Kelly Crisp of The Rosebuds : Q&A, Part II

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/therosebudsinterview3.jpg" alt=" " />In Part Two of QRO’s interview with Kelly Crisp of The Rosebuds, Crisp talks about the fans & more....

  Crisp discusses fans from New Orleans, fans who say they should be headlining (when they’re opening…), why she comes out and greets fans before a show, the one time fans ever ‘stormed the stage’, why she loves “Boxcars”, Bowery Ballroom (QRO venue review), & Meg White, and much, much more…

QRO: Do you plan to tour this fall, once the record’s out?

KC: Yes.  We’re going to announce that tour soon – all of the month of November, and into December.

QRO: Later this month, you’re playing a benefit show with Superchunk (QRO live review) for Cy Rawls in your hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina.  How did that come about?

KC: Oh, well, Cy is our friend, and he doesn’t have health insurance.  We, as a community, just tried to help, in different ways.  Superchunk, we’re all friends – and we’re all friends with Cy; he’s a friend in common.  So it made sense that we play a show, our two bands together, because it’s more meaningful to Cy

QRO: When you guys play New York, there are some of the same fans in the crowd.  Do you recognize/know those people?

KC: Specifically, there’s this girl Ashley who comes to our shows.  She’s a big fan.  We know her – this is a very specific case, we’ve got other people too, fans with their own funny stories – she was at one of our shows, one of the last rock shows in New Orleans before Katrina destroyed this venue that all these people destroyed this venue that all these people went to in their neighborhood, Carrollton Station.

We were on tour when Katrina happened; we had just played New Orleans.  She and a friend of hers were at a show of ours here in New York, and that was the very next tour we did.  She had on a t-shirt with our lyrics that she had hand-drawn with marker.  It meant so much to her to see us [in New York], because this is her new home now.  As a way of establishing herself as a person in a place, you have to connect with the art in that place, or the music, or whatever.  I realized, in the conversation [with her], it meant so much to her that we were there.

I met a lot of people from New Orleans on that next tour.  “Man, that venue’s gone…” and they would tear up, and I would too, and they would say, “I haven’t been back, I don’t know what’s there, and I don’t know if I have anything left.  I’ve just been sort of living here.”  And it’s all these random towns that we go to, all over America.

And it was funny, because there was hardly anybody at that show!  But it was like, everybody who lived in that neighborhood, it was destroyed.  And we’d run into all these refugees, all over the country.

She’s one of those people.  It struck me so much.  Every show we had up here, we started seeing her more & more the last few years.  Now, we think there’s something up if we don’t see her, “She must not have known about our show…”

QRO: Earlier this year, you were at Music Hall in Williamsburg (QRO venue review) twice – yet the first time you were headlining, and the second opening for British Sea Power (QRO spotlight).  Was that just a coincidence?

KC: We wanted to do that tour, supporting them, because we thought it was going to be great, getting in front of somebody else’s audience.  ‘Cause we didn’t do a second tour for Night of the Furies – we just did the one tour and then started writing.

And we were sort of like, “It’s a handful of shows, East Coast, some Canadian dates – and we’d never been to Montreal before – a bunch of stuff in the South – like we’d never been in Oxford, Mississippi before – we’ll do these dates with them, in front of a new crowd.”  And we were playing a lot of venues that were really do well in, on our own.

Which is okay – we still get in front of their crowd, we’re still selling tickets to their fans, who may not know you.  It was cool, but it was funny that you mention that, though – that night, I was seriously like, “What are we doing?  Now we can’t do our own show in New York…”

QRO: Someone in the crowd yelled that you should have been headlining, during the show…

KC: I heard that, and I didn’t know what to do…

I don’t want to offend them – honestly, they sell more records than we do.  We shouldn’t have been headlining that show; they should have been headlining that show.  Run the numbers, all signs point to that they would be the bigger band.  I thought that was sweet, but I also thought, “Oh, shit – I hope the other band didn’t hear that…”

That’s happened to us a couple of times, where we’ve been opening for a band, and somebody’s like, “You should be headlining!”  And, just from an audience perspective, I’d never have the guts to say that – I can’t believe that guy said that!

QRO: They’d probably had had a few…

KC: Probably…  People come to party.  And there’s a fine line between ‘partying’ and just being drunk…

QRO: How was that tour?

KC: It was good.  They’re such sweet guys, I really liked them; I really liked them a lot.

