INTERVIEW: Bellows

1)      What do you want people to hear most when they hear your music?

Not me --- I want people to forget they're listening to someone they don't know and might never meet. I think the mark of a good songwriter is the ability to write songs that don't feel like the thoughts of a stranger, but rather feel like you thought them yourself. My favorite songs are songs I'm jealous of, that I feel like I would have written under different circumstances. 

2)      Having music on Band Camp, along with other such platforms in music right now such as Sound Cloud, Spotify and others, do you feel that music is moving into a virtual age?  Personally, I fully support the idea of downloading songs for free from Band Camp and then if I like them buying them on vinyl.

I don't think music can ever move into a virtual age. It may be that people can access it more easily on the internet these days (which is great!), but music itself will always be the opposite of "virtual"--even electronic or synthesized/sequenced music--it's a hands-on art form thats about real, immediate creativity. There's nothing virtual about it. 

3)      How important of a factor do you feel that record labels play in music these days when pretty much anyone can put their music on the internet as opposed to having to hand out demo tapes at shows, the distribution record labels can offer, etc.   It just seems like it’s a bit easier these days to succeed as a band- and even build up a strong fan base- before a label possibly comes calling for you.

I'd say its more difficult to succeed as a band these days, if we're talking about money as the measure of success versus failure. There are more bands than ever before--every day hundreds of new bands are formed--and way more record labels to accomodate all of the music that's out there. It seems to me that bands are moving more into niche categories that have their own fans and labels and are appreciated on a more local scale--tight knit scenes are forming that sort of have their own strata for popularity/"success" since getting famous and rich becomes a more and more distant fantasy the more bands are clamoring for wide-spread recognition. I actually think that's a cool thing about the current culture of art and music though, because I think it makes people pay much closer attention to the small scenes they identify with. Anybody can have a scene, and many more people get to know and befriend their favorite bands when the music they listen to and love comes from their own hometown. 

4)      If you could tour with any single band or musician who would you pick and why?

I would pick somebody famous who died so that a lot of people would come out and see us play because it would be surprising that a dead person was touring with a band that nobody has heard of. Maybe Tupac and Biggie would form a band and they would tour with me. 

5)      Who is your favorite New Kid on the Block?

Justin Timberlake

6)      Who would win in a musical fight: Jack Black or Jack White?

Their opposite charges would cancel each other out and both would be forced to stop smelling so bad.