Conspirator’s new live album Unlocked – Live From the Georgia Theatre came out a few weeks ago. The disc captures a performance by the group from October 6, 2011 in Athens. In conjunction with this release, we asked our readers to pass along questions for the group’s Marc Brownstein. Most of these focused on Conspirator, although a few veered into Disco Biscuits realm, with a stray Electron query as well. Brownstein was quite generous with his time and answered many of these.
Conspirator has a variety of festival gigs on the horizon, but before then will perform shows later this week, starting on May 10 at the Howard Theatre in Washington, DC followed by performances on May 11 at the Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville and on May 12 at The Norva in Norfolk, VA.
A number of folks asked some variation of this question: “Do you ever get exhausted from Facebook or Twitter?”
No. When I got exhausted from it I stopped using it for five months. When I’m using it, I’m not exhausted. I enjoy being in touch. I remember an artist writing a letter to [Bob] Lefsetz with something along the lines of, “Some of us just have a need to be connected to other people. It’s a part of who we are for better or for worse.” I just have this basic need to be a part of this web of people. I make sure I answer people when they reach out to me. Along with trying to be a good musician, I’m trying to be a good person.
Are you concerned that you role as a musician might just get swallowed up by the other side of things in terms of time and energy?
No, because it’s not like that. It’s not like you’re sitting on Facebook the whole time or sitting on Twitter. I wonder that about other people. I go on Twitter and I’m like “How does Deadmau5 or Porter Robinson or any of these guys have any time to make music?” Yet, they make more music than anybody, because it only takes four seconds to make a tweet. We’re not sitting thinking about what we’re going to say next. It pops into your head and you’re like, “I want to write that. I want to share that with people.” And then you share it and move on with your life and keep doing things. It’s not like we’re sitting in an office, bored out of our skulls and need to occupy our time by sifting through Facebook all day. I’ll go a couple of weeks without reading the newsfeed. For me it’s communicating my thoughts and answering questions I get from fans and moving on. I do it in breaks, that’s when you do it.
In terms of Deadmau5. what did you think of his Twitter battle with Madonna?
Somebody said to me the other day, I think [Aron] Magner said, “Man, Deadmau5 gets in trouble on Twitter more than you.” What he meant by that is Deadmau5 and I are similar in that we just don’t care. We’re not trying to be somebody that we’re not. Deadmau5 is just himself on Twitter. Sometimes he goes on and he’s like, “Guys, I’m having a nervous breakdown. I need a break.” Whatever it is, he just says what he thinks. It’s the best. There are so many artists out there that aren’t like that. They’re just trying to make an image of who they are. That’s fine too, it’s definitely a part of artistry, image. But, to me it’s just like be yourself.
These days it often feels like creating an image is a part of a bygone era.
It does feel a little bit that way because you have so much more of an in-the-moment connection with all the different artists in the world via Twitter and Facebook. I didn’t do Twitter for a while because I watched some people talking to each other and I just didn’t figure out the use for it. Our fans weren’t really on it in mass droves. I couldn’t figure out how to get in on the conversation. And then I realized, mainly what this is just famous people talking to each other and other people watching. Every once in a while other people respond and if you’re cool then you respond back to them. Deadmau5 responds to a lot of people, all those guys. That’s why I love following them because they’re real dudes. That’s what you love, that’s what’s ingratiating at this point. That’s what’s special about the relationships that we’re able to build. Most of these kids, I don’t really know them. Maybe they don’t really know me, but I hope they do. I want them to know what they’re getting. What you see is what you get. For better or for worse.
Here’s another one that few people sent in: As you listen back, In terms of the Conspirator live release, what most surprised you and what most impressed you?
What most surprised me was that it was fucking awesome. Listen, I love the stuff when I’m up on stage, but it’s been a long time since we sat down and listened to every single note of what we played. Conspirator is a different kind of band. We’re a studio band. I’ve heard all these tracks a million times in the studio, our studio versions of them. But by the time we got to the Georgia Theater we had played a lot of shows and we started to really gel as a four-piece. Which is the same situation we’re in with KJ [Sawka] now. We’ve played a lot of shows with him and it’s really starting to gel. Going back and listening to this, for one it just sounded so good. My first thought was, “Wow, this sounds good enough to be a CD. Maybe we should do something with this and make a bigger deal out of it than doing nothing or not releasing it.”
