Post by Rebecca Marchand on Feb 11, 2011 23:25:27 GMT -5
Just a little present for everyone!
I was lucky enough to interview Ben last night for a Scarlet Grey feature I am working on for a magazine I write for. I'd love to share the whole thing here, but I can't... yet. The issue this feature is for won't be out until the spring, but I got permission to share some teasers here - and ONLY here, so please don't repost these anywhere just yet.
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"We played a whole tour where we played people’s living rooms. That’s how it would happen. We would go to a kid’s house and we were paid with basically a place to stay and they would feed us. That was the tour we had to do, because we didn’t have any other opportunity."
"I mean, they tried to pair us with a hip hop producer. There was a meeting I remember where I had to go in and they were talking about changing my image. And I saw this big print out of my face on an easel with different overlays of hairstyles and they put one after another over my face. We were so scared."
"It’s definitely possible for an unsigned band to 'make it,' but to what degree do you want to do that? We haven’t met a label that we’ve fallen in love with and would let us do what we want to do. So, until we find that, we’re gonna do it the way we’ve been doing it."
"To hear that when you made a record for $2000 in eight days when some records cost a million dollars, it’s just really surreal. It gives you a 'David and Goliath' confidence. I don’t think it would have been possible without three years building the Grey Family."
"A lot of the new songs are really personal, really autobiographical. But, I try to keep my ego out of the songs because if it’s too much about me, too esoteric, it’s like I don’t know why I’m singing it for everybody. One of the points of the songs is to sing with an audience and cement that bond between audience and artist."
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When the magazine comes out, I'll be sure to let everyone know. The interview will be trimmed to fit my editorial length specification - the interview was almost an hour, so there's a lot to trim. But I'm hoping to be able to post the full transcript and the audio here after the issue goes to print. I only transcribed about half the interview so far, so hopefully I'll have a few more previews soon!
I was lucky enough to interview Ben last night for a Scarlet Grey feature I am working on for a magazine I write for. I'd love to share the whole thing here, but I can't... yet. The issue this feature is for won't be out until the spring, but I got permission to share some teasers here - and ONLY here, so please don't repost these anywhere just yet.
------------------
"We played a whole tour where we played people’s living rooms. That’s how it would happen. We would go to a kid’s house and we were paid with basically a place to stay and they would feed us. That was the tour we had to do, because we didn’t have any other opportunity."
"I mean, they tried to pair us with a hip hop producer. There was a meeting I remember where I had to go in and they were talking about changing my image. And I saw this big print out of my face on an easel with different overlays of hairstyles and they put one after another over my face. We were so scared."
"It’s definitely possible for an unsigned band to 'make it,' but to what degree do you want to do that? We haven’t met a label that we’ve fallen in love with and would let us do what we want to do. So, until we find that, we’re gonna do it the way we’ve been doing it."
"To hear that when you made a record for $2000 in eight days when some records cost a million dollars, it’s just really surreal. It gives you a 'David and Goliath' confidence. I don’t think it would have been possible without three years building the Grey Family."
"A lot of the new songs are really personal, really autobiographical. But, I try to keep my ego out of the songs because if it’s too much about me, too esoteric, it’s like I don’t know why I’m singing it for everybody. One of the points of the songs is to sing with an audience and cement that bond between audience and artist."
------------------
When the magazine comes out, I'll be sure to let everyone know. The interview will be trimmed to fit my editorial length specification - the interview was almost an hour, so there's a lot to trim. But I'm hoping to be able to post the full transcript and the audio here after the issue goes to print. I only transcribed about half the interview so far, so hopefully I'll have a few more previews soon!