02.24.07 - Volume 3, Episode #2 - Length 19:15
bill is comprised of 3 guys having a great time making phenomenal music. When you add their talent, you can only expect people will notice. It is easy to see why bill was nominated for San Diego’s Music Award 2006 and made the Rolling Stone Magazine top 25 MySpace Bands list.
AAC 18.8 MB
MP3 17.7 MB
( ♪ Slippery Slope – From the Album Birthday Suit ♪ )
John: Something we take very seriously is the music itself.
( ♪ Slippery Slope – From the Album Birthday Suit ♪ )
John: Well, when we first got out here, when I first got out here and met up with Dave, who I have known for a long time, we were trying to think of a band name together. We were actually out with my dad, who had made a couple of remarks at the dinner table. Classic parent trying to be cool with the kids stuff like, “over there is looking pretty good guys”.
When we got home that night we were talking about it, laughing about it and someone said his name and it was like “Bill…..that’s a pretty cool name actually.”
Dave: It turns out that my dad’s name is also Bill. We kinda thought it would be a good way to go.
John: Kurt’s dad’s name is unfortunately named Bob.
Kurt: I didn’t even know about the name until they approached me about it. I was kinda like “I don’t know”. I didn’t really feel it.
John: I was pretty much decided at that point.
Dave: Luckily Kurt got out there a few weeks later.
Kurt: I was the last one out to San Diego.
( ♪ Slippery Slope – From the Album Birthday Suit ♪ )
Dave: The story behind us is we all grew up together in New York and we went away to college. These guys when to school in New York and I went to school out in San Diego. When we were all done, we were all looking for the next thing to do. I kinda recruited them out to San Diego. Started up about 2 years ago.
Kurt: We had all played in bands together previously, like in high school and college, in different formations. We all have that background of playing together.
John: Yeah, almost 10 years now, more or less.
( ♪ Slippery Slope – From the Album Birthday Suit ♪ )
John: I remember in high school, Kurt was the big shot around school. He was the guy who could do a mean Eddie Vedder impersonation, so he was highly recruited to play in everyone’s band.
Kurt: You can edit this right?
John: I remember my friend and his friend, who he played in a band with came over and we set up this jam session one day. I was playing drums even though I sucked at drums. I had been playing for a few weeks, few months, whatever. I remember Kurt came over and being nervous. I was like, dude…these guys are some serious musicians. I’m not going to be able to hold my own.
We were singing some Alice in Chains, famous for their harmonies. I sung along with Kurt and right there we had that natural harmony going, which I think has been a big factor in any band we have ever played in. That is something we always really go for, is a lot of two part singing.
( ♪ Panacea – From the Album Birthday Suit ♪ )
John: So this first album I wrote pretty much all the songs. I had been writing music for a while, so I had a whole list of stuff, some still waiting to get to. Now that we are done with this first one, we are definitely collaborating more. We collaborate. We’ve had songs that we have written together that actually just weren’t on the album for what ever reason. I definitely see the next one being a lot more collaboration between the three of us. Every one in this band is capable of writing. A lot of thought is put into the songs. It’s not like we are just trying to find the catchy melody and sell it or have some gimmick in our act. You know a lot of composition goes into the songs themselves. It is definitely very musician friendly, as well as you know, I think it does have that listener friendly aspect of it too. I think that is a fine line these days. Either something is to esoteric or it is too catchy right away to really get that serious attention. I think that is something we do a decent job of.
Dave: I think another thing that makes us unique is since we all switch instruments while we are playing. John plays piano and the drums, Kurt plays guitar. Both of them will have their turns singing. It kind of naturally lends itself to us playing a lot of different styles of music because of the different instrumentation. I think that is one of the things that makes us different then most of the bands around.
( ♪ Sitting Duck – From the Album Birthday Suit ♪ )
Kurt: I think I would say it’s fun overall. We are just a bunch of jokers. We just like to have fun when we play. At our show we played last night, we we just what ever, playing, cracking jokes, it was very laid back. People were into it, laughing and listening. It would be fantastic to be able to tour and do this full time. I mean that would be excellent. I hope that is where we see ourselves in 5 years.
Dave: – we are really making a push to go in that direction. We started touring, a lot of these smaller tours that we are doing are kinda an effort towards a larger tour this summer. We are definitely trying to move in that direction.
John: – Definitely that is the struggle we are facing right now is that we are not making any money. Any money we do make we put back into the band, just to try and get to the next level. Hopefully some more opportunities will present themselves along the way.
It’s a bunch of different levels. You start out and you are entry level and you got to prove yourself and maybe you will get a better gig here and there. Then maybe you start selling more records. I think that we are just making baby steps towards that next step of the next level, where we can actually quit those staple jobs and get out there.
Dave: These guys moved out to San Diego basically for the band. The weather didn’t hurt either. Everyone has invested a lot already into the band. That’s kind of where we want to be I think.
( ♪ Sitting Duck – From the Album Birthday Suit ♪ )
John: The album is called Birthday Suit. We are going to have it available on our website.
Dave: That is at www dot billmusic dot net
John: You can download it digitally as well.
Dave: We actually have seen a lot of the benefits from the podcasting and the digital download. We have had a lot of success with those too.
( ♪ Sitting Duck – From the Album Birthday Suit ♪ )
John: I think it actually solves more problems then it creates. One logistics of it all is it is hard to coordinate peoples schedules to get practices together, for shows. Being three, there is a least one or two less people to have to coordinate with. Another thing that doesn’t hurt is that we live in the same house. We practice there too. A lot of times we can have an impromptu rehearsal if called for.
Dave: As far as the instrument role changing goes, I feel that really helps us a lot because it is just like in anything you do, sometimes it’s the tendency to get stale, stuck in a role. Doing the same thing all the time. By playing different instruments and different roles, it keeps things fresh constantly for us. I think that is really rewarding.
Kurt: Change things up a bit and make it more fun. Our songs are pretty well rehearsed. We don’t do a lot of jamming, but is just fun to switch around and keep things new.
( ♪ Sound Scientist – From the Album Birthday Suit ♪ )
" I was like, dude…these guys are some serious musicians. I’m not going to be able to hold my own." - John Coyle
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