From Aural Innovations #41 (October 2010)
Floorian self-released their first album - What the Buzzing - on their own Drigh Records label in 2002, and the album was reissued in 2004 by Bomp Records with a slightly different track listing. Last year the band released their long awaited second album - More Fiend - once again on their Drigh Records label.
Based in my home base of Columbus, Ohio, I've been in steady contact with the members of this outstanding psychedelic band over the years. I first interviewed Floorian in 2003 (see AI #23), but much has been happening for the band over the past year, a little of which I had the opportunity to participate in, so I decided it's time to put them in the spotlight once again.
The touring band consisted of core members Todd Fisher (guitar) and John Godshalk (bass, vocals), plus Jim Chittum (keyboards), Larry Durica (drums), and Alex Lee Mason (guitar). The Philly date had fallen through before we left, but shows were scheduled Thursday April 15th in New York City, and Saturday April 17th in Cambridge, MA. The adventure began as we hit the road Wednesday afternoon. I drove with John and the rest of the band rode with Todd who was pulling a gear packed U-Haul trailer. We knocked off a fair portion of the journey that night, and I forget the city but Jim's frequent flyer miles were sufficient to get us all a cozy night in a Marriot hotel.
Thursday night was the New York City show but we were staying the night with Jim's friends Cathy and Jack, who live in the Philadelphia area. So Thursday morning we checked out of our hotel, hit the road, and arrived at Cathy and Jack's early afternoon. Wow, what incredibly nice people! Cathy is one of those types who you immediately warm up to and treats you like you've been life long friends. Her husband Jack, a train enthusiast, had a caboose in their yard, which would be my accommodations that evening. YES, I mean a real train caboose. He showed us pictures of the thing being lowered into their yard by a massive crane. Really incredible. So we relaxed and visited with them, drank some beers, and then headed out for the Big Apple.
Tour Rule #1: Allow time for, and assume there will be, obstacles thrown in your path.
Gee… there sure is a lot of traffic as you head toward New York City. Yup, lots of traffic. The New York club was called the Cake Shop and the directions showed that we go through the Holland Tunnel and then wham bam… we'd be at the club. Right…..
So we get to the Holland Tunnel, already pushing things on time, and they won't let Todd in because of the U-Haul trailer. No trailers in the Holland Tunnel we were told. We would have to go through the Lincoln Tunnel. Why is the Lincoln Tunnel ok for trailers but not the Holland Tunnel? We never found out. A police officer gave Todd directions, making it sound like the Lincoln Tunnel was just around the corner. Nada… we got lost. After much circling around we finally got to the Lincoln and into the city, but now we've got to find our way to the club. Thank heavens for GPS! We're weaving our way through the streets of Manhattan, frantically calling the club to assure them Floorian were on the way, and then John's gas light comes on. SHIT!! The LAST thing we needed was to run out of gas in New York City. I was sweating bullets.
We arrived at the Cake Shop around 9:30pm as the first band was playing. Floorian had secured the date through their friends in the band Hopewell, and Jason from Hopewell met us outside. We quickly unloaded the U-Haul and got all of the gear in the club, and then Todd handed me the keys and asked me to park the car. Being a local, Jason accompanied me and directed me to a nearby parking garage. I was really freaking out driving on these narrow New York City streets pulling a trailer. I pull into the parking garage and was directed to back in with the U-Haul. BACK in? Oh boy…. It was a fools mission from the get-go. After a 50 or so point turn, and getting nowhere, the garage attendant told me to just leave the car and he would take care of it. Phewwww…. THANKS!!!
We dashed back to the club and I set up the merch table, and with that all done I could now relax and enjoy the evening. One disappointment was that Fuxa were supposed to be on the bill but had to cancel. However, I was looking forward to seeing my friend Billy Syndrome, a Brooklyn resident who was going to be there. I had first met Billy years ago at the Strange Daze Space Rock festival. Billy's recorded output is enormous, having been in numerous bands, most notably The Billy Syndrome and the space rock band JFK Jr Royal Airforce. Billy was struck down a few years ago by a stroke and is now wheelchair bound, but that didn't stop him from coming out to the show. As I was greeting Billy someone tapped me on the shoulder and I looked up to see Adam Strider, another friend from the space rock network. Bonus!
