DC4C drummer

[obiwankobe]

If any band that appeared on these pages needed no introduction, it would probably be Death Cab For Cutie. With that in mind (along with the fact the interview is pretty long as it is), here's our review of DCFC's most recent album, Plans, as a bit of background. The only other thing you need to know is that it's with Death Cab drummer Jason McGerr, and it was conducted by phone shortly before their recent North American tour began. Enjoy...

i(heart)music: I just found out I'm doing this last night, so sorry if I'm not fully prepared.

Jason McGerr: That's alright, I'm probably not either. I found out I was doing this half an hour ago.

ihm: You joined Death cab For Cutie right before Transatlanticism, right?

JM: Correct.

ihm: What made you leave Eureka Farm for them?

JM: Eureka Farm! What do you mean you're not prepared? If you know that band you've got to be prepared -- or you're a good crammer. What made me leave Eureka Farm? Eureka Farm was over and dead. There was actually another project in between that I was doing. I'll just say they'll remain unnamed, but they were a little directionless. Some bands you're in, everyone wants to work as hard as you. Or there's one guy or two guys or three guys that just aren't that interested in making that many sacrifices. So while I was doing that side project, Nick (Harmer, Death Cab For Cutie's bassist) was doing a little bit of time with Juno -- he recorded half a Juno record and he did a tour with them. They were making some changes, or the drummer decided to take a break, so basically the rhythm section of Juno for a short, short while -- as in, a total of probably three weeks, maybe two weeks -- was Nick and I. Nick and I had played together in Eureka Farm on the first Eureka Farm record. That was about seven years ago at that time, and we just really loved playing together again as a rhythm section. So I was thinking about why don't we play in a band together, and Nick was dropping hints like "(Death Cab For Cutie) are going to record another album, we need to figure out how we're going to do it, and we have to figure out our drummer situation." So I said, "Let's quit messing around and make a record together", and he said okay. It was something that had been on our minds for a long time, but it didn't finally happen until two months before the recording of Transatlanticism.



ihm: Did you find it hard fitting in with the group? I noticed looking through the band's history that they've gone through a lot of drummers.

JM: Yeah, I know.

ihm: So did you find it difficult getting into that, or were they used to getting new drummers all the time?

JM: Were they used to it, or was I used to it?

ihm: Both.

JM: The whole process was fairly easy, because we knew each other. I knew the band, the band knew me, they had come out to my shows, and I had come out to their shows. We had a history because we were all in Bellingham together for a number of years, and that's half the battle, getting to know someone that you want to hang out with in a van or a bus for eight months, just playing aside. But they had been a fan of my playing and I had been a fan of their band and everything they did, so those two things came together. If you really what to hear a geeky story about it, I'd been teaching drums for the last ten years, and often my students would bring in music, and they'd say "I love this new song, would you help me learn these beats?". So I was very used to transcribing and writing out drum parts from other bands, and when I went in for the first Death Cab rehearsal, I had all their songs -- about 35 or 40 songs at that time -- charted out and written note for note what everybody did. That was the supernerd in me that took everything seriously enough to want to get it right, as they were used to hearing it. The adverse effect of that was that when you go on tour, shit gets a little sloppy, and when you're changing drummers, stuff changes anyway. So what I played was note for note what was on the record, but it wasn't what they were playing. After we did the first run through, they were like "That's great! Now let's throw away the music and just play the songs." That was about all the audition and problem-solving that had to happen. It wasn't like I had to jump through a bunch of hoops to make it happen.

ihm: Going into the situation, knowing they went through drummers so quickly, were you worried it might have turned out to be a one-off thing?

JM: No. Not at all.

ihm: When you joined the group right before Transatlanticism, they were big within the indie community. That album made them get a lot bigger. What was it like being with them as you were growing so rapidly?