It was good to get back on the road, as a band, after recording.  We just needed to ‘be loud’ again, loud, and live, and in a room, with people, to remember, “This is awesome!  We love doing this!”  We needed it.

QRO: When you’re doing live shows, is it difficult to mix songs from such different albums?

KC: You’d think so.  If you were making a mix CD, you have to be careful what songs you put before what.  And you’re building ‘an evening’ – you want to construct it so it has its own arc.

But when we play them live, they’re live.

QRO: You don’t have some of the bells & whistles from the studio…

KC: It ends up being what it is.  And I think that makes it a little easier – live, they do sound a little more alike than they would, if you were making a mix CD.  But it is weird sometimes.

QRO: Where did the idea for the ‘high-fives’ when you arrive on stage come from?

KC: Do I do that?  Ha-ha…

I usually come out and talk to the audience first, because I know that, when I go see shows… a lot of our fans are really young, and I feel like they’re so excited – they’re on the front row.

I’ve seen bands mistreat the audience, and I’ve been really disappointed by a band that I really liked.  And, as a musician, I was playing a show with a big band that meant a lot to the people who were there to see it; I saw the singer in the band be mean to someone in the audience, in the front row, who was talking to him, right before they started playing.

I won’t get over it, and I don’t think that kid will ever get over it, and I just thought, “What a shitty thing to do…”  Because, it means so much to him – and you just ruined it.  You just totally ruined it for him.  And you ruined it for yourself – why’d you have to be a jerk?

And that’s kind of an extreme, but when I was going to rock shows in college, I remember being really intimated by the band – they don’t seem like ‘people’.  So I like to come out and say hello.

Backstage, I get dressed up, and put on my make-up – it’s a show.  But I realize that it’s easier for people to have fun if you make yourself seem like a regular person.

QRO: You’re never worried about someone ‘breaking the fourth wall’ – people who go up on stage when they’re not invited?

KC: No, nobody’s ever been malicious towards–

Oh, actually, one time, we played a Halloween show, and it was at a college.  This was years ago, and it got so out of control, because everybody was so drunk, because they were so excited, partying their asses off.

And these guys got up on stage – and I’ll never forget this – this one guy came up behind me, and was dancing all up on me, rubbing himself all over me and stuff.  I was singing, and playing keyboard, and he whispered in my ear – basically yelled in my ear – “What’s your name?”

And I’m like singing a song – ‘If I tell you my name, then it will ruin the song that you are being entertained and dancing to!’  Such an idiot – it didn’t occur to him, that is me.  I can’t imagine what led him to think that it would be okay to say, “What’s your name?” in the middle of a verse…

The whole stage got overrun; we couldn’t play our instruments anymore.  Somebody picked up a drum and walked away with it, was beating on it, ‘cause he didn’t know – we were really playing a show.  It just didn’t connect, somehow…  It ended up being a lot of fun, everything, but it was scary for a minute.  I was really afraid.

That was the one time that was a bad thing.  But people have gotten up on stage and danced with us, especially during “Get Up, Get Out”, which is kind of a fun thing for us.  Most people know how to act – it’s just gonna be a good-natured thing.


QRO: Will the benefit with Superchunk be the first time you’ve played Life Like songs live?

KC: We played a version of “Life Like” at Terminal 5, a very early version, and probably didn’t do it very much justice.  But yeah, so we’re gonna play a couple of those songs there.

But honestly, our drummer is on tour with Bon Iver right now.  Our drummer who’s filling in for him is a great drummer, would have no problems learning the songs, so he was like, “Let’s do some new songs!”  And I’m like, “I don’t know if I’m ready…”

High-5!It’s crazy to think that you don’t play these songs all the time, he didn’t even record the songs on the record, and that he would be ready to go.  That’s my unfortunate situation – can’t bring the songs out until they’re ready.  But we’ll do a couple.

QRO: Are there any Life Like songs you’re particularly looking forward to playing live?

KC: Oh, man, I can’t wait to sing “Cape Fear” and “Another Way In”!

For the first time – I guess I did on Furies, have my own songs – I have my own songs!  I’m starting to get less shy about it.  I’m getting excited about singing those songs live, but I think that I’m excited about playing new songs…

QRO: Any you don’t think you can play live?

