The book features:

The Delta Spirit | Chin Up Chin Up | Dan Deacon | The Subterranean Howl | Viva Voce | Of Montreal | Cut Off Your Hands | The Fast Computers | AM Interstate | The Walkmen | 13 & God | Death Cab For Cutie | Bright Eyes | Cursive | Kaiser Chiefs | The Books | The Kooks | Muke | The Parson Red Heads | Menomena | The Cold War Kids | Langhorne Slim | Ben Folds | People in Planes | Corey Chisel | Helio Sequence | Chromeo | The Duke Spirit | Two Gallants | We Are Scientists | Jim Gaffigan | Adam Savage | Alsoran | Darker My Love | Kevin Devine | The Grates | The One AM Radio | Stars | The Kin | The Lonely H | Jamie T | Wolf Parade | The Thermals | Hurah Hurah | Minnie Driver | Willy Mason | Conan O’Brien | Animal R&R | Peter Walker | Jackie Daum | Sunny Day Real Estate | Tu Fawning | Girl Talk | Deer Tick | Battles | The Ice Cream Man | The Decemberists | Tegan and Sara | M. Ward | Holy Ghost! | Blind Pilot | Earlimart | Jeffery Lewis | Hey Marseilles | Vampire Weekend | Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins | Black Joe Lewis | Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears | Brian Jonestown Massacre | The Builders and the Butchers | and more…

All popular opinions aside, some things should not be neglected; the eighties especially. The eighties was a glorious time of glamour and decadence. Inhibitions were simply crumpled up and thrown out the window for ten beautiful years and everything was just bigger; the ratted out hair, the fat shades, the enormous shoes, the glitzy neon clothing, and of course, at least twenty pounds of jewelry. As fashion and music walked hand in hand, our musical icons were the guiltiest of culprits in their shameless indulgences. They made it perfectly acceptable to walk down the street with a beehive of iron-fried curls, purple spandex and a zebra-print shirt three sizes too big with enough makeup to frost a bakery. We underestimate today just how powerfully this music hit us then. Power ballads were chugging heavily through the airwaves, just in case we happened to forget about our heartbreaks, churning our emotional pains into solid gold that united us all in a fiery sea of Zippos. Music Television (MTV) exploded quickly, exposing the populous to music, fashion, hype and infinite amounts of cheese. There was still an element of restraint on the executive side that brought on a firestorm of criticism due to racial allegations. So, to avoid more complication, producers aired Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ and suddenly the times were changed even more significantly than anybody at MTV could have ever foreseen. MJ opened up a Pandora’s box of new, exciting and hip “rhythm and blues” acts allowing the genre to grow more in that year than it had in thirty.

The late night music scene grew with the acceleration of synthesizers as it was fused more ambitiously with R&B and feverish dance beats. Some of the most memorable personalities in the history of music barreled through the hype of this dramatic revolution, raising the bar for everyone else in the industry; the most memorable being Prince, Rick James, the Jacksons who all added invaluably to the sound and attitude that the legendary James Brown patented. This genre created a popular subculture of manic glamour in which any Joe Schmoe could reign as King and undisputed ruler of his world, seven nights a week. However, as all good things must come to an end the glory of the eighties had to as well. With styles mounting and evolving at light speed, a vindictive tenant of seriousness slowly replaced the essence of sheer fun and the poor misunderstood spirit of the eighties has been wandering ever since. Dave 1 and P-Thugg, partners in crime, have set out to snag this rogue spirit through their musical brainchild ‘Chromeo.’

It’s one thing to love a certain breadth of music and try to emulate it, but the love these two fellows hold runs much deeper. Chromeo doesn’t just love it; they’re living and breathing it with every ounce of their fiber. They’ve made it their business to respectfully study and understand the nuances of the eighties, which made their inspirations so irresistible, working the curve and charm that’s been more or less overlooked by the less observant imitators, not to use this precious knowledge to vulgarize and plagiarize that wonderful era. “I feel like we’re completing the picture of things that inspire us that people haven’t really drawn from,” Dave 1 remarked after a well-received set at the 2009 Sasquatch Festival. With their first release ‘She’s in Control,’ they were hailed as keen perfecters of the phantom eighties electropop that pounded the clubs. In no time, people caught on to their album. Just watch the music video for “Needy Girl” and your senses are delighted: two virile masters of soul funk making love to their instruments; thick and heavily danceable synthetic beats complete with synchronized dancing statues; all brought full circle with a deeply satisfying guitar line that’ll keep ringing through your head like a cued sitcom jingle as you strut down the street.