JM: I'm glad that it happened. I'm glad that I joined when I did, because it made it feel like we took that ride and made that transition together. It might have been a little strange if they had already recorded Transatlanticism and I was jumping in right now. That would be a bit of a change, because, like I said, you really need to sweat it out, you really need to spend time on the road. You need to be uncomfortable at times, you need to be sleepless and jet-lagged, you need to be performing when you're having a bad night as well as performing when you're having an incredible night to understand what musicians in that band -- or any band -- go through. So the whole transition from Photo Album, which had sold maybe fifty or sixty thousand records, to all of a sudden doubling that in a short period of time, and then tripling that not long after was a transition that we all made together. It was...I don't know, you're working so much, you spend eight months on the road both in the US and overseas promoting Transatlanticism...I feel like I just blinked a second ago and now we're here and we're released another record.

ihm: I was just going to ask about that. Did it seem like a slow process, or was it as if you woke up one morning and suddenly you had become indie superstars?

JM: I think you have to ask yourself whether life is a slow process. At times it is, but then you think back to ten years ago and consider where you were, it doesn't seem like that long ago. I don't think you have a concept of time any more being in a band than you would if you were just taking a look at life. You work hard, and time just passes.

ihm: Did you find that touring would mess up that sense of time, though?

JM: It certainly messes up the time that you're home. You come home after you've been gone for four months, and you try to have a conversation with someone you haven't seen in awhile. I tried to go out to breakfast with someone the other day, and I said "Let's meet here", and he said okay. Then he called me the next morning, and said "Where is it?" I said, "It's right there, you're standing right next to it." He said "Okay", then called me back a few minutes later and said "That place closed down, like, six months ago!" And I was like, "No, I just ate there last week...I mean, six months and one week ago." You lose track of time at home, especially the seasons. Right now, soon it will be fall, and there are still leaves on the trees, and we'll be around for half of September. But I'll leave and come back in the dead of winter, possibly with snow on the ground, and suddenly I'm not going to be wearing shorts and t-shirts anymore. That concept of time is a little bit strange, seasonally and environmentally.

ihm: Do you enjoy it?

JM: I do. It's a trip, because how many people get to pass time like that? The majority of the population adjourns to their own bed most nights of the week, or at least their own town. When you don't really have a home and you're on the road...passing time on the road and going home again really makes me appreciate what I have at home. It also makes me appreciate the little pockets of culture and townships that we visit, whether it's overseas or in the US. Without the sort of time travel aspect of touring and being in a band, I don't think you really notice those things, at least not in the same way.

ihm: Part of the for Transatlanticism was the Vote For Change tour. How did you feel about being on that?

JM: Pearl Jam is an incredible band to see live. They're very, very nice guys and they have extremely strong views and opinions politically. We do, too, in this band -- some of us more than others -- but a change is definitely needed. We weren't trying to be overbearing or be too vocal, and we weren't trying to carry a political stick. We just felt like we were playing for what we felt was a worthy cause. Playing in big arenas in front of 15,000 crazy screaming people, who sometimes were also really mad about why we were there, was also kind of funny. But it was a very short tour, so when you say it was part of the Transatlanticism tour it really wasn't. It was a very short stint, a total of like ten shows or something. When we go on tour and it's our show and our tour, there's a lot more that comes with that. There are a lot more highs and lows and memories, than if you're going out and opening, playing 45 minutes before another band where it's clearly their show, not ours. But the experience was great -- the band was supergood to us. Being also from Seattle, we also have a little bit of history knowing them, and I do more. But it was a great experience, and I'll never forget it.

ihm: So wait, you already knew Pearl Jam, but you'd never been one of their drummers?

JM: (laughs) No, no, no. Their drummer is a friend of mine, though, so that's how I knew them. Actually, Eureka Farm's records came out on Stone Gossard's label, so I knew both Stone and Matt Cameron prior to the tour. I really got to know Mike (McCready), and Eddie (Vedder), and Jeff (Ament) during the tour.

ihm: Would you say that the politics of the Vote For Change tour inform Death Cab For Cutie's work at all?

