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| by chris earnhart (Pocket) | |
On Oct 11th, I had the opportunity to sit down with Lorenzo Goetz, the lead singer and one of the guitars in Lorenzo Goetz, in the Greenstreet Coffeehouse so he could tell me a little about his band.
Chris: Who is Lorenzo Goetz? Like, where are you from? Where is the band from?
Lorenzo Goetz: None of us grew up here. All of us live here now. I grew up in Indiana, and Josh, the guitar player, grew up in southern Vermillion county, I think Georgetown. The bass player grew up outside of Kankakee, and the drummer’s from Piper City. But we’ve all one way or another found our way here. And the only one I knew ahead of time was Josh the guitarist. Our paths crossed probably about 7 or 8 years ago. We got to know each other, and then met up when we both moved here. But that’s Josh Miethe on guitar, Eric Fisher on bass, Kevin Colravy on drums, and myself on guitar and vocals.
C: Well, my next question was who is the band so uh…
L: I got a copy of that in advance and read ahead, so I know all your questions.
C: Dang…I didn’t think I sent it out to anybody. Uh, who were your major influences both for sound and inspiration?
L: Uh, let’s start with inspiration. Michael Penn is at the top of my list, kind of a songwriter’s songwriter. Certain people know who he is. Most people don’t. But he was heavily influenced by John Lennon, so the Beatles being another huge influence. They go hand in hand. But as far as songwriters go, I appreciate Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and Paul Simon, but the other thing that happens is I’m a huge, huge hip-hop fan, so that stuff starts to creep in. So artists like Beck, Soul Coughing, and G. Love start to influence the sound a little bit, and that’s where you see the difference say between that album [points to Slowly] and the newer stuff as it starts to take it’s angle. Plus the songs on Slowly were older songs that I hadn’t ever recorded on any other project. There were actually only two new songs on there when we recorded it. The rest of it’s older material. So, as you listen to newer stuff, you’ve seen the live show, you’ll start to see it transform a bit into I don’t know…more urbanized than the singer-songwriter stuff.
C: Uh, how would you describe your music style?
L: Oh God. Well, when it first came out everybody wanted to know what it was. We just called it Mutt-rock because culturally, like, as far as my background origins, I’m a complete mutt. I’m made up of Native American, German, and Dutch, and all sorts of things. So the same with these musical influences. I mean, my CD collection goes from Jonny Cash to Wu-tang and, you know, everything in between, Miles Davis, and uhh, God, Sublime. You know, all of it in there together. So yeah, Mutt rock, and then uh we’ve just been trying to describe it to people. The Beatles meets Beck thing came up recently, and we kinda stuck with that cuz it seems to be two good points of reference that people can at least get an idea. It’s got that melodic pop thing to it, and it’s got a little bit of a snap to it.
C: Yeah it’s hard to do that [describe one’s style]. It’d be easier if you were a cover band.
L: Oh yeah, heh, we play everything that’s on the radio.
C: Um, dressing style…I don’t know why I wrote that down. What’s your dressing style?
L: Oh god. Sometimes, sometimes we get real corny and like to have themes, like the triangle party we all wore…
C: Joe Bananas.
L: …we all wore names of Ol’ Dirty Bastard, some of his aliases. Just something ridiculous like that that probably twenty people in the crowd might have understood, and the rest of em wondered what the hell was goin on. Tomorrow night, we might actually wear numbers, just 1, 2, 3, and 4. Just screw with…uhh…occasionally we’ve all dressed up in thrift store suits and ties and weird things. Then sometimes, you know, we show up in t-shirts and jeans or whatever. But occasionally we’ll try and have a little theme every now and then. I think it adds to a live show when you have more visual, makes it more fun for folks, so it varies quite a bit as far as dressing style.
C: At triangle, I really had no idea what that meant, but it got my attention so…
L: Yeah? Yeah it did it’s job, but it was a hell of a conversation piece for afterwards, you know. Wu-Tang seemed to be the subject of the night.
C: What do you call a bassist with no girlfriend?
L: Haha, uhh. I know this one. Uh, homeless.