I think what I liked most about it was the consistency of the play throughout the entire show. It was all of our bangers, there wasn’t a down point in this particular show. Not that there’s a lot of down points in a Conspirator show, but sometimes the setlist we choose will be mellow or more jamband oriented or we’ll play older stuff from The Key. If we play three or four of those songs in a row it’s still electronic, but it’s a little more jammy. It’s not electro-house. The thing about this particular disc is, much like The Key which was made in 2004 out of popular styles of electronic music of that time, this has a lot of popular styles of electronic music of this current time. Electro-house and dare I say it has some dubstep on it.
I don’t want to scare people off by using the wrong word. I have kids that say, “I hate dubstep” after a Conspirator show, but they won’t be talking about Conspirator. And they’ll be like, “That show was incredible!” We’ll talk and they say they hate dubstep. “Well do you know we played four dubstep songs?” When you put instruments over it, it’s just hard rock. Once you add all the instruments into it, it starts to sound like heavy metal, which is what it is. Dubstep is the heavy metal of electronic music. When you put instruments on it, it sounds like heavy metal and people aren’t scared away by that in our scene. It’s all these styles of current music melded together. To me it was just like, “This is it. We’re doing something here. This isn’t our side project right now. This is good!” That was what I thought.
In terms of heavy metal and those other styles, it seems like Chris Michetti is well suited for Conspirator, given with what he’s done and where his head is at. Can you talk about his evolution with the band?
It’s been a two-way evolution. It’s been us reining him in, in terms of his soloing vibe. From the very start with the Biscuits it was like, “We need to teach you what we do so that you can do it with us. So it won’t be three guys doing one thing and another soloing on top.” Because that’s the whole thing about what we do, it’s not a solo. It’s a locomotive. It’s a steam train. Everyone’s chugging along together making one sound.
When we first started we talked about this a lot. There were a lot of long nights, until seven or eight in the morning. Just talking in the back of the bus. Talking about music, talking about theory, playing examples, singing it. At first he was trying to fit in. Then little by little he started to bring in his own thing into it, bringing it back around to where he’s bringing in his influences. He also taught us so much. He’s a master of synthesizing sounds in the studio. He’s made Aron [Magner] and I such better producers. I’m a songwriter, but he’s taught me how to be a producer. So there’s been a combinations of his influence in the studio and our influence in the live performance. It’s come together to make this whole entire new sound. It’s cool to me that we’re going out as a new band with all new songs. That’s daunting. After 16 years of being in a band and having all of these fans that love it and just want to hear those songs.
Can you imagine the Grateful Dead, not saying we’re anything like the Grateful Dead, but can you imagine if Bobby and Phil decided to get together and just write all new songs and go out and tour on that? I’ll tell you where they wouldn’t be playing: MSG, that’s for sure….or maybe they would, Bobby and Phil are pretty much geniuses. But, I gotta imagine that there would be some backlash from the Dead fans if they went out and didn’t play one Dead song. We play a couple Biscuits songs, we intersperse. And the Biscuits play a bunch of Conspirator songs so maybe that’s why we get away with it. Because kids know “Orch Theme” and “Commercial Amen” and “Liquid Handcuffs” and “Boom Shanker.” So maybe we’re getting away with it a little bit, because of that one aspect.
It’s a daunting thing going out and trying to launch a whole new project with all new music. I think it’s a beautiful thing when we get to the end of this two year process and we see the growth and we see the fans starting to come around. Even today on Facebook one kid wrote to me, “Just finished listening. Good shit brownie. I’ve been on the line with Conspirator, but this is pretty epic.” That’s what we’re starting to get from the Biscuit fans. I was in Tahoe the other day and there was a lot of resistance to Conspirator. And it was expected. We have to persevere through that. There’s a lot of online resistance because we’ll show up and there will be 550 people there on a Wednesday night in New Haven and they’re going nuts. Zach from STS9 said this to me in New Mexico, “You know there’s four thousand people at the show going nuts, but if you read the internet you would think every single one of them hated it.” It’s like, “Where are these haters? I’m looking out in the crowd…”
That’s why you have to be grounded in reality. The internet is a part of reality, but it’s not the whole picture. This kid in Tahoe said to me, “Man, thank you so much for coming out here still even though the Biscuits aren’t touring right now. We really appreciate it. We’re starved for Biscuits out here.” And that’s so nice to hear because so many times people are like, “Fuck you for playing with Conspirator, bring the Biscuits back.” He pointed at the stage and said, “That did not suck.” Thanks man. I saw it in his eyes. He did an entire Disco Biscuits tour with his girlfriend a few years ago and they live out in Tahoe and barely get to see us anymore. And I could see them freaking out during the show. It makes it all worth it, even if it’s just one fan. It’s why the experience of knowing your fans is so special. It makes it so meaningful to know the people a little bit, because it puts everything into perspective. Who is that person? How much has he dedicated to my career over the years? What’s he getting out of it, despite the fact that it’s a different band?
