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American Hi-Fi on Parade
By: Emmy Boyce
With their latest album, "Hearts on Parade", released April of 2005,
Alternative Addiction took the opportunity to shed some light on the
goings on. Drew Parsons, American Hi-Fi bass player, stepped aside on a
busy day to have a chat about radio airplay, stardom, and basically what
it's like for a band to try to eke out an existence in the industry
today. Couple their already success from the single "Flavor of the Week"
and their popularity among the youth with shuffling a few cards right
and this band just might be on its own parade.
Alternative Addiction: You're heading out on the road with Reel Big Fish
[at the time of the interview].
Drew: Yep.
AA: And you've been on the road pretty much non-stop for a while now.
D: Yeah!
AA: How has all this touring been going for you?
D: (laughs) The touring has been great. We're slowly losing our minds, I
think, but it's been great. All of the shows we've done. Bowling for
Soup, I mean, we were with them for four months, which is the longest
I've ever been on tour with another band. It was all amazing. I think
that the Reel Big Fish tour is going to be great, too. I think it's
probably going to be a lot of college age and above kids that just want
to go out and listen to fun music. Hopefully, we'll go over well with
them. But yeah, certainly, not having a break can start to wear on me
and we start wanting to kill each other after a while. It's good to have
a week or two off every once in a while.
AA: When a band records a new album. It's pretty obvious what you expect
and hope for out of that.
D: Yep.
AA: You want to move units, you want to make charts, you want to gain
airplay.
D: World domination, yeah.
AA: But when you go out on tour what are you expecting out of a tour?
D: Just to try to gain some fans. You try to put yourself in front of an
audience that maybe they haven't heard of your band, or they don't know
it. You just try to win people over. And of course have fun. You know,
you can't do it if it's not fun. It wouldn't be worth it.
AA: So far, how have the crowds been out at your shows?
D: They've been really good. We just started doing a couple dates with
Better then Ezra, and it's definitely a very different crowd than
Bowling for Soup. Bowling for Soup is a much younger pop audience. This
is more like an adult, like, hot AC [adult contemporary] kind of crowd.
So it's our age and older music fans coming out. It feels a little bit
different on stage not seeing young kids out there, but it's given us
another audience to tap into.
AA: Was that intentional, or just kind of the way things happened? Did
you think about that happening before it did?
D: Yeah. I mean, when we're offered dates, when you're looking for
tours, you try to put yourself in front of the audience that you want to
get. That was one of the positive things to going with Better than Ezra.
They're doing well. They'll be playing to good crowds and it'll
definitely be a different look for us. Our records can definitely get a
little bit scatter brained so we can appeal to a pretty wide audience, I
think.
AA: I can understand why it is appealing to a younger crowd, but I'm 30
years old and it appeals to me, too.
D: Right, yeah. I'm 30 years old as well, so, you know. It's the same
kind of thing. All the bands that we grew up on, and bands that we loved
in the 90's, and Cheap Trick, and Elvis Costello, but you know, it's
poppy and fun. It appeals to the younger audience I guess, too, because
of that.
AA: Speaking of the bands that you grew up with, I can pick out various
musical influences when I listen to music. I'm curious if having the
band split up between two coasts brings different influences to the
music.
D: Not really because we've only been split up recently. The band was
formed in Boston. We all lived there a long time. The other three moved
out over the past four years to L.A. We don't spend much time apart. We
all listen to pretty much the same stuff. But L.A. certainly influenced
this record. I mean, this record was written in L.A., when the previous
record was written on the road. I think it helped the vibe a little bit,
you know. Those guys were all at home in sunny L.A. It certainly will
influence your music.
AA: I guess I hadn't thought about that before - the circumstances that
you're under as you're writing.
D: Yeah, the second record was written entirely on the road. I think we
took two weeks off for Christmas. We were on the road for a whole year
supporting the first record, went home for two weeks, and then went
immediately to L.A. to record the second record. All that was written in
the back of the bus on tour.
AA: Time on your hands?
D: (laughs)
AA: This is something that's really interesting to me. What's the bar
that a band has to live up to? Like, what's the job description of those
who dare to call themselves rock stars?
D: Wow. I don't know because, I mean, we're certainly not rock stars.
AA: You don't consider yourself one?
D: No. I don't think so. I just consider myself a musician. I mean,
we're just a bunch of friends playing around. I think there's definitely
a certain air about people that are rock stars. We're definitely not
living. I mean, as I'm standing outside of a barbeque place after
playing a pool party I'm not feeling really like a rock star right now.
AA: What is that air then?
D: I don't know. I'm trying to think if I know any. People that are rock
stars. I don't know. Sometimes it can be a little bit of a bad
connotation. I think it's almost like a little prima Dona stuff. We were
just watching the Chappelle's Show. Do you ever watch that show?
AA: Yes.
D: Have you seen the Rick James True Hollywood Story?
AA: Yeah.
DD: I mean, Rick James was a rock star, and certainly there were some
negative connotations to that. His view of women certainly wasn't a
great thing for him, but just the way his attitude was and stuff, I
mean, he was definitely a star. And the world revolved around him.
AA: In your line of work, being in a band in the public eye, do you
really care how your actions come across to the media?