The evening at the Cake Shop was fantastic. Floorian played a great set which included songs from both their albums. The stage was small but worked out adequately for the quintet, and you could see and hear just fine from any spot in the club. And the New York City audience was wonderful. The place was packed and few of those in attendance could have been familiar with Floorian's music. Yet they gave the band their undivided attention and were overwhelmingly enthusiastic. Between meeting up with old friends, loving the live performances, and enjoying it all in a dream atmosphere, I was having a great time and the beers were going down steadily. Then near the end of the night somebody started handing me whiskey shots and I ended up fairly intoxicated.
All in all a wonderful night and Floorian were more than satisfied. We loaded up the trailer, and the immediate task was getting gas in John's car. I was really worried about this but we got to a station before he hit empty. So now we just had to get back to Cathy and Jack's house for some much needed sleep. Being a bit wasted I think I slept quite a bit in the car, but I do recall a stop and eating at Burger King. But there's one other stop we made that I didn't remember.
I think we rolled into Cathy and Jack's driveway about 5am. Me, Todd and Alex headed for the caboose and the rest went to sleep in the house. A good night sleep and I woke up feeling refreshed. NO hangover! Friday was a free night due to the Philadelphia show having fallen apart, so we decided to stay ahead of the game and head to the Cambridge area where we would be staying with John's friend Charlie.
We arrived at Charlie's house about 11pm and he already had the grill going and graciously cooked us a chicken dinner. What a fun relaxed night. We were up until 5am blasting music, watching old Led Zeppelin concerts and Pink Floyd videos on cable, and drinking beer. And the next day would prove to be relaxed as well. Charlie lives about an hour from Cambridge, and with the New York City challenges fresh in our memories, we set out well in advance. Of course Cambridge is not nearly the city that New York is and all couldn't have gone smoother. We arrived hours in advance and parked directly behind the club.
The club that evening was the Cantab. A few band members decided to just relax there until setup time. But when I found out we were just a short distance from Harvard Square I wanted to check out Newbury Comics, which I knew stocked an enormous number of CDs and records. Me, Jim and Larry made a jaunt over and each bought some music. What a fantastic selection they had. I could have easily killed my credit card in that store.
The Cantab was a bit of a divey looking place but it proved to be a good venue for shows. The bands played in a large room with a separate bar in the basement, and the fellow running things - Mickey Bliss - was very friendly and helpful. There were four bands on the bill, each of whom turned out to be stylistically all over the map. But it was fun, Floorian played another excellent set, and everybody had a good time. Afterwards we got a bite to eat and headed back to Charlie's for enough sleep to prepare us for the 13 hour drive back to Columbus. A splendid time was had by all.
Fast forward to June and Floorian have scored four dates opening for the Brian Jonestown Massacre on their American tour. They played in Covington, KY (just over the bridge from Cincinnati), St. Louis, MO, Denver, CO, and Salt Lake City, UT. I was once again invited to accompany them and run their merchandise, but a tour out west unfortunately wasn't in the cards for me. I did, however, make the quick trip down for the Covington show. What a crowd! And the crowd was expected, as the Brian Jonestown Massacre have been around for years and have a sizable following. I was excited for the band, getting to see them perform for a crowd of nearly 300 people.
Aural Innovations (AI): Your first album - What the Buzzing - was something of a conglomeration of music with different musicians from different years. Was More Fiend a more cohesive album in terms of a stable band?
Todd: I wouldn't necessarily say as a stable band. But it's more of an album than a conglomeration. With What the Buzzing we had so many songs, and when it got reissued [by Bomp Records] it had new songs that we were doing put in place of other ones. I still like it. But More Fiend wasn't that pieces and parts of things from other places.