In terms of your fans’ frustration, do you find that bittersweet?
I don’t find it bitter. I find it sweet. It’s all sweet. To me, all hate is love. All of the internet hate is love. You have to know that or you can’t survive mentally. You’re going to quit your band if you don’t know that. You’re going to crack. If you don’t know that the hate is love then you’re going to crack. It’s what it is. I’m sure that some of the kids from PT Phish think it’s funny to hate on the Biscuits. Whatever. But when it’s your fans saying, “That show sucked,” it’s because they have super high expectations and that’s what you want them to have. If they don’t have high expectations then you haven’t been delivering the goods.
Some asked, “To what extent does Aron surprise you every night or is that not the goal? Is the goal to anticipate each other’s move?” (Jay G.)
Well, we don’t know what the goal is yet. It’s so young – Conspirator’s been around for seven years – but, the new wave of Conspirator is so young that it has to be considered a new band. We haven’t figured that all out yet. We’ve been thinking at some point we’re going to drop the computers and play all instrumental. We don’t know exactly where the winds are going to blow.
“With Conspirator, is it the same intent as when you started? If not, how is it different and where is it at today?” (Ron H.)
The other day there was this study saying that music is similar to sex in the type and amount of pleasure that you receive. A musical climax is akin to a sexual climax in the chemical release in the body – in your head. They said it’s just a chemical thing. They said that the anticipation of this musical release also gets you high. So, really, that’s the purpose of any art: to connect with the listener, to connect with the viewer. To have some sort of emotional connection with them. I think that’s the goal whether it’s the Disco Biscuits or Conspirator. That was the goal then and that’s the goal now. It hasn’t changed. In terms of the ultimate goal, it’s about an emotional connection. It’s about taking a person to a place where their brain releases chemicals that make them feel good. We want the endorphins to come out and the serotonin to be released, naturally. Which we know it does. You hear so many people say, “I went to last night’s show. I was completely sober and it was incredible!” Yeah, because you weren’t completely sober. You were high on the music.
A few people wanted to know if you feel that Conspirator is best served by having a rotating series of drummers or a more permanent lineup?
We’re trying to keep KJ as our permanent drummer for as long as we possibly can because we like the way that the hang is and we like the way that he plays. The key is – there are three major components: Does the person play like the best drummer out there? Does the person hang out with us and is it awesome when we hang? And, are they completely available? Those are the three components. It would be hard if Rob [Swire] and Garreth [McGrillen] suddenly said, “Tomorrow that we’re going on an eight week Pendulum tour,” but they seem pretty wrapped up in Knife Party right now. You’ve got the two main guys in a band that’s blowing up, that’s potentially even bigger than Pendulum right now. It’s just two of them. I think they’re really enjoying that; they’re two young guys and they see the way that the scene is going.
So KJ has been available all year. One of the things about KJ and Michetti is that they both have their solo projects. We want to find a way to solidify that drummer lineup, while still advancing Michetti and KJ’s solo projects and help them spread their music by being in Conspirator. But, at the same time, we want to solidify it. The truth of the matter is it’s still going to be the four of us with KJ through the rest of this year. I think we’re pretty solidified. It’s definitely going to show in the music, people are making comments. Someone said to me at Rock N Roll Resort that “tonight was the best Conspirator show I’ve ever seen…up until then last night was the best Conspirator show I’d ever seen.”
I think that what I’m seeing is that every Conspirator show is better than Conspirator a year ago. The whole thing has been elevated to a new level by playing 150 shows. You want your band to be good? Go on tour. Play every night. That’s how you get good. You can practice. I’m not saying you shouldn’t get into the studio and practice as well, you should. But if you really want to be good, book 150 shows and tour the country. That’s how you get good. By the end of those shows you’ll start to get some fans…
How do you choose which Biscuits songs get into the Conspirator repertoire?