JM: No, I don't think so at all. I mean, there was one song that was disguised -- I don't think you could tell what it was -- but there was one song that had something to do with an incumbent, that was in an early batch of demos from this record, and we liked the music side of it, but Ben just didn't feel that comfortable with it, and its context had nothing to do with the rest of the record. It just would've been this odd duck. I mean, it may live somewhere, it may find a home somewhere, maybe when shit gets really bad, who knows? But I think that we try not to push our political views on any one person, because each and every person is entitled to their own. We have our own, we will vote how we vote, but I think that music and politics is for some people and not for others. You better be willing to fight and know what you're talking about if you're going to do it, especially if you're campaigning for a particular Presidential candidate or cause. We intend to just make music and watch where our money goes, and vote when it's time to vote.

ihm: Why do you think that's the general attitude, though? I mean, politics is something that's out there in the public sphere, whereas most of Death Cab's songs are about love and romance, which is obviously much more personal to most people.

JM: Yeah, those are personal politics.

ihm: Exactly. Why do you feel there's such a hesitance to talk about public politics, while nobody bats an eye when you think about the personal politics that play out on Death Cab For Cutie's albums.

JM: Wait, ask that question again?

ihm: Why do you feel that nobody bats an eye when Death Cab For Cutie sings a song like "Someday You Will Be Loved", off the new album? That would be a very personal song, whereas when you consider politics, that's in the public sphere, and it affects everybody, but there's a huge uproar about it.

JM: True.

ihm: That's just the history of pop and rock music, to sing about love, but why do you think that is?

JM: Hmm...I need to think about that. I don't think you can really vote on the outcome of matters of the heart. You don't really have a choice. Things like relationships with other people, life, death, love, all that stuff, there are no polls, there is no campaigning. That kind of stuff is inevitable, and, at least for me, it would be tough to justify a reaction, other than what happens between the two people, as opposed to two candidates, when you're putting your political views out there in the world. I mean, come on, it's like campaigning a divorce: he's right, she's right, he treated me like shit, she treated me like shit, his views are wrong, her views suck. No one else can have an opinion on your personal relationship, whereas everyone can have an opinion on your political views.

ihm: True. But when Plans leaked, and people started hearing the song "Someday You Will Be Loved", for example, I know in Stereogum's comments section there was a huge debate over the meaning of that song and what it represented.

JM: Well, what do you think about it?

ihm: I like Death Cab For Cutie, so I'd like to think the best of them and believe that Ben Gibbard is singing the song from a third person perspective. But I know a lot of people had the opinion that it was him being really smarmy and kind of a jerk. I didn't like hearing the song that way, but the more I listened the more I could completely understand that opinion, and the more I started reading that into it.

JM: "Someday You Will Be Loved"...to me, everyone has to fit in their own meanings to songs. I mean, just because a person writes a song, it doesn't hold them accountable for it being, like you said, first person. So you can't point a finger at Ben and say, "You're the jerk who wrote a song about somebody you really didn't care about". I mean, what about Transatlanticism and "Tiny Vessels"? Is that about Ben and a relationship he had, or not? That's a really cold song. I remember specifically, the band saying "Are you sure you want to do this? Do you want to be the guy that says, 'You're beautiful, but you don't mean a thing to me'? Do you want to be known as that guy?" And he was like, "I'm not that guy, so I'm not worried about it." I think that everyone has to be able to fit in lyrics to their own life, in their own way. If you have an opinion or view of the way you read a song, if you have some direct connection, if you can say "You are so talking about me" or "I know exactly what you're going through", then maybe that's what makes you enjoy or dislike a song. That's entirely up to you, and I wouldn't see it as a personally political song in any way. You're not the first person to ask that, actually. You're at least the second person to say something about "Someday You Will Be Loved". To me, that's just...I mean, how many relationships have you had? Can you say that the first relationship you were in worked out? Maybe you're in a long-term relationship that was your first, and you're still with your first girlfriend. Or, maybe you're the guy that's been through four relationships, and you've finally found the one that worked and you didn't have to work that hard. But that's not to say that the three that came before didn't wind up in the gutter, and ended in pain and heartbreak. So there's a line in the song "Someday You Will Be Loved", that "The memories of me will seem more like bad dreams"...that says "You know what? Life goes on, and you'll work it out."

ihm: Looking more broadly at this, now that you're on a major label, your music and lyrics are going to come under much greater scrutiny than they would've before. What do you think about that? Do you think it will affect the band's songwriting?

