After unloading a busload of gear and doing a soundcheck on a scorching hot Sept. 24 afternoon, Rx Bandits regrouped in the Bronco Student Center before their 8:30 p.m. headlining performance at the 2008 BroncoFusion back-to-school concert.
The Southern California locals didn't have a far drive, but they were fresh off a tour with Portugal. The Man and Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground, two of the Bandits' favorite groups right now.
Check out the full interview below to find out...
Who the love songs on RXB's latest full-length are dedicated to
The band's opinion on recording artists and "audio trickery"
What singer/guitarist Matt Embree is calling an "audio triceratops"
For a glimpse of the show, view an all-access photo gallery at www.thepolypost.com/galleries
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Eric Aau (ASI Gas): Have you been recording anything lately?
Rx Bandits: It's only been like two weeks since we've gotten off the tour, so everybody's in still like get relaxed, chill out mode.
Daniel Ucko (Poly Post): You guys are all pretty local right?
RXB: Yeah, we don't hang out everyday but we live close.
Matt Embree (vocals/guitar): [Two of us] live together, so sometimes we see each other.
EA: Both "The Resignation" and "…And The Battle Begun" were recorded live, what's the advantage of recording live? Why'd you guys decide to do that?
ME: It seems to me like a pretty honest approach.
Joseph Troy (bass): We wanted to be as close to what people are going to see when they see us live as possible.
ME: And also, there's a certain energy that's lost when you do it piece by piece. When you're playing in a band, the definition of that in general is the sum of all parts, the group. When you're doing it no drummer first…or however they all do it…then it's basically like individual performances all stacked together. Which has its merits for sure. But for us, we decided to do it all together.
Steve Choi (guitar/keys): You don't want to be broken down by the process. Some bands are down to be defeated by recording, but it'll break you sometimes. And, like I said, it kills a lot of vibe.
ME: We like to do it on tape and dub it to ProTools afterwards.
DU: You guys are actually playing together.
SC: It's not like, remember when we recorded that record and we sat in and out of the studio for three months? It was kinda like, remember that week when we were all sweating our balls off trying to get these songs down in two or three takes.
DU: How many takes did it take?
ME: A lot of times the first take. We usually won't do more than three takes.
SC: And if we do, we start to take a break and walk away. You just gotta know when to kick back.
AU: There's a break in none of the songs where you guys stop and start over… ME: We decided to leave that because it was…legit. You hear us scream in frustration.
SC: I love hearing that stuff on record. I hear people talking on a record, I try and listen to that.
ME: To me it's sort of condescending, you hear some of those records and they're so polished…its like trickery. Not to sound like I'm some all-knowing music guy, but there's a lot of bands out there that don't have the skills they portray on their album. It's all studio trickery. There's a lot of drummers that can't play solid metering…there's a lot of bands that have a perfect-sounding album before they can even play an entire song without making mistakes. For us, we're not condescending the listener. We're just like this is how we are. Human beings make mistakes…deal with it. And hopefully they'll respect it in the same way we respect the listener.
AU: And Aaron Nagel was painting to the music when you were recording?
ME: Yeah, he was in the same room. That was cool.
DU: How do you guys know him?
JT: He's an old friend.
DU: He's in DESA…I've seen them at a ton of local shows. Facing New York too, I know you guys have toured a couple times together.
SC: Yeah, I'm from Santa Rosa.
JT: Have you seen them live recently?
DU: No, not in a while.
JT: You should go to their CD release at the Troubador.
ME: I'm going to be at that show.
DU: You will? Nice. I will definitely be there.
JT: You have to go.
ME: They're like an "audio triceratops." [Dinosaur noises]
DU: Tell us a little about the band's sound. You could put a number of words on it, but you guys basically started out as ska-punk stuff back 10-12 years ago when you started. Today, you have so many different elements, genres…genre-defying…what's the kind of stuff you've been listening to that's helped your sound progress as the band has progressed?
RXB: [Silence]
RXB: [Laughs]
JT: That's an abyss of a question right there.
SC: To do honor to the question itself…
DU: How can we hit the surface at least?
SC: By just saying, probably as humbly as we can that honestly, it's so much for us one thing that we listen to that manifests itself. Our path from what we observe and how we see and hear and touch…and that path between that and finally creating new music is such a pipeworks in a factory of emotions and psychological stuff. We all have a love for music, we all live life, and we all experience things. That's about the only solid thing that I can provide you. As musicians, we live and make music.
DU: What's something you guys are listening to today? Anything, anyone.
ME: Every band we took on this last tour is a band we took on this last tour is a band we listen to. We've been wanting to take Portugal for a while, but they tour all the time. So finally we got the opportunity and it was awesome. I'll say that I like them a lot better live than I do on the records. But also, I really love Kay Kay and his Weathered Underground.
SC: Yeah, that's one of my favorite records of the year. Nurses is another band.
ME: Their newest record, they did it all on Garageband with a computer mic. They had no idea where the mic is or anything. They just put the computer in the room.
DU: And it sounds good?
RXB: It sounds awesome.
DU: How'd they pull it off?
SC: They pulled it off with their ear. They don't get caught up in the process, that's our whole point. They don't give a fuck about mics, equipment. They don't care about spending money. They're interested one thing and one thing only which is the ends justify the means. It sounds good in the end. It doesn't matter whether we're screaming into this laptop microphone or naked with mud spread all over us in the forrest.
ME: Because they probably were. [We've also been listening to:] Iron and Wine, Beirut, Maps and Atlases, Bad Plus
EA: About The Sound Of Animals Fighting…how exactly was "Lover, The Lord Has Left Us" recorded?
JT: I think maybe that's a better question for The Sound Of Animals Fighting.
RXB: [Laughs]
ME: Yeah, none of us know anything about that band.
EU: What do you guys do in your spare time? Anyone paint?
ME: My girlfriend and I painted our bathroom into an underwater scene with crabs and stuff. I like to try and learn different instruments. I'm learning alto saxophone right now. We don't have any neighbors anymore, so it's a good time to learn something like that, where you suck a lot at first.
DU: Have you had any vocal training?
ME: Mostly I've just learned from listening back to recordings and going "aw man, I gotta practice."
DU: You guys used to be called the Pharmaceutical Bandits. What's the connection? Random, you guys dig drugs or what?
SC: It was pretty random. We don't want to say anything to indict ourselves….The transition was with the album "Progress." We were just a different band. That's why we don't play old songs before that.
ME: That was the point where we decided to leave the past and go for a new direction.
EA: Was "…And The Battle Begun" a concept album? What were the songs written about?
ME: A lot of the songs were love songs to the earth…and nature. We don't want to pinpoint the idea because it takes away the individual idea, which is just as good as ours.
DU: What about politics?
SC: I feel so strongly about it I don't even feel comfortable talking about it.
ME: Prop 8, to repeal gay marriage, cannot pass.
JT: All I can say is - as a married man - gay people being married hasn't affected my marriage.
ME: It's so crazy how it seems like our government is consistently going back in time. Like just charging into the dark ages.
JT: They're called the good ol' days aren't they?
ME: For me its really important that people vote.
DU: And what should we expect tonight?
RXB: They're only giving us an hour, so we're going to powerpack it. That stage is awesome! It's like an all grass arena.
ME: If Prop 8 passes we're all moving to Spain.
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