I think the most interesting and best parts of the Conspirator are, by far, when we’re not playing a Biscuits song. I still love when we play the Biscuits songs, but there’s a little bit of nostalgia there. I’m doing it because I like to play those songs. I miss playing them. I’m not necessarily doing it for the fans. It’s based on what song I feel like playing. We’re picking songs that Aron and I wrote. We’ve played a couple of songs that the whole band put together, but we’ve tried to drop those out because we don’t want there to be any weirdness about that.
The Biscuits are supposed to be complementary. We play “Park Ave,” “Portal,” “Mirrors,” just sprinkle a couple of them in. KJ’s wife was in the hospital for a few days and he had to leave tour and Allen [Aucoin, Biscuits drummer] was opening up for us and he played that show. So that night we put in a few more songs. But if I’m going to teach KJ a song at this point, we prefer for it to be a new Conspirator song.
Speaking of the Biscuits, many people wanted to hear about the Disco Biscuits’ upcoming plans. What do you see for the Biscuits in 2012?
It’s been 16 years. When you’ve been a band for that long and you hit a year like 2008-2009 where you incessantly tour and party like you’re 22 years old because you’re on the road constantly, you eventually get wrapped up in that unless you’re really good about it, which we weren’t. There comes a point where if you don’t take a break it’s going to end. Or maybe you’ll end it and then get back together. We’ve always been wary, for better or worse, of the band that quits and then gets back together. And wary of going on hiatus. That’s a word we don’t like. Why? Because we change our mind a lot. We don’t like to say that we’re not going to play shows in 2012 because you can damn well bet we’ll play some. I imagine we’ll play a New Year’s run. I know that we’re playing Mayan Holidaze because that’s announced. I’d be really surprised if they were not some other shows to be played by the end of the year because we all like playing those songs.
We all like playing concerts. It’s just a matter of are we driving the ship into an iceberg. You don’t want to hit an iceberg and sink. Sometimes you’ve gotta hit the brakes and take a breath. That’s as a diplomatic answer as I can give. In terms of everybody getting along it’s fine. Barber said, “I need a break. I need to take some time off from the road.” He said this last year and we ended up playing 45 shows because we put pressure on him. Opportunities always come up and we end up taking them and then you don’t get your year off. So where we’re at right now, we’re legitimately taking a year off. We got to the end of that year and we were like, “Well that didn’t work. Okay, we’re not doing anything. Hank, don’t book any shows. Don’t even tell us about the offers. We don’t want to know.”
So we’ll play Camp Bisco, Mayan Holidaze and some other stuff. We’ve taken a deep enough of a breath, we feel like we’re ready to get back together and really start to make some meaningful music. This way, the shows have been phenomenal. You ask fans, Mayan Holidaze was phenomenal. And the New Year’s Run was ridiculous. I think that’s a product of taking off September, October, November, December. We took those four months off and we were recharged and refreshed. We weren’t ready to go on the road, but we were ready to play some great shows and have it be magical. That’s the thing, when we got there it was magical. It feels great. We’re on the right path. So we’ll just stick with this break, not pressure anyone to play any shows they don’t want to play. And, quite honestly, when Jon says he wants to play we’re all ready to play. We want everybody to be ready. That’s what I want, everybody to be ready.
“What did you take away from the Identity Festival?” (Dave M.)
It was really cool. Some nights were so incredible like the most triumphant experiences we’ve ever had. And some nights it was just like, “What are we doing here?” And that’s where we were. I was like, “Why are we doing this? This is totally the wrong thing to be doing.” Then we would get to the night where it was the right thing and we’d be like, “This is why we’re doing it.” I’m a musician. I’m an artist. I’m an emotional wreck. Everyone knows that, whatever. You better have emotions if you want to make good art. I wear it a little bit on the sleeve. There were nights where it was like, “God, this is the best.” We were in San Diego playing for a dubstep crowd and it was going over incredibly. There were 10,000 people there and it was like, “This is why we did Identity tour, for a market like San Diego.” It was also in Philly. It was also in Garden State Art Center. Then there were spots that were like, “Well we’re in a 25,000 person venue and there’s 4,000 people here” split between three stages and nobody was having a big show. It was a really weird tour, to be on a Tuesday at Deer Creek. I think that they know that and I think I saw an announcement that it looks like they’re doing it pared down.