John: And the recording was much more streamlined in how it was done. The first one was recorded here, there and everywhere. In a cave…
Todd: And then a studio. It was recorded in all kind of places… just differently. Which is fine. With More Fiend, parts of it were recorded that way, but in the end it all wound up in the same place where we put it all together.
John: As far as mixing and post-production it was much more unified. I think generally, even though every song is a new adventure, from one song to the next it's more unified and has similar production values.
AI: It's clear to me as a listener that it's a much more cohesive album.
Todd: Yeah, although we still try to, like John said, that whole every-songs-a-new-adventure. We don't ever want to do every song the same way, or record everything the exact same way. But it's more or less that we can still get all these sounds to do all these things, but then funnel them into one style. That's what makes it sound more cohesive. The songs, though, were still pretty close to the songs that got put on What the Buzzing. If you think about what became Séance, that stuff we'd been dabbling with probably back in the days of the songs that got put on What the Buzzing.
AI: That music had been gestating for a long time?
Todd: Yeah, we always have miscellaneous good or bad ideas on the burners. We unearth things and say let's work on this or try that.
John: What became Séance actually goes back to probably 2003 - 2004, about the time What the Buzzing came out.
AI: Interesting. That jumps ahead to a question I was going to ask. You've got this suite of songs that make up Séance. And on a personal level I think it's my favorite work you guys have done to date. Is it just bits and pieces that you decided fit together well?
Todd: I had all these rhythmic things that I was dabbling with and we were kicking around. And at some point it was like, these things are all in A. And I guess that was maybe the small little spark. It was like, these things have this commonality, maybe they could be fused together, maybe one idea could lead into another. And 20 some odd minutes later we realized they did kind of fit together.
John: I think in the beginning it was supposed to be maybe a 10 minute, couple different part song. And it just became this monster that got completely out of control.
AI: Would I have heard bits and pieces of Séance live years ago?
Todd: Probably not live, no. It went through a lot of development. It just kept building on itself until it made sense and we kept either adding on or witling away. And at some pointed it molded itself into what it is.
John: We probably could have done a whole album of that thing. We could have gone twice as far with it. But I like the way it turned out where, thematically, as far as it being in A, and things are there and that hint at coming back later and stuff like that, and certain melodic things and whatnot. But to do a whole album in A would be a little tedious. But the first song, Never Even, that's something we'd been dabbling with for years. In some ways, all the stuff that was on More Fiend, I always thought it was like an exorcism, where all of these older ideas finally got realized. That's one of the frustrating things. You never know how long something is going to drag out or how quickly something is going to come together. We had a list of songs, we knew Séance was going to be roughly half the album, so that's the first thing that got done on it. We spent a couple years on that. And then we had all these other songs and had to ask what kind of things do we want to explore as far as styles or whatever. Missed was more of an ambient piece. How Far, How Fast was supposed to be something completely different. That was the last one we did. That was the polar opposite of the original ideas that I had for that song. It was the same kind of melodic piece, but it was more of an electro-acoustic, almost acid-folk thing originally in my head, and then it turned into this heavy…
Todd: It got pretty sludgy.
John: Yeah, it's pretty weird how that one turned out.
Todd: If you want to take things back to What the Buzzing, the vocal melodic lines, and also some of the lyrics in Missed definitely go back to What the Buzzing. They go back all the way to the song Heavium. The original thoughts and melodies from Heavium turned up on Missed.
John: The end of Heavium was the original Somic. The backwards stuff on the end of Heavium…
Todd: See, we even confuse ourselves [both laugh]. John had this melody and these words long ago that I really liked. But there just wasn't a place for them so they ended up in either our memory banks or in some notebook somewhere.
John: It came from an early demo of Somic.
