With a name inspired by the famous children's show, Sesame Street, the Guy
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.