JM: No, I don't think so. People are going to say more stuff, because maybe they're going to hear your name a little bit more. You become a topic of conversation, and people will talk about you. People talk about disasters, whether it's New Orleans or a tsunami...not to make any comparison to that, but just as a model for the fact that when something is in the public eye, they tend to talk about it. When you're writing music and criticism and reviews, you have the option to enjoy or dislike whatever it is you're writing about. If you're a piñata, it's going to be difficult, because people are going to take shots at you, especially when you're talking about the spoken word. How many speeches coming from political figures are praised or painted as pure crap, just because of the press? I think that when you're a lyricist and you're writing about the sort of brutally honest stuff that Ben writes about, you're going to be subject to that same sort of scrutiny.

ihm: What role do you play in the songwriting process? I know you have credits on both "The New Year" and "Summer Skin".

JM: For "Summer Skin", I actually gave Ben beats. I'll record stuff, not just drum beats but guitar parts and keyboard stuff, and I'll put together parts and fragments of songs -- I'm not trying to be a songwriter, though maybe I will at some point in time. Ben tends to write by himself first, and then bring stuff to the rest of the band and we'll all tool it out and pick and choose what's cool, what we're connecting with and what we're not connecting with. We all make suggestions. So when it comes to my writing credits, the way the credits work is that if one of us comes up with a part that significantly changes the arrangement of the song, then we're considered one of the writers of the song. In the case of "Brothers on a Hotel Bed", Chris Walla wrote the music, and I had a lot to do developing the drum part, and Ben just wrote the lyrics. "Summer Skin" started out with me giving Ben a beat that he loved so much that he looped it on his computer, and then it was just something that we ended up recreating when he ended up playing it live in the studio, giving it totally new life. It's one of my favourite cuts on the record, and not just because it comes from one of my beats, but because it's a really simple thing. "The New Year", like I said, Ben only had the start of the song -- musically, the lyrics were out -- and I ended up playing this beat that sparked a bunch of other people's ideas, so I was considered one of the writers for that. I tend to offer up a lot of ideas when it comes to arranging, and maybe that has to do with the fact that I have to arrange four limbs everytime I play. They have to all work together, and one can't be busier than another. I think it has a lot to do with that -- being the drummer and sitting back and not being too involved melodically, I think a lot about the music and how it feels rhythmically. That has a lot to do with counting, and when things start and when things stop. Ben is the primary songwriter, but we all contribute. I mean, Chris' role as producer changes things. We could all have the idea that a song is totally worked out and ready to go, and then we'll go into the studio and record it and Chris will say, "I really think it should go this way, here's why, this is an example." We'll go, "Oh, okay", and change it, and then he's one of the writers.

ihm: It's interesting that you mention how the songwriting is such an organic process. A lot of people are saying that Plans was so obviously influenced by the Postal Service, even though that was Ben and Jimmy Tamborello. I don't understand that, since when I hear Plans I hear Death Cab.

JM: Yeah, I do too.

ihm: So why do you think people are reading the Postal Service into Plans?

JM: I think that they're just reading the songwriter. Ben has a very distinct voice, he has a recognizable timbre and style in the way that he sings, so of course someone who hears "Such Great Heights" will hear "Soul Meets Body" and they'll say, "Oh, that's totally a Postal Service song." Why? Because they've heard it on the radio long before they heard Death Cab, even though Death Cab actually has a history. You say it sounds like a Death Cab record and you're right, because that's where the history is. It's not in the Postal Service. We're at that time when Ben is being recognized as a songwriter, and no matter what project he's in, people are going to associate him with that sound. I mean, if you hear a Death Cab song, but you were first introduced to him by the Postal Service, of course you're going to think of it as a Postal Service song. But I don't think it sounds like a Postal Service record at all. If it was, I think if you took Chris and Nick and I out of the equation it'd be a totally different record. if it's just Ben, it might sound like a Postal Service record, but it can't possibly be that way.



ihm: That's why I find it especially odd, though, because I got into Death Cab after I got into Postal Service.