Chances are you’ve already heard “Needy Girl” thanks to Reese’s, while Heineken claimed “She’s So Gangsta” in 2006 and McDonald’s found a keen use for their track “Rage!” Some would question the integrity of lending your work to such mammoth companies, but numbers don’t lie. “We don’t care, as long as it’s nothing that offends us politically. Cigarettes we would not do.” It’s all brought Chromeo some very fair attention and garnered them sold-out shows across the nation, which is saying a lot considering the low key status they’ve managed to maintain.

The chemistry that’s really the sweet marrow of Chromeo dates back to a childhood friendship in Montreal between Patrick Gemayel and David Macklovitch. They’ve jokingly declared their collaboration as “the only successful Arab-Jewish partnership since the dawn of human culture.” Their friendship blossomed through high school shenanigans as much as their equal passion for the tunes of the time. Their stage monikers, Dave 1 and P-Thugg, actually originated from their graffiti signatures. One day, they “did a radio show and it just stuck.” The turntable played a crucial role in their daily routine. “We’re record collectors and we’re used to hip-hop beats and listening to vinyl, collecting vinyl, finding new artists to sample and studying stuff that we don’t know and enlarging our culture. It’s part of us.” A crucial line, however, one which sort of sets them apart in their ambitions entirely, is that they know what it means to collect a record: “It’s intensive rather than extensive. Now people can view music extensively. They have access to tons of it but it has a very short shelf life. Picture me and P when we were 16 and we got our first respective copies of ‘Rapper’s Delight.’ I listened to that every day after school for one whole week.”

“Over and over until you get something new,” P-Thugg added.

It’s a fact of life in this whole Internet age. An artist’s discography can be taken with three clicks of a mouse; an artist’s entire pained (or lavish) career! With that, all the thrill of tracking down that one album that rips your innards out like none other and changes your perspective on life as you know it is all but gone. Fifteen years ago, record shops were our haven. Sometimes it would take a trip to four or five record stores to track down that single album that just needed to be found. The Internet and the fast connection to everything has created a universal state of quantity, not quality in not only the listener, but in the musicians as well. Artists can exert barely half the effort and win over twice as many fans because they’ve earned a spot in their mass library of MP3’s. “You enjoy stuff more when you have less, we’re all musically spoiled.” This is hardly a record company stance, either. That tired old argument has been squeezed bone dry.

Want some advice from Chromeo? “Sometimes having less records is better, because you can listen to them intensively. My brother is a well-known DJ: A-Trak. He was a world champion DJ with a small crate of records, but he knew every second of them. You know what it is when you start collecting vinyl and you have fifteen, but you know them inside out and you have a special relationship with each of them. Its kinda like, when I was growing up I couldn’t get sneakers for under 80 bucks. So when I found a pair of sneakers for under 80 bucks that had air bubbles in them, I would just look at them, sleep with them and in class I would draw them. Now I have a hundred pairs of sneakers and I don’t draw them anymore. Maybe it was better when I would draw them all the time.” The same goes for music.

In the grand scope of things, Chromeo is just a couple of artists earnestly trying to get it right. They have a vision for music and they’re seeing it through to the filthy end. “People who hate us really hate us, and people who like us embrace us because we’ve stuck around and we’re going for broke on what we’ve started, instead of changing with the times.” It’s a refreshing stance when weighed against bands that will alter their entire sound or even character on an alteration in some demographic chart that some schmuck printed out for them. For Chromeo this is inconsequential.  They’re passionate about what they do and they do it because of that very passion, not for any other reason.

Dave 1 will make no bones in admitting “we’re not necessarily the coolest band to like. There are a lot of cooler bands to like. We’re not un-cool… [but] I feel like people who like us aren’t totally going with the trend. We’ve got sold out shows and I feel like saying thank you to everyone because we have a place. We’re not the typical band that you’d be prescribed to like and the fact that we have a place with these people proves that they aren’t being programmed. When our first album came out, disco punk was the thing to do. Now, it’s kind of French distorted electro. Not to take away from those genres, but I’d like to give it up to people who are digging deeper and supporting this kooky, weird cult band that we are. We’re two guys who think they can play 80’s black music and present it to this generation convincingly.”  Chromeo is a way of life, as much as Kris Kristofferson, The White Stripes, or Michael Bublé can be a way of life. “These songs will stay with you every day if you choose to embrace them. You’ll sing ‘Needy Girl’ in the shower, ‘You’re So Gangster’ on the can and it’ll become part of your life.” It’s all about personal investment.

