Page 12 - Black Velvet Issue 89

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there’s a lot of that stuff that I’ve come to terms says he thinks that everyone gets to a point ally curious about the cover. Brian is hesitant to
with and a lot that I’ve learned. I think it’s just this when they need to figure themselves out and tell us too much but does say, “We just wanted
perpetual never being satisfied that is definitely that fans can relate to that, growing up too. “Be- to strategically place a lot of our friends at home
something that I fear and I think it’s about trying cause no-one’s going to do it for you. You can in LA in a room in one of my best friends’ house
to conquer that. Even if the best thing could have so many people who are going to guide and strategically place people where it looked
have ever happened and our show has hap- you along the way, but at some point you’ve got like everyone was having a great time but the
pened, I’m always looking for more and there’s to take the right steps yourself.” five of us were having a not very great time. Also
a good side of that and there’s a bad side of Rather than going to an expensive producer, on the cover, the only faces you can see the en-
that.” band members Stephen and John Gomez pro- tire faces of are the five band members and then
But Brian is a lot happier now than he was duced ‘Stories For Monday’ on a laptop in a bed- there’s one other person whose face you can
a year or so ago. “I got a little disoriented and room. The brothers had been learning how to see and no-one needs to know who that is but it
lost somewhere along the way between the end produce records while Brian had been away means everything to us. Every other face is sort
of the last album and now. But I think in the last travelling. We ask Brian if he thinks now, know- of half turned or covered by somebody.”
six months or so I’ve figured out what happiness ing they can make a great quality album them- He adds, regarding this sixth person, “With-
is and how it pertains to out him I’m not sure we’d
me and what I desire of even be a band.”
all of this. And I think We think that’s the per-
I’m a lot happier now.” son in the photo frame on the
What is happi- wall. But who is that? Anyone
ness? know?
Brian says, “I think
it’s just a matter of re- his year, The Sum-
minding myself what Tmer Set performed at
makes me happy, from a Bernie Sanders rally and
the smallest moments even got to sing ‘This Land Is
to the biggest moments Your Land’ with Bernie
and that can be any- Sanders himself. Brian wrote
thing, but there are just ‘a man I respect and look up
certain triggers that can to so greatly’ while Stephen
remind me to stay the tweeted, ‘I have looked up to
course and be happy @BernieSanders for years’.
with what I’m doing. Brian tells us, “Bernie’s been
And remember when in politics for decades now
we’re playing our set… but he’s only kind of come to
We’re playing a 90 life in the young people of
minute set and I’m try- America in the last couple of
ing to remind myself to years… We also got to meet
make sure the minute the guy and he was just real
60 is the same as the and honest and down to
minute 4 and just be in earth with us, and I’ve met
it and focus the entire other political figures before
time and that’s what and some of them seem like
makes me really robots and he was just like a
happy.” really nice, rad guy who
talked to me about Bruce
hen the band Springsteen and that was
Wtold their kind of cool. It just makes you
record label, Fearless want to believe it. And that
Records, that they were was nice. It was different.
going to split up, “They There was something special
were pretty bummed,” about it.”
says Brian. “We told Bernie’s motto is ‘A Fu-
them we were going to ture To Believe In’. Brian
split but also put out thinks it would be a good
one last album. So we change with Bernie running
were going to give the country. “I think people
them a record to put out are ever-evolving and I don’t
but we told them it was think you can run a country
going to be the last based on mechanisms from
one. They were hundreds of years ago for-
bummed. But what was ever. I think Bernie’s looking
really fun was when I called the president of our selves in a bedroom that it’s a waste of money after the little people and I think in America
label and told him we weren’t going to break up using an expensive producer? there’s so much that has become dominated by
any more. And just the joy and sound in that “Yes and no,” answers Brian. “To the degree the upper class and big banks and Wall Street
conversation was unforgettable. Chris was very of this one, we made the record in a bedroom, and Bernie just seems to be looking out for the
excited, the president of our label.” essentially, and it turned out fantastic, and we people that to me matter, and I think that’s really
Brian ended up retreating to his parents’ could have made the same sounding record in nice.”
house in Arizona and that’s where he really re- a studio, so we’ve proved to ourselves we can
flected on himself and his life. He ended up writ- do more with less, which was something we etting back to the band and album, the
ing ‘Figure Me Out’. And in ‘Figure Me Out’ Brian needed to learn how to do again. But there’s al- G‘Wasted’ intro talks of ‘a new day, a new
sings of making his parents proud. He tells us ways a certain level of insight from an experi- beginning, a new chance to be great’. Does
that they ARE proud of him. “They like the enced A-list producer, a magic you can’t get Brian feel like his vision of greatness has
music, they like the album. That helps. They from anywhere else. And a bigger studio always changed since the early years? He thinks so. “I
were fine with the idea of the split too. They just means more toys! That’s fun too,” he laughs. don’t really know how to explain that but I do
wanted me to find what it was that was going to think that what I’m searching for as far as great-
make me happier in a sense. I think they knew I ince the album release, the band have ness is very different than what I used to think,”
was going to figure it out either way. They didn’t Sbeen back on tour and things have been he says. “I spent a little bit of time just searching
seem to be that afraid.” going great. Josh tweeted, ‘The hidden mes- to have a big hit song by any cost, whether it be
Brian has said that ‘Figure Me Out’ is the sages in the ‘Stories for Monday’ cover makes a flash in the pan or something that was going
‘most honest piece of work’ he’s ever done. He ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ look juvenile’. This makes us re- to last. And I think my idea of greatness now is
THE SUMMER SET