JM: You did?

ihm: Yeah. I'd heard a bit of Death Cab, but I'd never really been interested in them, but then I heard the Postal Service and thought I should listen to Death Cab some more, so I got Transatlanticism and really liked it. That was how I got into Death Cab, but I still don't hear the Postal Service at all in Plans.

JM: I think it's a totally different record. It's a departure. Ben has an electronic side project, and Death Cab is a full band, an organic process, and everybody's involved. It's good to hear you say that though. I mean, both projects have helped each other. Definitely.

ihm: How do you feel about that? I mean, for "Summer Skin", people are going to say it's influenced by his work with Jimmy Tamborello, when the beat was something you developed.

JM: It's total bullshit. I know Jimmy, he's a great guy, but he'd be like, "What are you talking about?" People are entitled to their opinions. They can think what they want. Think it's a Postal Service song? Sounds like the Postal Service? Cool. if that makes you happy and that makes your life more fun, cool. Whatever. I'm not sweating it.

ihm: Are you looking forward to touring this record?

JM: Can't wait! No offense, but I'm getting tired of talking about it. I don't mean it like that, but, I mean, there's a certain amount of press, and there's a certain amount of reporting that you need to do for people to understand how it happened, where it came from, and what to expect. In the beginning, that was never what we signed up for. We signed up to get together and make music in a room, or to climb in a van and go play a show. I think that's really what we do best. To talk about music is so much different than to play it. I can't wait. Cannot wait! Just today we set up our space, because we'd been doing a bunch of fly-out shows, like Lollapalooza and the Central Park show and the San Diego Street Scene, but all that stuff is stuff you have to do it on the fly. You're not really in the mood, and the machine isn't well-greased -- you're working out all your kinks in those shows. We're beginning the rehearsals for our fall tour, and it feels really good to get in our own room and hunker down and set to work. It feels like we're really going to work. So I can't wait, and we're all really excited about that. Most of the press that's been scheduled has been taken care of, so now it's time to roll up our sleeves and work hard, because that's what we do best.

ihm: If you had the choice of what you could talk about, what would you talk about? Say you had the opportunity to talk to the press about whatever you wanted, what would you want to discuss?

JM: I love to talk about music, and I love to talk about the creative process. It's when someone says, "How'd you get your band name?", or when someone says, "Do you think you'll ever die in a taxi cab?", that has nothing to do with what I do for a living. It does on some shallow level, but when you ask me questions about how was making the record or how does songwriting work or what is it like when you write the songs, that's the kind of stuff I love to talk about. So if I just volunteered, that's what I'd talk about. And don't get me wrong, I have no problem with doing interviews or talking to the press at all. It's just that some people have listened to the music and the records and have some knowledge of the band and what we do, but some people just get an assignment and they don't really give a shit, and those are the things I don't really care to do. I'll talk about music all day long, probably too much, because it's all we know. The things that we do in between our tours are less and less a part of our lives, because we've been so busy. I don't think we'll stay at this pace forever -- we won't be able to, no band lasts forever. Who knows? Maybe we'll do this for the next three years, maybe we'll do this for the next ten or fifteen or twenty or who knows. But as long as we're doing it, the thing we all have in common and share and know best is playing and performing music. Ultimately, like I said, I like to talk about that stuff all day long.

ihm: If the choice, would you want to teach drums for a living? What would you do if you weren't in a band?