How familiar do you think most of those audiences were with your music? How many new faces were you playing for?
It really depended on where we were. In Albuquerque nobody was familiar, but that was really cool. In Dallas, it was a huge jamband crowd. It was a Sunday night in Dallas. Sound Tribe Sector 9 had played two nights at Stubbs in Austin. Pretty Lights had just joined the tour two nights before that. All the stars were aligned. When we got on stage it was like, “Whoa, what’s going on here? Why does everyone seem to know what we’re doing?” It was super cool. After the show I was like, “Why are all you guys here?” And people were like, “Sound Tribe was close and Pretty Lights were here.” It was a little more our crowd. I want to get in front of the kids that are not our crowd.
Right, I assume that’s why you did the tour.
Yeah, I’m not sure that they were sold at first… a lot of it was like, “What’s that thing you’re holding?” It’s a guitar. Check at your grandfather’s house. There might be one in the attic. It’s an ancient instrument (laughs).
Some wanted to hear about balancing fatherhood with the life of a touring musician? “Do your kids enjoy the music? How do they influence your music?”
The kids love the music. My daughter doesn’t like it as much as my sons. My kids love electro and dubstep. They’re really into Conspirator. Zach was into the Biscuits a couple of years ago and then he started getting into Justin Bieber and stuff like that. We just try to let them like whatever they want to like and not push our music on them. We don’t take them on tour. They come to Mayan Holidaze, they come to Camp Bisco. They’ve been to Jamaica. If they have to miss some school to go to Mayan Holidaze then they have to miss some school.
We were talking the other day and my son said, “We never get to go anywhere” and I was like, “Really? How many times have you been to Jamaica? How many times have you been to Mexico?” You get to go to a lot of places. You’re not going to the arcade right now, big deal.
I read something in Bass Player magazine once, Les Claypool said, “When you go on tour you don’t get to see them at all, but when you come home you’re with them all the time all day, every day.” There’s a lot of work to do when we’re building a band like Conspirator but, he’s right. You get to see your kids more than anybody who has a nine to five job. I don’t get a two week vacation every year. I get 30 weeks of vacation. And in that time I’m my own boss. So I figure out when to work and I do it after my kids go to sleep.
Alpha Data, who’s this glitch-hop artist I’m managing right now, asked me if I ever sleep. And I was like, “Yeah, I sleep eight hours every night.” He said, “Well it seems like you never, ever sleep. You’re always talking to me on the phone, or you’re on Facebook, or Twitter, or in the studio, on tour, you always seem to be working.” I go to sleep at 3 o’clock when I’m home and I try to get up by 10 or 11. I go dark when it’s really dark and I wake up at a normal time for a musician. I like it like that.
How did you come to manage him?
Well you look at a guy like Ozzie Guillen or really any baseball manager. All those guys were players. All the coaches in the NBA were players. Why is it that these players go on to be coaches or managers? In sports, you get to that point where you can’t play anymore so you have to find another job. Musicians don’t have that. You could be like the Grateful Dead and play for your entire life until it’s over. It’s incredible. I aspire to do that. B.B. King, is 88 years old and plays 200 shows a year, you know what I mean? I aspire to play forever, but the reason those guys become coaches is because they learn the game inside and out. Who’s better qualified to become a coach than someone who knows the game inside and out. I’ve been doing this for 16, 17 years; I’ve learned the game. I’d like to learn a little bit more about licensing and publishing. I’ve definitely produced and released records by myself. I produced the Progressions DVD that won the Jammys a couple of years ago. I produced the Wind at Four to Fly CD. For a couple of years it was my personal job to be in charge of the record label. I know how to produce an album. I know how to release it. I know the ins and outs of that, but I’ve never gotten that deep into publishing. The music industry changes so fast, the technology. You have to always be on top of it and learning it.
I’ve managed Conspirator for many years. Jon and I have managed the Biscuits on and off. I feel like I have the connections and relationships and the ability to help an artist along if I find someone that I really believe in. That’s the hard part: Finding someone you really believe in who doesn’t already have management. That’s the tricky part of being a manager. Alpha Data came to me through Facebook. There are many people who send me links to their songs and say, “What do you think?” There are so many that come in, it’s hard to sift through them all. About a year and a half ago I started listening because I decided it was time to help out another artist. It occurred to me that maybe managing wouldn’t be a bad thing to do. And he was one of the first ones I listened to, his name was Photosynthesizer at the time. That was one of the first orders of business, changing his name. I’m not sure if we have a better name, but at least it’s not a trademark violation. I was like “Wow, I’m a great manager. Dude you can’t have this name.” A lot of my fans are fans of theirs I figured that out in like 14 seconds.
