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Interview with Brandtson
By: Patrick Steven Patterson
 Few indie bands have been as immediately prolific as
Cleveland, OH's Brandtson. Following three EPs and three
full-length releases with Deep Elm Records and seven years
in a tour/write/tour/write routine, the band was offered a
deal from relative newcomers to the indie label scene, The
Militia Group.
Just the other day, Matt Traxler (Brandtson guitarist) was
kind enough to offer NowOnTour some time to talk about the
band's newest (and first Militia Group) release,Send Us
A Signal, life as a hardworking and hustling indie act,
Christian vs. Secular and, maybe more importantly, Ramen
vs. Mac & Cheese.
While the humble and quite insightful Mr. Traxler seems
surprised that The Militia Group fawned over them from the
get go, NowOnTour thinks (and Militia would surely agree)
that the label is lucky to have such a prized, talented indie
act recording under their umbrella. Enough with such ass-
kissing, on with the Q&A:
NowOnTour: Has there ever been an interview
where you've not been asked about where you got your
name?
Matt: A few, but it's no problem, I don't mind.
Well, I'm not going to ask anyway.
[Laughs] Ok, right on.
Your new record came out last month, what's going
on with that?
We're really happy. The Militia Group guys have been so
awesome and so supportive. It's been a completely different
situation from releasing a record in the past. Everything has
just been done the right way, as far as we're
concerned.
Well, the reason that you guys probably had a
decent choice of places to go, and at least labels looking at
you, is you've been around sox or seven years, you have
maybe 5 or 6 releases, and you're selling them. You have
better options now.
We've been doing this for a long time and we've always
been a band that has worked really, really hard and I think
the most important thing for us as far as choosing the right
label to work with was that we wanted somebody to work as
hardfor our band as we work with the band.
The Militia Group guys seemed like they wouldn't do
anything less than that.
They've got a great roster...some class bands.
Absolutely. They've got some great bands that they're
working with. It's nice to be on a label with these bands that
I'm really excited about. They just put out the Lovedrug
record. We've known those guys for a long time - they're
from out here (Cleveland-ish, OH). They've always been a
great band but I was just impressed with that record. I'm
really happy with a lot of bands on that label.
It sounds like the label is actually behind you for
the long haul.
When we first started talking to them they asked us, "What
do you need in a label? What would you need to choose
us?"
As opposed to coming to you with, "Here's what we
do, this is what we've been doing in the past?" They came to
you.
Exactly. They were willing...we gave them a list. We need a
new van, our van is totally done. We need new equipment,
we're piss-poor and all of our equipment sucks. We need this
and this...and they made every single thing happen. It was
awesome to have that option and to have them be that much
behind us that they're willing to dump this much money into
us as a band before we've even recorded a single note on
the record. They spent just a ton of money on us.
So, have you guys finally been able to eschew day
jobs? Have you graduated from Ramen to Mac & Cheese?
[Laughs] No, not exactly. I'm currently, not working but it's
not because we're rich. I'm totally broke right
now...somehow living off what little money we've mad in the
last month or so. Mike and Jared, since we've been home
(right after the 4th of July), they've been working full-time
ever since. I was working at a temp agency but I've been
trying to find work since we've been back...to no
avail.
It's hard for a band because you have to tour to
stay viable as a band but there's going to be a month that
you need to stay away from road. You can't tour all the time.
There are a lot of successful bands that I've talked to that
were lucky enough to have a place that they worked at that
they could be gone for three months and come back to it.
Exactly, which is what we've had to do. It's worked out for
the most part in the past. This is the longest stretch that I've
personally gone without working when we've been home in
ages. It's hard to make everything work. You've got to pay
bills. We're older now, we don't live with our parents. There
are responsibilities, and when you're on tour, there's so
much expense involved. There are nights where we wouldn't
get paid $100 and we'd spend $150 that day on gas alone,
just getting to the show. There's a lot involved. Granted, it's
a lot of fun...it's the payoff to play to kids that like you and
know your songs and are singing along. It's really awesome,
but it's really hard at the same time.
