Mobile App Showcase, we’ve also got a Indie Developer Pavilion highlighting all the innovative tools and solutions being created for Mac OS X by the independent developer. There will also be the Macworld Music Studio where we’ll have training and performance on music-related topics done by amazing instructors from the Berklee College of Music, professional musicians, and Mac industry luminaries. Also, plenty of hands on training opportunities - we’re working with the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus to host a bunch of free hands on classes where attendees can learn to put Mac OS X creative tools to work. Also - show specials! Macworld has always been a place where people can discover and purchase great products - this year we will be doing more to bring users and products closer together. These are just a few of the things we’ve got planned -many more announcements will be coming over the months leading up to the show. Attendees should check with website (www.macworldexpo.com), follow us on Facebook and Twitter and keep informed. We’ve been saying - “It’s the Start of a New Era at Macworld” - and all these new and enhanced programs will really make Macworld 2010 a great place for iPhone, iPod and Mac users to come together to get even more enjoyment out of their favorite technology.



Scott Sigler interview

New York Times bestselling author Scott Sigler has just released THE ROOKIE as a hardcover novel and sales are strong already, which is impressive for a book that’s been available for free as an audiobook in podcast format since 2007. But that’s the winning formula that’s allowed Scott to build a loyal audience, make a living from it, and achieve mainstream success. I caught up with him to learn how it’s all happened.

You started out trying to get EarthCore published as a print novel through a major publisher. What led you to change course and give it away as a podiobook instead?


I did land a print deal with an imprint of AOL/TimeWarner, and EARTHCORE was supposed to be out in mass market paperback in May 2002. However, in the post-911 recession, TimeWarner scrapped everything that wasn’t profitable. My imprint wasn’t profitable yet, hence, the whole project was shut down. It took me about three years to get the rights back. By then it was 2005, I discovered podcasting, and thought it was going to be the future of novels, short stories and storytelling.

Wasn’t it a bit scary, at the time, to give away content you’d been hoping to charge for, without knowing if you’d ever see a dime from it?


It wasn’t scary at all, it was a huge opportunity to be the first to do something like this, and use that to build an audience. I saw the connections people make online, and knew that if I created a great product, some people would like it and instantly send their friends MP3 links via IM, forums, chat rooms, blog posts, email, etc. Giving the first book away was about building a brand name, and proving that my work resonated with the marketplace. At the time, I assumed I’d pick up 10,000 subscribers and land a print deal. I hadn’t counted on the fact that publishers had no idea what podcasting was, or MP3s, or downloads or really even the internet, for that matter. I accomplished the goal, but it took five books and three years to get there.

How exactly did you go about building up an early audience for your podiobooks? Was enough to just put it out there for free, or did you have to actively spread the word?


I’ve worked constantly to spread the word, pick up fans, and get them to spread the word. Just putting a free work up isn’t enough, you have to market it. A lot of people will listen because it’s free, and a certain percentage of them will like your work and become fans. Therefore, my real goal as an entertainer is to make sure the most possible people find out about me and give me a shot. The larger the base, the more fans generated by that same certain percentage.

Now that you’re a New York Times bestselling print author, and people are clearly willing to pay for your work, why do you still give your content away? Is that just because you’re a nice guy, or is it part of a strategy to sell more content?


There’s a few reasons. First, my father had a phrase, “you dance with the one that brought ya.” I got to where I am because of my fans. They helped me in a lot of ways because my work was free, and I’m not going to bogart it from them now that I’ve achieved a couple of goals. Right now I give everything away for free, even the stuff that’s on sale. It’s up to the customer to decide how they want the story — free podcast, free PDF, paid iPhone app, paid book. And times are tough; some people want to buy the books but they don’t have the cash right now. So no problem, that’s what the free podcasts are for. Maybe someday they buy my books, maybe they don’t, doesn’t matter to me because that’s the customer’s choice to make. Second, “free” still gets me new people who try my stuff because they don’t have to shell out the bucks. If you have a choice between spending $25 on a Stephen King downloadable book, or get mine for free, odds are you’ll try mine first, even though King is a proven author and always delivers. You know if you don’t like mine, you can go back and spend the $25 anyway, so there’s no risk.

You released a hardcover version of THE ROOKIE last weekend. What’s the premise of the book?


Basically, it’s projecting professional football 700 years into the future, after we’ve discovered alien races, and trying to figure out what the game might be like. From there it gets much deeper, illustrating the integrative nature of sports and sport as a meritocracy that destroys racism (you have to learn to play with the best players, regardless of race, if you want to win). Finally, it’s a kick-ass coming of age story and chock-full of awesome, high-tech football action.

I’ll give you the synopses:


Set in a lethal pro football league 700 years in the future, THE ROOKIE is a story that combines the intense gridiron action of “Any Given Sunday” with the space opera style of “Star Wars” and the criminal underworld of “The Godfather.”