KC: I think maybe the whistling song [“Hello Darlin’”] would be hard.  Ivan whistled the song, and he did a good job, but a friend of ours whistled it, and he was like a songbird.  He was so good, and we were like, ‘Oh, you’ve got to let us record this.  You’re going to be the guy to whistle…’

And there’s no way that we can reproduce what he does live, without having him there.  He lives in New York, so we should be okay there, but the rest of the country, we’ll have to fly that guy out to whistle on one song?…

QRO: What about from previous records: Are there any songs you particularly like playing live, and/or any you can’t?

KC: There’s a lot that we don’t play live, because we’re starting to accrue a lot of records.  And lot of weird stuff that we used to love to play live that doesn’t make sense to play it anymore – audience came to see what they know…

One of my favorite songs to play live is “Boxcars”, ‘cause that seems to connect to the audience really well, people care about it more.  It’s funny to see someone have an emotional reaction to that song, live.

I think it was Bowery Ballroom, and there people were dancing and singing the lyrics back.  And I just remember being kind of overwhelmed.  I know they know what the lyrics are, I know that they know the lyrics are disturbing – it was a whole ‘nother level of disturbing to see these people yelling the lyrics back at me.  I kind of got emotional at that – it was weird…

So I like playing ["Boxcars"] live because I think people like it, but also because I like seeing them like it…

QRO: What cities or venues have you really liked playing at?

KC: Well, you know, the Bowery Ballroom is special, because you always hear of all these ‘legendary shows’ at the Bowery Ballroom.  Our first time playing the Bowery Ballroom was with Superchunk, and we were a young band, supporting them, I think first of three, and I was just so nervous.

And a couple of years later, we were headlining – I think it was that [“Boxcars”] show – and I was like, “Are you kidding me!  This is amazing!  This is us – this is so cool!  We are headlining our own show at the Bowery Ballroom!”  It was fantastic.  I really love that venue; I just think it’s such a beautiful place, because it’s so storied.

Yeah, there’s little venues all over the country.  There’s this place in [Birmingham,] Alabama, The Bottletree.  It’s new – [Brian Teasley] from The Polyphonic Spree (QRO album review) opened it.  He’s a touring musician, and he just knows how to accommodate, now.  It’s just the best vibe, the best place to play, as a musician, because, at that point, you’re in kind of difficult area to travel, as a band, because there aren’t a lot of big cities.  And there haven’t been a lot of big venues in Birmingham that wanted us to come and play, so that’s cool.

QRO: Do you have a favorite tour story?

KC: We did our first tour out West, and I didn’t know that you could cross the desert without there being some crisis, car’s gonna break down and you’re gonna be stuck in some shit town, and you’re not going to be able to find gas and run out of gas and you’re gonna come across an animal skeleton or something on your trek back to the gas station.  I just thought it would be so hard to travel cross-country.  So I was kind of afraid of it, because I hadn’t really traveled before we started touring.

Our first big tour, we were in a mini-van and we were in Spokane, Washington.  It took us two days to get there, and we were playing at a coffee shop.  There was like ten people there – there was hardly any people there at all, and the people who were there, just showed up because there was something going on, not because of us, really.

And I think we got paid in pizza that night – I know we got paid in pizza that night.  And that was probably at the expense of the guy who was putting on the show…

This girl came up to me at the merchandise table after the show, and she was like, “So, you guys are on tour?”  “Yeah, yeah – we’re on a ‘big U.S. tour’…”  “So how did you get here – did you fly?”  And I was like, “No, we didn’t fly…”  I was looking at her…  There were ten people here, at a coffee shop – no, we didn’t fly!

And she was like, “Oh – you gotta tour bus…”  “No, no tour bus…”  “Oh, well how do you get around, how do you do it?”  “Well, we have a mini-van…”  I just felt so embarrassed about it.

Our second tour was even smaller, in the Volvo – we have an old Volvo.  We were in Detroit, and there was like, I don’t know, fifteen, twenty people at the show, and Meg White (The White Stripes – QRO live review) was one of the people there.

And she came up to me after, on the stage – she just hopped up on the stage and sat down.  I was selling merchandise from the stage, and she was like, “Hey, that was really good…”  “Oh, thanks, man…”

She helped me take the records out to the car and stuff.  And we were standing out on the street, “Well, this is the tour bus…”, kind of bashfully.  And she was like, “Yeah…  When we started, we toured in Jack’s Escort.  And then that broke down, and one time we had a show in Chicago, so we borrowed his cousin’s Ford Tempo…”

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