Thee Armada Interview - August 4th, 2009

Interview: Thee Armada

Date: August 4th, 2009

Conducted by: Brandon Allin (www.twitter.com/brandonallin)

Brandon Allin, pit reporter for Bandology/The Daily Chorus, had an opportunity to chat with Bryan Shelton, a member of the steadily-rising pop rock act Thee Armada. Bryan discussed how his band emerged out of a tough Houston crowd, their induction into Toyota's Rock the Space contest, and the release of their latest EP, Sweet Tease, which is available now via digital retailers.

Before we dive into things, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself for those who read this who may be unfamiliar with your band.

I'm Bryan (Shelton), and I play guitar and sing a little for Thee Armada.

Tell us about how the band got its start, the meaning behind the name, and where your inspiration as musicians came from.

In short, we rose from the ashes of three local bands that all coincidentally broke up at the same time. I was looking to get back on stage and play music. I knew of Brian (drums) and Mike (bass) from other bands, and I decided to contact them. We jammed for a while, and then picked up Taylor (guitar). After that, we were on the hunt for a vocalist. It took nearly six months, but after we found Josh, we knew he was the one.

We got our name from the Coheed and Cambria song "Welcome Home." We decided to throw an extra 'e' in there to make it just a bit different. As for our inspiration. that all came from not just wanting to be different, but something that says it all when you see our logo, or hear our name, Thee Armada.

From what I understand, the scene in Houston is centered predominantly around hip hop music. Musically speaking, did you find it difficult to make an impact in a city with such a dissimilar core?

It is extremely difficult in a city as diverse as Houston is. To make an impact musically on this city, you either have to make waves nationally, which allows for people to recognize you quickly, or be a part of the in crowd. Then, when people hear about you, they realize you're from Houston, and it generally comes as a bit of a surprise. With that said, we put a positive spin on it all by realizing that there are over six million people in this city, and recognizing that we can use that to our advantage.

As your band has flourished, you've been given opportunities to perform on select dates of the Vans Warped Tour and Rockstar's Taste of Chaos. Do you feel that being a part of such established events has helped open your eyes as a band to the world of possibilities in front of you?

It was awesome to have been invited to play both of those events. We learned a lot about how big tours worked, all about set changes, and the possibilities of what could be in store for us if we never give up on our dreams. With that said, we’ve had a nice bite, but we want to finish the meal.

You're currently a finalist in Toyota's Rock the Space contest, which will award the winning band a record deal with MySpace Records. How do you feel about that, and how can fans lend a hand?

To be honest, I had no idea it was going to be this huge of a contest. It's giant. Toyota has paid for full-page ads in Rolling Stone and other online magazines and such. As for lending a hand, it’s very simple. All you have to do is log in to your MySpace account and go to myspace.com/toyotamusic. When you're there, find the Thee Armada demo tape, and underneath it, click vote. Keep in mind that you can vote once a day, every day.

With that in mind, to what extent has social networking and the internet in general helped your band develop?

This is a new era of communication with the world, not just bands. Social networking has changed the way people live their lives, so we try and use that to our advantage by watching trends and seeing the way people move via social networks. With that being said, we also know that these sites won't be around forever, and if they are, they will most certainly undergo changes, so having a good ol’ website never fails. TheeArmada.com will be up and running very soon.

From what I've read, you currently have the most-voted song in a particular Houston radio station's history. Did you ever fathom your band would reach such a distinct level, and how do you feel about your accomplishments to date?

It’s such a great honor to have a local radio station standing behind what you’re doing. We were on their (KRBE) new music face-off for five nights in a row, where they pit the champion from the previous night against a new song. We beat Brittany spears after twenty-two nights of her winning in a row. We were so shocked. From there, we ended up beating out Fall Out Boy, Rhianna, and One Republic. In terms of our accomplishments, that one is up there for me, because radio is still arguably the biggest tool to “break” a band.

You recently released a new EP entitled Sweet Tease. How has the response been to the new material thus far?

The response has been great, but after writing the EP, we started to realize what our sound really is. While Sweet Tease has a lot of elements of what we understand our sound to be, it lacks in other areas, and we as a band recognize that. Nonetheless, we had a blast recording it all, and we love showing it to people.

From my perspective, you seem to be a band hell-bent on touring and spreading your music to as many listeners as possible. What can fans expect from a Thee Armada show, and what's your secret to winning over new faces on a nightly basis?

Well, for a long while, we were very hell-bent about touring and whatnot, but at the moment, our van is broken down. In the meantime, we’re going to stay home, write, record some more songs, and have Texas behind us 100% when the time comes for us to hit the road again. As for what fans can expect from our shows, basically just a high-energy performance filled with sing-a-longs, smiles. and rock 'n' roll. The secret is no secret at all. We make the connection with listeners. When they have the connection, or something to remember us by, it makes it a winning situation for us, so to speak.

That's all I have for you today. Is there anything you'd like to add before we go our separate ways?

Just a quick reminder for everyone to please vote for us daily in the Rock the Space contest at myspace.com/toyotamusic. We’d also like to thank Tim Towner for being somewhat of a guiding light in how we moved on certain fronts. He has supported us, and we support him.

Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions for us today.

Thanks so much.

Thee Armada's new EP, Sweet Tease, is available now via digital retailers. For more information on Thee Armada, please visit MYSPACE.COM/THEEARMADAMUSIC, or follow the band on Twitter at TWITTER.COM/THEEARMADA.

Mike Shea Interview: Founder Of Alt Press

Did you know that Alternative Press magazine was the first national music publication to put Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, NIN and Radiohead on the cover? You heard that correctly. Most of us probably had no idea Alt Press was even around "back then."