C: Yep.
L: It’s cool too. Our bass player and his girlfriend just bought a house. In fact, they are the only home owners in the band.
C: You already have one album out, which is entitled Slowly, so are there any plans to release a new one, and, if so, when?
L: Hopefully, by the end of the year. I started to record things that…those three songs [on a short sampler that he gave me during the interview] are recorded on my little makeshift home studio. But we got a cat from Chicago that might come down and just set up shop, and we might track out 4 or 5 songs and just do an EP by the end of the year. Just some of the newer material. Take our time with it, and uh that’s what the goal is right now. One way or the other, I think we’ll have something out by the year’s end.
C: I’ll be looking forward to it. So, what is the most rewarding thing about playing music?
L: Oh God. Um, when someone actually listens, when someone appreciates what you’re doing, and you know. I’ve played shows where there’s ten people in a room or played shows where there’s six thousand people, you know a big outdoor thing. Um, but I don’t really care how many people are there unless someone’s listening. So when someone takes note, uh, that makes it all cool. Otherwise I could just do it in my living room and it’d just be me so.
C: Um, what’s your favorite local venue?
L: Local venue? I’ve played in a lot of the places for different reasons. As far as the best sounding room, I think it’s the Highdive. I feel real comfortable on that stage. Everything sounds great. Jimmy or Bob, either one, if they’re running sound in there, always sounds perfect. I love playing the IMC. We play the Iron Post a lot. I like all of em for different reasons, but the Highdive probably has my vote for better sound.
C: Favorite song of yours? Do you have one?
L: Um, see that question, the answer can always change for that. You’re usually into the stuff that you’re working on more recently. I really like “Mesh“, which is on this sampler here that I’m gonna give you. It seems to be testing out really well. But uh, I’m writing like 5 or 6 new songs right now, so I like all those pretty much, but no one’s heard em yet.
C: Alright, favorite ice cream?
L: Um…vanilla. I know that sounds boring, but…
C: My friend said that’s the water of ice cream.
L: It is, but I’m such a sucker for it…especially if it’s homemade. I mean I’ll eat other things, but that’s my fail safe.
C: Alright, do you have a “most memorable” experience from a show, or is this a stupid question?
L: Hmm…no, not a stupid question at all. Let me think about it though. Oh! Well, I’ll give you this one. I don’t know if it’s the most memorable, but it’s the first one that popped into my head. It was the first show that we ever played in this project. It was our debut night. There was four hundred people there, and we’re playing, and we get to our last song. And a kid, I have no idea what his name is, from a previous band that had played, was all sorts of drunk. He got up on stage, and I was playing a guitar solo, and I didn’t know it, but he’s right beside me and drops his pants, and is completely nude from the waist down, jumping around. Our guitar player’s parents were there. It made for a nice first impression for a lot of people, so. I guess, I don’t know, a drunk nude guy on stage during our first show was pretty nice.
C: Haha, yeah that’ll work. If you had to be either blind or deaf, which would you rather be and why?
L: Ooh…I don’t know how it came up, but I thought about this before. I think it would have to be blind because I need to hear music. And I would still be able to play music and listen to music and experience it without sight.
[Then, at our finest moment, my cell phone goes off…]
C: That’s me.
L: I need to turn mine off.
C: Cell phones suck.
L: Aww man, he’s getting calls in the middle of the interview.
[I proceed to agree with him on the blind/deaf question.]
C: In a movie about you, would it include any of your own songs on the soundtrack?
L: Oh yeah, most definitely. I hope you don’t ask which ones cuz I don’t know.
C: Well, my next question was what would your theme song be?
L: My theme song in a movie about me? I’d pick “Big Payback” by James Brown because it’s about seven and a half minutes long, and it’s all sorts of funky.
C: James Brown is awesome.
L: I love James Brown.
C: This was suggested by my roommate, “If you were a porn star, what would your alternate name be?”
L: Hah…well, actually I’ve done this from stage before. There’s supposed to be a formula for finding your porn name, which is you take your first pet’s name and then your mother’s maiden name. So by that formula, my porn name would be Sparky Guard. That isn’t that exciting, but I guess that’s the only time I’ve ever thought about it, and I think Long Dong Silver is already taken.
