Guy Smiley Blues Exchange Interview

INTERVIEW WITH GUY SMILEY BLUES EXCHANGE FROM TheCelebrityCafe.com ARCHIVES

DM) Where did you get the idea to start The Guy Smiley Blues Exchange?

GS) I had played in bands in Virginia for years before I moved to Nashville, everything from rock to funk to country, not to mention the school band and jazz band. My father is the chairman of a music department at a university in Virginia, so I've always been in the midst of music. I started attending Belmont University in 1993 and was surrounded by great musicians on my freshman hall. I wanted to get everyone out of my dorm room and onto a stage somewhere and show all the talent that I saw and heard. Originally, I thought it might be an interesting idea to pair a singer with a little twang in his voice with a "jam" band, but obviously that didn't pan out! We started rehearsing in January of '94 and haven't stopped practicing since...

DM) How much of an influence is the infamous Sesame Street character Guy Smiley?

GS) I wanted to be in a band with people that were having fun, so I came up with a name to remind us of that. Other than that, Guy Smiley has pretty wild hair, so that continues to be an influence for us in the beauty department.

DM) Who do you normally listen to?

GS) I hate it when people try to get off easy and say, "I listen to lots of different stuff." That's so obvious; of course you do! If you didn't, you'd be a freak. I always thought better questions that might earn a real response were, "If you need something to really put you in a good mood, what do you listen to?" or "What were some of the last CDs you bought?" or "What have you listened to consistently for more than two years?" My answers would be both, The Allman Brothers, and then... Two AD compilations, Dirty Dozen's new one, DJ Shadow's "Endtroducing", Paul Simon's "Rhythm of the Saints", Tower of Power's "In the Slot"; Groove Collective's first three albums (awesome, probably the best band of the '90s), and Herbie Hancock's "Thrust", which may be the best funk album ever. Lately I've been listening to what seems to be becoming known as "downtempo", which is a mix of ambient, drum and bass, and acid jazz hip hop. Sounds like a weird mix, and it is. I like it when I'm working on computers. There are three problems with music and working that cause a distraction: 1) you sing along if you know the words, 2) you hum the melodies if you know them, and 3) tempos and the overall vibe changes a lot across albums/songs/etc. The nice thing about "downtempo" is that it has mostly real drum samples (I'm not a huge fan of drum machines or house music), it doesn't change very often, and everyone creating this type of music seems to understand the basic vibe that it provides. In other words, it provides a cool beat that you can bob your head to, and it has interesting sounds, but it doesn't confuse your focus on the work at hand. So I dig downtempo.

DM) A number of people talk about your live performance. How would you describe a typical GSBE show?

GS) I'm not sure that there is a typical GSBE show. We tend to mix things up quite a bit, which isn't very hard with seven people on stage. Occasionally, we add a DJ, percussionists, sax players, rappers, or guitar players. Mainly, the goal of our live show is to hit our audience on two fronts: mentally and physically. I think that's what life is about, trying to achieve a balance between your heart and your mind. Our original aim was to "move butts." While we haven't abandoned that idea, we try to combine, in the same song, something that will physically move listeners with ideas that are musically interesting. Everyone in the group attended music school, so we have a pretty good theoretical background. At the same time, we all understand that sometimes you just have to shake it. So, we try to combine musically challenging material with a fun attitude, and music that will make you get off your chair and groove. I hope that people come away from the show saying, "I need to hear that again" and "I didn't know I could get down like that."

DM) You mentioned that your father is chairman of a music department in a university in Virginia. What does your dad think about the sound of your band?

GS) He really likes what we're doing. I like to think that he wouldn't like anything that I was playing. He actually can be pretty objective if you ask him pointed questions. I guess he likes the musical complexity of the band's compositions but appreciates that we try to keep it fun on-stage, as well.

DM) When you were younger, what did he want you to do for a career?

GS) Well, he suggested that making money and making music are not equal. That concerned me for a while; I even worked in a university program for two and a half years that focused on the business of music. The end result was a BA. But once I got to the core business classes, I knew that I didn't want to spend my life trying to get the two sides of a ledger to be equal! I switched my major to music and met most of the guys in the band at the music school.

DM) Would you be happier making very good money or making music you love?

GS) My main goal is to be able to make a living playing music. Notice that there is no particular stipulation on what kind of living! As long as I've got food on the table, enough gas in the car to get to the next gig, and a little cash to buy strings, I'll be very happy. With a band of seven members, that's going to take a lot more work than if there were just three, but that's our sound. So, that's probably where the "music you love" part comes in. I love the music and I really like the guys that I generate it with. I'd like to be able to do it so much that I can live off it. Some day soon that will happen.

DM) How are you trying to combine technology and traditional methods of promotion?

