Tonight in New York, STS9 will kick off its summer tour with an Axe The Cables acoustic show. This is just one of few acoustic performances slated for the summer after the band debuted its acoustic side in Denver this past December. The group has just released that performance via its 1320 Records. The band’s self-run label also fits into its upcoming tour plans, as in addition to headlining gigs, the band is facilitating a number of official After Parties featuring the artists on 1320. In the following conversation STS9 drummer Zach Velmer talk about the label, the tour, the scope of the band’s history and the majesty of the unknown.
Before we jump into the current album and tour, STS9 just raised 150,000 to build a house in New Orleans. What’s the next step there?
Where it stands right now is we raised the money and about three weeks ago I received an email from the Make It Right foundation with blueprints of about 10 different houses. We looked at those and chose a couple and we’re waiting to hear from Make It Right so we know which house is best for the family that will live there. As of right now it’s a waiting game.
We’ve been down to the 9th ward, we’ve seen the houses, we’ve been in the houses. So it’s been an ongoing process so I anticipate that we’ll be in it until the end. To be perfectly honest we’d love to get our hands dirty but I’m not quite sure if it’s like that. As much as we can be involved we love to be. It’s a cool thing.
Your tour opens in New York with an Axe The Cables show and you’re doing a number of them this summer after that initial acoustic show last December. You’ve also released an album from that first performance and one thing that struck me in listening to it was that you arranged one of your earliest songs for that performance. “Moonsocket” appears on your very first album, so I’m curious, if you ever listen back to Interplanetary Escape Vehicle and if so what you think of it today?
You know what’s so funny, I just started going through some of that older stuff. We were in the studio trying to compile old tracks that have never been released, and going back and listening to this stuff is like looking at your high school yearbook, looking back at what you were wearing in high school.
But music is such a powerful tool in the sense I can remember those moments. I can remember what we were thinking, I can remember the excitement, the naiveté of where we were at. I have to be honest, some of that stuff we’re over. But it’s also a reflection of who we are. It was a moment in time. So on Axe The Cables we totally reworked “Moonsocket” and right now I’m in Colorado on preproduction before summer tour and we’re reworking “Evasive” [Maneuvers]. Some of the songs still have energy, still work and are still relevant so we’re updating them to 2010 from where they were in 1997.
So many artists are touring these days and delivering interpretations of their earlier albums. Is that something you would consider, maybe rearranging it so that it suits your current sound?
The last time we played the Tabernacle we did 4 nights and one of the nights [12/30/07] the whole first set was Interplanetary Escape Vehicle in order. We planned it out more for the crowd but to be perfectly honest, I think only a few people got what we were actually doing. And that was a wake-up and interesting to us. I don’t think until we got off stage that people knew what it was that we did but I could be wrong
Back to Axe The Cables, what was the precipitating factor for you to deliver an acoustic show and were there any anxieties as you put it all together?
We’re done so much in the last 13 years. We always try to push it. We did the live PA, we’ve done this, we’ve done that and we thought, “What haven’t we done?” So the inspiration was just fueled by something new that we’d never done. And people always wanted us to do STS9 unplugged, so we kind of started playing with the idea and that’s where it spawned from. And yes, there was incredible anxiety in terms of how is this going to be received? We’re this rock electronic dance music kind of band and so when we started playing stuff and slowing things down or changing parts, we weren’t quite sure how it would be received. We had to change some things because the banging on a piano didn’t work out or the sustain on an acoustic guitar wasn’t the same as an electric guitar. All of these things we had to work around and from that it spawned a rejuvenation in terms of writing music again.
You see the thing is, that’s how we write music, so that’s what was kind of funny too. That’s how we wrote the songs but now we’re going back and really playing them that way. When we’re writing music, it’s not like we’re five in a room sitting on computers. Hunter might come in with a guitar line or come in with this idea and from there it’s full court game, anything’s possible after that. There’s no rhyme to the reason (laughs). We’ve been lucky in the sense that it just kind of happens and there’s a lot of music within the five band members.
So it’s been a really cool process and it’s been a continuation of actually writing new music and figuring out how to keep doing that as well as what we’re doing. It’s been super fun and super creative and we’re having a blast writing songs coming from acoustic guitar and brushes and a piano and vibes and a bass.
In terms of your creative output, there were a couple years between Artifact and Peaceblaster but then Ad Explorata came out right on its heels and surprised a number of people. I assume part of that is just the luxury of having your own label and being to release music as you see fit?