Aliens and humans alike play positions based on physiology, creating receivers that jump 25 feet into the air, linemen that bench-press 1,200 pounds, and linebackers that literally want to eat you. Organized crime runs every franchise, games are fixed and rival players are assassinated.

Follow the story of Quentin Barnes, a 19-year-old quarterback prodigy that has been raised all his life to hate, and kill, those aliens. Quentin must deal with his racism and learn to lead, or he’ll wind up just another stat in the column marked “killed on the field.”

How are your years of participating in social media paying off as far as promoting the print version of THE ROOKIE?


I’ve built up an online following in various social media places, like Facebook, Twitter and on my own site scottsigler.com. Simply making the product available in these different areas lets people find the book based on their preferences. Some find it via Twitter, some via Facebook, and some via my podcasts or my website. The larger the following, the more people want to buy the product, so that’s why doing this for several years gives me the best chance to find customers that really want the book.

Don’t forget, I already gave THE ROOKIE away for free as a podcast, and it’s still available for free. Most, if not all the people who have pre-ordered so far have already heard the story. They liked it so much they want a print copy to read again or to share with others. That’s what social media does for me – when my fans finish a story, I’m still right there, accessible, they can stay in contact and monitor what’s coming next.

Is Quentin Barnes, your protagonist quarterback of the future, based in part on any real-life football player?


I wrote this book years ago, so he was initially based on Daunte Culpepper. When Culpepper came into the league , he was 6-foot-4, 260 pounds. It was almost unheard of for a quarterback with his skill set to be that big. So Quentin is huge for his position, which helps set him apart. Personality-wise, I tried to imagine an incredibly talented kid that’s played his whole life in, say, the Ku Klux Clan minor league, but he wants to be the best so he works his way into the bigs, where — hold on to your hat — he has to have sub-races on his team. The final step was gauging his maturity level. Quentin joins the pros at nineteen, so I channelled a bit of early Kobe Bryant behavior in there.

You’ve said that what you like about Stephen King’s books is that he’s willing to whack any character at any time. You’ve announced an upcoming sequel centered around Quentin Barnes. Is there a chance he bites the dust in that book?


Absolutely. In my books, no one is sacred, and dead stays dead. That being said, THE ROOKIE series isn’t like my modern-day horror/thrillers. This is a scifi series, so odds are everyone’s favorite quarterback will be there to play another day. With a thriller, much of the fear-of-loss revolves around a character’s life. To draw the reader in, you need that specter of death. With a sports series, you get a different specter — losing the championship, the big game, the career, etc. So you can really put a reader through the wringer without having to put the characters’ life on that line.

Speaking of quarterbacks, you’re a long-suffering Detroit Lions fan. What do you think of their drafting of Matthew Stafford with the first overall pick this past weekend?


Paying the kid $41 million guaranteed is a huge mistake. The Lions have needs everywhere, particularly the offensive line. Detroit destroys quarterbacks. Not the other teams’ quarterbacks, mind you, our quarterbacks. If you just look at the statistical trends of Detroit, Stafford won’t be the starter in three years. I wish they would have traded down and loaded up with three first- or second-round offensive line picks. Franchises that had dominant runs, like Dallas, New England, Pittsburgh, they all spend the dollars to develop and retain a great offensive line. I’d love to think Stafford is The One for Detroit, but this ain’t my first trip to the rodeo. At least we didn’t use our first pick to draft another goddamn receiver …

Late last year you released THE ROOKIE as an iPhone app. What role do you think iPhone books and readers like the Kindle will play in the near future of books?


I think portable devices are the future of books, period. There are 20 million iPhones and iTouch units sold so far, in only two years. I don’t even use my Kindle anymore now that the Kindle App works so well on the iPhone. So that’s a market of 20 million potential readers, who can now buy books, stockpile books, and most importantly impulse-buy books. As the cost of eBooks comes down to the $3-$5 range, the same cost as most apps, I think readership is going to go through the roof. The reason it’s going to keep getting bigger is that the iPhone and other cell phones are lifestyle devices. A book is just a book, but an iPhone is your phone, your email, your calendar, your social media, your video, your music, your games and now your books. People will continue to be more attached to their phones. They are already ubiquitous, and if you can read a book on your phone, there’s no reason to read it on paper — it’s just one more thing to carry.

For an aspiring book author who’s just starting out, what advice would you offer them? Has your successful career path written the definitive blueprint, or have things shifted already?