I was blown away by this guy’s production. It was incredible. I thought, “This guy is going to be huge. I want to help him advance his career.” He opened for the Biscuits on New Year’s Eve. It was really fun taking him, getting him a sick spot, getting him in some festivals. We released one of his EPs and it went to number one in his genre on Beatport.
And then there’s Michetti. He has his dubstep project. I manage that and that is absolutely ridiculous. It’s just starting to gain traction in the dupstep world. We haven’t released anything, but we put out an exclusive on dubstep.net and I just got an email from them today saying, “We’re getting so much positive feedback on Michetti ’s stuff.” Our fans aren’t the biggest dubstep people. It’s tricky for me. It would be easy for me to help somebody that’s making the same music as me. But, somebody who’s making music that my fans aren’t into, now that I have to actually manage. I can’t just pass him along to my fans. I have to figure out how to break him into the genre that he’s playing music in. That’s a lot harder than being like, “Hey, fans. Check this out.” But, that’s what I’m learning. You have to actually manage your artists if you want to take them on. It’s a responsibility. It’s a lot of work, but it’s really rewarding. It’s really fun. We got them great agents. Who knows where that’s going to go…
“In terms of Conspirator’s original songs, do the names inspire the songs or the songs inspire the name? How does that come about?” (Sarah F.)
A lot of the time it starts out as” electro track 13.” You just go for it like that and then at the end you’re like “What am I going to name this?” I find it’s much more meaningful when the name and the song are attached. In electronic music it’s not always easy to do that. For example, “Feed The Wolf” I named right when I started making it. The reason I named it that was because that morning I was listening to a lot of Feed Me, a lot of Wolfgang Gartner and that’s where I was drawing my inspiration from. I’m going to make a track today in the vein of Feed Me meets Wolfgang Gartner. I just went into the file and wrote Feed the Wolf and it stuck. It doesn’t always stick.
“Portal to an Empty Head” for instance, I was listening to a Portishead song in the car. That’s where the inspiration came for the name of that song. I was listening to the track, I went inside and I had the beat in my head. I opened up the file and as I was walking through the kitchen to go to the studio I heard a chord progression of a song that was being played on the radio in my house. And I put the two together. I opened up my computer and that’s what was in my head at the time. That beat and those two chords. I went in and starting writing the intro to the song. And then you have to “save” or risk losing it all. Another Brownie tip: always save.
When I was saving it, it makes you name the track so I was thinking Portishead and I named it “Portal to an Empty Head.” It’s funny because that’s what “Portal to an Empty Head” is. I just broke up Portis into Portal and I put Head at the end and threw some words in the middle just to name the track. So many people have been, “’Portal to an Empty Head’ means this or it’s like a trip or there’s a blank space where my mind should be” you know. Somebody handed me a sticker a Phish show that said “Got a blank space where my mind should be” [from “Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan”] so I know the line. But, whatever it is, so many people have come to me and been like “This is what ‘Portal to an Empty Head’ is about. Is it about this? Is it about that time?” And really all it is was that moment of inspiration. Something inspires you for the name and then the name actually inspires the song. There the lyrics came out of the title. The concept of “Portal to an Empty Head,” I wrote the lyrics around that. But, it was really just a placeholder because I wanted to remember Portishead was where I got the inspiration for the song.
“Do you plan to record a studio album with Conspirator” (Greg S.)?
I would love to. Since the studio stuff is so different from the live show we wanted to do a live album first. I want people to hear what they’re going to hear when they come to a show. That was my purpose here. If we really wanted to break into the electronic music scene, the road does not lead to these hi-fidelity records. I’m not an idiot, I get it. You don’t break into Beatport with hi-fidelity, it’s not the path. We are heavily inspired by true electro music and we’re making true electro music and we’re remixing Porter Robinson, doing all this. We are doing things that EDM fans are currently enjoying. But, if we put that out as an album right now I feel like we’re not catering enough to the fanbase that we have and to what the show actually sounds like. So that was the hard thing for me: How do we get the fans to know what all this is going to sound like. So we’ll make a studio album at some point, but it was important for me for the fans to know what they’re going to get.
