AUSTIN DAZE: The motto here is “Keep Austin Weird”, do you think it’s a weird place?

SEAN: I don’t think it’s weird but I’m from Minneapolis. It’s kind of very similar—some people even joke about how they are the same place.

AD: Let’s talk about the new album, which is awesome by the way. I know the songs are about people that a lot of us can relate to. I’m wondering if that was what you were going for with these songs.

S: I was just going with people that I relate to. There are two songs on there that are incredibly autobiographical and there is one song that is about my girlfriend and the rest are about people that I don’t know but are depictions of people I see in myself—if that makes any sense.

AD: Given the success of Atmosphere, where do you see yourself going in the next few years?

S: I have no idea. I’ve never been good at doing the, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” thing. I do everything one week at a time.

AD: Are there any artists that you look at now that you think have lost their touch? Do you ever worry that that could happen to you guys?

S: I think it could happen to us. I think it happens to everybody at some point or another. I think you are supposed to lose your touch; I think you are supposed to evolve; you’re not supposed to be the same forever because that’s not very challenging. If you make the same shit over and over that’s kind of a sellout thing; that tells me that you found an equation that works and you are just beating it to death and I feel that I’ve come dangerously close to that in my own path and so I do kind of hope that we reach places where certain people feel that we fell the fuck off and other people feel like we are actually getting better.

AD: Are there any songs from your album that you won’t play live?

S: Yeah, there are a lot of songs that I’ve retired. The list is too long to go through them. I retire songs once I no longer have an actual connection to them–once I’ve out grown certain phases. There are certain songs that were written during those phases that I just don’t feel belong to me anymore so I just stop performing them.

AD: How do you handle unruly fans?

S: Usually I make them part of the show. Otherwise I have them kicked out. If you are going to come here and possibly distract away from other people enjoying themselves then I’m going to do whatever I can to make an example of you.

AD: Let’s talk about Obama.

S: The main thing about him that makes him important for me is the ideals behind the man. The fact that this person stepped forward to be a candidate and it motivated a lot of people who in the past had been considered a voiceless people–young people, black people, Native American people, poor people–in our society for a long time. Obama motivated these people to use their voice finally and to me that is kind of the ball rolling—that is what we have needed for a long time. If people who are finally using their voice see a success from that then we are looking at the possibility of some of these people continuing to use their voice.

AD: What’s the best piece of advice you have ever been given and do you follow it?

S: Yes I do and that is to be honest.

AD: What is your drink of choice?

S: Water.

AD: If you could be a woman for a day what would you do?

S: I guess I’d call every ex-girlfriend I got and apologize.

AD: You can’t do it as a guy?

S: Yeah but I think they would take it a little bit more serious. I think as a guy they would think I was just trying to get laid.

AD: Again.

S: Nice throw in.

AD: We’ve never been to Minneapolis. What would you recommend doing there?

S: The first thing I would recommend is to get a jacket. Other than that, there are a lot of museums that are really good like the Walker Art Center. I would also suggest that you go eat at a breakfast place called Victors—it’s a Cuban breakfast spot. I would suggest that you don’t sleep with anybody because every male in that city is a needy son of a bitch.

AD: Noted.

***

Ireland’s Autamata is sometimes electronica, sometimes rock, sometimes acoustic, and always worth checking out. Fortunately you’ll have a chance to when they come back for SXSW.

AUSTIN DAZE: How did you get started in music?

KEN MCHUGH: I was born into a musical family. I started playing traditional Irish music with 4 of my sisters around the west of Ireland from a very early age.

I then sold my soul to the devil and started playing rock music.

Later I learned how to work a studio and this introduced me to electronic and abstract sounds. I now combine all these things into the Autamata sound.

AD: You wear several hats: Composer, musician, and producer. Do they require different personalities? Which is the most challenging? Which is the easiest?

KM: I guess so. I don’t really think about it too much. I just like making music, sometimes my own as Autamata and sometimes for other people. I just like the whole process of making records. Playing live is the most exciting though as I normally rock it out a lot more and jump around “and stuff”. Making a happy album from scratch locked away in a house in the wilds of Ireland during a bleak winter is probably the most challenging.

AD: Did you have a back up plan or alternative to the “When I grow up” question?

KH: It weird I just knew I was going to be doing this. Maybe I’m just lucky, but I do believe you make your own luck in life.

AD: Tell me about the Autamata sound.