GS) I just finished reading an interview with someone that I wouldn't expect to enjoy, but Courtney Love had a lot of interesting things to say about how to market and promote yourself in this new era of information. Basically, she agreed with our goals of combining traditional methods of promotion. This type of combination would include the standard methods of touring, merchandising, selling records, fliers and print media, doing in-store promotions, et al, with the more progressive techniques, such as streaming netcasts with Shoutcast, Live365, Quicktime streaming, RadioSpy, RealAudio, and the like, enhanced CDs, chat room announcements, joining new distribution channels like MP3.com, Listen.com, Emusic, and many of the other band display sites like iCast, IUMA, and the others. Basically, the Net is just a great avenue for exposure, especially with all the sites that want to provide a place to give listeners a taste of your music and point them to your website. Personally, I'm 100% sold on the idea of free music for exposure, thus giving people who don't know you something to try on. If they like it, they could come see our show or even cruise over to Amazon and buy the CD. If they listen to one of our streaming netcasts of a live show or an album cut, perhaps they'll come to our website; and even if they don't like it, maybe they'll remember the name! Exposure is a funny game, but a necessary one for a struggling band and an area where the Net can really help amplify your voice.

DM) So do you support the idea of sites like Napster?

GS) I think that for beginning artists like ourselves, we need things like Napster, Gnutella, and the like. I strongly support MP3 streaming, because it opens up an audience that you wouldn't originally have and sounds better than most of the streaming technologies available. I like the idea that while we can't feasibly play in Oregon right now, Oregonians can listen to our music online and even buy our CDs at Amazon. It's almost like we're able to give a concert all over the world, 24/7. I can see why artists like Metallica would be frustrated with Napster, especially if you were the main writer in the group. These free technologies especially hurt the songwriters, since they don't have any of the other revenue sources like touring and merchandising that artists do. Most artists make more money from these revenue sources, anyway, than from record sales or mechanical royalties. I'd suggest that in the future, bands are going to need to rely more on these outside revenue sources as they start to give their songs away. You will have to sell more than music in the future as a professional musician. The business world already does this with their "Super Size" mentality. Probably the most important thing that I've read on the subject of the future of the music industry is a lengthy essay called "Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright" by Eben Moglen, a law professor at Columbia University. I don't agree with the RIAA's position on new technologies. The RIAA is primarily supported by the major labels, and it appears that the majors are just using the RIAA as their strong arm so they don't take a PR hit! The RIAA's legal battles are outta hand. They won't let any new technology come out without a legal fight. That makes it really difficult on the person who's got a great new idea to sell to someone. If an investor knows that the RIAA is going to sue right off the bat, an idea that could initiate progress for an industry would probably get turned down. Think of how long it took the recording industry to accept the CD as a viable packaging opportunity! I wish that the RIAA could sit back and see which technologies take off before they try to squash them. Waiting a little bit would ensure that the right questions were at the center of the debate and would allow the public to decide if they are willing to support a technology. I also find it very frustrating that the RIAA is attempting to become a digital performing rights organization. The RIAA should not develop into another PRO for digital usage, and I hope they leave that up to the big three that are already in place. Again, waiting to see how the public uses this new digital arena is key to determining how and where digital royalties should be applied. I'm strongly against a company that lobbies for recording industry execs forming a PRO. That just seems to go against the intentions of a PRO. A PRO protects the artists and songwriters, not the record industry! It doesn't seem like this would be so hard to understand. I don't want the record industry protecting me, because history has proven they cannot.

DM) Would you, then, prefer to stay indie as opposed to being on a major label?

GS) Rather than make it a David-and-Goliath issue, I'm just concerned with control. I'd like for the group to continue to be in control of our product, schedule, and overall presentation of our materials. If someone wants to help us promote ourselves, and has the experience and network set up to do that, I'd be interested in talking to them. Living in Nashville has done quite a bit to clear the notion that we'd elicit major label interest. I had a textbook called This Business of Music, which is the best description of what happens in Nashville. I'd rather just please ourselves and our fans instead of someone who has those connections. In some ways, the music industry appears to emulate the situation of fine arts communities in days before the Early Renaissance in Florence. Patrons would commission artists to make a work for them. The patron would tell the artist the subject matter and what they wanted it to look like. The patron was able to critique it along the way, and if they weren't happy with the finished product, they wouldn't complete payment. Patrons in the Early Renaissance in Florence didn't interfere with the artist's ideas of subject matter. The patron simply produced the money and a minimum of advice on the purpose of the project. The artist followed his own inspiration. Great art and great artistic personalities flourished in this freedom, especially as a sense of purpose and moral obligation to high standards was already present in the philosophy of the time. Someday, the music industry will realize that their desire to keep the artists in check only hurts their potential. I refer you again to Eben Moglen's essay, "Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright." Check it out.

DM) I've heard you have something called GSBE radio. What is it?

GS) GSBE radio is the band's streaming MP3 netcast. You will hear every track from our Nashville Music Award-nominated CD and over two hours of live material broadcasting 24/7. We were one of the first bands to use this technology to promote our own original music, thus sidestepping the copyright problems that everyone else is having--not to mention beating all the major labels to the punch of delivering on-line. Couple that with an enhanced CD that has 5 "unavailable anywhere else, including the net" MP3s, an 8-minute video, screen savers, and other goodies! We're trying our best to make good music that can be delivered with technology that's easy to use and fun to listen and watch.

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