Todd: Right. But what's weird is, the actual music that's Missed, it's musical but it's very droney and ambient. It comes from me sitting on a plane, I was sitting on a jet, it was night so I was trying to sleep, and the engines are making this humming sound. And it was doing this hum and then this higher note would come in, and it would go away and then come in and go away. And I thought that was pretty cool so we tried to replicate that sound. And then we took this older idea and laid it on it. So I guess there's never an idea that you totally forget, unless it's really bad. Because there's always some way to use even the smallest melody or the smallest germ of an idea, can always be evolved, or try to be evolved, into something that it should be. Maybe it resurfaces, maybe it doesn't. So we just keep this stuff churning and you just never know what it's going to mold into.
John: The Lower Room was one of those things that originally came from a little guitar thing that Todd laid down, and then we just expanded on that and The Lower Room came out of that.
Todd: Well the whole thing with that is The Lower Room is probably one of the quickest things we've ever written.
John: Yeah. What we did with Missed was we laid down a series of drones in different keys, with different instruments. Keyboards, guitars, e-bows, whatever, and then played the mix. And brought things in and out to create melodic blendings of…. it's hard to describe.
Todd: If you think about Missed, musically it seems really simple. And it is. But if you look at the ProTools sessions and how we recorded it there's probably like 15 tracks… 10 or 15 tracks. So if you listen to the ProTools sessions, everything's really concentrated from start to finish. We would fade things in and out. So like I said we kind of played the mix and made it become more than just one straight note of all of these instruments all at one time.
AI: It sounds like you pull everything off fine when you play live. Are you avoiding doing anything on the albums that you know you can't do live?
Todd: I wouldn't say that. We don't necessarily say, oh we can't do that live so let's not do it. It's getting nice now because having two albums is a bit liberating. When you've only got one album you've got to play a good bit of what's on the album. But what we don't ever want to do is compromise. There's a tolerance for compromising a song. If we can't do it to a certain degree, and do it justice live, we have to either find a way to do it or we just won't do it. Now we're getting enough material where we can do some songs… like we can do Missed live. We could. But we don't have to do this live. Because we've got a large enough list of songs for a set to satisfy a Floorian listener.
John: We took Overruled out of the set and put How Far, How Fast in. We got rid of Auravine. We've never played Somic live. We've never played Missed live. We've never played The Lower Room live. The Lower Room's tough because it's got an acoustic guitar and we've got enough shit to deal with on stage. Having to change to an acoustic guitar, there was a tuning issue with that one… it would take too much time and too many changes to get to that song.
AI: You self-released What the Buzzing, and then it got reissued by Bomp Records. And you self-released More Fiend. How has that worked out for you?
Todd: It's worked out fine. It's one of those things where I don't necessarily ever not want to be on a label, but I don't ever want to be on a label either. It just works the way it works. I don't put one merit above or below the other. We were talking with the Committee [ed. - The Committee to Keep Music Evil] about releasing More Fiend. But it just turned out at the time they were releasing some other things. They released the Quarter After and Asteroid #4 albums right around the time we got done with More Fiend. So just timing wise it wasn't going to work.
John: If we had got done a year earlier it probably would have worked out.
Todd: And that would have been great. But doing it ourselves and self-releasing it is great too. And the thing about downloads is, CDBaby is one of the best things to ever come around. They handle all of our digital stuff for a very minimal… it's like $35 or something like that. They take care of everything, it's done really well and they're very helpful. And that takes care of the whole digital realm for us. So the only question for us was how many physical CDs do we need? And that becomes a big question now because we've watched our sales move from 5% downloads to well over half. Now the thing about that is when we're playing live and touring you can sell people cards to get downloads online. CDBaby does some of that too. Which is cool. But people at shows want to hand you some money and you want to hand them a CD. So that becomes another issue. When you get out on the road and you're selling merchandise to people, I think that's what they want. So yeah, it's all just flip-flopped. 5, 10, 20% downloads in the beginning…
John: It's probably two-thirds downloads now.
