The Southern Opinion: Q&A with I Was Totally Destroying It

By Jason Sundin

First off I saw these guys at the Cats Cradle with Cursive and they took the show best band there by far. Sorry Cursive don't get mad at me if you read this! But i had to get a chance to take to them before they are gone on the road for the summer and this is what i got. Probably one of the nicest guys I've ever got a chance to talk to.

Can we start with
your names and what you each play?

I'm John Booker
and I sing and play guitar, Rachel Hirsh sings and plays keyboards, Curtis Armstead plays guitar,
Martin Anderson plays bass, and James Hepler plays drums.

How long have you
been a band?

This band came
together in January 2007, so we've been together for about a year and a half
now. James and I had been playing together for a couple of years before that,
and the rest of the band were from some of the bands that our old band played
with at that time. When that band(En Garde) called it quits, we called on these new
friends to round out the new lineup.

I saw you guys with Cursive at
the Cats Cradle, since that show how would you say that your fanbase has grown?

Our fanbase since the Cursive
show in May 2007 has grown from "nothing" into "something"- that was our second
show ever! So we didn't really have a fanbase at all at that point, just friends or fans of
our old bands who came to the first show. It's been a fantastic year or so,
getting play with some great national acts, and all the best bands in the
Triangle. We've been lucky enough to play with amazing local acts and expand our fanbase by stealing
bits of theirs!

What would you say your influences be in the
music you make?

We all have so
many bands and artists that have influenced us- I think one big one that we can
all agree on is Superchunk. We're all big fans of the local history
of music in general- all the greats- Polvo, Archers of Loaf, Hellbender, Spatula, and
so on. I listen to SO MUCH music and it all has influenced me- some of the
biggest and most important names would be: U2, The Beach Boys, The Cure, Rocket
From The Crypt, Foo Fighters, Brian Eno, The Sea And Cake, Motion City Soundtrack, Zwan, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Jon
Brion, Spoon, The Outfield, Huey Lewis & The News, Elvis Costello, The
Pixies, Saves The Day, The Who, Motown, Jazz- that's barely the tip of the
iceberg. Curtis and James agree with me on most of that stuff- the 3 of us have
very similar tastes. Rachel is into all that, and a lot of more recent quirky
indie rock, and lots of classical music- and is also HUGE on 80's music, as am
I. Martin's faves are 70's icons like Springsteen and Neil Young. But seriously,
it goes way beyond that too- believe it or not, I listen to tons of ambient
music, krautrock,
lots of experimental weird stuff- as much as I listen to embarrassing pop hits!

When you write a song how is it done do you come up with music first
then the lyrics or do you normally have an idea for the song already in your
head?

This can get
complicated- Rachel and I are the primary songwriters- initially- and then the
rest of the band adds their spice on top of the general idea. People tell me the
way I write is fairly unusual. I used to do what most people I know do- come up
with guitar parts and riffs and throw them together and then eventually write a
melody on top of whatever you have there. I still do this sometimes, but I find
that process can make the melody suffer and seem secondary- and since we are in
a lot of ways a "pop" band, I think the melody is the most important thing. So
most of the songs I've written for this band start with me holding a guitar and
strumming a first, random chord, that fits the vibe I am aiming for at that
time. Then a melody starts coming out of my mouth and I find the chords that
follow the changes in the melody. I find the changes that please me melodically
for a verse, a chorus, a bridge, etc- and throw it all together. Sometimes I'll
write a backing guitar part that I hear melody from as well. That's generally
how I write the pop songs that I bring to the band as mostly completed ideas,
but lately it's been changing. Rachel has written a lot more songs for our
upcoming album- she is a lot more of the "normal" approach of coming up with
chord sequences or riffs and then putting a melody on top later. And some of our
best songs happen when Rachel or I have an idea we can't finish and bring it to
the other person, and it's a very collaborative effort with us finishing the
songs 50/50. Those are really the most exciting moments, and there's a lot of
those on the record we're about to record this summer.

Any funny
stories you would like to share from the band?

Hmm- none that come to
mind right off the bat- but I'm sure I'll have tons by the end of this summer-
after our 3 week US tour, recording for a month straight, and Rachel, Curtis and
myself moving into a house together next month! It's gonna get nuts!

I see you have a us tour going on now with quite a few states on the
bill how did you go about setting it up?

We decided to do a
June/July tour back in January- we mapped out how long we could be gone and
where we wanted to hit. It's a very ambitious quest for a first tour- we're
going all the way to the west coast and back in under 3 weeks. It hasn't been
easy booking it, and nothing like this ever goes exactly as planned, but we've
been really lucky with some of the shows we've gotten. Basically we just booked
it using connections we have from our past bands or people we know in the music
world somehow. Our California shows, for example, I was able to book because I
lived in San Francisco for 4 years and played in a band there- a lot of my old bandmates are still
playing there, so we're playing with their current projects, and other friends
on that coast from my time out there. Other shows we were able to hook up
through exchanging shows with bands that needed help here- we met a great band
this Spring from Idaho who needed our help with an NC show- so we hooked them up
and they are helping us out with Idaho- a state we otherwise had no idea how to
book. It's a lot of networking and just staying in touch with people you meet on
earlier tours you've done. We've been lucky to meet a lot of rad and helpful
people over our musical careers.

You are as of now unsigned is that
correct and if so is there a label that you are looking at?

Yes, we are
currently unsigned. There are a couple of beginnings of things with labels
popping up, but really nothing to speak of at this point. We released our first
album ourselves, and it was great and I've done it many times before with other
bands, but our goal is to record this next album this summer and shop it around
to record labels throughout the fall. We've got a few big names working with us
on the production of this record, and they plan to help us with the label
shopping process. Who knows how it will turn out- the music industry is very
strange right now. It'll come out at some point, even if we just end up self
releasing again, but we want to pursue these other options first and try to find
the right home.

What bands are you planing on playing with on the
tour?

We're playing with
a handful of bands I haven't heard yet, but some things we're really looking
forward to are: playing with Ryan Ferguson in San Diego- he was in a band a few
years back that we all love, called No Knife. We're also playing with our
friends Max & The Marginalized in Los Angeles, and my old bandmates goofy but
awesome new hard-rock side-project band, Leather Feather. haha. We also are looking
forward to seeing our new Idaho friends again, the band Finn Riggins. Oh, and a rad
band from Ohio called The Story Changes.

There are a lot of bands that
have came out of Chapel Hill how do you feel being kinda thrown in there with
some major bands so soon in your career how do you feel about it?

Like I said
before, we are huge fans of the history of the Chapel Hill music scene, it's
what we were raised on- Martin was so inspired by bands like Superchunk that he and his
friends started their own local record label, Trekky Records. The rest of us started bands of our
own. James and I have been playing in the scene for well over a decade- we were
lucky enough to be in cool bands in the 90's that got to hobnob with a lot of
the rad bands working at that time. And of course the tradition continues of
amazing local artists- a lot of the shows we play half
energize-me-to-play-better-and-even-more, but sometimes they make me just go
"damn, I'll never be as good as so-and-so's band!" It's a slightly competitive, incestuous,
creative melting pot and we're just happy to be a part of what's going on. I
think it's safe to say that the songs stand for themselves around here.