What’s so funny about Ad Explorata, is we were going to make an EP, that’s all we were going to do. And we were in the studio in the summertime playing all these festivals and coming home incredibly inspired and the EP was going to be released well before Ad Explorata but we didn’t finish it because we kept adding music. We wanted a snapshot of some songs that we were playing in February at these live PA shows. We didn’t want to get too far gone, we thought there were good songs and wanted to put them out.
Well we started recording that and from that we were inspired and we kept writing: “Phoneme” to “Oil& Water” to “Ad Explorata” to all this other stuff through the series of events that happened. That was really cool and even last night we were talking about a new album. So it’s a constant thing to keep us motivated and inspired and not getting lackadaisical and still writing music and pushing the envelope of what’s what fresh and taking that picture of where we’re at right now. It’s crazy. Given how long we’ve been going, we’re never going to be the new band but we keep pushing it and we keep having fun and we keep writing new music and there’s never really a dull moment.
Every time I connect with people who are not in the music industry and someone asks “What do you do?” I’ll explains, “Well, I play music…” and start getting into the whole conversation about how long I’ve been doing it how I’ve been doing it with the same five guys for a really long time and we’re still inspired, we still play music together and it’s still incredibly harmonious what we do on the road and off the road we hang out. It’s pretty epic to say the least that we are continually inspired and push each other.
It’s really cool because countless times in our past, we were lured in and sweet-talked by various record labels. Most of the time they would say, “We don’t really know what to do with you guys but you’re up and coming, you keep pulling in more crowds than the bands we sign and we want to sign you for a 6 album deal.” But it never felt right so we never signed. There were all these stipulations of what we could and couldn’t do and we wanted to be able to release music like we just did where we released three albums in a year. If you’re signed to record deal they would never let you do that. We wanted to be able to have that power and that ease: “This is our music and we want to be able to release what we want to.” So from that we decided we would do our own record label and from there people wanted to know what was up with 1320 and then people wanted to be on 1320, so in hindsight we looked it as a record label to release STS9 music and then it just kind of snowballed into something I don’t think we could have imagined.
But now we’re putting out music from new artists, fresh artists, young artists, electric artists and it’s a label run by artists, it’s run by us. It’s been a neat process and it’s lot of work but it’s been very fulfilling to watch these young artists come up and be able to open up for 2000-5000 people and rock a crowd and be able to have that opportunity. When it started out as that’s what we had to offer and it’s blossomed into a full-on record label, a full on roster. We throw 1320 parties so it’s a really neat that we’ve been able to facilitate kind of thing and then sit back and watching all the amazing artists that are under it.
1320 began just to facilitate putting out STS9 releases, and now you’re running a label and need to make both creative and business decisions not only about your own music but also about those of others. Does that ever become a bit of a drag, let’s say when you have to turn down a fellow musician who has put a lot of him or herself into a project?
100%. But it’s an interesting dynamic and then to see what come back sometimes is really neat as well. Some artists send you something and it might not be the right time but then down the road they come back and you’re like, “Whoah look at that!” It’s not quite like being a papa but it’s a cool place to be and you’re looking at these guys who are 20 years old and are killing it. So it kind of shows you where music is at right now. It’s a fun position to be in.
How do the five of you divide up the responsibilities at 1320?
As silly as it might sound, it all just comes together. In STS9, I play drums and Phipps plays keyboards and it all just presents itself, the roles just happen. When it comes to the label, for instance, Phipps is really web savvy, so he definitely built the website with our aesthetic. I’m one of a&r guys because people are sending us stuff and Hunter is the art guy as well as the a&r guy and everybody is involved. It’s really cool how it all works.
There are some official After Parties on the upcoming tour, which feature 1320 bands. As I understand it, STS9 or members of STS9 might appear and perform at some of them. When do you make that call and how does it come together?
I’d like to leave the surprise, the excitement there. There are some where we do make an announcement but we’re just trying to leave it open so there might be some surprises. We like to leave that element of surprise even with our setlists and all that stuff.
Last question, what does the rest of the year look like for STS9 in terms of projects beyond the live shows?
As of right now we actually don’t know. We had a plan and then it changed and right now there’s a certain excitement about not knowing and seeing what develops. We had worked on a couple movies and worked on some albums and developed the live PA stuff and the Axe The Cables stuff and now we’re just going to see what happens There’s a real excitement and energy to that.