KH: Myself just using various instruments at my studio writing instrumental tracks first made the last three albums. For some of these I write lyrics myself and sing and otherwise I get Carol Keogh or Cathy Davey to come hang out and they write the lyrics and sing. So there are some songs and some instrumentals. I don’t get too caught up in what box Autamata is in and just let each track build naturally into whatever it wants to be. I get some mates in then to replace certain parts on instruments I cant play very well and I mix the tracks.

AD: Tell me about the “revolving door” band. How does it work? What’s it like to team up with different musicians? Is this by choice or circumstance?

KH: Well it all just started with me giving albums I made around to friends and then they started to convince me to release them. I put the first album out and it was well received so people started to ask me to play it live. I then got some of my mates together and we set up an Autamata live band to tour the albums.

I really like the current live band though and reckon I will keep this crew together now for a while. There was no plan really. It has all just grown naturally.

AD: I read about your success with advertising and Hollywood. Were you afraid of that at all? Does it mean anything as a musician to go that route? Is there a fear of losing authenticity?

KH: Well I run my own label and publishing company. It’s a little cottage industry. So if someone rings me up offering me some money to use my tunes in a film or an advert that I am not morally against I say yes. I take it as a compliment that people want to use my music to soundtrack their visuals. It enables me to tour and make more albums. Some bands are against this but they are usually on major record companies and have kind of sold themselves to big corporations anyway.

It gets my music to a wider audience without having some An n’ R guy telling me what socks I should be wearing.

AD: How does the music culture differ in Ireland and the UK in comparison to here?

KH: It pretty similar. There is pop, there is indie and then there is shit!

UK is very haircut driven at the moment. It seems to matter more about what shoes you are wearing than the music with most bands just completely ripping off older bands. Ireland has a really big independent scene where a lot of artists just set up their own labels and release their own albums. The scene is seriously fresh at the moment. After being in Austin though I have to agree that it is the “music capital of the world.” You don’t have bands playing as much in restaurants and Whole Foods stores in Ireland. We don’t have many original Hip hop/RNB acts though.

AD: How was your response been in the states?

KH: Our first gig at the ACL festival was amazing. People seemed to really like our set. Lots of love! We rock it out a lot more live which surprises a lot of people.

We would like to come back lots more and play around the states.

AD: America is…

KH: Hot, friendly, big on breakfast, confident.

AD: Ireland is…

KH: Cold, not as friendly as we think, big on drinking, greener, more clannish and a little easier going.

AD: Tell me about your musical influences.

KH: The Beach boys, Bork, Massive attack, Daft Punk, The Cure, The future sound of London, My bloody Valentine, Kate Bush.

AD: The world seems to be coming to an end these days. Are you creatively affected by that? Is there a sense of responsibility to provide relief; a voice; anything?

KH: Well there is a song we wrote for our first album called “out of this” that is a good soundtrack to the times we are living in and giving hope. It’s up on our myspace page www.myspace.com/autamata.

Otherwise I am writing an album under a different name “spectator” at the moment. It’s all instrumental and a lot darker than most of the autamata stuff so I guess the world-ending syndrome is affecting me a little.

AD: Have you ever experienced a time of “no inspiration”?

KH: Yes. When this happens I just work on other people’s records, make s a video or just do a lot of cooking. If all this fails I just go to the pub.

AD: Do you think it’s possible to run out of material?

KH: Nah, never. There is always new music to root up that will influence me into getting back into the studio and making more of my own tracks. I do believe I will be doing this until I am 90 or something. I doubt I will be promoting albums then but ill be making music just for my kids and hopefully, myself.

AD: Do you consider yourself an optimistic person?

KH: It’s my middle name.

AD: What’s next?

We just recorded a live radio session for 2fm here in Ireland. It’s actually being played on air now as I type. Ill post the tracks on my space for people to hear more what we sound like live. I’m going to finish off this spectator album I spoke about.

Then I plan to get the current autamata live band into the studio and write a killer album together in the studio rather than just by myself as we have a really good energy as a “band”. So maybe Autamata is turning into a band! Always evolving!

We are booking in more gigs and plan to head back to Austin for SXSW.

AD: Anything else?

KH: New album is now available in Waterloo records y’all.

***

WE CAUGHT UP WITH 2 MEMBERS RECENTLY. DID YOU  HEAR ABOUT THE GRAMMY NOMINATION?

Grupo Fantasma at Fun Fun Fun Fest from AMFM STUDIOS LLC on Vimeo.

The Waybacks are Hungry.

AUSTIN DAZE: What do you guys think about being at Old Settlers?