There is no blueprint, things are changing too fast. The first piece of advice is get used to the fact that you are in the minor leagues, there is clearly a minor-league system, and in the minors you have to give your content away to build up a following. Be prepared to do that for three to five years before you have enough people to make a difference. It will not happen overnight for you, nor do you want it to, because audience feedback will help shape your storytelling style. The second piece of advice is that the days of “just writing” are gone. You may hear the old guard talk about how a writer should write, and how they “let other people handle those other things.” Well, that was because these guys signed their publishing deals fifteen, twenty years ago, when there weren’t 500 channels, when there weren’t metroplexes, when video games were nothing like they are today and the internet was basically non-existent. People have so many entertainment choices now, you have to fight for your customers’ time. You have to market AND write, you have to be a businessperson AND an entertainer. Third and final bit of advice, understand the fact that readers want to connect with the author. Embrace social media, reply to emails, to blog comments, interact with them whenever possible. Don’t be an arrogant douchebag. You are not important. Your work is not important. What’s important is giving people value for the time they spend with their works — write great stories, and be accessible. The days of the author’s ivory tower are long gone.

Aside from promoting THE ROOKIE and writing The Starter, what else do you have on the horizon?


Right now I’m working on ANCESTOR, which will be the third hardcover published by Crown Publishing. Should be out March of 2010, and we’re gunning for a top-15 spot on the New York Times hardcover fiction best-seller list. That’s my new goal, and I’ll be unleashing every trick in the book to make people aware of the book, and what it means for user-generated content and social media if we hit that mark.



Carlos Santana interview

Carlos Santana and I are sitting on a couch and he’s telling me everything from why he feels younger today than he did when he performed at Woodstock forty years ago, to what the next chapter of his storied musical career might entail, to why he’s about to start playing a few dozen shows in Las Vegas each year. But in addition to being one of the most celebrated, popular and influential artists in the history of recorded music, he’s also likely the most famous person to release his own app for iPhone users.



So what led Carlos Santana to the iPhone, both as a user and as the namesake of an iPhone app? “I’m through with the smoke signals,” as he puts it. “I was the guy who went from the smoke signals and the mirrors, like the Apaches, straight into the iPhone, so I have no concept of computers. I was still with cassettes. And so it fascinates me just how much the human imagination has gone into making things accessible. I can put all my library of records and cassettes and CDs into my laptop and then into my iPhone. And I’m basically more than just curious now. I’m eager to ride that. It’s kind of like a highway, kind of like a freeway, and this stuff is like billboards. So I wanted to join it.”



The Santana iPhone app is a gateway into the world of Santana, with full-length music videos, a sampling of songs from over the decades, recent news and upcoming tour dates (the next version of the app, already in the App Store cue, will include web links for buying tickets), and even instructional videos from Carlos on how to play Oye Como Va and Black Magic Woman on guitar – along with a link to the “Architects of a New Dawn” website where Carlos isn’t afraid to express his current worldview. Nor was he afraid to do so during our interview.



“I grew up in the sixties watching B.B. King and Tito Puente and Miles Davis and Coltrane, everybody, Marvin Gaye, Jimi. And at the same time, with my left eye I was watching Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa. And with those songs from John Lennon or Bob Dylan, ‘Blowing in the Wind’ or ‘What a Wonderful World’ or ‘One Love’ or ‘Love Supreme’ I realized that it’s all really one, that John Lennon was correct. We utilize the music to bring down the walls of Berlin, to bring up the force of compassion and forgiveness and kindness between Palestines, Hebrews. Bring down the walls here in San Diego, Tijuana, Cuba. There’s a lot of walls still up. You know, the walls here in the United States between Fox Networks and just regular people who aspire to change the world without being cynical or arrogant. Because we do believe that peace is possible.



“So I utilize everything, whether it’s Maria Maria’s restaurants or shoes or music with Clive Davis, Yo Yo Ma, Justin Timberlake or Kirk Hammett from Metallica, we utilize everything that is available to us to give back, to invest. And what Arnold is not investing, or Barack Obama so far, which is invest in education for teachers in schools, bring the boys home, and legalize marijuana so you can make more money and pay more teachers a higher salary and erect more schools. I’m not afraid to create a website that is called ‘Architects of a New Dawn’ so we can ask ourselves how far have we come fighting like gorillas over a water hole and now fighting over oil, because clearly that’s what we’re there for, and going into a new dimension where we can actually, again, ask ourselves how far can we go instead of how far have we come?”

Santana’s live shows are legendary for their energy. So is there anything special Carlos has to do to get himself in the right mindset before he heads on on stage with his band each night? “All the musicians in my band, they’re leaders in their own right. They all play with John Scofield, Michael Stern, Pat Metheny, the best musicians in the world. Miles Davis, Prince, you know? Tower of Power. So I’m surrounded with le creme de le creme of musicians that can go anywhere we want to go, whether it’s jazz or reggae of African. The only thing we haven’t done so far is country & western and Riverdance music. But I think if we combine those two with some ska (laughs), it can be done.



