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Jan 07, 2011 By Under the Radar Staff Artist Surveys 2010

For Under the Radar’s 8th annual Artist Survey we emailed some of our favorite artists a few questions relating to 2010. Pick up a copy of Under the Radar’s Year End issue for interviews with: The Antlers, Bon Iver, Caribou,Club 8, Delphic, Rose Elinor Dougall, Gayngs, Hot Chip, Lost in the Trees, Love is All, The Love Language, Mogwai, of Montreal, Okkervil River, Yoko Ono, Owen Pallett, Plants and Animals, Mark Ronson, Superchunk, Tame Impala, Vampire Weekend, Sharon Van Etten, and Vivian Girls. Here’s a survey from Tony Blankets of Restless People.

Top 9 Albums of 2010

1. Restless People: Restless People

2. Big Boi: Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty

3. Rick Ross: Teflon Don

4. The-Dream: Love King

5. CEO: White Magic

6. Hot Chip: One Life Stand

7. Morrissey: Bona Drag (Remastered Reissue)

8. R.E.M.: Reckoning (Reissue)

9. Some really cool shit you probably don’t know about.

What was the highlight of 2010 for either you personally or for the band?

Finishing the recording and mixing of our album in the spring.

What was the low point of 2010 for you?
Finishing the recording and mixing of our album in the spring.

What are your hopes and plans for 2011?

Keep playing, keep recording, make music that’s true to us, do cool things with cool people

What are your thoughts on President Obama’s job performance in the last year? Has your optimism, if you were an Obama supporter, waned?

I think the president has handled an extremely difficult economic situation as deftly as possible, considering; it’s like showing up for your first day at the power plant and there’s a meltdown that then lasts for the next four years.

What are your thoughts on the Tea Party movement?

More than anything, I find their naming extremely lazy.

With the Internet making every artist’s music potentially available to a wide audience, is it now easier to find listeners or more difficult because you have to compete with so many other musicians?

It’s easier to get music directly to people, for better or for worse. The free-for-all and interplay created by that is something that I think we enjoy and consciously try to tap into.

Who would you rather listen to—a totally original musician whose compositions are groundbreaking but difficult to listen to or a musician whose songs are immediately enjoyable but derivative? Why?

This is an interesting question, but one that seems to be founded on the assumption that you can’t listen to both, which I would argue is unsound. It also plays into the notion of musical “guilty pleasures,” a concept that we’re fundamentally opposed to. You can listen to whatever you want whenever you want for any reason or no reason at all.

In the race to find new bands, are too many unworthy bands being hyped up by music blogs and websites? How are music fans supposed to filter through all these new bands being hyped?

I think the democratization of how a lot of music is created and released is a good thing, and that terms like “worthy” and “unworthy” don’t necessarily apply. I’d agree that it’s certainly more of a free market where people have more direct access to the material and can decide what to listen to or download for themselves, or choose to consult sites or people’s opinions that they trust.

If your house was on fire, what would you grab as you were running out?

Hard drives.

If you could relive one day of your life, which would it be?

June 17, 2006: Orioles pitcher Kris Benson hit a homerun off Pedro Martinez and Jesse brought banh mi.

What’s the strangest fan encounter you’ve ever had?

Tried to shake Ray Cappo from Youth of Today’s hand at a Shelter show in Richmond while he was peeing (bad look in retrospect) and he said, “Sorry, kind of have my hands full right now.” Once met Angela Davis and told her I liked her article about (female) masturbation only to be told point blank by her that the article must have been written by a different Angela Davis.

If you had a bucket list, what would be the Top 4 things on that list?

Watch the movie The Bucket List.

Have you ever been starstruck when meeting another musician? If so, by who?

See Ray Cappo story above. Also, once met Muhammed Ali at Chicago O’Hare Airport.

What’s the most embarrassing thing to happen to you in the last year?

Forgetting to BCC a huge list of people on an email.

When you think of the future, what scares you most?

Getting old, not being able to open a beer for myself.

What moment made you maddest in 2010?

Hot pepper in a banh mi Jesse got me.

Do you have any other thoughts about the current state of the world or the state of the music industry?

Hahaha. Yes.

(www.restlesspeople.com)