Warren Hood: We’ve been here many times before and we like it because we like having the Waybacks in Austin and letting all our friends and family here see what we’re off doing all the time. We’ve got a lot of friends that think the Waybacks don’t exist-that we made them up.

James Nash: We like to come to Austin because obviously it’s a beautiful festival and a lot of great people here but we mostly come to Austin for the food. 8 days of queso.

Joe : There is good Mexican food in California but it is totally different. Read the rest of this entry »

AUSTIN DAZE: How did Old Settler’s compare to SXSW?

MARTY STUART: SXSW is such a cool event but you have to know going into it that you can only pick your spots because it’s kind of like trying to sweep up the ocean into a bucket. It’s gotten so huge so that anywhere that we played during SXSW that we connected with the crowd I felt like was a real achievement. Here it is more concentrated and down home. After 20-something years you guys have definitely got a spell setting out there. We just walked into something that was really great. Thank you for having us.

AD: It is run by all volunteers which we find pretty amazing because everybody loves the music so much they are willing to just get together. Read the rest of this entry »

The latest album from collaborative musicians, Martín Perna (Antibalas, frequent collaborator with TV on the Radio) and Adrian Quesada of Grupo Fantasma is a latin-fused psychedelic experience. In addition to being exceptionally talented they seem to live off of a limitless supply of energy. These guys live, breathe, eat and sleep music. We sat down with them to find out how they keep it all going.

AUSTIN DAZE: you guys have so many projects that are doing so well. We have to ask, did you sell your soul to the devil to make everything work out so well?

ADRIAN QUESADA: I was just talking to someone the other day about that. There were times when the band has days off and I go and play with other bands. It’s stressful but it pays off. Nothing has happened over night and I still don’t feel like everything is like super successful but it’s getting there. It’s something that has happened over the past 10 years. With Ocote, before we ever got picked up by a label our CD had been out for a year.

MARTIN PERNA: I have not sold my soul…yet! Fortunately the music has been the result of many good friendships forged over long hard times. I wish I were as successful financially as I was as far as making good stuff. Read the rest of this entry »

We give you harp playing legend, Charlie Musselwhite.

AUSTIN DAZE: I was asking some Austin musicians if they had any questions and they asked: How do you get that sound? What key do you play that in?

CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE: I’m always happy to answer them whenever I can.

AD: Were you self-taught?

CM: Pretty much. The thing about the harmonica is that it is the only instrument that you cannot see what is going on. You have to create a mental image and everybody creates their own mental image of it and it’s not something you can show anybody. I forget who said this but somebody said, “Talking about how to play harmonica is like whistling about chickens.” You can make these sounds but you can’t really describe a lot of it. Read the rest of this entry »

She is the female James Brown of soul and responsible for leading the soul/funk/R&B revival. She’s been doing her thing for 13 years and the rest of the world is finally taking notice. With a voiceto be reckoned with, Sharon Jones can no longer be ignored.

AUSTIN DAZE: When did you know that this was what you wanted to be doing?

SHARON JONES: I didn’t think that I was going to be doing this until the 80s and 90s. All my life I would get inspired by gospel and just singing but the main thing, when I knew that the funk and soul was it, was when I met Gabe almost 13 years ago. I went in to do background on an album and once I finished I was like, “That’s good music these guys are playing.” Then the first time we went to London I opened up for Maceo Parker and that’s when I knew, I knew that this was it. Because I had a title–people were calling me the female James Brown and I had never heard them call any other woman the female James Brown. I never heard them call anyone the Queen of Funk. I know Aretha is the Queen of Soul. So I thought, this is something here; I better stick with this. Read the rest of this entry »

For Jason Hann and Michael Travis, there is life afer String Cheese and it’s called EOTO,a 100% improvised live Breakbeat/ House/ Drum n Bass/ Trip Hop project. Jason Hann explains.

AUSTIN DAZE: What does a trip to Austin mean to you all and where do you like to hang when you are here?

JASON HANN Wow, well Austin is just an amazing city to always get back to. Especially being in the middle of Texas– it’s pretty refreshing. We used to go through there with String Cheese all the time. What are the name of the Springs?

AD: Barton Springs.

JH: Oh yeah. Love that. That’s unbelievable. There isn’t a better place for live music..

AD: How do you all feel about the state of the jam band scene? What about your place in that scene now that you are no longer with String Cheese Incident?