D: Do I care? I mean, I guess you do a little bit. You certainly don't
want to be perceived as an asshole. We just stay true to ourselves and
that's all you can do. People's perceptions can always be different, and
it's amazing how things can get turned around. Like, we just did a high
school show for some kids that won a contest. Unbeknownst to us, the
kids were told they would have time to hang out with the band. We were
never told this, or anything like that. We hung out after the show, and
signed autographs and stuff, and talked to some of the kids. I guess a
few of them were kind of bummed out when they didn't have more time with
us. There was a lot of negative remarks on our website, and that kind of
stuff. You know, people's perception. We weren't being jerks, we weren't
trying to hide out from people, but they certainly perceived it that
way. Stuff like that happens and there's just nothing you can do about
it.
AA: I understand that "Hell Yeah!" is the next single.
D: Yeah!
AA: How did it come about to use that track?
D: When we recorded it we all felt like that was the strongest potential
single on the record. I was just really excited about it because it felt
like it was going to be a real different look than the rest of our
singles. You know, most of our singles that people know are kind of pop
punky numbers. This one's just got a different feel and it seemed like
it would stand out a little bit on pop radio, and we just felt really
good about it.
AA: Is that more of an attempt to stand apart from everything else
that's being on the radio, or more of an attempt to show another side of
American Hi-Fi?
D: I think a little bit of both. It's good to have, especially on pop
radio. Modern rock stations, we just can't even fit into modern rock
anymore. I'm not even sure there is modern rock stations anymore. It's
certainly not what it was in the 90's, or even when "Flavor of the Week"
came out. But going to a station like pop that you're competing with
Jay-Z, 50 Cent, and Nelly, you know, there's not a lot of room for rock
bands at this format. One of the things we kind of ran into with "The
Geeks Get the Girls", even being on tour with Bowling for Soup who was
going for a single at the same time, it's kind of like, a lot of the
stations were like, "Well, Bowling for Soup is filling that spot on our
station. There's not really room for another band with that kind of
sound." So, giving a song like "Hell Yeah!" you can't really clump us in
with that sound on that single. It's a little bit different. We'll see
what happens, but maybe it'll help send us into another slot.
AA: What songs, or songs, do you not do live that you want to?
D: The song that I like the best that's off our second record is a song
called "Save Me", and we never have ever played that live. I think we
tried to practice it once or twice and it was really hard for Stacy to
sing and play and make the song sound well. We just kind of gave up on
it. I was always really bummed out about that. A lot of our mellower
songs, too. We try to keep it to one or two mellow songs a set, and
there's a lot of mellower songs on the first album and the second record
that I would love to play a little bit more, but haven't really had the
opportunity to.
AA: Well, hopefully you'll have a career that lasts a good long time
that you can change it up over the years.
D: Yeah, yeah. It'll be nice to be able to play a headlining tour, or
something, where we play for an hour, hour and a half, where we are able
to fit in more of that stuff.
AA: That's limiting, too, when you have definitions of a set time.
D: Yeah, definitely.
AA: How has the addition of Sutter to the band changed the dynamic of
your live show?
D: Well, he's doing a drum solo now every night.
AA: Very nice.
D: Yeah! When we were in Japan playing shows, at one point we were about
to start "Flavor of the Week", and Stacy broke a string right before we
started the song. In order to fill the void of when he was switching
guitars he just kind of put Jason on the spot and told him to play a
drum solo. He did it and we all just thought it was really hilarious,
just very arena rock to play a drum solo. So, we've kind of been
sticking with it every night. It's been very entertaining.
AA: That's cool.
D: He's a good drummer. He had big shoes to fill, I think, with our old
drummer, Brian, and he's doing a great job. It's just good, too, to have
somebody new out there that's a little bit fresh, a fresh feel. He
hasn't been on the grind touring with us since 2000. He's a little bit
fresher and definitely brings a lighter air to it.
AA: People want to know what's next for American Hi-Fi. What can you
tell me about that?
D: Well, hopefully the single will do really well, and we'll do this
Reel Big Fish tour, and let's hope we have a summer smash, and then do
some more touring in the fall. I'd love to get over to England, and
parts of mainland Europe. I know we have a lot of fans in the UK, and
our record isn't out there yet. I'd love to be able to get our record
out there and do a tour there. And hopefully do another big tour this
fall. There's a lot of options for fall tours, a little bit more than
there were in the summer. So, hopefully we'll get something really good
for that, too.
AA: If you go out on a fall tour, how long are you going to carry on
with that before you decide to go back and do another album?
D: It really depends on how the record does. If the single keeps going
we'll stay out on the road. If the single's done and there's no more
work on this record, then we'll go back in, I guess.
AA: One last question.
D: Okay.
AA: Tell me something about Drew, and what that is is: What's the best
advice that anyone has ever given you?
D: Wow. That's a tough one. That's a really good question. I may need to
think on that one. I'm trying to think if anyone has given me any
recently.
AA: Or maybe when you were ten and it stuck with you? Like, don't get a
tattoo?
D: (laughs) Oh, yeah. That's a good one. I haven't done that, and
actually, I think we're one of the only rock bands out there that nobody
in our band has one. Maybe I should have stayed in college. Maybe that
would have been a smart move. I'd make a little more money that way.
AA: Yes, but far less fun.
D: Yes, it's way less fun. You're right. Very true.
AA: So, no advice then? Nothing you can think of?
D: Be true to yourself. Make sure that you're happy. Only you can make
yourself happy. No one else can really make you happy if you're not
happy with yourself.
AA: You know, that statement makes so much more sense the older you get.
D: It certainly does. You find that out after the twentieth
relationship, I think.
Visit American Hi-Fi at
http://www.americanhi-fi.com!
Special thanks to Drew Parsons and Angela Wright
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