Riding Shotgun with the High Strung

ometimes it's ok to be high strung. When you're a band called the High Strung, it's definitely a good thing. But you'd never know it listening to them. No tortured artists here, the High Strung sound like a breath of poppy fresh air in these bitter cold, snowbound days. And nice boys that they are, they accepted my offer for a little hot question-and-answer action. Below you'll find Chad, Derek, and Josh offering insight into all things High Strung (Sickness! Athens! Bookmarks!). After boning up on your High Strung-isms, head on over to the Black Cat this Sunday, where you can catch this tantalizing trio in the flesh (with the XYZ Affair and the Teeth - $10).

Touring is:
Chad: playing music every night. Nothing I'd rather do.
Derek: most fun and the best.
Josh: the only way to tell if we're getting better or not live.

Our first gig was:
C: The Ship's Mast (now the Rockstar Bar) on Kent Ave. at South 6th. Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
D: At the Ships Mast in Brooklyn, NY.
J: in Brooklyn. Terrifying. I thought I was going to piss my pants.

Our favorite venue to play is:
C: Hard to say. I love The Lager House in Detroit. I love Schuba's in Chicago. The McIntosh Memorial Library in Viroqua, WI was pretty amazing! The Phog Lounge in Windsor, ON always gets a great show out of us.
J: Proud Larry's (Oxford, MS), The Crocodile
(Seattle, WA), Schuba's (Chicago, IL).

Hygiene on a tour is:
C: fair to poor! Whattchya gonna do about 3 sets of feet in one place for months on end...
D: infrequent.
J: eh... you know... standards go down... let's just say
that hygiene is discreet on the road.

Our favorite thing about touring is:
C: My favorite thing about touring is playing live every night. I like to play live because it's spontaneous. A string could break, a part could be forgotten, someone hits a weird note, Derek drops a drumstick, it all adds to the performance. It makes it sound different than the album, and for the performer, when you have to play certain songs every night; it's cool to see how they might change and morph. And that's one thing that playing a song on tour does, it changes the song. The jam section in "Anything Goes" was a lot different two years ago than it is today. The pause in "Seems It's One Thing" was written differently than how it was recorded, nearly a year later after its conception. I like that a lot.
D: Being a stranger all the time.
J: being in a different city all the time. Getting better at playing together.

And the least favorite:
C: Ya know, the obvious things, uhm, health deterioration, I ALWAYS get sick at least once on the road. Food, I never get a chance to cook, which I love doing. The food is sub-par at best, unless you're playing at a club where they serve food, then we usually get something of par, or better... The truck is cold in the winter. Sometimes I crave a little privacy, but it's not often even at home that I get any of that so...
D: being stuck with nothing to do and not knowing anyone.
J: cell phones...

City with the best audiences:
C: Man, so many, I'd hate to single out them, and they vary from tour to tour. Detroit is probably the best, but Chicago and Austin are up there. Oh, shit New York is usually incredible. Atlanta, Philly, Des Moines, Charleston SC, Nashville, oh, and one of the bests, is Athens, OH. Oxford, MS, they have a great time with us...
D: Chicago, San Fran, Athens, Ohio, Oxford, MS.
J: Chicago, Athens (Ohio).

Band member most likely to disappear after a gig:
C: If blacking out counts, then it's me.
D: Josh.
J: I think it's me. But the reasons aren't as debaucherous as, say, if Chad were to vanish.

The tour bus/van smells like:
C: feet, dirty shirts, stale smoke, and coffee, and mildew.
D: Farts and feet and incense.
J: a hamster cage.

Laundry is: a) washed regularly, b) washed irregularly, c) we go shopping a lot:
C: b.
D: Washed often and irregularly. Like sometimes we dry the clothes first...
J: B.

What's the most unusual item on your rider?
C: broccoli.
D: What rider?
J: bookmarks.

Who controls the music in the touring vehicle? And what do you like to listen to while tooling around on tour?
C: Derek actively puts on the most music, and he likes to sample from classics (The Kinks, which I think is usually Josh's number one choice, The Zombies, etc;) to new stuff, see what's going on with our contemporaries. A big one for him is The Lilys. We all enjoy listening to the Capitol Years. I like to listen to Berlioz and John Coltrane when I can. The Who and Television are big ones for me, along with G'n'R, Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden.
D: Whoever is driving. Comedy records.
J: Derek and Chad run the radio. We listen to a heap of stuff...new bands...standbys...but COMEDY is best...without fail...comedy...

What's your favorite new watering hole that you've found while on tour? And/or the best place to cure late night cravings?
C: The newest place we played was in North Dakota last summer, we had a real good time there the joint was called, uh, uhm, lemme think here... The Aquarium, that's it!
D: The one that has free drinks. Somebody's mom's house.
J: There's this place in Memphis we used to go to was great. Incredible. Can't remember the name at all...

Most amusing memory from your current or most recent tour?
C: I think it involved VHS head cleaner, and Derek vacuuming himself in a do-it-yourself car wash late night in Cincinnati, we also stormed a supermarket, I hung out in the ice freezer, and tried to stack as much meet on my arms as I possibly could...
J: Derek vacuuming his hair with a car-vac.