JH: It’s hard to make a judgement other than that there are a lot of bands out there these days which is great. It also seems like there is definitely an influx of Electronica into festivals. So there is an evolution happening in that sense. One thing we definitely noticed is that it doesn’t seem like kids are touring as much because there is going to be something coming through their town or they have a lot of three day weekend festivals where people would rather settle in for a three day and see an amazing amount of bands than following a particular band to a ton of cities. In that sense, it is sort of changing. Not for better or for worse, just different. There is still a lot of really good players and bands out there. I think it’s pretty healthy. Read the rest of this entry »

We had a nice chat with Moving Matter. These guys are carrying the torch and keeping the jam band scene vibrant.

AUSTIN DAZE: Where did your band name come from?

MOVING MATTER: It was from this book and we were talking about stuff like how everybody is moving matter and energy and all that kind of deep crap. Also, it felt cool to have a verb name, kind of like Talking Heads type thing.

AD: Tell us about the jam band scene in Austin, Texas. Do you feel there is one?

MM: Yeah, there’s still one around. I don’t know if it’s at its height but it is coming back—it’s fluctuating as everything does. When we were getting out of high school and college we had Larry and Tunji and there was a big scene around them.

AD: Tell us your thoughts when you hear that Austin is the “Live Music Capital of the World”.

MM: Definitely. There are more places to play and more live music every night than anywhere in the world. It makes it hard and hurts bands financially.

AD: What sets a Moving Matter audience apart from the usual crowd?

MM: An alcohol problem! They like all styles of music and have an appreciation for jazz and techno. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=2113796904,j=r,s=s,l=p]AUSTIN DAZE: This is your second time to Austin this year. What do you think of the “Live Music Capital of the World?”

CHRIS BAILEY: You can go out any night of the week and see 50 different bands anywhere. I saw that on the Tele in the hotel–I thought that was astonishing. But is it really true? Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=2113016371,j=r,s=s,l=p]AUSTIN DAZE: Where did this ensemble come from and how did you all get together?

CARLOS SOSA: Bob Schneider was doing his own thing at Antone’s on Tuesday nights. And after 12 of playing with him I felt like I just wanted to do something of my own so I talked to Will at Lucky Lounge. Antone’s was always packed on Tuesday nights and he would stop I think at 12:30. Will’s formula for Lucky Lounge was that he didn’t ever want music past midnight but I figured that if I started there when Bob’s show lets out people will come to Lucky Lounge. And it worked. Read the rest of this entry »

AUSTIN DAZE: How did this project come about and when did it become a reality you guys knew you would stick to?

BETO MARTINEZ: Before we had Grupo Fantasma we were The Blimp and it was like a funk rock project. When we started doing Fantasma more full time it was pretty much straight Latin. Brownout kind of came about from us wanting to go back and do the straight funk stuff. So it was like, 2003, that Adrian (Quesada) approached us and said, “Hey man we should put a funk band back together.” And that’s where we started. It was just a natural thing. We did it not with the intention of making it a hard core project or anything. We started with a bunch of covers of old funk stuff that we wanted to do and played a couple of gigs which were nothing special–7 people. Our first big was opening for De La Sol. We kept doing it but just every once in awhile—it was really a side project of Fantasma. I don’t think there was ever a question of “Do we want to do this?” because that is what we always did. It was a return to funk; it was a natural outlet. With Fantasma, it’s a bigger band and the music definitely has to be more structured and with Brownout it was kind of our stretching out thing. As soon as we put it together people just started bringing in music. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=1571541346,j=r,s=s,l=i]AUSTIN DAZE: How did you get started in music?

CARL FINCH: I got started in the Baptist Church children’s choir. The conductor of that choir at the Church pulled my parents aside and told them that they should get me piano lessons. So I started piano lessons when I was pretty young, 7, I think. So I took piano lessons and then went to play guitar and then went to play rock and roll in high school. When I went to college I decided I needed to get serious so I got a degree in advertising art and then I got a masters in drawing and painting and thought I was going to teach college. While I was working on the masters I kind of collided with the idea of getting the band together to do the things that I was doing. I was working with sound installations—I had evolved away from painting and I think I also realized I wasn’t very good. I excelled as a conceptualist so anything could be the medium in that case. I always leaned towards sound. One thing that I really loved was the idea of leveling music out to be on the same plane and the way I saw to do that was to put as many different styles together. That was the whole bottom line concept—to totally even the whole playing field with music so you could eliminate the notion of having to label one style cool or not cool. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=1066712495,j=r,s=s,l=p]AUSTIN DAZE: Tell us about your new CD. What can we expect?

