| This interview of the band Frank Jordan was conducted by Sheila of Stylus Records Being the president of an indie label myself, I tend to straddle the fence at these functions in trying to get involved enough to keep my artists in the public consciousness and staying as far away as possible from everything but the music, which usually puts me in a bar somewhere swilling whiskey. Good things do come out of events like these once in a while and for me, a highlight at this year’s NXNW Festival in Portland, OR was meeting a band from Sacramento called Frank Jordan. Turned on to these guys by Tranjka editor Jason Moriber, I caught the boys after their set at Ground Kontrol and sat them down for a little heart to heart. (D) Devin Hurley — Drums (Mk) Mike Visser — Guitar, Vocals (Mt) Matt Auches - Bass Tr — So you guys just finished your show here at NXNW…what’d you think? D — Portland’s beautiful…such a cool city…it’s our second time coming up here…clean, nice, good city…it’s cool. Tr - How did you get in to NXNW? Mk - Cornerstone got us into the groove of NXNW…they got us the ins. D - Hector. Mt — Yeah, Hector did pretty much everything. Tr — So have you guys seen any other bands or anything else that goes on here? Mk - We drove up here from Sacramento at two in the morning last night and got here at eleven today and slept all day. D - So no, we haven’t been able to see anybody. Mk - We’re playing in Tahoe tomorrow night, so we have to leave tomorrow. Mt - There’s a band called Secret Hate. D - Incredible…Secret Hate was awesome…they just played…so far they’re the best I’ve seen. Tr - What’s the music community like in Sacramento? D - It’s starting to get real big. Papa Roach just came out of Sacramento, Def-Tones, Cake, Foreigner, Night Ranger, you know, we’ve got the old school Tesla…there’s a lot of bands there. Tr - What about bands that are similar to what you guys do? Mk - There’s a great band out called Pocket For Corduroy’s. They are amazing guys that are doing really amazing music. Mt - Sacramento has a lot to offer, um, there’s a lot to offer in Sacramento. D - Well said. Tr - So you guys have been together for four years? D - We met each other and started playing music in ’93. We had a way different line up and a way different way of doing songs. We’ve been a three piece band since ’97. Tr - What made you change your lineup? D - Well, we all moved to Los Angeles and the guitarist we had with us actually ended up moving to New York. Mt - Devin moved to LA, and Matt and I stayed in Sacramento. We played in a band with this guy named James which didn’t work out. We moved to LA to be with him [Devin] and wrote songs and went down and recorded our first CD. The reason we went down there was because Devin was doing editing for a post production company and had ins there so we went down to record because we could get studio time. So we ended up recording two weeks before we moved back to Sacramento. We spent six months there playing, practicing and then recorded and made a seven song EP demo in one night…up all night…did that and then we moved back to Sacramento and played around there for a while. When did we start recording Decoy? D - ’98…We were still independent. We hadn’t met the Cornerstone guys yet. Tr - So you finished your demo and then you shopped it yourself? D - We didn’t shop it or anything. We had it and basically we had 500 copies we sold. We all paid for the album you have right here, Decoy. Then Mike went on tour with this band Filibuster [The Hi-Fi Players] through Europe and they’re on Cornerstone/Skunk. Mk - I brought thirty CDs to the label and just handed them out to everybody. D - And for some reason they signed us. Mk - And Filibuster’s bass player had quit or there was problems, so I went with them [to Europe]. I went to the label, brought all my CDs, handed them to everybody I knew in the hopes that they would like us because you know… D - So they have been super helpful. Mk - They’ve helped us a lot and it’s kind of gotten us in gear cause for a long time we didn’t know what we were doing as far as… Mt - The business side of things Mk - And they’ve been helpful in showing us what we should do and shouldn’t do. We were a little naïve in the beginning, well we’re still naïve, but not as naïve as we were then. Tr - Do you get the feeling that bands and indie labels help each other out in your area? D - There are some bands that we can’t stand that we’ve know for years, and there are some bands that are really cool that we do shows with. There’s a lot of people, club promoters, that help us a lot. There’s a magazine called Alive and Kicking that’s a good Sacramento music magazine. Music in Sacramento is pretty cool actually. There’s a lot of bands and a lot of kids that are down for music and good stuff…it’s a good place. Tr - Do you guys