Members
of Band Interviewed: Patrick Callahan – drums
Two-Tone Tommy – bass Danny Cash – keyboards
Johnny Quaid – guitar
Under the Radar Interviewers: Mark Redfern , Marcus Kagler
Mark
Redfern: Let’s get everyone’s names and positions
to begin with.
Patrick
Callahan: I’m Patrick Callahan on drums.
Danny Cash: Danny Cash on keyboards.
Two-Tone Tommy: Two-Tone Tommy on bass.
Mark Redfern: I guess the first question is how has the tour been going with
Doves?
Danny Cash: Awesome. I mean, totally painless.
Patrick
Callahan: Phenomenal. They’re true gentlemen. They’re an
awesome act to be opening for. I mean every time we get done playing we load
up and watch them. We never get sick of it and we’ve been opening for them
for six weeks. We understand the set more and more each time and we hang out
with them. I don’t know, it’s really been like a pretty fluid event
from start to finish. I’ll be sad to see them go.
Danny
Cash: They’ve been really nice to us. Them and their
crew.
Mark
Redfern: Yeah. They’re pretty cool guys. I’ve
interviewed them a couple of times.
Danny
Cash: Yeah. They’re sweethearts.
Mark Redfern: How did you end up getting on the tour? Was it them who requested
you or was it a label deal? How did it work out?
Danny Cash: I think our manager begged and pleaded or something. [all laugh]
Patrick
Callahan: It was a little bit of both. They’d heard
our music and liked it and their manager contacted our
manager about some things. In
the end
it just came about. It had been kind of in the works for awhile. We were
finally able to work it in.
Marcus
Kagler: So we’ve been looking at your past tour dates
and it seems like you guys tour almost constantly. Are
you getting tired of the
touring
life?
Patrick
Callahan: No. I wouldn’t say tired of it by any means because I
think this what we all want to do. I mean, I know this is what we all want to
do. We wouldn’t be out here this long if we didn’t. We all love each
other to death and we still get along today just as well as we did when we first
went out in January. I think we’re about ready to take a rest you
know. But as far as being tired of it...no. We love it to death.
Danny
Cash: More than anything we just want to get back in the
studio and make a new record. We’ve been touring off At Dawn for over a year and half so
we’ve kind of got whole record ready to go we just need to get back
in and do it.
Patrick
Callahan: It makes it difficult when you’re on tour.
Danny
Cash: Yeah, you can’t record on the road.
Mark Redfern: Right. Have you guys been writing your new record on the road?
Danny
Cash: We’ve been practicing a couple of new songs
on the road but not really writing.
Patrick Callahan: These songs are pretty much preconceived.
Mark Redfern: Like written when you were recording At Dawn?
Patrick Callahan: Just throughout the years. Jim [James] is the primary songwriter
and he kind of brings the skeleton in and we put the meat on the bones. Make
it whole.
Danny
Cash: He’s always got lots of skeletons too.
[Johnny Quaid the guitarist comes in]
Johnny Quaid: Hi. Am I interrupting?
Danny Cash: This is a private interview thank you very much. Private. [all laugh]
Squeeze in man.
Mark
Redfern: So what’s the worst gig you guys ever played?
Patrick
Callahan: The worst? I don’t know.
Danny
Cash: Probably some place in Salt Lake City. [all laugh]
We’ve
had some bad experiences. We played one place that amounted to little more
than a
tool shed.
Johnny
Quaid: It wasn’t that bad. It was like a punk rock sort of thing.
It just wasn’t really well planned out.
Danny
Cash: Wasn’t necessarily a bad show, but just not the right venue
for us. We’ve got a lot of gear and stuff. Like a three piece punk
outfit can play a really tiny space but we need more space and stuff.
Patrick Callahan: The bands in Salt Lake City or awesome.
Danny Cash: Yeah. The bands in Salt Lake City are always awesome I just wish
we could play some better shows for them. But we love the kids...not the city.