A challenge for those who think they’ve been sucked into this mass consumption of music: leave your iPod at home. Pull out that dusty old CD player, invest in just five good albums of your choice, and for a good week or longer, take just one of these compact discs with you each day. Really dive into them. Learn them through and through. These albums may become a vital part of you or, maybe, you decide they’re not as fantastic as you once thought, but that’s the gamble. You never know how something will really grab you in the long run. Either way, you’ll never forget them and on those grounds you can always appreciate them. While you’re at it, pick up any Chromeo album. Knowing what’s behind their music can sometimes be handy in your first approach. Don’t let your musical dispositions be your guide. Chances are, you’ll find yourself demonized into shameless groove within the first few tracks and, from there, you can’t look back.

Whether you’ve just heard them for the first time or you’ve followed them all the way from England, it sure is hard to deny that The Duke Spirit wields the power and force of electric sex. And not just in the hey-it’s-four-in-the-morning-I’ll-settle-for-anything way, but the kind that you want to wake up next to and make breakfast for. London’s Duke Spirit seems poised to be the new harbingers of rock n’ roll.

Their new album, Neptune, gives a fresh sound that reminds you what it was like to fall in love with rock n’ roll for the first time. It doesn’t hurt that the blonde bombshell, Leila Moss, is at the front of this new revolution. As their stature has risen in the states, The Duke Spirit evokes the intangibility of rock n’ roll effortlessly. The new album rings with this very intangibility that so many bands in the genre seem to fall short of. Finally, a band hitting its stride.

Unfortunately, bringing their fuzzed-out, garage rock sound stateside has had its share of misfortunes. Working through having their equipment stolen and playing for a jaded American audience across the nation, The Duke Spirit has proven that they are the real deal. Fusing their sound with influences as diverse as shoegaze, garage rock, and soul, the band has crafted a sonic landscape that has created a rabid devotion and cult following throughout the nation. The Duke Spirit let Minute Morning sit down with them recently to get a peek into their unique, yet classic take on rock n’ roll.

The band formed in 2003 with the core trio of: front-woman, Leila Moss; guitarist, Luke Ford; and bassist, Toby Butler. The three began as friends living together, but adversely watching each other play in different bands. Then, one day they decided to join forces to turn “struggle and anxiety” into something tangible and cathartic. They rounded out the line-up with guitarist, Dan Higgins, and drummer, Olly Betts. Feeling “a gang-like vision,” their overdriven sound focused on themes of “desperation, guilt and sexuality.”

America was apparently ready for it. In the years following the release of their debut album, Cuts Across the Land, The Duke Spirit has racked up over 285 performances across the United States. Moss facetiously jokes that the band is working towards building “statues of their stature.”

Feeling that vibe of kids-digging-the-sound, she adds,”…there’s little communities everywhere and they’re all gettin’ off on the same kind of impulses in rock n’ roll music.” Playing to those little communities seems to be at the core of The Duke Spirit’s plan to take over the country. They “never really wanted to be that band that is surrounded by a huge amount of hype,” instead preferring to build it up the old fashioned way.

To try and nail down their sound, Moss tells, “It can sound quite dark and heavy, we try to create something that’s really kind of uplifting and big and exciting sounding out of it.” And exciting it is; the shows played to back Neptune have shown that their hard work is paying off. They have met an audience with more fervor than anything they have seen this side of the pond.

Within seconds of hitting a first chord, fans can be seen swaying along to the hypnotic and high-energy moves of the band. It also doesn’t hurt to have a beautiful woman at the front writhing to every beat of the sexually charged tunes. It’s no surprise that Moss follows the maxim “… ultimately you want to conquer hearts.” Conquer hearts? Try stealing them.