FREDDIE “STEADY”: Well the new CD is called Tex-Pop by The Freddie Steady 5 and the title pretty much implies what the music is. I had my first pop group The Explosives in the late 70s early 80s and then I did some records with my band the Shakin’ Apostles in the 90s for a label called East Side Digital–they were part of Ryko Disc. While with them, I made what I thought was my most pop record ever and I turned it in and the president said, “I really love this. We are kind of going in that country direction.” And I went, “UH”. My point is, that I’m so inspired by the Beatles and British pop and sixties stuff–that’s why the stuff is pretty and arranged and melodic–but it still sounds like a guy from Texas doing it. My long time partner, Cam King, who was also in the Explosives, co-produced this record with me and we co-wrote four songs on it and it’s kind of, if anybody knows my history, it’s kind of like The Explosives but with a keyboard. It’s kind of power pop. It’s Tex-Pop. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=1066718605,j=r,s=s,l=p]AUSTIN DAZE: Native Roots blends both the spiritual philosophies and musical elements of reggae and Native American culture. How did this first happen?

JOHN WILLIAMS: Native Roots is a partnership between me and the lead singer Emmett Garcia. As far as the reggae music, for me, it goes back years and years into the ’70s. The Native American movement was real strong in northern Arizona—I grew up on a reservation there—and we just listened to Bob Marley every single night. What he said seemed to relate directly to what we were experiencing. The message was that we needed to lift up and stay strong when everything was pushing us down. That was my first experience with reggae music and Rasta. And then I did some traveling. I played a variety of styles of music and was playing in a band that had a Santana-like sound. We got to go to Europe, and I really found how universal reggae music was. I thought it was just us in northern Arizona that were listening to reggae music day and night, and I found out the whole world was. So when I came back I made a conscious effort to mold my musical focus on reggae music and to do it in the true spirit. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:a=72157600257285560,id=511763999,j=r,s=s,l=p] BILL & JILIAN NERSHI, SCOTT LAW

AUSTIN DAZE: How has the experience been here at Old Settlers? What do you think of it?

BILL NERSHI: It’s cool. I hear the campground scene is cool but we haven’t gotten to check that out but it’s on the agenda for later on. It’s good to be playing music in Texas.

AD: The last time we spoke ya’ll were just starting out and you weren’t sure where the music was going to take you. What do you think about where you are now with the band?

BN: I would say right now, the Honkytonk Homeslice thing is still heading toward the culminating point. It’s been somewhat challenging working through the whole thing that’s going on with String Cheese coming to a stop and being the brunt of that to some extent, which is a strange position to be in as a band. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:a=72157594267830938,id=269827709,j=r,s=s,l=p]AUSTIN DAZE: What does playing at ACL mean to you?

STRING CHEESE INCIDENT: This is actually only our second year here. 2003 was our first year. It’s changed in the three years that we have been away. It’s so great to see so many bands getting together, see all the fans getting together and enjoying the music. It’s extremely hot. ACL, what it means: extreme humidity and lots of heat. We have a really great group of friends and family that we have gotten to know over the years from coming to Austin, so Austin, in a lot of ways, has become a yearly home for us. It just feels good to be around everybody and see how everybody has been doing over the course of the years that we have been doing this. It’s a little bit like a family reunion. Musically, it’s an opportunity to, in a professional setting, see some other people and check out the vibe from the crowd side so it’s really refreshing for us. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:a=72157594267830938,id=269827768,j=r,s=s,l=p]AUSTIN DAZE: Tell us how you got into playing music and some of your influences.

MATT COSTA: Well when I was a kid my godmother had a piano at her house and she would watch me when my parents were gone. I always would just be drawn to the piano and I would just start playing. So my parents decided that since I was always drawn to music they should start putting me in music classes or get me involved with music. My parents put me in school band, I played the trumpet and I took some piano lessons. I got my first guitar when I was 12. I’ve pretty much just been involved with music my whole life. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=269827665,j=r,s=s,l=p]AUSTIN DAZE: Tell us about your new album “Town and the City”. What was the recording process like?

LOS LOBOS: We were recording at Cesar’s house and it was a pretty casual atmosphere. It took a little while to get the ball rolling. We usu- ally go in with a couple of ideas, hopefully to get the thing going, and then get a feel for where it is headed. We don’t have all the material written and it’s not rehearsed or anything. We just go on inspiration. We started off with a couple of songs and then in the middle started writing and everything and we went out with an album. Read the rest of this entry »