Mark Redfern: What about the best show you guys have ever played?
Johnny Quaid: Tonight at the Mayan.
Danny
Cash: Yeah. The show we haven’t played yet.
Patrick Callahan: The Filmore was one of the big ones. So many bands that we
listen to and respect cut their teeth there you know. Got their start there.
It was an amazing room and it sounded phenomenal. It was like awe-inspiring experience.
Kind of like a dream scenario to play there and the great sound made it easy
to put on a good show.
Mark Redfern: That was on this tour?
Patrick Callahan: Just a couple of dates ago actually. In San Francisco.
Mark Redfern: You guys toured with Guided By Voices. What was that like?
Danny Cash: It was fun.
Johnny
Quaid: I don’t really remember. [all laugh] Did we tour with them
cause I don’t remember that?
Patrick
Callahan: I don’t remember that.
Johnny Quaid: I blacked out for about five weeks so that must have been when
we did the tour.
Danny
Cash: I remember waking up sometimes in the afternoon and
then stumbling out onto this place with bright lights.
Then some other stuff and I would I wake
up the next day.
Johnny
Quaid: It was great. They’re really nice guys.
Patrick
Callahan: We still keep in touch with members of them.
They’ll
teach you a few lessons in alcohol consumption but they’re so genuinely
nice. They’re just in it for the same reasons we are which is great. They
don’t have a big head. They just go out there and rock the pants
off everybody.
Danny Cash: They go out there and play a three-hour set every night.
Patrick Callahan: Every night!
Danny
Cash: It’s just blistering every night.
Patrick Callahan: They could put a frat boy to shame by the end of that set because
of the alcohol level in their blood.
Johnny Quaid: We were competing with them on the alcohol consumption. We had
a little rivalry going but we remained good friends with them until the end.
Mark Redfern: Yeah. We know some guys who saw them on that tour and they said
they were really great.
Johnny Quaid: They are just a great, great band with great fans.
Patrick Callahan: Jesus! Devout! Devout!
Mark
Redfern: We have this one friend who’s got all the
boot legs and albums...the whole shpeel. He actually works
at Rhino records. He put together
your in store.
Patrick Callahan: Oh, I remember him. Russel. Nice guy. We met him in San Diego.
We played a beachfront club.
Marcus
Kagler: We wanted to ask why your live shows are a little
more rockin’ than
your albums, which tend to be a little more mellow.
Johnny
Quaid: It did turn out that way, but we didn’t plan it that way.
It turned out in our favor. When we first started this project it was Jim writing
solo acoustic stuff and we kept adding members. Like I jumped in and Tommy came
in and the rest of the guys came in. So when we first started out it was really
laid back and mellow and then...I mean, we got rockin’ songs but just kind
of recorded them real lo-fi and played them a little more laid back. But when
we got a full band together it just felt more natural to play a little bit harder.
Since the recordings are a bit lo-fi when an audience saw us live it was like
a little bit more of a fuller figure. It wasn’t something we intentionally
set out to do but it really was kind of neat when people noticed that it was
like two different worlds. They go home and listen to the records but they also
have a reason to see us live. We see a lot of bands where it’s just like
you might as well go home to your room and play the CD you know. They’ve
got to be entertaining or engaging or just do something a little different.
Marcus Kagler: Has the live sound had an influence on the new material you guys
have been practicing?
Johnny
Quaid: Yeah. Absolutely. We’ve totally evolved into it so it’s
just a natural evolution.
Danny
Cash: Now that we’ve got the actual...I think the final line up of
the band it will be...not a live record but it’ll have more of that
energetic feel.
Patrick
Callahan: Plus we’ve been touring for so long we’ve kind
of honed our skills and gotten tighter as a unit. I’m sure that will
be taken into the studio as well and applied to everything.
Marcus Kagler: So where do you guys normally record? Do you have a home studio?