JM: Well I did, for ten years I taught drums for a living. I hope that there's some downtime -- there will be -- between records, where I can schedule a whole bunch of lessons again, because I have a bunch of students, and we started some really great things but we haven't had time to continue on. I think that I'll have a whole lot more to offer this time around. I used to teach drummers that were working guys, guys out touring on the road, like William Goldsmith, who played with Sunny Day Real Estate and bands like the Foo Fighters and Fire Theft. He came to me after doing a Foo Fighters tour and his hands were all messed up, and he said, "I need help, I need lessons." I helped him out a lot with technique, and we studied a lot, and he wasn't the only professional guy like that who came for lessons. But I have to say that at the time, I felt great, I felt confident about teaching him, but now, looking back, I feel like a jackass. I wasn't the guy that was out there spending eight months on the road or twelve months on the road playing my ass off. Now that I've been able to go out and experience another aspect of playing besides being in a school and teaching drums in a nice, comfortable, controlled climate environment, I feel like I've got a lot more knowledge, and I'll be able to talk about what it is musicians in general -- not just drummers -- have to do to play the best they can play.

ihm: I was just going to ask that -- how do you feel your experiences of the last few years are going to change the way you teach?

JM: It's going to make me loosen up. I'm not going to be as concerned with what's going on, but with what the person's feeling. Not that I was ever the teacher that slapped the ruler down when the technique was bad, or hit their back and told them to sit up straight when they were slouching. The reason we all do this is because it's fun, because we all have a blast and there's a chemistry between us. We feel like we could be playing baseball, or racing cars around the track or whatever, it could be any team sport or any business adventure, where the idea behind it is that you have fun, you enjoy it, and not very many people get to do what they really love and do it all the time. So if I was going to teach someone who wants to play drums, I'd make sure that every time they're there in a lesson they're having fun, that I'm not some classical Russian piano teacher that's beating the crap out of them, trying to get them to play correctly. Even if a five-year old kid comes in and bashes for five minutes and sits and cries for the next ten because he wants to go home, as long as he had fun when he was playing then he can go home.

ihm: Has that shift from wanting people to be technically proficient to just having fun, has that changed your appreciation of the music you listen to?

JM: Yes, but I learned before...When you learn an instrument, when you really pursue it, you really study it, you go in a circle when you do it right. First of all, you get excited because you're a beginner and anything you do sounds good. You sit down at a piano and you play one note. Then you play two and realize they can work together. When you're a drummer, where I'm coming from, you learn to use your hands and then you learn to use your feet, next thing you know you're keeping time and you're playing a beat. Then you start learning how to do all this fancy shit, and you kind of forget about the initial beginning feeling of what it was like. When I teach, I'd see the excitement of what was going on with a kid -- especially the younger ones -- when they would learn to do something for the first time, and it made me completely forget about technical pursuits. The same thing happens when you get in a band and you realize that you're not the only musician there, and you have to think about the other people you're playing with, in that if you play a whole lot less it works a whole lot better. When you see the reaction of the people who are listening to your music, it makes you appreciate that relationship a whole lot more. All that comes full circle.

ihm: Have you found that the drummers you appreciate now are different from the ones you used to appreciate?

JM: The drummers I appreciate now are the drummers I appreciated when I first started. The guys that were on the radio, the guys that were playing hits in pop and rock, in great feeling songs, playing with great songwriters. There was a whole slew and mess of drummers that were more like athletes, who were technically proficient and they appealed to my ears and my thirst for knowledge as a player, but they weren't playing songs, and they weren't necessarily backing up songwriters. They weren't part of a greater meaning. I still take it all in, though, and I'm still a big geek. I'm a Mars Volta fan just as much as I'm an Elliott Smith fan. I don't think you could get two artists that are further apart.

ihm: I think those are all the questions I have. Is there anything you'd like to talk about, besides the process of making music.

JM: (Laughs) I can't think of anything. It's been a long day. I'll tell you this: You know the band Smoosh? Have you heard of them?

ihm: Yeah, the thirteen- and the eleven-year-old girls?

JM: Yeah. We just finished, as best as we could, another record for them. I don't know if it'll actually happen or come out, but we just went into the studio and I produced a new record for them. I've done that for the last ten days, and went to bed at about four in the morning last night, so I'm kind of running on fumes. That whole thing, though, to go back to my appreciation for simple playing and what I was talking about before, that was all happening right before my eyes, seeing two kids who can really play well, having a great time and taking things seriously as much as they were drawing pictures and chasing each other around and putting signs on my back that said "Kick me".

ihm: Did you like producing? Was it a huge shift from being a drummer?