“Will we ever see Electron again?” (Dave L.)
Yes, we would like to do it. I called Joe Russo a couple of weeks ago to talk about it and we both agreed that the first weekend that we had available to even think about an Electron show would be in September. Two of the weekends have already been booked, by me for my band but I would like to do it.
We started doing Electron when I needed a band. I got kicked out of the Biscuits and I needed a band and I made Electron and I then got back in the Biscuits. The thing about Electron was that it was basically a replacement for the Biscuits. I don’t feel like we need that because the Biscuits don’t need to be replaced. If the Biscuits were to ever break-up I could see Electron doing a tour, just as a purpose to play those songs. When I play those Biscuits songs, I want to play them with Jon and Allen. No offense to Tommy [Hamilton] and Joe who are the best. If I’m going to go out and play the “Chemical Warfare Brigade” right now I would really want to be doing it with the Disco Biscuits. That’s my priority. If I’m going to be playing in another band that’s not Disco Biscuits I would want it to be its own thing. That’s why you haven’t seen Electron in a while. But for nostalgia purposes, and because the fans are begging, and because Tommy wants to do it, we’ll do it.
“In terms of Camp Bisco, to what extent do you see it as a responsibility in terms of introducing great new music to your fans, that might not otherwise know about?” (Kendall H.)
We always try to bring the best electronic music that we can possibly bring given our budget from the first Camp Bisco all the way until now. I know a lot of kids want us to put more bands on and more rock music, but really what it’s been about is the Biscuits and a ton of great electronic music. As our budget has expanded, we’ve been able to get the biggest guys in the country. We love that. We love that we can lay down the money and get the most absolutely massive, international lineup. And one of the coolest things about it is introducing new music to the fans. Sometimes it gets lapped up from the start before the band even gets to Camp Bisco. Sometimes they find out about it at Camp Bisco. Sometimes they hate on it incessantly for multiple years until they come around and start loving it. And sometimes they never love it. Those are all the scenarios.
I have to believe at this point that most of the artists you approach are familiar with the Biscuits, unlike the early days of Camp Bisco. Is that accurate?
I think everybody seems to know who we are at this point. Most of them don’t even like jamband music but a lot of the DJs are musicians too and they appreciate musicianship. When it comes down to it they might not know they like jamband music, but when they see the Biscuits they have an appreciation for the musicianship in the band because they’re musicians. So even if that’s not their style we usually get a lot of people who are blown away by what we’re trying to do and that we’re doing it live.
Pretty much at this point I’ll meet these guys at the festival and they’re like “Thank you for having us and we really appreciate that you guys have cultivated such an amazing event.” It’s a place that all these EDM stars want to come to now. It used to be hard to land people for the event. It was hard to get big stars because they we’re like “We don’t want to play before the Disco Biscuits” or “Who are the Disco Biscuits? I’ve never heard of this festival”
But now it’s this thing, everyone knows Camp Bisco. All of these artists are looking to get on it. It’s the festival in the Northeast that has Skrillex headlining. It’s had such a solid lineup for so many years now that it has a reputation all its own. As for the fans, half of them are there to see the Disco Biscuits and half of them don’t even know who we are. While that might offend some Biscuit fans, I just challenge them to remember back to when before they knew who the Biscuits were and allow other people to be exposed to what we are doing. That’s what this is all about. We don’t get on the radio. We don’t get on MTV barely ever. We don’t have the traditional methods of blowing up our music to the masses. As the New York Times pointed out a few years ago, this is the new radio, having your own festival is the new radio. It’s the new method by which bands with good organizations behind them are able to reach mass audiences. To me that’s the best part.
At this point Camp Bisco has blown up to its own thing. Dare I say we don’t even have to play it. Much like Jane’s Addiction doesn’t play Lollapalooza anymore. If the Biscuits ever break up, which we aren’t and I hope we never do, but if we do, we can still throw Camp Bisco. I’m sure we can grow it. If we find the right site it has an unlimited growth potential, just like Lollapalooza or any of these other festivals that do 8,000 people. The money is there. The reputation is there. The lineup has been great and as long as we’re in control of it, as long as we continue to love doing what we do we’re going to go out there and rip…