Favorite tour activity (other than the gigs themselves):
C: Read. Go to the Barnes and Nobles. I know, boring.
D: The High Strung Invitational. This is a twice a year miniature golf tournament between the guys in the band and paid for by the band. I have never won. This is most upsetting.
J: going to a bar we aren't playing at and getting a drink there. It's great because it's like this formal drinking session before the informal gorilla version gets underway.

What bands have you most enjoyed touring with? And what band/s, past or present, would the High Strung most like to tour with?
C: The Capitol Years, The Carlsonics (now Nethers and Ed and the Donny Hues), Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Everyothers, and Bad Wizard. Oh, Robert Pollard was the best one. I'd most like to tour with all of the above again, and The Teeth, who we are going on the road with in Feb. and well after the Teeth, there's no rock and roll band I'd need to see that much of, of course seeing any band who are cool people, every night while on tour with them is a certain bond, and love affair with them. It's unconditional, ya know, they don't have to be my favorite band, they have to be good, and good people. Ween, I'd like to go on tour with Ween. They'd impress me every night a different way, I bet.
D: The Capitol Years, and I would like to be Bob Dylan's back up band.
J: The Capitol Years. Bob Pollard. But as far as the future? Oh... man...Dylan. I'd like us to be Dylan's back-up band.

Please name the city you wouldn't ever play in again? Or if not a particular city, which venue (if any) would you not mind seeing razed to the ground?
C: I didn't love the Bottom Lounge in Chicago. We've played something like 15 different venues in Chi town over the last 6 years, so I wouldn't miss that one. Ya know cities have a way to redeem themselves, I hated Oklahoma for the longest time, and then finally we met good people and had a fair show, and now we're for it!
D: Now you're asking us to be mean. I really kind of like everywhere. I was going to say Jacksonville, FL, but the folks that work at Jack Rabbit's were very nice and took us to a strip club after the show, bought us drinks, and I saw a toothless man give a dollar to a toothless stripper. So what bad can I say about that? Tampa kinda sucks, but I have an old friend from high school there and we always have fun.
J: You know...I have a hard time saying this or that city sucks. Really...I do. Because if the show is bad we say "oh that city is only ok" but I know if we had the show of our lives then we'd love that city.

Apart from the obvious CDs, what's the merch item of yours you think people should shell out for?
C: We don't have that diverse of a spread, so I guess they should buy the shirt along with the CD...?
D: The High Strung star pants. I'm selling my famous star pants to the highest bidder above $200.

Have you been to the top of the Washington Monument?
C: No, should I?
D: No. Just like in our career I've walked in circles at the bottom.
J: Yes... in a disgusting dream I had about my fifth grade math teacher, Mr. Gordon.

Your tour ends here in DC. How will you celebrate/let off steam?
C: Just play a real good show, and hang out with some close friends.
D: By assassinating the Vice President and President of the United States and encouraging every one else to do the same. It is paramount to get the VP as well. Be sure to let every one know that. If that doesn't work out, we will hang out on the corner of 2nd St. and Taylor drinking on the back porch.
J: Is this true? Well...if so...I will celebrate with a cigar...ONE match... a glass of champagne...and a bear skin rug. All to myself.

How goes album number three? Is it ready to roll? And when can we all look forward to adding it to our iPods?
C: It comes out May 15th, 2007. It comes out on Park The Van Records. It's done, just got the masters back yesterday. The art work is done.
D: Album #three is totally sweet. It has a name, artwork and everything. It's called Get The Guests and it comes out in May.
J: Album three is wonderful. GET THE GUESTS is the thing I'm most proud of from us. It's the most SONG oriented album we've ever done. Not sure why. It's not just me playing the guitar and singing. But the songs break through and trump our energy for the first time and that excites me.

What would you like people to be saying about the High Strung in 50 years?
C: "They were/ARE such a solid band, so tight, they have all the components of an all star group, the songs, the singer from heaven, and the rhythm section from hell..."
D: "This is the best incontinent band I have ever seen!"
J: "I can't believe there was a time when people didn't know them!" Or..."did you know the High Strung didn't break through until they were 30?" or..."did you know the singer of the High Strung also wrote 100 novels?"

If we weren't in the High Strung, we'd be:
C: I'd be a cook, or a librarian, or depressed that I wasn't in a band.
D: unable to function at all.
J: The Oval Ponds.

Are any of you, in fact, high strung?
C: Yeah, about stupid things, like when my roommate talks to me from across the house, it drives me nuts, just come into the room I'm in, or wait to tell me until I come to you. That kind of thing gets me up tight. It's fleeting though; for the most part I'm easy going.
D: Yes, all of us in our own way, but it takes a while of knowing us to see it cause we play it cool when we meet you.
J: Yes...yeah...all of us...

Please recite a line of poetry:
C: "America, I've given you all and now I am nothing."
D: "I like you because you know what to do."
J: "I gave up on new poetry myself thirty years ago, when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens on a hostile world." Russell Baker

And finally, it's BigYawn's round. What's your poison?
C: Beer please!
D: Poison, actual poison.
J: A tall, golden, beautiful rum and coke with no lime or lemon...

More High Strungness can be procured at www.thehighstrung.com, or www.myspace.com/thehighstrung.

 

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