AI: Wow, that's significant.
Todd: The only thing that would level that out a little bit would be selling at shows, because we're selling CDs.
AI: But that's almost a different category because you don't tour that much.
Todd: Exactly. But people buying online, downloads has definitely overtaken physical CDs.
John: But you know, it's all about instant gratification in this world. People would rather download it now than wait for it to come in the mail. The other interesting thing I've found with the downloads is I'm pretty sure at this point that we have never sold single songs. Anybody who ever buys any Floorian downloads buys the whole album. There's a lot of stuff I buy on iTunes. But I don't buy a whole album. I buy songs I like. Bands I like I'll buy a whole album. But I just find it odd that somebody out there hasn't just heard one of our songs and thinks, I really like that song but I don't really like much of the rest, and just bought a song or two. All of our downloads are full albums.
AI: Two-thirds of your sales as digital downloads is pretty mind-blowing to me. But as an independent band that's got to be wonderful for you. Because all you've got to do is put the files out there and that's it.
Todd: And with CDBaby, for the amount of money we pay them for what they do, we see that back pretty quick. For $35 that gets the albums everywhere… iTunes, Napster, all the digital services.
AI: Let's talk about the tours. I believe that prior to these shows you only ever played once outside of Ohio. A Philadelphia show. Is that right?
Todd: Yes, and we also did a St. Louis show.
AI: So the tour I went with you on was originally going to be New York City, Philadelphia, and Cambridge, MA shows. How did that weekend come about?
Todd: I think we've always wanted to play where we can, when we can, as far as we can, for as many people as we can. And at some point you've just got to jump in and do it. It was just a matter of making a decision that it's going to happen and doing it. The difference between playing here in Columbus and playing somewhere else is nil. The only difference is getting there. Ultimately, standing on the stage and playing is exactly the same.
AI: Right. But having been out there with you for a weekend there's also the fun and excitement of being somewhere completely different.
Todd: That's the whole excitement and great part of it. It's going to a different place and doing the same thing you do, but doing it somewhere else and doing it for, and with, and being involved with different people. Wow, someone showed up in New York City to see us?
AI: I was watching people and you got a good reaction from the crowd in New York City.
Todd: Yeah, and Cambridge too was really great. It's great getting some feedback, especially when it's positive feedback when you're playing shows.
AI: Was there anything that surprised you on the east coast tour? From my perspective there was some funny rock 'n roll tour experiences. Like struggling to get into New York City.
Todd: I guess it's one of those first time things. It's the first time Floorian ever tried to drive into New York City as a band and play a show. So I guess we were bound to come across something that was unexpected. Next time we'll know you can't drive a U-Haul through the Holland Tunnel.
John: Just like with us every song is a new adventure, every gig is a new adventure. It's a different crowd, it's a different sound guy, different venue, different stage. Every gig is unique.
Todd: Until you repeat it. Because going back to St. Louis seemed like playing somewhere here in town where we've played before.
John: Yeah, the familiarity of it.
Todd: You've done it before, you know what to expect, we had the same sound guy which was great. The ease of it was there. There wasn't all that unexpected stuff. And again, I think another plus for Floorian is the more we do, the more it becomes no problem. The more we get accustomed to it, the fewer surprises we get, the easier it is to just do our thing.
AI: Yeah, a large part of it is just getting accustomed to these logistical things.
Todd: And going back to your question about the releases and all the self-released stuff we do, is the cost. It costs us to do this stuff. We try to keep Floorian self-sufficient, which isn't the easiest thing to do. Luckily we've been able to do what we can. I guess that's sometimes where a label could help if they're willing to put some money behind you. Where in our case we have to just decide how we're going to do it and what our band budget looks like and our funds. Luckily this all worked out this year. And the timing of everything. Our band fund was sufficient enough to do it. Everyone had the time to take off from work. It just worked out.