Patrick
Callahan: We record on a farm in Shellbyville, Kentucky
at his [Johnny’s]
grandparents. It’s about thirty minutes east of Louisville. It’s
just out in the middle of the country. It’s our little haven.
Marcus Kagler: You guys just haul some equipment out there every time?
Patrick
Callahan: It’s already there. It’s totally
there.
Mark Redfern: That must an idyllic place to record a record.
Patrick
Callahan: If things go bad you can just walk out and see
a beautiful sunset over a field or something like that
you know.
Johnny
Quaid: It’s very creative you know. We are all from wide-open places
as opposed to the inner city. I get always get a little claustrophobic in a big
city. I don’t feel as creative as when I’m in the country.
Patrick
Callahan: That’s the reason this is coming from the
guy with a tractor on his T-shirt. [all laugh]
Danny
Cash: Dude’s from the country.
Patrick
Callahan: I got Ricky Schroeder on my T-shirt so I can’t
say shit.
Johnny
Quaid: I’ve actually driven one of these [a tractor].
I think this is the exact one. [all laugh]
Patrick
Callahan: Wouldn’t you say he’s dreamboat though?
[talking about his Ricky Schroeder T-shirt]
Marcus Kagler: Oh yeah.
Patrick Callahan: What about Toogans?
Johnny Quaid: Toogans. Oh, yeah that was a trip.
Danny Cash: Toogans.
Johnny Quaid: Should we tell them how Toogans came about?
Patrick Callahan: Mike Watt!
Johnny
Quaid: We played a show with Mike Watt. We opened up. We
were down in the dressing room and he came in and we were
like, “How’s it going?” And
he just starts babbling all of this mumbled gibberish and we thought he said, “Toogans”.
[they laugh]
Danny Cash: So we just figured Toogans meant something.
Johnny Quaid: Something really punk rock.
Mark
Redfern: Isn’t that one of the characters from Fraggle
Rock?
Johnny Quaid: It is as a matter of fact.
Marcus
Kagler: I haven’t heard that in awhile.
Mark Redfern: Yeah, I kind of blocked that one out. [all laugh] That was kind
of a weird show. [more laughter]
Johnny
Quaid: Yeah. Another drug induced children’s show.
Patrick
Callahan: I love ‘em! [all laugh]
Mark Redfern: So I guess we wanted to ask what the local Louisville scene is
like and do you guys feel apart of it?
Danny
Cash: No.
Mark
Redfern: Not apart of it?
Danny
Cash: I wouldn’t say so. I think there used
to be scene in Louisville but I don’t think
there really is one now. A lot of bands from Louisville
got in with the people from Chicago and got their
records out that way. I don’t think any of
us have had any experience as far as labels go or
anything like that. I think if anything there used
to be a scene like ten years ago but it has kind
of dissolved now. It’s just a lot of different
bands but I think that’s better though because
everybody is doing their own thing.
Patrick
Callahan: It forces people to push harder you know. |
|
Danny
Cash: Yeah. If you’ve got a scene and your friends’ band gets
popular so you make a band and open up for them and then get good it just builds
and builds until it gets stale. But if you have no scene it’s like
every band has to fend for themselves. You got to either play good or get
good at
your music or stop playing.
Marcus Kagler: Did you guys get a record deal by just playing out a lot?
Patrick
Callahan: It’s kind of weird actually as far as Darla
is concerned.
Johnny
Quaid: The initial Darla contract itself is kind of funny.
We were all in other bands before we got together but Jim
was really the only person
in
the band like I said he was writing all this solo stuff. He was reading
this Spin
magazine while he was working at Subway and he saw this label profile for
this label called Darla Records and he said, “Well, that seems nice enough.” So
me and him were recording at the time and he mailed them a tape and they loved
it. They wanted to put it out. We didn’t know anything about them and they
didn’t know anything about us but they were like, “Let’s do
this.” That’s just how it happened. So we made the first record
pretty much right away. The new signing has been good.
[a girl in the background says, “I thought you sent it to Dave Matthews?”]