To make their new album, The Duke Spirit holed up at Joshua Tree Studios in the hot desert of southern California with famed producer, Chris Goss, to lay down the eleven most cohesive and rollicking songs of their career. Though hardly a concept album, the new record has an often re-occurring water motif. It also shows a band taking risks and succeeding. The slow plodding blues’ stomp of “Dog Roses” evokes the spark of love at first sight through a smoke and booze stained gaze. “Lassoo” finds the band grabbing love by the throat. It is impossible to not be moved by such confident and sultry lyrics.

The Duke Spirit shows a maturity of bands twice their age. “There hasn’t been a lazy minute, we’re pretty hard on ourselves.” And it shows. “You should ultimately feel set free.” Isn’t that what rock n’ roll is all about?

It’s become a habitual past time for the UK press to announce the next “British Invasion” discovery to lukewarm American acceptance. Unfortunately, The Kooks’ unique brand of Brit-pop was given no such entrance. The Vines were to save rock n roll in 2002, but are now just simple riff material for Timbaland’s beats, with their last album peaking at #136 on US charts. The Test Icicles were a superior breed of Franz Ferdinand’s jagged riff-punk-rock, but alas; they broke up within a year and moved onto solo careers that Vice Magazine would fall all over itself to tell you about. The most recent and noisiest of British band hype was a blaring royal trumpeter announcing The Arctic Monkeys; a nitty gritty crew of working class boys touted as Brit-pop’s second coming. And so, with a US introduction mere months after the Monkeys, what was there left to say about The Kooks? While the UK press will rarely shy away from touting them as the next Blur, the message seemed simply unimpressive in the wake of Monkeys’ hysteria. Was the band never really worth the audible brouhaha to begin with, or will this marketing snafu become a blessing in disguise for The Kooks?

Lead singer Luke Pritchard and drummer Paul Garred were anything but clones of Jarvis Cocker’s snarl’n’ wry English nuevo-band stereotype during an interview. Critics certainly couldn’t throw enough praise at their group, touting them as The Kinks given a second go at fame or The Police before they became customary and bitchy, and here sat the pair above all things humble and excited. Giving a sincere thank you when receiving pints and waiting patiently for a question to finish before giving thoughtful commentary on answers he had no doubt spilt a million times before, it truly was a pleasure. The band interacts towards each other with the same, absolute zero ego, mentality. “It’s just many hours of having fun and jamming and having a few beers together…that’s what makes the band right.” While a weary rock journalist would argue upon grounds of their experience still being green or the group’s lack of a touring decade to become discovered, the contrary remains that they have all the positive characteristics of a band that has performed this way for years.

The Kooks carry with them a history slightly older than the white Chuck Taylor’s on my feet. Envisioned about 3 years ago, the band mates initially ranged in the spectrum of 17 to 21 years of age. Conceptualized at The Brighton Institute of Modern Music, the group consists of the institution’s students, meeting each through friends of friends and previous band notoriety. Pritchard and best friend bassist, Max Rafferty, solidified the current lineup with then 17 year old press proclaimed “youngest man in rock”, Hugh Harris (now 20) and Garred. “I met Max while cooking a bit of curry at a late night party once,” recalls Garred. “He came up to me and it was all, ‘I fancy the way you play bass and I fancy the way you drum’. He invited me to play with the other three, I believe it was the very next day, and we just started making a pretty good racket together and it just felt right.” A week later, the band started gigs and taking friends up on recording sessions, which was all it took for the band to get discovered. It was their first simple demo created in a London studio that became the rabbit’s foot, which begot an avalanche of good fortune that has since followed.

In an almost unheard of situation of right place / right time, comparable to no-name Seattle bands being signed during the peak of grunge, The Kooks from English-pop sanctum Brighton were snatched up by Virgin Records to a lucrative record deal in 2005 after playing together a mere 3 months. With a global label and an undeniably catching sound, the stage was now set for the Kooks to blow up. Their debut single “Ooh Laa” peaked on the UK charts at #20 and overnight the band was nominated for Brit and MTV Europe awards, along with selling the 5th most albums in the UK for 2006. Following the instant popularity of The Kooks in England, the bands debut disc Inside In/Inside Out was set for a 9 month delayed release into the US, based in accordance with the drop off of Artic Monkey interest. Named after a David Bowie track on his album “Hunky Dory” and marketed loosely as the 2nd wave of Brit-pop, US detractors will tell you that the quartet is simply a new tribute band lineup for the Libertines or the Futureheads, maybe even a softcore Artic Monkeys/ Jet hybrid. What these same detractors fail to mention is that the Kooks seem to have a better handle on the genre than even their forefathers who created it. Presently, it would seem an uphill battle for The Kooks to gain any sort of notoriety in the States with a poorly chosen release date behind the Monkeys and an even worse gimmick in which to play up. They weren’t handed the press, the myspace glamour or the blue-collar Sheffield boys story arch that seemed to inevitably appeal more to a Rocky-esque “little guy can win” inspirational rather than a musical revolution. The Kooks aren’t nearly brash or abrasive enough to make front-page tabloids, and they don’t have the teen heartthrob looks that the industry is waiting to slap on every tour poster and lunchbox. They were beaten to the punch. The only thing that the band truly has in regards to a “young men from across the pond looking to rock America’s socks off” is talent and a more than listenable album.