I think it's hard for people to understand, sure,
you're having fun, you're getting cheers every night, but
cheers aren't paying the rent.
A lot of people have no grasp and no clue as to what is
involved in making an operation like that work. It's barely
possible. When you're younger it's fine, and you live with
your parents, you don't have the bills, whatever. I don't see
how a lot of bands keep going. We've been doing this for 7
years and it's been like this the whole time. It's always a
risk. You never know what's going to happen. There are
good days and there are good tours and there's bad. I think
if we didn't have a passion for this and didn't enjoy doing it
so much, there's just no way in hell that we've had continued
on this long.
Are you still booking yourselves, do you have
management?
Right now, we're doing everything ourselves. We had a
booking agent for a while and when we took time off to write
this record they were kind of clearing house. Because we
weren't on the road they dropped us. As far as
management, management takes 15-20% of all your income
including merchandise. We haven't run across any
management that has offered anything that we can't do
ourselves. If we get an offer where somebody can make up
that extra money that we would be paying them, and more
so, then we would definitely do it. If there's people that can
do things than we can't do, then.... It would be nice to have
somebody to do all the shit work, but it's not worth it - we're
not making enough money to make it worthwhile.
How much of a progression (as a band) are you
able to see in yourselves in regards to songwriting,
recording, and performance over a course of seven or eight
years?
In the past, it was important to the band as a whole
to keep ourselves busy. We were on a path where we put
out a record every year. Every summer we'd have a new
record out. It was the only thing we could do to keep any
momentum we had going, besides touring as much as we
could. In the past it was always a matter of, 'we've got to
get a record written and it's got to be decent, and we've got
to get it out as soon as we can." When we first signed with
Militia we rethought things a bit and changed out attitude
about just getting out record out - more importantly we had
to put out the best record that we absolutely were capable
of.
So we took some serious time off from touring and worked
really hard on writing, rethinking thinking stuff as we went.
In the past it was just, "O.k. get 10 songs that we're happy
with and record them," and this time it was more like,
"We've got to get these songs 'done' and then we've got to
rework all of them and make them better." It was a lot of
work as far as doing that, but I think that's what we needed
to do. As much as we like certain stuff on all of our past
releases, for a while, the last few at least, it seemed like we
were putting out the same record - they had a very similar
sound and the songwriting was the same deal throughout.
With this we wanted to take a step forward, do something we
hadn't done in the past and really push ourselves.
I'd like to talk a little about the Secular/Christian
music markets if you're comfortable doing so. The way
NowOnTour works, it doesn’t matter. We work with either
band. It's about the music. I think there has recently, maybe
in the last 5 or so years, been a real blending in the
markets. It seems to be much easier to cross over from one
to the other, going either way. Are you seeing this as well?
Absolutely, and I'm really glad that that's happening. We, a
lot of times, get lumped in with the Christian thing - all of us
are Christians, but we've never done this band as any sort of
an evangelistic tool where we're trying to change people.
We're a band and that's it. I find it very offensive that there
is a [separate] Christian market. I don't think that it should
exist.
I look at the Cornerstone festivals and see the
utter diversity of the line-ups there - it's insane. That and
bands like P.O.D., and maybe now Switchfoot, achieving
mainstream success...
With us as a band, we've worked really hard to stay out of
that market and do our own thing. It's a huge market and
there's so much more money involved. Had we pursued that
we might be a little bit richer right now. I think it was real
important to us, personally, to stay out of that. Like you
said, music is music.
I think people identify with the Christian market
and will buy a lot more records from certain bands that they
identify with it, but it's the same thing that's gone on with
Deep Elm, or Jade Tree, or Sub Pop and Lookout in the past
- these great indie labels where people would buy every
release from the label just because they respected that
label. It's going to work either way.
It's exactly true, I totally agree. There's been a big-time
blending, which is really nice because I personally don't
think that the two should exist separately. Everything is
music. If somebody has certain beliefs, it's still music.
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