Johnny
Quaid: O.K. I did. It didn’t mean a thing.
Marcus Kagler: I went to school in Charlottesville. I went to UVA.
Johnny Quaid: Oh really?
Marcus Kagler: Yeah. I used to see Dave around town all the time.
Johnny
Quaid: You know, Dave’s a good looking guy.
Marcus
Kagler: And he’s got a lot of money so he’s
got the best of both worlds. [all laugh]
Patrick Callahan: I think you have to be good looking to have a lot of money.
Danny
Cash: Yeah, it can’t be just one or the other.
Patrick
Callahan: We’re glad we’re with that label,
ATO.
Danny Cash: Is that how you spell it?
Patrick
Callahan: Yeah that’s how you spell it. There’s
an A then a T and then an O. It was really cool cause when
we were in that town
at the
venue we were playing in. What was that place we were playing in?
Johnny Quaid: Star Hill...
Marcus Kagler: Star Hill Brewery in Charlottesville?
Danny
Cash and Johnny Quaid: Yeah. That’s it.
Marcus
Kagler: Yeah, it’s real small. I saw Frank Black
play there once.
Patrick Callahan: Oh Wow! Yeah, they had a lot promo posters up there of some
pretty great bands.
Johnny
Quaid: It’s a really pretty town.
Marcus Kagler: Yeah, Charlottesville is nice.
Patrick Callahan: I was just going to mention how cool the ATO home office is
in Charlottesville.
Danny Cash: Yeah. Their home office is awesome. They got pool tables and Foos
ball tables.
Johnny
Quaid: I saw the Foosball table and said, “Where’s the contract?” [all
laugh]
Danny Cash: We signed because of the Foosball table and then we saw the Galaga
and Pac Man machines and that was it.
Patrick
Callahan: It was just the fact that they were located in
that kind of a setting where it’s just beautiful. It’s kind of the same reason
why we like the farm so much is that they just have this great compound. I guess
it’s like an old plantation or something. Just different old rustic buildings
with this beautiful work inside them. Hills and sunsets and trees everywhere.
You could just tell that they were in the right frame of mind and they are about
the same things so when we got to talking about it we just hit it off. It’s
perfect. It’s been nothing but beautiful.
Marcus
Kagler: Yeah. There’s lots of old farms in and around
the hills of Albermarle county.
Danny
Cash: That’s a beautiful area.
Mark Redfern: You were talking about working at Subway. What other jobs have
you guys had? [they laugh]
Danny Cash: Oh man. I hope you guys got a lot of tape.
Johnny
Quaid: I’ve been farming since I was this high [puts hands just
below his waist] so I guess that’s about it. It’s actually a job.
I enjoyed it actually. I would probably still be doing that if I wasn’t
doing this. Maybe...I say that now.
Two-Tone Tommy: I managed a video store for like four years. Not fun.
Danny Cash: I used to do graphic design for an alcoholic beverage company back
in Louisville. I delivered groceries and I did screen printing.
Patrick
Callahan: Cause I did screen printing as well. T-shirts
and things like that. Waited tables all through college.
About four years of waiting
tables which
is about as shit a job as it gets. But photo assistant was probably my
favorite out of all of them. I’d wait tables at night and go to school during the
day then after school I’d go do the photo assistant gig a few hours
every day. It was awesome. I definitely liked the photo assistant job better
than
waiting tables.
Marcus Kagler: Do you guys make a living at this yet? Is the band at a level
where you can support yourselves off it?
Johnny Quaid: Yeah.
Danny Cash: As early as late last year we would have to work our jobs and take
a week off work or two weeks off in order to tour. But eventually our touring
schedule got to be where we would be gone for six weeks our eight weeks. Basically
it was impossible for us to keep a real job so we had to find a way to make it
work.
Marcus Kagler: Now I heard that you guys are pretty big in Holland and the Netherlands.
Do you know how that came about? It just seems kind of obscure.