With maturity towards musical appreciation beyond their years, it’s the band’s music that seems most impossible to segment into category. “Musical whores” is a phrase Pritchard likens to explain their melting pot style, but even that seems to fall short. On the bands debut disc, we are given the option to feast with our ears on 4 minute & under songs. Consisting of a misleading acoustic opener (Seaside), a spiky post-punk ditty (You Don’t Love Me), some dirty jam band funk (Matchbox) and eleven others; each one seemingly original compared to the rest, each one with a hook that is nearly impossible to find fault with. Outside of writing nearly 100 songs for a 14 track affair, the band loves to experiment based on pure bull-headed preference. “It’s the fact that you’ve got four really, really stubborn guys who’ve all got big record collections and love music more than anything. It’s almost like most bands will play as a unit, but if Max wants to a play a reggae song and I want to drum at a funk pace I’ll just do it and he’ll just keep right on with his reggae harmonies and somehow it works. I can’t put my finger on it, but somehow it works.”

However, it isn’t the hooks that The Kooks have problems with. Where the boys fall short and show their age is when it comes to lyrical inspiration. Of course, while some of the stories fall short of a gentlemanly English standard, the band isn’t ashamed to divulge how they develop their lyrical content … eclectic. In a self-deprecating manner, Pritchard lets us in on his hot formula for some of the bands most notable hits, “I usually just blurt stuff out rather than thinking about it.” He will initially begin with an idea, phrase or sequence of words almost resembling a chorus, but far from it. The band continues to jam and riff and something just happens in Pritchard’s subconscious that lets him know that the words have arrived. “I think it’s a Smiths kind of thing”, he laughs. While Pritchard admires the savant nature with which his idols Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen create lyrics for their songs, he would prefer to continue writing with his best mates using his methodology, and simply laughing it off with the press later.

The Kooks will continue touring with dates yet to be decided as they support their second record Konk. “[In America], the audiences stand a lot more still than they do in London, but we had a great time when we came. We’ve tried out one of our new songs and it went over really well. I think that is going to be the shape of things to come. Hopefully we’ll be back in February and try out some new material.” The pressing question on the bands agenda now…what can we expect from this next album? “It’s not going to be any big leap into electronica. It’s going to be what we do best but hopefully a step up.” Neither feels that Inside In/Inside Out represents everything that The Kooks could accomplish, “Not at all”. It was the first professional recording of any sort that the four members had done, and Pritchard considered the group quite “naive” during their initial go with producer Tony Hoffer. “He helped us make the record we wanted to make.” With so many chefs in one kitchen, Hoffer was more than happy to let the band explore and find any number of sounds that they were striving for, but was also forced to crack the whip in order to keep the group focused and create a ballpark encompassing sound that could eventually be considered marketable. Even if they will never again repeat on the multi-platinum sales their debut disc garnered, ultimately The Kooks want to continue pulling different genres and piecing together a different kind of record for their fans. “We wanna surprise people.”

Americans are a rather easy yet cynical lot; we’ll gladly be served something from across the pond and force-fed it as delicious, but want to be aware of what we are about to fill our plates with. We must be marketed to correctly a band of tea sipping dandies, with silver spoons and ungracious tones dangling from their mouths, the correct way and above all else be given facts. If marketing to our nostalgia and claiming a band will be the next Beatles, then they better sound like the Beatle’s or else we won’t bite. Perhaps being caught in the wake of an over publicized British invasion is the best thing that could have happened to The Kooks. “We allowed people to get into it.” After all…at the heart of our music captiousness and gullibility, it’s never truly about the sound one delivers but rather the sound that we are told they will deliver. Taking their craft with a grain of salt, playing songs that they’ve always wanted to play, incorporating a mixed bag of genres in their sound and crafting lyrics full of boyish humor…this is the staple Brit-pop we’ve been waiting for without having to be told we wanted it. “We’re going to come over here to America, and we’re going to do everything that we did in Europe, which is start at the bottom.” You may have just gotten America’s attention, gentlemen.

