Megaphone is one of
While their harmonized vocals and driving guitar riffs
already garner them fans, their audacious lighting and charismatic stage
presence keep shows packed. Metromix grabbed some dinner with Megaphone and
asked them about the long time between albums, sharing their music and how
bands can please the ladies.
Paul Smith: We have, we released a Christmas song this past Christmas, which was a neat little idea to try and stir up a little bit of interest while we’re working on the new record. And we recorded a song for a Butch Walker Marvelous 3 tribute record. We were approached to record a song for it, we recorded a song, we turned it in, they liked it, it was great, they sent out album artwork and everything but the album just never came out.
James Woodrich: It never actually came out but just recently we went ahead and put it up for listening on our MySpace so people could check it out.
Scott Smith: We couldn’t sell it because we didn’t write it, so we figured we’d been playing it at shows and people have been wanting to hear it so we figured just get it out there. So as far as a full length or an EP, we’ve released a couple of singles while we’re working [on the new album].
JW: It’ll be soon… very soon.
How soon is very soon?
JW: Hopefully before 2010.
How did you come to putting your songs on PodSafeAudio [a site that
hosts copyright-safe music for podcasts)?
MB: You know, our old drummer, Matt Brown, I guess his brother was doing podcasts, some start your own business podcast, and he wanted to use our music in it. I guess he’d been looking around and that website had just started. We put some songs up there then, and we’ve been on there for a couple of years, and “Not Your Enemy” has been on a ton of podcasts. Every now and then I search for it, and I’ll find like different languages “Blah blah blah – Megaphone – blah blah.” So it’s interesting.
Does that reflect your stance on sharing music?
PS: I think so, people want to use our music or listen to our music, far be it from us to stand in their way. You know what I mean, that’s not how we like to do things, I don’t think.
MB: Yeah, man, to me it’s a cool way to get people all over the world to get to hear stuff they wouldn’t hear necessarily.
JW: And it gives us an opportunity to reach people that we would never be able to reach. We’re in podcasts from everything from indie band podcasts to how to start your own business podcasts. I mean, podcasting is such a huge thing and there’s so many different topics, so many different genres, so many different people doing it, for us to have our music in all those little snippets, you know we would never have that option otherwise.
You guys have a leg up over other local bands as far as the lighting
and sound production behind your live shows. How did that happen?
MB: I think it’s cool that you noticed that, because we pride ourselves on trying to make our performance as professional as possible. The reason being because we know what we want to see and also we’re able to do that because of all the different experiences that we’ve had. Each of us has been in a ton of different bands and been doing it for a long time.
PS: The Hard Rock lighting guy comes out for us, great friend of ours. I mean, he considers himself our lighting director.
JW: We consider him the same, you know, it’s awesome.
PS: Those are the kinds of relationships that certainly affect us. Those guys are invaluable to us because they help polish the overall presentation. When we get up on stage we like to present ourselves as a cut above what you would expect to see out of a local band.
JW: You know there’s a lot of great bands out there and sometimes you need to think of something outside the box to make your show pop. You know you’ve got five bands on a bill, you want someone who’s never heard you before to look at the stage like “Whoa, what’s going on there?” Having a great light show, or having an audio engineer that knows what he’s doing – boom, I can hear that solo or I can hear that vocal tracks. All the ladies want to hear the vocal tracks. You wanna please the ladies, you gotta hear the singer. Bottom line. Write that down.
