What is the independent music scene like in the San Diego Area? Do you support a lot of indie bands?
We try to support other bands. There are people we love here. Bandalier is a new band that absolutely blows me away. The Heart Beat Trail is not just another band, so good. I'm still heartbroken about Riboflavin getting ignored then breaking up.
Our buddies Michael Tiernan, Sierra West, Tolan Shaw are really on their way. The guy who mastered our CD, Cristopher Hoffee, is putting out really exciting music of his own. Our man Christopher Dale has great local shows. Producer guitarist Andy Machin who did our record is starting a great venture & is a great friend. Local music staple and friend Cathryn Beeks keeps trying to build a community, and our man Tim Pyles at 91X is keeping the feeling of a rock community alive.
That being said, I think it's an atrocious city to play music in. San Diego is a city with a lot of people in it, so ANY city this size is going to produce a lot of great music. People just don't go out and see live music in the same way they do in other cities.
A lot of people here need assurance that a band is cool before committing to see them; whereas I've played music bigger crowds as a total unknown in Oregon & Wisconsin because people just want to hear some music near their house.
San Diego also suffers in particular a little from being Los Angeles' little brother. We are show-business adjacent here, so we attract people with artistic ambition yet without enough self-awareness to realize that nobody's ever heard their music north of Interstate-78. I should be less outspoken about it. This is where we both live, by choice; we have great friends in music here; there's plenty enough talent. But there's also a big fish in a tiny pond mentality here for anybody that's ever gotten a round of applause here. For better or worse, our song "Awkward Town" on the CD says everything about it. It's funny, we think that song is so specifically San Diego and yet my mom tells me that we described Oak Harbor, Washington perfectly.
Do you have a regular venue that you play at?
We've played a lot of the regular haunts with other bands (and solo): Cathryn showcases at House Of Blues bar & various venues, Winstons was and is a fun one. With The Bigfellas we were always guilty of playing as Shay described it "at the opening of a Coke can" because we just liked playing.
Leaders In The Clubhouse are a little different. Spud and I intentionally don't want it to be just another show where you're annoying 1200 people on Facebook to say "come see me at bar X". We want shows to be real events, full horn section, there's some stagecraft going on up there (not quite Genesis or Flaming Lips level of circus but things happening). So, for those who know San Diego, The Casbah and Belly Up primarily here, and some L.A., Bay Area, Seattle shows every several months. And I still like music enough to play solo whenever and wherever I can. I'll get back to you on how that goes, but that's the idea.
" I think we're good for people who want to hear songs with lyrics about something more than teen breakups or just generic rage".
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