Lead singer Ricky Wilson of the Kaiser Chiefs has an abundance of energy that could sufficiently power a little cobblestone English village. Exhibit A: At the end of the Crystal Ballroom show Ricky jumps from center stage into the audience, hauling through the press barrier, and bypassing the bar to jump onto the back wall of the packed theater. He is still singing. Ricky jumps into the crowd to surf his way back onstage to rejoin the band, ultimately finishing the show. First thought, glad he doesn’t carry more equipment than a microphone.

The Kaiser Chiefs, originally misnamed Runston Parva for the East Yorkshire village of Ruston Parva, is a band that formed in 1997 in Leeds when Nick Hodgson, Simon Rix, and Nick Baines met in school. Andrew White hoped on board, and all spotted the spirited Ricky Wilson singing with a Rolling Stones tribute band. Employment, and their follow-up Yours Truly, Angry Mob, both used the aid of famed Britpop producer Stephen Street. Employment sold over 3 million copies, pushing the Kaiser Chiefs to maximum exposure. In 2006 they won three BRIT Awards in the categories of ‘Best Group,’ ‘Best British Rock Act’ and ‘Best Live Act,’ and played at Coachella, Glastonbury Festival, and made an appearance on the Tonight Show. British band, McFly covered ‘I Predict A Riot” acoustically, and Lily Allen and Mark Ronson covered “Oh My God” in 2007. Their chart toping single “Ruby” can be heard on the computer game, Guitar Hero 3, and even countrymen Paul McCartney took notice, claiming to also enjoy the Kaiser Chiefs.

With their new album Yours Truly, Angry Mob, The Kaiser Chiefs have gotten considerable recognition, but when they showed up to Music Millennium, an Indie record shop in Northeast Portland, Oregon, to meet with Minute Morning Magazine, we were more than a little surprised to see the guys escorted out of a full-fledged limo van, as the driver instructed the band not to lift a finger while he opened the door. It is clear to see this quintet doesn’t slum it in smelly tour vans like many rock acts today.

In North America, some have considered The Kaiser Chiefs to be an Indie Rock act, thus making the limo van all the more special. I thought, “no Indie band would be caught dead ridding in one of these.” I realized without first considering their Universal Records major label status, that they might not be considered as much of a part of the “Indie Scene” as I thought. Record labels aside, there are no doubts that they have influenced British music with their renewal of good English party rock. The Kaiser Chiefs have found a mix that perfects conventional rock, drawing comparisons to The Killers, Modest Mouse and The Strokes, and it is easy to hear the influences of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Their use of synthesizers keeps their punky tunes danceable, while their multi-tracked vocals are driven by tinges of pop-guitar and are held together by an edgy mind-set. This fusion of fringe and mainstream still leaves their labels questionable, proving them to be one contradiction after another. One tour they are playing medium sized theaters in the U.S, and the next tour they are playing to packed arenas. Most would say, not bad for a band that didn’t even solidify their name until 2003.

Kicking off an instore DJ-ing set at Music Millennium, Minute Morning met each member separately to get some photos in, realizing a bit later that we were mispronouncing Ricky Wilson’s name with our ineloquent American accents. Each time we would say “Rick-E” he would reply promptly with “Ri-ee”. The other Nick (Baines), or “Peanut,” as his band mates refer to him, played keyboards with Nick Hodgson in numerous groups starting at the ages of 15. Chief guitarists Andrew “Whitey” White spoon-fed us some initial rockstar-tude while photographing him at Music Millennium. Apparently he doesn’t like being photographed. “Whitey” told us that we had three shots. The first shot he gave us a droopy “we’re number 1” finger, the second shot we got an unintentional peace sign, and the third shot consisted of him flipping off the camera. English gentleman? Maybe this was just his illustration of an angry mob.

