Do you plan to make videos for other songs off Planet Anthem?
We are hoping to make ten videos, and “You and I” is our third or fourth, depending on how you’re counting. We have a few more in the barrel that are going to come out with this album. Content is a big part of what we’re doing right now. We have a lot of remixes, and we weren’t sure exactly how to get them out. Our management had this really interesting idea—instead of waiting and putting the album out and then putting these remixes out—they suggested we put out these EPs before the album comes out. They are almost like mix tapes. So it’s backwards of the way people have traditionally been doing this in the jamband world. In the hip hop world people do this shit all the time.
I feel like the process we’ve been going through—where we’ve been introducing the songs one bit at a time over the course of a six-month period—is almost like a mystery being solved or a puzzle being solved. It’s getting pieced together. It is almost like the way we released the “Hot Air Balloon” opera in 1999. We introduced the songs one at a time and some people could tell there were certain themes, but it wasn’t until we played the opera on New Year’s Eve that people got the full scope of what was going on.
That’s interesting because with this album you are not just introducing new songs to fans, but venturing into entirely new genres like hip hop. The way you are releasing these songs is almost setting the stage all the genres Planet Anthem presents.
You know, I really like what Damon Dash did with the Black Keys on Blakroc [having different guest rappers record live vocals over blues-rock studio jams]. We’ve been talking to Damon recently about doing some recordings and definitely some remixes. I was in the studio with him recently, and he introduced me to Ski—he’s a legendary producer, and he was asking me for the stems of three of our songs because he wants to whip out some remixes. We’re planning on dropping a mix tape this year too. And I can’t even imagine what “On Time” and “Loose Change” are going to sound like.
Ski and Mos Def put out a track yesterday, and it was on the front of every hip hop site that was out there. Twisted Dee just got nominated for a bunch of Grammys last week and, at the same time, he’s putting the final touches on his “On Time” club remix. We just got out of practice—we were practicing the New Year’s countdown and Jon [Gutwillig] said, “2009 was a year for a bunch of firsts for us: the first time we headlined Red Rocks, the first time one of our songs got in rotation on radio, the first time a song’s video got put into rotation on mtvU…”
2009 is only a couple days more, but I don’t even know what’s going to happen between now and the end of it. Shit’s been happening so fast for us. So much has happened, and developments have happened—opportunities for collaboration—in the last couple of months, so I’m interested to see what’s happened next because “On Time” is going to start getting worked in the clubs. At the same time some of these songs are going to get remixed into hip hop songs. So we’re working this album in the electronic music scene, in the hip hop scene, in the rock scene and to straight AAA radio. We have such a good team since we signed onto Red Light and they know how to operate in the 21st century.
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