consider yourselves a Southern California band? D - I think we’re a Sacramento band. Mk - I think we’re a band. We’ve always approached it in our minds I think as something we want to do well and that’s about it. Really everything else is based on questions and answers you know. You can define that in so many different ways, really, it’s just a matter of what you want to say, what you want to do and we do what we want to do. D - A lot of people have told us we’re almost like an East Coast band. When you say Southern California I thin you’re referring to a lot of the stuff that was big in the early ‘90s, the punk, the surf kind of stuff and I guess we don’t really fit into that kind of category you know. We kind of try and do some different stuff. Mt - We do have a case of Aqua Net in the back. So, I guess we are a Southern California band. Tr - That counts. D - Southern California bands like the Ziggins. Mk - But, what is a Southern California band? D - That’s what I men, like, they don’t fit the, you know… Mk - People want labels, people want to have something attached to them and go ‘Oh, that’s a da-da-da-da’. D - There are some great Southern California bands…the Toledo Show, The Ziggins…they aren’t huge or anything but… Mk - There are some great El Paso, Texas Bands… D - I think there are good and bad bands everywhere. Tr - What is your stand on the MP3/Napster debate? Mk - I don’t know much about the internet. I don’t have a computer and don’t know how to really use one, but I know, I guess, maybe, it’s stealing. Mt - From a legality standpoint, I don’t think it’s going to last. Mk — It’s unavoidable. Mt - It’s like when people were against CDs when they came out. Mk - There’s a gray area in the law that it is riding on right now and the constitution will work its way into MP3s and there will be a stance and I think it well kind of be like abortion. It’s that gray of an area cause it is sharing so technically the definition is gray, but right now my opinion is that getting your stuff out is almost more important than selling, so for us, honestly, I think it would be great to have people know who we are. D - Like a song or two. Mt - With a whole album though I think it’s different cause why would you put out a whole album. But like, on our web site, we have a couple of songs you can download and then it’s like, do I like these guys? Do I want to spend fifteen bucks on an album or do I not like them. Mk - The thing is with Napster though, is that there’s no… Mt - The internet need to be regulated, just like television, just like radio. Mk - So the question is, you know, I understand the standpoint of a band like Metallica where they have already established themselves, you know, they have a million dollar budget that is being swept away by the downloading of the album instead of buying it, so that’s a viable argument, but at the same time, selfishly, I would love for that to work in our favor because the more people at my shows the better. Tr - Do you guys sell CDs at your shows? D - Always…that’s how we pay for our gas to get here. Tr - Do you think that the downloading phenomenon will decrease your sales? Mk - No, because people will always want to have that sleeve, open the album, look at the lyrics, have that in their collection. They are not going to want to have a gold blank CD. People will always want to buy albums. Mt - But eventually you will be able to download the sleeve, download the entire package, cut it out and put it together. Mk - What if aliens pump music right into… Mt - It’s not that far off the mark. Tr - Who’s responsibility do you think it is to control that? Who need to be the moral party here? D - I guess it’s those who are protecting their interests. I mean that’s really that it comes down to. It’s like, if somebody is going to get something for free, they’ll take it. But it’s like, if you’re selling it and somebody is stealing from you, basically and that’s the way you feel, then it’s up to that person. Mt - From a moral standpoint, it would be the consumers because if they’re aware enough to know that they are hurting a band, especially a small band that doesn’t have much to work with to begin with, if it is indeed hurting us by not giving us the money basically right now to survive, it’s a survival standpoint. We’re barely making it and we’re working really hard to do what we want to do. So it is their responsibility now. Legally, it’s the responsibility of the governing powers that be to figure out whether it’s sharing or if it’s stealing. Metallica made a good point even in the VMA’s. The whole skit about coming over and borrowing your TV and walking out with it you know, it’s a very good argument. Sure it’s sharing but the fact is, you’re taking something from somebody and it’s expensive. It hurts people when you don’t support