Minute Morning Magazine got the chance to sit down with two of the Chiefs, Nick the drummer, and proved to be most challenging to understand. Recognizing his accent as a form of the same language became most entertaining on a playback of the interview. We also spoke with Simon, the bass player, who was recognizably the happy boy of the bunch. Not to say that the others aren’t happy, because who could be unhappy when your album just went platinum, and you are getting paid to travel the world in a limo playing music? Simon told us that they sold “something like two million now in the U.K.” Almost more importantly, they have been getting a lot of downloads, but ultimately it’s about the records, because it means that people will come to the gigs. It is also about filing a room and having a sold out show. They tell us that it is the old fashioned way of touring and gaining listeners. This has all factored into the crowd’s intense reaction to Yours Truly, Angry Mob.

Known for their active live shows, we get a little insight on backstage preparation. To get into playing music, they first tell us it is important for them to listen to music. In the dressing room, Nick claims to like “gutsy music. We could listen to Rage Against The Machine or Nirvana, but equally we could listen to Buddy Holly. Do you notice they’re all American bands? We listen to Led Zeplain as well.” Nick trailed off from describing their backstage rituals, to their onstage experience. He continued by saying that for their live act “the first two songs of the set are old songs and they go down really well, then the next two new ones go down better.” Apparently Kaiser Chiefs’ audiences are as spunky as they are. At the Showbox in Seattle, Simon was greatly disappointed with security, as they told their fans to settle down. “When the crowd is excited, we are excited, and it makes for a better show.” They aren’t too heartbroken about the security incident; they’ve all had a great tour.

The Kaiser Chiefs have a plethora of tour-ific anecdotes from Dave Grohl to Puff Daddy and his posse. One of the many highlights for them was playing Conan O’Brien. Simon told us that he and Whitey were backstage in the bathroom getting ready to go play, and P. Diddy walked in. “Whitey was on the s*** and I left the bathroom and Puff Daddy came in with a film crew.” So, what did Whitey do? “Well, Whitey was having a s***,” of course.” Not only did they get up close and personal with the Daddy, but the guys were also excited to talk about the night they hung out with Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters and Nirvana, describing him as “literally a good guy.” After the show they all went to a local bar. A little star struck and a little drunk, Dave Grohl and the band spontaneously karaokied to the Kaiser Chiefs hit “I Predict a Riot.”

After a few years of international touring under their belt, Simon feels that “more people that come to our gigs have bought the second album than the first” in the U.S. America just took a little longer than the U.K to catch on to the Kaiser Chiefs’ hooky tunes. Simon also believes it has a lot to with the way people are listening to music now. They are taking into consideration the downloading frenzy that is especially putting a dent in record sales in America. “I think we’re in a weird place in music. Record sales are down since October. No one is playing records.” Despite poor sales, The Kaiser Chiefs are staying optimistic and believe they are in a strong position to have continued success and be a big selling band. “In England quite a lot of bands can still sell like a million albums.” Their goal is to make sure their songs are varied and that whole album is good. They don’t want people to just download one or two of their hits. To meet their expectations, they sense that for people to buy the whole album nowadays, you have to “Put in time and care.”

On the subject of the U.SA vs. the U.K, the Kaiser Chiefs believe that the biggest difference in America is that everyone gets separated at concerts. In the U.K “everyone goes to a gig and it’s big.” In America there’s no smoking, and the drinking laws are strict. “In Europe, everything goes.” When asked what they like about the U.S in general Nick replied “Westside,” and Simon who couldn’t stop laughing, said New York City. “I like the fact that…In America, you want something, you get it, and the best possible way of doing things is bigger and better.”

After years of honing their skills, apparently their success can be attributed to “tapping on the guitar” says Nick, and other techniques learned during their downtime between tours. “I think we have good songs. We realized at one point no one was signing us. Record companies weren’t interested in us. We thought, let’s just go for the kids, get some fans, we went on tour and people were enjoying it and that was that, I think that’s why people liked it. We like playing music people like.” Regarding the changes that they’ve made in their musicianship, Nick and Simon both agreed that you “gotta be in the right frame of mind.” Nick furthered “you don’t have to be happy… you should feel good and then you come up with stuff.” Nick described their old musical patterns as unfocused. “Each song had a good bit in it or a few good bits, but they weren’t good songs. They were just a collection of good bits.” For Yours Truly, Angry Mob, the Kaiser Chiefs made all of the ‘bits’ into good songs. In an attempt to get away from the toil of success and feel more like a “normal band” they went back to their old recording space and made an effort to keep the atmosphere the same as their humble beginning.