Mike Shea started Alt Press in 1985 (because of mono) and, from Day 1, has been the first (or one of the first) magazines to help launch bands into our stereos (or iPods). If you want to find 'the next big band', look no further than the latest copy of Alternative Press. There is almost 25 years of experience to fall back on.

I was honored enough to have Mike Shea, founder and owner of Alternative Press, answer a few questions I had about the history of AP, unsigned band tips and many more. I'll be releasing the Q&A through weekly blogs. Here we go....

Tim Towner: People have always come to me for new music which is the reason why I started doing music blogs. I get some of my bands from Alt Press like many other people because of Alt Press' knack for finding "the next big thing". After glancing through your past covers, you had some of my past "hidden gems" such as Urge Overkill, Therapy?, Afghan Wigs and Superchunk. It says on your Wikipedia page that Alt Press was the FIRST national music publication to put Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails on the cover.

Please tell me how you found these "buzz" bands without the internet (no Myspace plays to watch), online videos to watch or fan online chatter? How was "buzz" measured before the internet? Did you find any future front cover bands by randomly going to a show?

Mike Shea: As silly and out of the movies this sounds, but good old fashioned face to face conversation was a great way to discover bands. As well as other antiquated forms of communication like reading old school fanzines, listening to college radio, and traveling hundreds of miles via road trips just to see a band you heard Steve Albini had liked.

A lot of the bands that ended up on the cover of AP, much less within the pages, were discovered by doing the above-mentioned things; sometimes you discovered the band sucked and sometimes you discovered a new band or sound or "scene" before anyone else. It wasn't that hard to discover cool music because we had a lot of fanzines and the flow of communication between labels, publicists, writers, deejays, promoters and musicians and fans was a lot deeper and more trustworthy i think.

There was a bit of cat-and-mouse hunt to finding the latest 7" from some band or trying to dig up some import release from a band from France and that's what made it fun. That's missing today as everything is right there on myspace (at the least). You don't get to experience the asshole indie record store owner that gladly took your money for his over-priced imports but scowled at you the moment you walked in the door.

Tim Towner: Was there a band that made the cover that was a big risk but went on to sell gold/platinum records?

Mike Shea: There were a lot of bands that went on to sell a ton of records that we had on our cover, usually first, before SPIN, STONE or any of the other now-departed music magazines of the 80's and 90's. There wasn't as big of a risk back then because we weren't as big of a company or magazine so our overhead was a lot lower.

That was also before newsstand consolidation kicked in around 1996. Before that happened you could throw anything on your cover, sell 25% of your distribution for three months in a row and the retailers wouldn't do anything about it. As long as you came back at some point with a few issues that sold over 50% you were fine. You could survive as a business being cool. Once consolidation hit, and retailers started demanding everyone sell over 40-50% every issue it forced publishers to have to go lowest-common-denominator every issue so by the end of the 1990's, SPIN, STONE and AP were all fighting for the same two dozen or so bands for cover stories month after month (RATM, Korn, No Doubt, NIN, Manson, etc, etc).

Being cool didn't matter anymore, keeping your magazine in stores did- thus why we started throwing ICP and Nu-Metal bands on the cover from 1998-2001 before we went back to our roots and niched out before Advertising Age realized niches were the future. But we're very very proud of the bands we were the first national magazine to put on our cover, from the Smashing Pumpkins to Nirvana to NIN to Radiohead, and about a dozen other, now, major acts.

Next Monday, I'll post more of the Q&A with Mike Shea (www.twitter.com/mikesheaap).

Top 5 Weekly Songs

1. Miniature Tigers "The Wolf" - This Phoenix, Arizona, band is about to take the country by storm. With two upcoming tours with fun. and Say Anything/Eisley/Moneen, get ready for this band to hit a new demographic - the scene crowd. They just finished a soldout Ben Fold's tour. Their sound is a cross between early Beck and Guided By Voices. Their record label are my fellow officemates, Modern Art Records.

2. Better Than Ezra "Absolutely Still" - This is one of my favorite bands from the 90's and they have come back with a strong song in Absolutely Still. This is the band that brought you the songs Good, King Of New Orleans and Desperately Wanting. I can't stop listening to this new song. Catch them on their theater tour in Sept/Oct.

3. Paper Route "Carousel" - I've been listening to this song for well over a year but it's the first single off their major label debut Absence. I have a feeling this band will be around for a long time.

4. Kings Of Leon "Use Somebody" - This second single off their platinum album Only By The Night is my favorite. The band that was a worldwide hit for many years is finally a success in their home country. Single #3 is hitting the airwaves now but I'm still rocking this song.

5. Blink 182 "Adam's Song" - I have zero clue why I've been playing this song a lot lately. This song caused a lot of controversy in its day. It's a sad song and sometimes you need those songs to bring back some life in you.

Ten Second Epic: Next Canadian Crossover Band?

The talent in Canada is unreal. I've been on many Canadian tours and I'm always impressed with the opening acts (unsigned/signed). Their bands are usually good musicians and the singers can actually sing. But for some reason, Canadian bands have a hard time crossing over in the U.S. market.

There are a number of Canadian crossover acts that have made a small mark in the U.S. Besides Silverstein, these huge acts in Canada (Alexisonfire, Moneen, Billy Talent, City & Colour and Lights) haven't quite captured the U.S. audience (although Lights career is still too early to determine). Is Ten Second Epic the next Canadian band to test the U.S. waters? Can they get over the hump?

Their music has shifted over the years to a more commercial sound which seems to be working. They currently have two videos on Much Music's Top 30 Videos (equivalent to our VH1) and a Canadian tour with Silverstein and A Day To Remember.

Ten Second Epic teamed up with fellow Canadian buzz artist Lights for the song Every Day and you can watch the video below:

Do you think TSE can not only crossover into the U.S. market but do better than most of their fellow Canadian acts?

You can check out our interview with Lights here.