JM: It's not a huge step from being a drummer or a musician, and it's an even closer step from being an actual teacher. What a good teacher should do, what a good teacher should bring is a great performance out of the student or out of any player. A good teacher should make it, whether it's writing or any performing, or competing, like a coach, a teacher should help a performer feel confident and comfortable in what they're doing. So ten years of teaching has paid off when it comes to being in a studio -- being able to recognize when someone is maybe not feeling it, when it's not going to happen, when you're not going to be able to get a performance because someone needs food or someone needs to take a break, or to know when to tip them forward when someone is really inspired. It's being aware and in tune and having a trusting relationship with someone. I enjoy that part of producing, and I learned a whole lot from Chris Walla and other producers that I've worked with in the past. It's great, but it's way too much work to try and fit in on top of being in this band, especially right now. It's kind of like my last little hurrah of free time, because once this album came out I knew I'd be extremely busy. It is what it is, though, and I had a great time. I've known those girls for a long, long time, probably five or six years.

ihm: Had you taught them?

JM: Yeah, they were my students for about four years. But, more importantly, I'm friends of the family, and I'm sticking out for them and making sure that they don't get swallowed by some evil empire of the music industry.

ihm: What do you mean by that? I mean, you talk about evil empire, but you guys just made the jump to a major label -- not necessarily an evil company, but one of the companies at the heart of that evil empire.

JM: I think the evil empire happens when you have a very young band. We're a different case. We've been together for six or seven years, and we've established a fan base, and we've put out our records and recorded our records, and I feel like we know how to make music work. So making a transition to Atlantic was really simple, because we had a way that we did things. It went so that we recorded the record, it was done, we turned it in, and that was it. But we haven't changed any aspect of our business. We continue to grow at the same rate, we're working with the same people that we've been working with for the last four or five years, in terms of core people that help us with our shows and our managing and our publicity, everthing. Our crew, everone, it's all the same people. I think that when you have a very young band that goes from zero to sixty -- and not that Smoosh are doing that at all -- but say Band X gets signed to a major label because they're discovered by a major label A&R executive who thinks they're the next best thing. That band has never been a band and sweated it out for six national tours, they just automatically rise to the top, and I don't know if they have all the history and tools to be able to cope with everything that's going to come at them. I think that because they don't have all the skills to deal, they don't make all the best decisions. Some people do right out of the gates, but that's when a label has to make decisions for them, and they may not necessarily be in the best interests of the band. I think that a a major label is really good to people that are prepared to communicate with them, and people that don't know the world and the waters involved -- the major label world is the ocean, and if you don't know how to swim you have no business being there.

ihm: So having been a band for so long before going to the major label, you feel you'll be much better prepared.

JM: Absolutely. Without a doubt. What we've realized in talking to these people, in talking to these labels, is that we have just as much knowledge as they do, if not more. They've done things and we've done things, but we can teach each other. I think that the people at Atlantic really appreciate how involved we are in the decision-making process. I'll never forget being in the video office, and talking to the woman who co-ordinates all the video production. She puts the directors in touch with the musicians, the artists, the management. Nick is a huge Hollywood, video, archiving buff, and he knew more about the world of videos and directors than they'd ever imagined. I think it was an incredibly stimulating conversation for them to be in an office with not just one manager, but an entire band that was really eager to talk about this stuff. We literally showed up with a list of directors for videos. There are a lot of bands that don't know or don't pay attention to stuff like that. They just show up and someone makes the decision for them. I think we've been in such control of all the aspects of our business as a band for so long it's been tough for us to let it go. I think that it's encouraging to Atlantic Records, or to any major label, to know that we care that much, and therefore it's a great working relationship. I think if you're a band that has that kind of attitude, you have a lot of things going for you when you step into a major label situation, and it's just more likely to work out. I mean, what boss wants an employee -- Atlantic works for us, so really it's who wants to work with someone that just doesn't give a shit? That doesn't stimulate much growth and creativity.

[*Annie*]

That's long.....

(I'll read it later)