AI: In a small way I got a feel for the cost part of it when every 5 minutes we seemed to be going through toll booths, and one of them cost $25.
Todd: That was totally unexpected. Sherri's dad lives in Allentown and she and I have driven out that way many times.
AI: That Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey area, I couldn't believe all the tolls.
John: Between two vehicles we spent over $100 in tolls.
Todd: And again, it's the whole thought process - do we have a place we can stay, do we have friends we can stay with, where do they live. Logistics is a big part of it. That's why bands have roadies and tour managers and booking agents and all that.
AI: So this is interesting to those of us who are mostly concert goers. You go to the venue, the band shows up and plays, and we would have no reason to consider what it takes for them to get from one show to the next.
Todd: Yeah, some bands are probably even worse off than us, sleeping in their cars or asking for a place to sleep.
AI: We did have comfort. We stayed in the hotel the first night. We stayed with those wonderful friends of Jim's the next night. Your friend Charlie was so accommodating.
John: One more thing about taking the trip is people don't seem to take us seriously unless we drive a long way to do a show. We can't hit the road to do a tour for a month or whatever. But it reminds me of a comment from Jason Rousseau of Hopewell who said, I can't believe you guys came all the way out here to play, that's great.
AI: And they're a band that tours quite a bit. So he doesn't take it for granted. He knows what's involved.
John: Yeah, when they head out they do a whole tour. But for us to drive all that way to do two shows he was blown away. It's like, we wanted to so we did.
Todd: But consider where we are. Can you imagine someone who lives in the middle of the country?
John: We're within 12 hours of a lot of places. Chicago, St. Louis, New York, Boston…. Tennessee.
Todd: So our thing is now, we've talked about going to the west coast sometime. That would be great to do, but that opens up a whole new… that for us is a long way.
John: By the way, a couple of years ago Todd actually had shows booked for Seattle, Portland and San Francisco.
Todd: And all the way down to L.A.
John: All we had was L.A. and San Diego to go, and then the drummer we rounded up at the time screwed up his wrist somehow and had to back out. We actually had shows booked for the west coast.
AI: That's the only reason you couldn't do it?
Todd: Well that was also around the time that both Phillip and Lee switched jobs. We also had a job thing going on with the guitarists too. So it just started to fizzle because not everyone could make the commitment.
AI: That would be great for you getting out to the west coast. I've found an incredible number of great bands in Portland.
John: They're much more receptive to getting gigs out there.
Todd: MUCH more receptive. It was easier to get shows out there than here in Columbus. Now I know some of it has to do with being on tour. I think when you're on tour, clubs start to make a point to…
John: In other words, you're coming all the way out from Ohio to the west coast so I take you seriously.
Todd: One person got back to me and said, is that flexible at all? It's almost like, there's a day I was looking for, and they're saying, if you can re-route or whatever we'll try to work with you. So I think there's that aspect too which definitely helps. But as far as just cold calling a bar to play a show, it's 50 times easier. People get back to you. People let you know what's going on. They try to work with you.
John: And on the other side, we had help for the New York City gig, and we had a little bit of help for the Cambridge gig. Our connections in Philadelphia were limited and we got no help from anyone. That's why we didn't play Philadelphia.
Todd: It was funny because most bars have their policies up on their web sites and it's like…. never email, always email, never call, always call… everyone's got their specific way…
John: We don't want a CD, we want to listen to mp3's. Or we don't want to listen to mp3's, send us a CD. Everybody's got a different way of doing it.
AI: And you've just got to tune into all the different guidelines.
Todd: And interestingly, all the bars that we wanted to play in Philly pretty much said, you will not hear from us. We won't get back to you. Which is par for the course. People can't get back to you on every single request they get. But if you're trying to set up a tour it would be nice to know if you have an opening at all. Not just no reply. And their web sites pretty much say that. You won't hear from us unless we want you, and then we'll call you. One of them said, if you've never played in our city then you won't play here.