C: Heh, yeah, and Buck Naked too…I wasn’t supposed to accept that one. What if you were a superhero?
L: What would my name be? Oh god…wow…I really don’t know. I don’t even know what my powers would be if I were a super hero. You have any good names? Any good super hero names?
C: I don’t know. I’ve made up some like Abortion Man and stuff, but those don’t really go over well. My comics usually crash and burn.
L: Heh, you really have to watch what crowds you’re with.
C: Yeah, I try and keep an eye out. So where can we find out more about you, aside from openingbands.com that is? ;)
L: Openingbands.com, and lorenzogoetz.com. We just got the website up and running about a month ago, and we’re gonna expand and do some cool things with it. But we’re learning. I’m a total believer in do it yourself type stuff. I mean, you know, the album is totally do it yourself. All of our marketing, promotions. I book all of the shows, manage everything. I believe that in this day and age, you can do that. You don’t need to sit around and wait for a major label to pick you up or hope for MTV dreams or any of that stuff. You can do this on so many different levels. So Josh the guitarist actually teamed up with a cat and just rolled up his sleeves and dug in, found out how to build a website and maintain it. So we’re learning as we go. We have downloads and video footage, all sorts of things. We’ve got some pictures and upcoming shows and things like that on there now. It’s serving it’s purpose.
C: Any words of wisdom for our readers out there?
L: If it’s the readers of opening bands, then umm, keep coming back to the site. I mean, I go there almost everyday just to check things out, see who’s talking about what, find out about shows. It’s a huge advantage to like 6 or 7 years ago when I was in bands. You didn’t have anything like that. You know, all you could do was just flyer and word of mouth and try to get people out. You didn’t have a forum like that where people could come to it everyday and check it out. And there are certain things happening in this area that I’m really excited about. Openingbands being one, Innocent Words magazine, the smaller venues that are popping up like the IMC. The Brass Rail’s gonna start having shows now. All those things combined, the venues, the mediums, uh…WEFT and the Planet’s local 4:20 buzz thing. All those things come together, along with the bands, along with the music lovers to create a great scene, and it could thrive. But it takes everybody firing on all cylinders, and I’m finally starting to see that after a couple years of being around here.
C: Well, that’s about it unless there is something I forgot to ask. Anything to add? Favorite cartoon?
L: No. I’m really diggin Dexter. As far as old school goes, I’m into anything with Deputy Dog or Droopy, I’m a big Droopy fan. But I find myself watching Dexter.
C: Well, thank you much. [hands are shaken] They can’t see this but…
L: There is a hand shake across the table. Right hands only.
C: Thanks.
So, I urge you to check out a Mr. Lorenzo Goetz and his band, Lorenzo Goetz. As far as final thoughts go: My porn name is Snoopy Davis. My superhero name would be Stripes or Pocket. (I would be a sidekick.) And you should see Lorenzo and Josh boogeyin out on stage with Eric and Kevin rockin next to them, even if you have to commit Grand Theft Bus to get out there! Night all.
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| by katie haley (comfortablybummed) | |
Last week, I sat down with Damian Kulash-- lead singer and main songwriter of OK Go-- before the band’s terrific show at The Canopy. Hands were shaken, names were exchanged, and the questioning began. Read on for Damian’s thoughts on tube socks, circus musicians, and OK Go’s growing success.
Katie: What was the last album you bought?
Damian: The last album I bought was a Roxy Music album called…which one was it? Oh, I don’t remember the name of it…oh, Country Life!
K: Any good?
D: Yeah, it’s a great record!
K: Well, I guess I’ll welcome you back to Champaign.
D: Thank you, thank you.
K: You’ve been here a few times now, right?
D: I think this is our fourth. Maybe our fifth.
K: Second time headlining? I know you came through with They Might Be Giants before.
D: Yes, I think it’s our second time headlining. Sounds right. We’re pretty excited.
K: What’s your favorite city to play, would you say?