Patrick
Callahan: It’s a strange story really. You [Johnny
Quaid] probably know about it better than anybody.
Johnny
Quaid: The quick version is we put out our first record
and a few EP’s
on Darla. But the first record came out in ’99 and it got small distribution
in Europe and everywhere else. But this writer over there, who’s primarily
a children’s writer, got a copy of the record by a fluke. I don’t
know how he got it. Maybe a friend at a record store gave him a copy. Anyway,
he got it and was just blown away and he hadn’t written anything
in a long time and he wrote this huge long article on how it made him feel
like
a kid again.
Two-Tone
Tommy: He was a children’s writer too. He wrote children’s
books and he hadn’t written anything in like seven years and all
of a sudden he put out this huge article.
Johnny
Quaid: Yeah. So from there all of these other writers went
out and got it. And all of these writers started writing
about it and it just started
snowballing.
So people got real curious and everybody kept buying the record. So all
of a sudden the next thing we know some guy is calling
and saying, “We’re
going to fly you guys out here for week because you guys are doing real well.
You’re selling records.” Everybody was so curious. Nobody knew who
we were. So we went over there for a week and toured and we’ve been
back four or five times since then over the past couple of years. Holland
and Belgium
both are great countries and we feel very lucky to get to go there.
Marcus
Kagler: That’s a neat break.
Johnny
Quaid: Yeah. I guess that’s what happens. Every time we go over
there it’s like we can’t believe it.
Marcus Kagler: It sure does beat some kind of record executive trying to set
something up.
Johnny
Quaid: Yeah. I don’t think you could have planned
it any better. It just happens.
Danny
Cash: We probably wouldn’t even be here today if it wasn’t
for that guy.
Two-Tone
Tommy: We went out there right after I had joined. We had
only played about fourteen shows in that year period. We
never played outside Louisville
except for once in Chicago. We’d only played fourteen shows and then we
went to Europe and were headlining and like a documentary crew was following
us around. We really couldn’t take it all in.
Marcus Kagler: What year was this?
Johnny
Quaid: That was 2000. That was like early 2000 and the
record came out in like middle of ’99.
Mark Redfern: How did that film do when it came out?
Johnny Quaid: It did really great and we kind of went back and toured behind
that. We did like a two week tour of Holland and Belgium and we literally played
like every town in both those countries.
Two-Tone Tommy: Those countries are so small they can like fit inside the state
of Kentucky.
Johnny Quaid: Yeah. So we just played every town we could. It was amazing.
Mark Redfern: So how do the fans there compare with the fans in America?
Johnny
Quaid: I...think they’re all great. I like them all equally. I think
the people over there generally seek out music a little more than they do over
here. On a bigger scale. I’m not saying people don’t over here but
over there it seems like it’s on a bigger scale. People just kind
of like look for their music whereas here they just kind of let it come
to them.
Danny
Cash: The main difference in Holland and Belgium as that
when you are playing there everyone is looking at you and
nobody talks at all. When there
is a quiet
part in the song no one is talking. No one in the entire venue. Whereas
with shows in America it’s like everyone in the front are maybe interested in
the band and everyone else is more interested in each other. That’s
the main difference.
Marcus Kagler: Have you seen the documentary that was made about you?
Danny Cash: Yeah.
Marcus Kagler: What did you think?
Johnny
Quaid: Funny. It’s really neat for what it is though.
Mark Redfern: Did it get shown on TV over there?
Johnny Quaid: Yeah actually it did. It was on their equivalent of PBS or something.
Mark
Redfern: Weren’t you voted the best band of the year
in one of their music magazines over there?
Johnny
Quaid: Yeah. It’s called OOR which means Hear. It
made number one for however many weeks.
Danny Cash: Looking back, man, that feels like years and years ago.
Patrick Callahan: I feel like I was about twelve when that happened.
Johnny Quaid: Yeah, there was definitely a lot less hair in the band.
Mark Redfern: So I wanted to ask...are you [Danny] related to Johnny Cash in
any way?
