You have slowly built Conspirator’s live show as well and returned to many clubs that the Disco Biscuits outgrew. Is it easier to grow a band the second time around?
It’s so much fun to go back into the clubs. I’ve not wanted to play these clubs for years. For so many years all I’ve wanted to do was get bigger and bigger and bigger—I wanted to play the next size room. So much of it is a perception that your band is continually getting bigger, and how important the perception is. It is important to the guys in the band even—to make them continue doing what they are doing. There is this mentality: We have to play Red Rocks, we have to headline the Tweeter Center, we have to do this, we have to do that. Last week we went and we played The Brockley in Philadelphia with Conspirator, which holds like 700 people. It is a little bar. But you can control the stage and the crowd. It’s a pleasure to go back and play these little places. I don’t think I would enjoy it as much with the Biscuits because the Biscuits have outgrown that. For me it makes sense for a new band to be playing the club circuit. It’s just fun to have something where the expectations are different and where it’s like if we do 500 people it’s a gigantic success, where it’s like with the Biscuits if we do 5,000 people it’s a gigantic success.
We always want to have gigantic successes and for the most part we do—we’ve had a very fortunate career, We did almost 7,000 people at Red Rocks [in May].That was one of those career defining moments—life defining moments. But coming in and playing, a 500 person place and selling it out is a whole different kind of excitement. It’s like chemicals come out of your brain and into your bloodstream and you feel the same. It’s like the excitement of doing 300 people at Wetlands in 1997 is the same as the excitement of doing a 3,000 people at Camp Bisco in 2002 and it’s the same excitement as doing 15,000 people last year. It’s just about it growing. Average success feels the same on every level or scale; the scalability of success. We’re going out on an 18-show fall tour, and the Biscuits are going on a 19-show amphitheatre tour in August and then Conspirators going on an 18-show club theatre tour in September. These two things are equally rewarding in completely different ways and on completely different levels.
With the Disco Biscuits, on Identity we’re gonna play Deer Creek, Lakewood, the Gorge, Starlake Amphitheatre, and Susquehanna Bank Center. It’s just going to be an incredible experience and we’re looking forward to hanging out with Rusko and Kaskade, getting to know these people, Steve Aoki. We are already friends with Pretty Lights but we have never done a tour with him so that is going to be nice as well.
Given that you will be playing primarily to electronic music fans on the Identity tour, do you plan to focus on the Biscuits’ more electronic songs?
I don’t know if we’re going to come out on stage and play “Eulogy” or “Kitchen Mitts,” but to a certain extent we have to play our songs. We’re a jamband. To a certain extent, Conspirator would fit better on Identity Tour than the Biscuits, but nobody knows who Conspirator is yet. I think there’s gonna be a lot of Biscuit fans at these shows, and I’m hoping that you’re average fan of music will check us out.
If they’re expecting 10,000-15,000 people a night, if one out of four in Indianapolis all of a sudden becomes a fan of the Biscuits because they’re fans of music and we do what we do best and don’t try to cater too much and just be ourselves, then we’re increasing our fan base in Indianapolis substantially. And if you’re talking about Dallas and Houston, same deal—if we can make 2,500 new fans there, we’re increasing our fan base dramatically at these places. It actually isn’t hitting our biggest markets, like Denver, Chicago, Boston, Saratoga Springs or Hartford. All the places where the Disco Biscuits are big. We’ve never been to Albuquerque and we are playing there. We’ve been to Houston 3 times in our career and Dallas 3 times in 15 years. We’ve played New York 200 times, we’ve played Dallas 3.
To bring things full circle, after Camp Bisco and the Identity tour, what does the rest of your year look like?
Conspirator is following up Identity Tour with a full 3 week tour. In 2011, the Biscuits decided we were gonna take the year off, and we’ve actually ended up playing a lot for our year off. We ended up playing around 42 shows, which isn’t really a year off after all. It’s not an 80 show year, but most years we’re only playing 60 shows, so we’re playing two thirds of what we would play in a normal year this year. This was our year off [laughter]. So we’re taking the whole fall off. As soon as Identity Tour is done, we’re shutting it down until the end of the year. We haven’t really gotten to start to talk about what we’re gonna do after that—if we hadn’t played Identity Tour it would have been a true year off where we played 20 shows or so. But when something like Identity Tour comes along, you don’t turn it down. It definitely changed the scope of what 2011 was supposed to be for the Biscuits which was, make an album, release the album, and then take a year off. But I’m glad that we have an album coming out soon and I’m glad that we have a tour coming up to coincide with it. I think it’s really great to get out and get in front of people. Obviously, I love touring the most of anybody in my band—I never want to stop. I’m playing probably 130 shows this year.
And that is your year off.
Well, I’m 38 years old. This isn’t exactly the time to chill—I haven’t hit retirement age yet. I wake up and I work, that’s what I do. I take a few breaks during the day to spend time with my children and work on music the rest of the day—balancing 3 children and 2 bands and a non-profit organization [HeadCount] is a lot. Plus, I am producing 3-4 artists and working on the management side with a few bands like Nicos Gun. So with all the different projects we have going on there’s not a ton of time to nurse your headache.
No Comments comments associated with this post