D: Ahh, Chicago. It’s our hometown.
K: All right! Where do you like to play there?
D: I really like to play the Empty Bottle and I really like the Metro a lot. Great places to play.
K: How was your record release show at Metro?
D: It was fantastic, it was awesome.
K: Do you think that there’s any bands coming out of Chicago that we should especially be looking out for?
D: Yeah, there are! You should be looking out for The 90 Day Men, do you know that band? They’re great. Ahh, there’s TONS of bands in Chicago. I’m a really big fan of a band called the Baldwin Brothers, they’re also from Chicago. They’re really fantastic.
K: Such a great city for music.
D: Yeah, it sure is.
K: Is there anyplace that you haven’t gotten to go yet where you really want to tour? Overseas?
D: Yeah, pretty much everywhere overseas. We’ve been a little bit into Canada, but other than that we’ve never left the country as a band. Our record came out yesterday in Japan, so hopefully we’ll get to go to Japan sometime soon.
K: Well, you’ve had a pretty busy year. The album came out, and it was number one on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart. You did tours with The Vines, Phantom Planet, Superdrag... You were on Conan, and did I hear you say you were going to be on Leno?
D: We are going to be on Leno in two weeks. In fact, less. What is that? One week. On the 18th we’re going to be on Leno.
K: What’s that like? Is it just really overwhelming?
D: It’s exciting, you know, it’s awesome. It’s great!
K: So, if you could pick one thing, what would be next? Any sort of milestone?
D: It’s not so useful for us to think of things in terms of milestones, because this is all so new to us and so exciting that it just goes really fast. It’s like every day is kind of some new excitement for us because it’s all happening so quickly.
K: I loved your video. Did you enjoy making that?
D: Loved it.
K: Who’d you do that with?
D: (pause) Francis Lawrence. Sorry, totally spaced on his name.
K: Do you know what your next single is going to be? Have any ideas for a video for that?
D: I don’t know what it’s going to be. I think that it might be “You’re So Damn Hot”, but I’m not sure.
K: I was thinking that might be the one.
D: Yeah, people are pretty into that song. I’m not so…a lot of people are super-crazy about what songs get released, and that kind of makes sense, I’m sure I’ll have a big opinion when it comes time to really decide. But right now I sort of feel like I’m really happy with the record. I kind of just want to see what people respond to best before we decide what’s going to be a single. So no, I haven’t really thought about videos. Although, we have started on another video for “Don’t Ask Me”, just that we did by ourselves with a director who’s a friend of mine in San Francisco. He came on tour with us for about a month, a month and a half, and after every show we’d set up a dance booth outside of the show and people could just come and dance in the booth. It was really awesome.
K: I was really interested to see that you had a lot of different people playing on your album, like Roger Manning from Jellyfish. How did you hook up with him?
D: We’re just big fans, he’s just an incredible…the keyboard stuff that he did on the Mutations album by Beck was truly inspiring. The engineer on our session knew him, and we were just like, “Oh man, can you get him? Can you get him to come and play with us?” and he was into it, so it was great. And you know who else is on there, a name you may not have recognizeD: Wendy Melvoin? You ever listen to Purple Rain? You know, “Wendy, is the water warm enough? Yes Lisa, it is. Shall we begin?” That’s Wendy. She played all the guitar on the first six or eight Prince albums. Well, not all the guitar, but much of the guitar on the first six or eight Prince albums. She’s an amazing guitarist and an incredibly smart woman and an incredibly beautiful woman. It was mind-blowing to have her even in the same room with us, much less playing with us. It was so incredible.
K: Is there anyone else like that, who you’d just die to have on your record?
D: Well, Jon Brion... wait, people who ARE on the record?
K: That, or somebody you’d like to have in the future.
D: Oh, I don’t know. We have so many idols, the list goes way too far. Black Francis, well, now known as Frank Black, from the Pixies, came into the studio for a minute. He didn’t play anything, but he was actually in the studio with us and I literally could not breathe. He is like a god to me. There’s a singer from Shudder to Think who’s a huge influence and a huge idol of mine. His name is Craig Wedren. I suppose that in my wildest dreams it would be nice to do something with him. You know, there’s so many people who we’re amazed by, it’s just unfair. I would eat up your whole tape just saying the first five percent.