with your spending dollars what you want to have in your record collection. Tr - What do you think it will do the cultural value of music as an art form? Will the cultural value of music decrease by people thinking that they should be able to get it for free? D - Yeah, I think so. I think art should be free. Everybody should be able to see it and hear it. Mk - People will always, no matter if they download music, if there is a demand…you can’t download an experience at a concert. You can’t download going and seeing a band, being there, buying the shirt and doing that. If a quarter of the album sales were stolen off the internet, it wouldn’t hurt the band cause there will always be the demand to go see them play. And if their merchandise…all I think it will do is spread the word even more to the people. If say VanGogh was having a show you would want to go and see that. You wouldn’t want to download it off the fucking internet to look at it on the computer. You would want to go experience it. If it does [come to that], then strike this earth down now, cause I don’t want to fuckin…I hope that people will always have an interest in going and experiencing it rather than just downloading it. It’s different with audio because whether it’s off the CD that you buy or [the internet] it’s the same noise you get the same thing out of it. Mt - As far as the culture of music, you know, downloading my album is not going to change the inspiration to create. Tr - But what if you find out that you’re not getting paid for what you do? Are you still going to be able to create? Mt - I don’t really get paid for what I do now. I mean, I am getting to the point now where I recognize the need to get paid to survive but money to me and art and the pleasure of doing it…there’s the business side and the creative side. As far as from a strategic standpoint even David Bowie said he thought for a long time that separating art and money would allow him to create in a more pure way. He said that he thought by controlling his business it allowed him to be more free to do what he wanted to do because the constraints of money were not binding him. Tr - Yeah, but Bowie makes a lot of money doing what he does. Mt - But the rules are changing the ways of capitalizing on your music and creating revenue by doing music is changing and the rules the game is changing, but that’s just life. Tr - How do you guys plan to change with it? Are the changes making musicians less appreciated? Mt - That’s not a new occurrence. Mk - I mean, it’s been happening for so long. The level of understanding of record contracts and royalty rates and all that. I think it is more in our favor now than it was twenty years ago. Tr - Because you are more aware? Mk — Yeah, people are more aware. The whole goal of a musician is to get signed. Tr - Why? Mt - Well, it’s validation and it’s the next level, but for so many artists for so long, especially in pop culture, they’ve been exploited every step of the way and their royalties have been stolen from them and their writing credits and they sign these deals they don’t understand cause of the legal jargon. A record contract can be so foreign to an artist, you know. Just the fact that they’re getting signed is good enough. Nowadays I feel that artists are more aware of the nuts and bolts of a contract so that’s kind of balancing the MP3 thing. Tr - So, what does getting signed mean to you? D - I used to manage, book all the shows, all the this and that. We played a show at Pomona State University and they said alright, $400 bucks and you guys can come down and play. We go down and do our thing. We didn’t have any performance contracts. We had to rent a van to go down there. When we got with these guys [Cornerstone], the first thing they did was download us a performance contract and stuff about distribution, the business side of music. They helped us to help ourselves. They don’t do everything for us. They’re not our booking agents. They help get shows for us, but pretty much when we’re deciding about managers or a producer or what’s going on, they know a lot of the business side. Mt - We talk everyday pretty much. Mk - Ultimately, and I think I speak on the behalf of all of us, I think why it’s so important for bands to get signed is because they want nothing to do with that. They just want to worry about writing songs, creating things. I want my main job to wake up, write songs. That’s all I do. Not worry about contracts. Mt - That wont change though. Mk - I know, but I’m saying I think that’s why bands want to get signed. It’s self gratifying. Mt - It’s like having a big brother that kind of takes you under their wing and brings you into their deal. It’s the next level. It’s not the end all be all, it’s just the next step which is great for us because you know, everything happens, I