For The Kaiser Chiefs the future looks bright, filled with confidence and a good work ethic. They are a part of the Beatles’ 40th anniversary re-recording of the Sgt. Pepper Tribute Album that and gave a close-to-perfect cover of Getting Better that would make Sir Paul McCartney proud. GQ awarded the Kaiser Chiefs Band Of The Year, and they’re also up for three Q Awards hosted by readers and writers at Q magazine. Because of all the time they spent touring and promoting, the Kaiser Chiefs feel they have neglected creation, the root of which every band stems from. Due to the musician’s urge to record and write, they cancelled a run of gigs in North America. Although a big disappointment for their fans, they will all have a lot more to look forward to within the coming year. When the Chiefs are back in the ring you can expect nothing short of continued commercial success, bigger theaters and festivals that you can rock out at. Nick says their future goals consist of doing gigs “like the size we do in the U.K., everywhere in the world.” They don’t seem too anxious about their global take over; Nick knows it “takes several albums and a certain amount of good songs.” None of them believe this goal is unreachable. “I think we can do it!” With so much to look forward to, it’s hard to doubt these blokes.

Redmond, Oregon is the last place to find anything of significance, especially when talking in terms of indie rock.* Located in central Oregon (a 3 hour drive south of Portland) and nestled between the skiing wonderland of Mt. Bachelor, the hiker’s haven of Smith Rock, and littered with more golf courses than there once was farmland, it is a new home to yuppies and nature fiends and somehow three guys who play music that almost no one there would listen to, but that record executives in New York City definitely paid attention to.

Composed of brothers Cy and Seth Erickson and their old high school friend Jackson Groves, AM Interstate is a self proclaimed rotating helm where all three members share songwriting duties. The three began playing together in late 2001 and after the locally successful, self-released Barroom Confessions these analog purists set up shop in Groves’ living room to record their self-titled follow up. It’s nice recording on our own because it’s more about the feeling and the idea of the song as opposed to we’ve got to get this guitar part done, we’ve got get this bass track done we have this feeling and we have this emotion that we want to capture explains Cy. Once those recordings were ready they began sending them off to various labels and the first to respond with excitement was the artist friendly Turquoise Mountain (home to The Morning After Girls and The Hi-Dials) and its alt-country/psych-folk imprint, Rainbow Quartz. The owner Jim McGarry contacted us and soon enough we were working up contracts and he was setting us up at South by Southwest and CMJ for their showcases, remembers Seth. When asked what they think their appeal was to a big city label, Cy’s theory is We are so out of left field and are truly 3 country boys who are singing our songs. If you look in a lot of big cities they’re all about domestic beers and wearing western shirts because it’s a trend, but that’s what we grew up doing. We drink, we smoke, we cuss and that’s made us the cat’s meow to these people. We actually don’t know any better, adds Seth.

Their album (released last June) is a testament to their collaborative effort, with each of them penning 4 of the album’s 12 tracks and musically ranges from Gram Parsons-induced country to My Bloody Valentine distorted eeriness. While on stage, Seth on drums with Cy and Jack on guitars and the Beatle’s philosophy of you write it, you sing it is in place for vocals. In the studio all three multi-instrumentalists can be found playing a wide array of instruments that include lap steel, organ, harmonica and glockenspiel. With three different songwriters at work, the topics touched on vary greatly, from mid-west winters ( Feeling Minnesota ), a bitter ode to sin city ( Jesus in Vegas ) to one night stands, wake up, I’m wasted and waiting to watch you leave, this time that we made up to make out but I ain’t missing you missing me ( Blue Eyed Lament ). It is the soundtrack to a small town life where the lure of vices increases in accordance to the lack of things to do.
Currently the hometown boys are working on an EP with a tentative summer release. I think the songs are a bit more polished as far as recording technique, but have a more live feeling in terms of a rhythm that bounces, explains Groves. With the single Dirty and Low finding air play at different radio stations across the country and their album making impressive showings on Insound.com and Last FM, the three hope to tour more in the near future.

Header Image by: Marley Marotta
Photos by: Andrew Young