K: Who do you think is really good that’s coming out now? Do you have any favorite new bands you’ve been listening to?
D: Of the stuff that’s sort of big, commercially-available stuff, I’m a big fan of The Hives, big fan of The White Stripes. There’s a band called Soundtrack of Our Lives from Sweden, they’re really great. We’re huge fans of Phantom Planet. I couldn’t believe how good their live show was, they are so, so awesome. They’re amazing.
K: I was looking online and saw that there’s all these strange tour rider demands that bands have. You know, Creed needs beef jerky and Hi-C. Goo Goo Dolls needs new tube socks. Roger Daltry needs his tea served to him on china… Do you have any weird rockstar demands?
D: I just changed our rider today, actually, to incorporate my new demand, which is a newspaper.
K: Any one in particular?
D: Well I’ve said that if the venue itself has no respect for their local daily paper, then I would like the New York Times. But in most places, I’d be happy to read the daily local. I mean, if it really sucks and the venue knows it, I would like them to get me a nicer newspaper from somewhere else. But most places the local paper will do fine.
K: That’s not too crazy.
D: Not too crazy, but honestly, neither is tube socks.
K: It’s just kind of weird. Struck me as kind of bizarre.
D: It seems weird, but I actually considered putting that on our rider as well because there’s no time or place to do laundry when you’re on tour.
K: That’s true.
D: The greatest joy of my life…well, the greatest joy of my life is seeing my dog when I’m actually home. Second to that, anywhere where I can do laundry or cook for myself. It’s awesome. It’s like the greatest feeling to have clean clothes again. You spend a lot of time in filthy clothes. My laundry was done yesterday, by the way, which is why I’m in such a good mood.
K: Good to know. How often have you gotten home lately?
D: I was home for a day and a half this past week. Before that, it was one day four weeks before, and three days five weeks before that. It averages about two days a month or so. Except usually they’re days when we’re playing, it’s not like days off. They’re just days when I actually sleep at home.
K: Must be nice to see familiar faces.
D: Sometimes. I mean, I’m always happy to see my friends, but there’s also the familiar face of my filthy apartment. I get back and the last thing I want to do is clean it up, because I just want to go to bed. But every time I go back, I jettison this mass of luggage and disgusting clothing from the last tour that just sort of builds up in the corner while I search around in my house, foraging for something that I can wear for the next three days.
K: How do you choose what cover songs you do, because I was really impressed with your collection.
D: Just songs we like. There’s a few rules. We try not to do stuff by…you know, absolutely legendary music. Like, there’s no reason to try to play a Jimi Hendrix song in my book, because we’re never going to top it. Or not even top it, I don’t think there’s much we could bring to it that would add much. We have broken that rule occasionally, like there’s one Beatles cover song that we do, but it’s from when they were just a pop band. It’s a good, great song, obviously, but it was before they were like, deities. When they were still just kind of a pop band. The best cover songs we can do are ones where we can sort of add our own style to a song that’s good, but that we don’t necessarily want to play like the original band did. Like, we play a Toto song in a fashion that they would never play it, but it’s a great song. The most fun for us is to find songs from a band you don’t particularly like or a genre you don’t even particularly like, but where the rudimentary elements of the song, like the chord changes and the melody, seem interesting, like we could bring them into our own style. Some of them are just great songs that we couldn’t even think of better ways to change… We play “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield. That’s so perfectly arranged to begin with that we added a little bit here and there, a nips and tucks kind of thing, but we do pretty much the same arrangement he did.
K: I’ve read that you used to do stuff like performing scenes from Les Miserables on stage…
D: Yeah, we do that sometimes.
K: Do you feel like you have to cut that down now?
D: No, not particularly. We don’t do it as much, but things just kind of come and go. We also don’t play the same songs we did a year and a half ago all the time. We still do that sometimes. Yesterday we were being interviewed for a video station in Chicago called JBTV and we just sort of took over the interview because it was so much fun, and we wound up doing a scene from Les Mis on TV.