think, naturally. This is natural progression for this band. It’s not the cru de gras (sp?), we’ve just hit pay dirt and everything’s gravy. Not! It’s just the next step. Tr - What do you think needs to happen for it to be pay dirt? Mk - Work. Long years of work. D - We’re a young band. We haven’t played for a long time, but we are serious. Mk - The same reasons doctors go to med school. They work, go through eight years of learning and paying their dues and eventually they become doctors. That’s what we’re doing right now. We want to be… Mt We want to be doctors. Mk - paid artists cause all of us in the back of our heads want to have families and aside from all the other bull you have to support yourselves, I don’t have anything to fall back on. I don’t plan on having anything to fall back on. Mt - None of us went to college. Tr - What happens if it doesn’t work out? Mk - Ask the same question to somebody who is in med school. See, the music business seems like such a lottery ticket and it’s all based on luck and I think that if you make your own luck that it’s the same as like, what if you were aspiring to be a carpenter? Well, what if it doesn’t work out? It’s like, what if I can’t start my car? What if I don’t know how to put gas in my car? Then I can’t get there? What do I do? It’s the same thing. I believe that if you are in it for the right reasons…unless you are trying to fool somebody and fake it, if you’re trying to emulate another band that does something and you’re going, "I wanna be a little bit Limp Bizkit with a little tinge of ‘N Sync", then hey, you better go to school cause it’s been done. But if you’re playing from your heart and your soul and your toenails, then that’s fine. And plus the older I get, as far as money, I don’t need to have a Lamborgini in my garage to tell me that I’m a successful artist. I think a modest living doing what you love is the best case scenario for everybody. Mt - That’s succeeding. Tr - That was my next question…what constitutes success for this band? Mt - Not living at our parents’ house. Mk - Doing what you love. Not having to go and do…I’m going to be an artist. I’m going to be a paid artist someday. Mt - You are an artist. Tr — So, what you’re saying is being an artist is just as valid career choice as anything else? Mk - People that work at Taco Bell and people that work at law firms…you have a job you do it. If we were selling out 30,000 seat arenas, that still doesn’t mean dick. That doesn’t mean I need special treatment or I need respect. It’s a fuckin job and we did our job and we don’t need a pat on the back. That’s life. You do what you do and move on. You don’t need adulation and all that other bullshit. They read all the stories about rock stars doing this and that. That’s dinosaur shit. That’s going to be gone because it’s old and it’s not art. It kills art. Mt - The thing about the music business is that it’s kind of based on your fan base you know? You build your own success based on how many people come to your show and that’s the hard part because sometimes it doesn’t matter if you’re good or not. You can be the best band in the world, but if you only play in your garage, it’s like if the tree falls in the forest, who’s going to hear it. So respect, if that equals money, is all based on who comes to your show which is a difficult thing to have happen. It’s a very strange game that’s played. Tr - Do you guys feel like you can dictate that game at all? Mk - I think that more and more we’re trying to do what we can. Mt - The leg work and paper pounding and posters and organizational side of the business is as important as the creative side and I think that this band is more focused on the creative side. For a long time trying to grow and have something you feel adamant about before you go out and start tooting your own horn. So for a long time we felt we were kind of in a gestation period where as like we’d just go around hyping ourselves. It’s working smart. It’s not just working hard. You need to have, if you can get a friend that’s going to sell your CDs and go up to people and say, "Hey did you like the show? Here’s a CD" and not thinking anything other than you need to sell your stuff because it’s a business. And I’ve had reservations even about bragging or talking about the band or trying to hype us because I don’t like to do that. It’s not a natural thing. But that is part of it and so the older I get the more I realize that it has to be a natural way like "If you enjoyed it, here’s a CD" you know, "Please come see us again" and look them dead in the eye with conviction and say "We really need your help. We appreciate that you came". Find out more about Frank Jordan by visiting their web site at: www.cornerstoneRAS.com or www.skunk.com |
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