1. Do you recall a favorite venue you have played in over your touring career?
1. Nothing in particular, all the early shows were exciting for us because we were young and playing a coffee house seemed like the best thing on earth...so ya, any early show was the best venue.
2. Any thoughts on Richard Swift's new album, "The Atlantic Ocean?"
2. Haven't heard the whole thing, but what I have heard I like. Dickie is a really talented guy.
3. How has the different lineup changes over the years influenced each album's sound? Was the difference in sound related to your personal preference or did the different band members bring different influences?
3. Probably a little of both...Each different guy through the years has added his special thing to each record, part of the reason why the records have had a different vibe. all that to say it would have been cool to have the same cast members since 94, but things just didn't work out that way.
4. What type of keyboard do you use?
4. I have a Nord lead for the synth type sounds, and a Nord electro for the more "natural" sounding stuff...plus whatever I have borrowed from my brother over the years, which has been a lot.
5. Has there ever been a time in your career when you felt that Starflyer 59 was right on the cusp of greater critical and popular success? If so, when, and what happened?
5. A couple of times...we had a publishing thing about to happen after the release of the gold album, and a lot of things seemed to be going on about the time of leave here a stranger, close but not close enough:)
6. Has there ever been temptation for you to get into the "sex, drugs, rock and roll" lifestyle, or is that pretty much a non-issue?
6. That has never been an issue, I have just dealt with the classic sins like anger and envy etc..
7. Who came up with the idea for all the records in the original Gold album liner notes? Who wrote all the sayings?
7. I think that was mostly Jason Pickersgil who did the original artwork for that record, he ran everything by me and I thought that it looked good so we went with it.
8. Now that you have the equipment to record and master, have you ever thought about self-releasing an album or an EP?
8. I like having a label to put out my records, so hopefully I wont have to go that route..I have a good relationship with tooth and nail so as far as I can tell things should stay the same.
9. When putting together an album do you try and have it have an overall lyrical theme or is it just the collection of songs you've most recently written?
9. I start with an album title that I like and try to fit the music and the lyrics to that...Cant write a movie without a title, or so I have heard.
10. How long does it take you to write a song?
10. Not long, I will usually sit in my studio and record 3 or 4 songs at a time to get the ideas going, and when I have 15 or 20 I can usually start to narrow things down. In the old days I would labor a lot more than I do now..I will lay down an acoustic guitar, piano and a vocal, and im good to go, where as before I would want every part mapped out before I recorded a record, and the process was a bit slower.
11. Any thoughts on Neon Horse? I couldn't make it to the show myself, but I've heard from people who were there, and saw some pictures, and their guitarist looks an awful lot like you. :O
11. Good band:)
12. What is the story behind Morella's Forest? How did the name get passed along and such? I know you guys toured together back in the day. Did you guys know each other before Tooth & Nail?
12. Me and my brother had a band called morellas forest when we were teenagers that was signed to a label called narrowpath. Shawn from the "new" morellas forest found out the band was no more and decided to use the name...kinda strange story but that is how it went down.
13. Seeing that SF59 fans really seek out the rare releases, have you ever thought about doing a VERY limited EP or vinyl? I know most vinyls have a pressing of 500 hundred copies. I'm talking way less... maybe only 50 to 100 copies.
13. Might be a good idea, it is really expensive to press up vinyl, that is mostly the reason for the 500 pressing is to keep the costs down for the fans who want to buy it.
14. In Cloud's recording journal for OLD he stated there was a demo for a song called "Jim" you were working on. There was no mention of the song being renamed in Cloud's journal, and there's obviously no song on Old named "Jim." What was the fate of that song--was it renamed to something else, or just never released?
14. That song was completely done during the old album sessions, and was supposed to be on the 10" version. The hard drive it was on supposedly gave out, and I do not have any version of it whatsoever...would re record it but to be honest I have forgotten in mostly. Would love to hear it myself, but as of right now it no longer exists.
15. In light of re-reading Cloud's diary of the Old recordings I wanted to know if the overall process is similar between recordings - you start with one idea but it evolves constantly during the recording process. Or you think something's done but you end up starting from scratch. What's been the hardest album to record?
15. Always similar, it is usually a big task when we actually start the record and things usually shift gears a few times if things dont seem to be working. I would say the hardest record that we did was leave here a stranger, thing was a mess and took a lot of time...was done on tape, and would have been way faster if it was done on pro tools.
16. Is there a story behind the cover art of Leave Here A Stranger? I heard a rumor that it's from the shooting of a Starflyer music video that got shelved.
16. It is supposedly a set shot from star wars phantom menace(or whatever star wars that came out in 1999) that a photographer had that we thought had a neat look to it.
Thanks again for your time.
Thanks for the questions, talk to you next time.
