Discover America Interview
Chris: Hello.
Frances: Hey, is this Chris?
Yep, this is Chris.
Hi, this is Frances with HM Magazine.
Hey, what’s going on?
Is now a good time for an interview?
Yeah, sure.
OK.
Now’s a great time.
Alright, great. My first question is…you’ve recently started a new band, Discover America, after twothirtyeight disbanded. Tell me how all this came up and the story behind it and how have your fans reacted to the change?
Well, let’s see. Twothirtyeight ended in 2002 and I just took two years off just to kinda chill out and just do something else. I was kinda tired of playing music for a while. And so I just started writing songs. I moved to Nashville for a while and started writing music there a year after twothirtyeight broke up and I just wanted to do something different that was happier and funner kind of music. And so I just wrote music for about a year and then I didn’t have a name for it yet and I sent some of the songs to Chad at Tooth and Nail and he was like, “Wow. We should put this out.” So, I came up with the name Discover America and then just moved back to Florida and just started recording, got a house and just started recording a record and I worked on it for about eight months and then went to Seattle, earlier this year and mixed it. And so the record’s done now and it’s out and then I’m just kinda putting a band together right now. And just old friends of mine just to play with. And we’re touring this summer for three weeks. So, that’s how the band started and the record is just me playing on it mostly. There’s a few friends of mine who played. My friend Jake played piano on a song and my friend Adrian played drums on a song but it’s primarily just me, but I’m putting a band together right now. But probably on the next record I’ll probably just have a drummer play the drums and stuff like that but that’s pretty much how it came together.
How your fans reacted to the change from twothirtyeight to Discover America?
I think most people have responded positively to it. And I have a lot of…there’s a lot of people who were not aware of who twothirtyeight was, who are fans, people who buy the records now. It’s kinda weird how Tooth and Nail’s fans, the people who buy Tooth and Nail albums, are younger people and they usually cycle out after a couple years. A lot of the kids that have bought the Discover America record weren’t even fans of twothirtyeight but that’s cool because they can go back and check that out later or whatever. But, it’s been a pretty positive reaction so far.
Cool. How has your experience in twothirtyeight influenced your music in Discover America or has it at all?
I think with twothirtyeight I was really ambitious and really caught up in doing a band and I kinda got stressed out. I basically just got really burnt out and I think with Discover America it’s more about having fun with the people that I’m playing with and having fun with people I come in contact with and it’s going to be more about relationships and kind of like the whole business side of it will be something that I do, but it won’t be a priority. I just want to enjoy the experience more so I think that’s probably the biggest change is trying to make it more like a band and less like a business, I guess. Is what the difference would be. But also just to have fun on stage and take it…not be so heavy about things cause when people go to a show they don’t want to be bummed out. It’s like…a show is supposed to be an escape from your regular life. It’s supposed to be []so I think that’s probably the biggest thing. Twothirtyeight had a lot of bummer songs. I’m not really into that anymore.
So what was your inspiration for the new Discover America album and how does the title “Psychology” relate to the entire album?
Well, I finished the record and I didn’t have a title for it yet and I just started thinking of what I could call it and a lot of the songs deal with how people think and what they think and just how…it deals with a lot of the ideas that people have. So, it’s kind of just…it kind of went along with psychology. I took psychology in college for a year and it’s probably the only class I’ve ever taken that I really enjoyed and actually remember anything from. And I kept all my textbooks and stuff, so I’m kind of an enthusiast, a psychology enthusiast. I don’t know a whole lot about it but I’m interested in the subject so I just decided to name the record that.
Tell me about any specific themes in the album, both lyrically and musically.
There’s a song about childhood, you know, a song about being a kid. It’s a song about innocence. And then, there’s a song about being honest and not putting up some kind of front. There’s a song about the afterlife. There’s a few songs about relationships. There’s…that’s pretty much it from what I can think of right now.
Did you try anything specifically musically or you just kind of went with whatever came to you?
When I lived in Nashville for a while I listened to a lot of R&B kind of music. And also a lot of music from the 70’s and it seems like a lot of the bass lines in that kind of music is really repetitive, kind of captivating and it makes people move. That older kind of music just grooves really hard and I tried, with Discover America stuff, to just have the rhythm section be really groovy so people can move to it. That’s probably one of the main things I wanted to do. If I was playing a song back and it wasn’t making me tap my foot and kind of want to bounce to it, then I wasn’t into it. Does that answer your question? Am I doing good by the way?
Yeah, you’re doing great.
I don’t know if my answers are lame or if they’re too short or too long or…are they too short?
Haha. No, you’re doing good.
OK. Is this being recorded or something?
Yeah.
Oh, well, okay.
NEXT PAGE
All Pages | 1 | 2 | 3
Return to Internet Exclusives
Comments
i love twothirtyeight.
