EastScene was able to catch up with Jeremy Dawson and Chad Petree from Grammy-nominated Shiny Toy Guns prior to their set on April 21st, 2009. The band, currently touring with All-American Rejects for their “I Wanna Rock!” tour, discussed the changes in the music industry, being nominated for a Grammy, and their songwriting process. Known for their electro sound, this critically-acclaimed group also reveal their meticulousness in the studio and having released their first album 3 times.
ES: You guys have been around since 2002. How do you think the music scene has evolved since then?
Jeremy: It’s been a super big change since then. The music that we were writing and doing –for instance, our first album– is now what is on pop radio, if you’ve noticed. There’s the Veronicas, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, MGMT. All they’re doing now is what we were doing [back then] in nightclubs –in Montreal, New York, Toronto– playing underground shows. But now, you flip on FM radio, and you hear it. I don’t think it’s bad; I think it’s cool. Back then, pop was r&b strictly; yeah, even with Britney, she was cuckoo but even her album is electro! It’s hilarious. But things were different back then. Things would switch, and switch and switch. And then you’d have these odd throw in things, like 3OH!3 and Metro Station. And you can’t even put a stamp on it. People love it; kids love it.
ES: And how has this affected you as musicians?
Jeremy: It’s exciting and gives us a bigger platform to do cool stuff. But it also makes it more difficult to find something that no one else is doing. Because now, everything’s a piece of everything else. It’s not black, white, blue, red. Everything’s becoming gray, so we can’t be the only band doing this. Because every band now has a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but it’s not bad. It’s cool. It’s cool-fashioned, cool-styled, good songwriting beginning to emerge, instead of bland stuff.
ES: And I guess you guys were trendsetters in that sense, because you started before everyone else.
Jeremy: I believe that. I don’t want to sound [cocky] and be like “Dude we started this!”. But we were just feeding off of Goldfrapp, and Ladytron, all those bands. Just all that scene was a huge influence on us. We’re a rock band but we were born in nightclubs with mohawks.
ES: So you guys were nominated for a Grammy.
Jeremy: Yeah, how crazy is that?
ES: Yeah, that’s a pretty big deal! A lot of artists have that as a goal that they want to accomplish. Now, let’s say this was your goal, what do you hope to accomplish next?
Jeremy: Well, that was never our goal. I was at the airport and the president of our record company e-mailed us, and I was like “Are you kidding me?”. It was crazy!
Actually, we’re making a whole new album right now on the bus! We don’t really have a name for it yet. I don’t know how to describe it yet. It’s a cool new sound for us, yet it’s everything we’ve ever done smashed together.
ES: Are you planning on releasing that anytime soon?
Jeremy: This year!
ES: Actually, on that topic, you guys released 3 versions of We Are Pilots.
Jeremy: Kind of. Well, it’s 2 demos and one actual record.
ES: And that was in the span of 2 years. How did that come about? Why did you make 2 demos and one actual record?
Jeremy: Well, because we made the first demo album by ourselves and paid for it ourselves. We made a thousand copies, toured a little bit, and we noticed that a couple of songs weren’t really working, and others needed to be worked on some more. And we had some better artwork ideas and photographs. So we went back. We made another couple of thousands of the same record and of the same name. We just had better, cooler stuff. And again, this was all on our own.
But then, we moved to a recording company. They wanted to beef it up with a bit more drums, which we wanted too, because we use a lot of drums live. So why not record them? So we went back into the studio and worked on them again. And that was the final version of We Are Pilots.
ES: How are you like in the studio? Are you meticulous?
Jeremy: We do everything. We produce our own records. It actually sucks, because we spend most of our time producing a song when we could be writing more songs, and never produce or work on them. So we kind of screw ourselves by doing all the work. It’s like cleaning the whole house when you can have your girlfriend/boyfriend help you out. We cleaned the whole damn house, it sucked. (laughs)
ES: (laughs) That’s a pretty good analogy.
Jeremy: And we built the house too.
ES: So you guys are older than most of the bands these days, but you’re still around and have more experience. What would you give as advice to newcomers, so that they can be different from everyone else, but still kind of remain in the industry?
Jeremy: Just write, write, write. Play live. Write melodies. Write lyrics –everyday, all day long. Pick your favorite songs [from your influences] and if it’s not as good as those songs, then you didn’t do a good job. Go write another one. The first thing new people need to get over is being excited they made something. When you write a song or a lyric, you say “Wow! This is remotely cool” and of course your friends are going to say “it’s good!”–
Chad: It’s just learning to be honest with yourself.
Jeremy: Yeah! That sums it up real quick. (laughs)
ES: So picking up on that, how’s your songwriting process like? Are there main songwriters?
Jeremy: Chad and I do everything. We have identical studios, so we can work on each other’s music, or move files back and forth. Sometimes, we’ll both work on the same computer on a lyric, or on a melody.
All the songs start in a dance format, in a kick. And it’ll move on from there. Maybe the kick will turn into a live drum set, or maybe it won’t. It’s like watching those little things that you put water on for it to grow into elephants and crap. What are they called?
ES: Like a chia head?
Jeremy: Yeah! Kind of… well, with a chia head, you know it’ll do the same thing every time.
ES: Chi-chi-chi-chia!
Chad: Chi-chi-chi-chia!
Jeremy: (laughs) Yeah, when you let it be, it starts to grow. You can’t be like “It has to go this way!”; you just have to let it grow. And sometimes, it will go over here to the right and go bad; so you save it and start a new one. Maybe a month later, you can go back and listen to it and think “Hey, it’s not so bad!” and put it back over here. It’s kind of fun. It’s a lot of work, but you just never know what’s going to happen. You can work 17 hours and get nowhere. And then, you can spend 2 hours and write an entire song. It’s a gamble, really.
ES: How about your new album, Season of Poison? Can you tell us more about it? What makes it different from your past work? What can we expect from it?
Jeremy: It’s a little more rock. We toured a little too much with a lot of rock bands, so it rubbed off on us. It happens. It’s like when you’re in a deep relationship with someone, you begin to become them in a way. You start to develop their habits, and speak like them.
Chad: Yeap.
Jeremy: Yeap, yeap, yeap.
Chad: Yeap.
Jeremy: [laughs] We’re doing that because our light guy does that. He goes “Yeap!”. The whole bus says it! Yeap, yeap. So that’s exactly it.
You tour with a band for weeks and weeks, and you hear them over and over again, you start picking it up a bit. And we’ve played with all these rock bands, and it rubbed off on the sound of the band. So the new album is harder and darker. We’ve had a lot of personal things happen during that time; so it added some darkness. Not in a negative way, but it definitely added a little bit more intensity lyrically.
ES: In August of last year, you’ve added Sisely in your line up. How did this come about?
Jeremy: Years ago, we wanted her originally. We couldn’t get her because she was in another band. So we went with Carah, who is the original singer we started the group with.
ES: And how did things change with Sisely? Did it change for the better or just in a different way?
Jeremy: The key word is “different”. That’s the key word.
ES: So my final question is: If you could pick 3 other bands to tour with for an ideal tour, who would they be and why?
Jeremy: I would put together a tour selfishly that may not make sense package-wise, but I would make it in a way that we could listen to our favorite bands live everyday. So it would be Muse, M83, and White Lies. They’re the best band in the world.
ES: Yeah, they really are. Thanks for your time!
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