Johnny
Quaid: It’s a good story. [laughs]
Danny
Cash: If it’s true...from what I understand he is my grandfather’s
second cousin or something like that. It’s distant. I don’t
know if he would know me if I ever met him.
Patrick
Callahan: Hi Johnny Cash. You don’t know me but I’m
related to you. [everybody laughs]
Mark
Redfern: But you’ve never met him or anything?
Danny
Cash: I’ve never met him but I would like too. I would really like
too. I’ve never met him though.
Mark
Redfern: So what’s playing in your tour van? What
are you all listening to?
Danny
Cash: Everybody’s got their own CD player. There are few bands that
we all like, but everybody’s got their own tastes. In the bands CD
player Shuggie Otis has been playing a lot. The Rise and Fall and Ziggy
Stardust. Yeah, we were all listening to that the other day. Zeppelin and
the Stones.
The Flaming
Lips.
Mark Redfern: Have you heard the [Flaming Lips] re-issues that have been put
out?
Patrick
Callahan: Yes. They’re awesome. I love that band. Beck is another
one I like and I can’t believe they are backing him up. That is just awesome.
We listen to all sorts of stuff. Just the other day we were listening to Curtis
Mayfield. I don’t know. All sorts of stuff.
Danny
Cash: When you’re on tour and you get in the van everyone just wants
to chill out because you’ve been listening and playing music all through
the soundcheck and then you’re playing the show and then you’re hearing
other people play and then there’s house music and people talking. So by
the time you get back to the van you just want to chill out. And then this guy
[Patrick] puts in a CD and it’s just the loudest music you’ve ever
heard. [everybody laughs] He’s all beatin’ on the back of the
seats with his hands and stuff.
Patrick Callahan: Yeah, I get into it.
Danny
Cash: Yeah. We played this one show and it was really loud
and we just wanted to calm down after it so this guy puts
on some kind of death metal.
It was hilarious. [more laughter] Yeah. He’s got a walkman now.
Mark
Redfern: So we just got a few more questions because I
know you guys have to get out there and play. How did you
guys get your name? It’s
kind of an unusual name.
Johnny
Quaid: Tom. That’s your specialty.
Two-Tone Tommy: Yes it is.
Johnny
Quaid: We all have specialties. If you want to ask about
Danny’s
shoes Patrick can help you out with that. I’m your guy if you want to ask
about tractors. Tom’s is the band name.
Two-Tone Tommy: What about Pacific Coast Highway?
Johnny
Quaid: That’s another one. For some reason Patrick's
friends have given him a new nickname, Pacific Coast Highway.
Patrick
Callahan: I don’t know. You can’t ask about those things.
There’s no logical explanation for it.
Johnny
Quaid: O.K. Band name paraphrased is....there’s an
old burned down strip joint in Lexington, Kentucky and
Jim was going to the University
of Kentucky
at the time and he found this old smoking jacket in the rubble I guess
and he picked it up and took it home and wrote My Morning
Jacket on it. He was
probably
pretty high. Hopped up on something. Just like right now.
[They go on telling jokes and such and somehow they end
up talking about a Strokes video]
Patrick
Callahan: Did you guys see that Strokes video where they’re
playing family feud?
Danny Cash: Little known fact. They actually played the game. The Strokes vs.
Guided By Voices and Guided By Voices beat the Strokes. But they had to edit
the video so it looked like the Strokes won.
Marcus
Kagler: That’s not fair at all. I would have been
pissed. [all laugh]
Patrick Callahan: O.K. We got to get ready here in a minute. But we probably
have time for one more question.
[singer Jim James enters the room]
Jim James:
Hey guys. Sorry I couldn’t make it. I had an emergency
situation I had to take care of.
Danny
Cash: They’ve been entertaining. It’s not a
problem.
Marcus
Kagler: Alright. The last question. It’s all you.
Mark Redfern: Oh, O.K. How would you like to be remembered in twenty years?
