INTERVIEW WITH THE NAMES FROM TheCelebrityCafe.com ARCHIVES
DM) How did the band form?
MC) The two original members are John Chacon and myself. We went to the same high school in middle-town California. He had a band at the time doing REM covers, and I was in a band doing Information Society covers. After high school, we kind of merged the two bands, and went through several various line-ups, until no one would tolerate John and I anymore. By that time, we were in college in San Luis Obispo, CA doing a combination of covers and original music. The covers included songs from U2 and the Police.
A local bartender/"visionary" kept coming around to see us gig night after night. He eventually brought a drummer he knew, along with a Rod Stewart impersonator. Well, he wasn't really an impersonator, but he looked like one. Turns out those two were working on an album for Rod, and they wanted to hire us for some sessions in the recording studio. We played the parts and beat feet with his drummer to start The Names. No hard feelings.
After a couple of years of gigging, recording EPs, and being popular, it was time to finish school and move on. That's the appropriate answer anyway. The reality is that John quit because he wasn't having fun anymore, and I got my girlfriend pregnant. As the dust settled, I married and moved to the Bay Area of CA to take a "real job". I began doing some solo stuff around the Bay, and within a few months, John had moved up as well. In due time, The Names were back, in a more settled mind. We were lacking a drummer, one more time though. As we went about the acoustic thing again, a mutual friend (now John's girlfriend) brought some newcomers to a gig. Among that crowd was Eric Johanesson, our drummer ever since. He's funny. Sometimes he puts on his East Coast (Peterborough, NH) persona and pretends the band belongs to John and I, and that he's just along for the ride. A year or so later, the "Give it a Name" record was done.
DM) I'm confused about the Rod Stewart thing. Does that mean you're music can be heard on one of his albums?
MC) Well it wasn't the real Rod Stewart, just a guy that dressed and looked like him. And yes, I believe he spent the next 5 years or so finishing the album. I have no idea what he ended up doing with it... I did run into the original sound engineer for the project recently. He hadn't seen Rod in a while, but did say that he himself reunited we/ his father (Lindsay Buckingham), and was recruited to play guitar and sing on the next Toto album. He said he was paid $1,705,000 to sign the deal. He also pulled out his license with a new found name, Sammy Buckingham. He then darted away saying he had to loose some wait for the tour, so he had to go smoke some crack. Clearly this guy's full of sh&^, but it was fun pretending I believed him. He's really a janitors son from lovely King City, CA. Oh, back to Rod....he said he is living off a trust fund somewhere in CA.
DM) So this is a celebrity impersonator? I'm shocked.
MC) Yeah, a real piece of work. Give it a name.
DM) What is your favorite song from the album?
MC) My favorite song from the album happens to be Between Now and Then.
DM) What is the story behind, "Between Now and Then"?
MC) I grew up in an extended family home, with mom, aunt, uncle, grandparents, dog, etc. in LA. My neighbors, the Ellis' were a catholic family of ten. Several of them played music in their garage, and that's actually how I first got into playing music. Anyway, at the time they disturbed everyone in the neighborhood playing Rush and Zepplin tunes, without a full band. Distorted guitar and drums was all anyone heard. My aunt at the time was usually pretty annoyed with the whole thing. Years later, when the Ellis' had matured into well seasoned jazz players, and everyone moved out of that house we lived in, except my aunt. She took to liking the jazz from next door. That's the basic setting for the song.
The other fold of the song hones in a bit on my aunt in that she had a pretty tough time with life, and then seemed to cool out and change her mind about a few things. The spirit of the chorus is a display of her arriving at her changed mind, for no apparent reason, other than the time that had gone by, between now and then.
DM) Where you raised by your aunt?
MC) I was raised by all of them at some point or another. She was around the house in my younger years.
DM) How would you describe your teenage years?
MC) Shy and productive, but not so normal. I lived in 4 cities in two countries within a year. My folks were involved in an international custody battle. I learned a lot, and would ultimately have more to write about than the average guy. Fate has its ways.
DM) Is music your entire life right now, or do you do something else on the side?
MC) Actually, the music while extremely important to me and the others in the band, is the thing on the side. See, we struggled years ago with the notion of signing with a label, and going on the road. Statue Records was going to sign us in '93 but looking closely at it, and other labels, it seemed more like a high gamble student loan. You get to go record in their studios and get some distribution, but then you have to sell enough records to pay them back and make a profit. There's no guarantee that a band will get pushed. I've bands go to even the major labels, and not get pushed. So what's the point? They have to sell 500,000 copies to pay the label off, and finally begin to make money beyond their advance, while driving around the country in a van, hungry, tired, etc. Who's to say they're going to do a video for you and put it on VH1, or MTV????
We feel kind of jaded by the business as it is today. There doesn't seem to be the talent that there was in the 80s. Great songs aren't as important as who you know, and whether you're in the right place, at the right time. There are definitely great bands out there like Counting Crows, Dave Matthews Band, and Barenakedladies, but there aren't as many. Turning on the radio is a crap shoot anymore. You get one great song, then the next one really sucks. Given the fickle and uncertain music industry, we all finished college and got jobs, so we could afford to do this music thing on our on terms. Eric our drummer is an Access Programmer, John our guitarist/vocalist is
a high school teacher, and I being the bassist/vocalist, sell data telecommunications equipment to Internet providers. We can make records and play shows as much or as little we want. We make a profit after the first 700 records sold, rather than the first 500,000. So it actually does make business sense, and allows us to make music that we conduct and control. All we intend to do is be a good regional act having a good time. The furthest we want to take this, is opening up for some of the better acts as they come through the Bay Area. Of the couple dozen shows we've had in San Francisco, we've had very warm response. I'd say we're well on our way to having the best of both worlds.
DM) Would you be able to be happy if you continued in your "real career" and never did music again?
MC) No way. I will always play music. When I'm 80, I plan to still be playing. It will likely be to 80 year olds, but who cares. I have built up a home studio with one of each basic instrument. I try to get my family involved in the music as much as possible. My 4 year old has some natural musical instincts, so it will be fun to watch how she grows.
This isn't to say I don't like my day job, because I do. The music business doesn't bring to me the same comfortable benefits of medical, dental, 401k, stability, and stock options! The fact that I can do both and maintain the best of both worlds suits me well, because I could never get the kind of thrill out of my job that I can out of music.