K: Do you know when that’s going to be on?
D: I think next Wednesday is when they’re airing it. What’s today, the 10th? So the 17th. No, today’s not Wednesday, it’s Thursday. So the 16th.
K: Gotta love JBTV. It’s an institution.
D: Oh yeah.
K: I was wondering if you have any White Stripes-esque OK Go drama. Like, is Andy Tim’s dad? You know, Jack, Meg… married? Divorced? Siblings?
D: Yeah, Tim was once married to our keyboardist, Burleigh. They broke up, though.
K: I’ve heard that you guys call Burleigh something a bit interesting?
D: His name is Burleigh Seaver, and if you just transpose the first letters, you get Surly Beaver. Which sort of relatively aptly describes him. I mean, he’s not THAT much like the furry riverbeast, but you know, kind of.
K: He’s only been with you guys for a little bit, right?
D: Yeah, he’s only been playing with us for about a month and a half, two months.
K: I think when I saw you with The Vines, it was a different guy…
D: Yeah, Burleigh’s been a friend of mine though since I was about fifteen years old, so I’ve known him for a long time and he fits in perfectly with the band. When we were playing with The Vines, we had a fellow named Ara Anderson, a trumpet player from San Francisco. A genius of a musician, absolutely insane, and a great, great musician. But he had to move on to continue to write circus music.
K: Circus music?
D: Yeah, he’s the director of a circus orchestra in San Francisco.
K: That’s gotta add something new!
D: It was awesome, I’d love to play with him again. It was a good time.
K: At least you get to have a friend there, that’s always nice. Ok, it’s kind of a tradition with OpeningBands to ask some kind of random questions at the end. So here we go. If you could be anybody else in the band, who would you be and why?
D: In my band?
K: Yeah, in your band. Or any other band.
D: Ahh, let’s see. Who would I be? I would be…(long pause) I think I’d be Tim, because I’ve always wanted to know what it feels like to be Jewish. Or Italian, but he’s not Italian…Dan is Italian, though. Well, about half-Italian. So maybe I’d be Dan because then I could be half-Italian AND get to play drums, and I love playing drums.
K: You could be a strange combination of the two.
D: Well, then I’d be Ti-Dan. Or I’d be Tan! Because that way I’d get to be the entire rhythm section, minus the keyboards. I think the two most fun things to play in the band would be bass or drums. I think mostly drums, I love playing drums. So it’d be really fun to play drums and it’d be fun to be half-Italian, so that would be good.
K: Who is your favorite Brady Bunch character?
D: Alice.
K: Favorite flavor of Jelly Belly?
D: Licorice. Or…pink grapefruit. Pink grapefruit’s pretty good, blueberry is also.
K: Favorite dance move?
D: The one where you do the…(tries to show what he means, using his hand)…that.
K: The Worm, is that what it’s called?
D: The Worm, that’s what it’s called?
K: I have no idea.
D: Where you jump on the floor and undulate in kind of a backwards motion. I like that one.
K: That just reminded me, you used to do a boy-band dance? What show did you do that on? I was trying to find out.
D: We did that when we were on tour with This American Life about two years ago. It was much larger stages and it was not a rock show, in particular, so we could sort of do any kind of entertainment that we felt like. So we did that then. We did it for a TV show, Chic-a-go-go, and some other places too, I’m trying to think of where else we’ve done it.
K: You should do it here tonight.
D: There might be enough room! Maybe we can. We haven’t done it literally in years, it takes not only some callisthenic work, but some memory work. Maybe we could get it together.
K: Ok, well I think that’s pretty much it, unless you have any parting comments.
D: No, I think I’m fine.
K: Cool, thanks very much!
D: Thank you!
Go buy OK Go’s debut album, check out their website at www.okgo.net, look for them on Leno on October 18th, and try to catch them on tour.
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| by lance birch (lance) | |
Editor's note: We're working on a better format to display the comics. I know it's a bit tough to read, and the size of the graphics expands the page a bit, please be patient while we find the best way to work this all out :-)
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