AI: You got to play in front of the largest audiences you ever had before opening for the Brian Jonestown Massacre on four dates of their tour. How did that come about?
Todd: We knew they were setting up a tour; a world tour starting in Australia way back when.
John: We've been friends of theirs for years and years.
Todd: Yeah, obviously with Greg Shaw, and Bomp, and Rob and Anton. But we found out they were touring. So I sent an email off to Rob Campanella saying if they needed openers in the States we were interested. And I didn't hear anything back for months. I'm sure the tour was being finalized and they were doing all their logistic stuff and getting everything worked out. Which I'm sure there's a lot to do going around the world. And I just got an email at one point, Rob said here's some dates we're going to need an opener, can you guys do it? So the emails and phone calls happened.
AI: So you didn't hear from him for months but he obviously kept your emails.
Todd: Yeah, they had multiple openers as they went around the U.S. And we got offered Cincinnati, St. Louis, Denver, Salt Lake City and Boise. We couldn't quite make it to Boise but we did the four shows with them. And I heard back that they were ours if we wanted them.
AI: The Cincinnati show was the one I was at and you thought there were 250-300 people there. That was a great looking size crowd to me so I'm trying to imagine you playing for the 500 or more you said you had in Denver.
Todd: St. Louis was absolutely packed. It was sold out. It was also great to get up in front of a crowd pressed up against the stage.
AI: I'm a veteran of your shows in Columbus where you don't get all that many people so it's exciting just hearing about that.
Todd: We've had good turnouts before, like some of our shows up in Cleveland. We got a good strong crowd there. It just varies. But we've never played anything like that before. So it was good to be able to do that, and play well and get a good response. It all worked out great.
John: But we've had good shows in Cleveland and bad shows in Cleveland. You know, you play a Wednesday night and you go on at midnight, people have to work. That's the thing with Columbus shows. That's another nice thing about the tour. The shows started earlier. 9pm.
Todd: Well that's the thing too. They were ticket sold shows. They weren't just bands playing in a bar.
John: They had sponsors. In Denver, the Onion was one of the sponsors. They had a table at the Denver show. It was like full service in Denver. We set up our projector and put up the backdrop. They grabbed the projector and set it up. They grabbed the backdrop and set it up. They did it for us.
AI: I was going to ask you about that because in Cincinnati you never were able to get the projections going. Sounds like you got it going in the other towns.
Todd: Yeah. St. Louis, because we knew what was going on, we set it up for that night. Actually it was really cool because we had asked Rob, we said we've got this DVD of random visuals…
John: We had an extra DVD of some of the stuff we used to use about a year ago. And we said to Rob, if you guys want to use the projector and the visuals you're welcome to and Rob said yeah.
AI: So the BJM used it during their set?
Todd: Yeah, so we ran the other one while they played. We did that in St. Louis and Denver. But once we got to Salt Lake City the stage was so packed with gear we could barely get behind it and it was hard to get the camera setup. And it was a later show.
AI: It wasn't scheduled to start until later?
Todd: Yeah. Oddly enough, I got an email from the promoter or person at the club who said we couldn't have sound check until 9pm because of some sound ordinance.
John: No noise before 9pm. BEFORE 9pm [laughs]
AI: Probably a Mormon thing or something.
Todd: I don't know, but it was supposed to be a late show right from the get-go.
John: And when you think about that neighborhood, that was mostly a residential neighborhood. It was really strange.
AI: So overall it sounds like you had a great experience with the BJM. You got some great crowds.
John: Oh yeah, those guys were great. The crowds were great. I wish I had a dollar for every time somebody came up to me, or any of us, after the show and said you guys were really really good. Thanks a lot. I was just really blown away by the responses we got. It's not like we're a million miles away from the BJM as far as style goes. We were thrilled to death with the response we got in New York as well.
AI: Any other comments or news you'd like to share.
Todd: Well we're planning on doing another album. Album number three will be sometime. We'll see how long it takes.