Would he really go there? “Nothing is impossible at this point. The only thing that we need to do is first accept that the only reality is God’s love. Everything else is an illusion. And then you’ve got that energy that you can go on stage and do it. Like Elton John says, play Black Magic Woman, Maria Maria, Smooth and every song in the set like it’s the first and last time you’re ever gonna do it. It’s not wishful thinking. You can actually will yourself to do it because as you know, your body just follows your thoughts. If you think like a loser then you’re gonna be a loser, your body’s gonna get tired. If you think like a winner, everybody benefits. Your body will have, like, boundless energy because you’re inspired. You’re not depending on food. Kind of like when you fall in love, you know? When you’re in love man, you don’t need food, you don’t need a lot of things. You’re about this high off the ground, want to know what she smells like, what’s her favorite song, color, what she tastes like, all that kind of stuff. And so it’s important to stay in love with life and with the possibilities and opportunities.



Many fans have divided Carlos‘ music into two chapters, the first being the classics like Everybody’s Everything and Oye Como Va, the second being the genre-bending collaborations from Supernatural onward. So does Carlos foresee a third chapter in which his music takes on a whole other incarnation?



”Oh sure, you know? To combine Yo Yo Ma, Andrea Bocelli with African rhythms, some real far out Grateful Dead, Screaming Jay Hawkins for humor. You know, the main thing is we’re not afraid to try things. We’re not afraid to go hang out with Alice Coltrane when she was here, or Wayne Shorter or Herbie, we’re just not afraid because we’re bringing an element of openness and we want to complement, you know? So it’s not competition, it’s not comparing. And for me it’s just one breath, you know? It’s just that in that breath we’re able to cover from A to Z in music. It’s only eight notes. Actually seven, the eighth one is the first one again. Twelve if you count the ones in between. So I agree with John Coltrane: damn the rules, it’s the feeling that counts.”



This year marks the fortieth anniversary of Woodstock, a event that saw a young Carlos Santana take the stage and launch his career. What does he think of his younger self now, looking back? “I feel like I’m younger now because I’m not with fear. I was with a lot of fear back then. There was a lot of fear and anger and distrust. But at the same time there was a lot of acceptance to go almost from junior high school to being on stage with Sly Stallone or Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Michael Bloomfield. It was quite a gift, man, to walk into this door that Bill Graham provided for us, and Clive Davis, and then again Clive Davis with Supernatural, and I look at them just like doors, just like this is another door here in Las Vegas. They’re doors of opportunities and possibilities, you know? I started playing the guitar in Tijuana and basically being a dishwasher in San Francisco, and I dreamed that I could hang out with Michael Bloomfield and Jerry Garcia, and I just kept going.”



This month Carlos announced that he’s taking up residency at The Joint at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas, a deal which will see him playing about thirty-six shows in town per year. How does he feel about spending so much time in Vegas, a town that appears to be a polar opposite from the San Francisco Bay Area he calls home?



”I’m having fun hanging around with me no matter where I am now. So it could be Las Vegas, a parking lot, I mean I’ve seen Bob Marley, he played in front of Tower Records in San Francisco, same thing with Traffic. So I said damn, you know, if they can play in the streets. Real musicians, it’s an illusion that Carnegie Hall or Madison Square Garden, to me it’s all one heart at this point. Coming into Las Vegas, which is a city that’s based basically on investing in illusion and luck, chance and fortune, we’re bringing another element, the element of God’s grace, which has nothing to do with luck, fortune or chance. It brings the guarantee and reassurance that God guarantees a happy outcome for everyone. That takes care of that. To the illusion, we bring a genuineness. Genuineness is knowing that we can play in South Africa, 2010 World Cup, center stage with all of the drummers from Africa, Brazil and Cuba, very few bands can do that. Very few bands can understand the language of those rhythms and take it to the next level without showing off or anything like that.



“It’s a language that if you speak it correctly then you touch all the families of the world. So no, I don’t look at Las Vegas like I used to, like it’s a duality or in opposition to who I am. No, not anymore. To me it’s an opportunity, possibility to be of service to more people who need financial assistance like students. There’s no greater satisfaction than being of service to humanity than by providing financial assistance to students who can go to the next step in their lives because they graduated with supremely high honors and grades from high school but they don’t have money to go to universities.”



Looking out into the audience, what’s more gratifying, seeing kids enjoying his music or seeing adults who’ve been fans all their lives? As it turns out, the answer is a little bit of both. ”They’re bringing their children,” he says of his older fans. “I’ve never seen so many kids. You know, I swear to you, children under twelve and they’re freaking out, they’re bugging out. We invite them on stage in the last half an hour and it’s an incredible blessing from God to be able to be sixty-one and become like what I wanted to be, like my dad and B.B. King.



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