An Interview With Powerspace [07/2007]

Powerspace is the latest signing to the elite Fueled By Ramen label – and their new album, The Kicks of Passion just hit stores on July 30th. I got to talk to the band’s bassist Dan as the band was en route to the first show of their August tour.

Tom was actually scheduled to do the interview, but he’d lost his voice earlier that day and was resting it for the shows….

The interview, which Dan did from the band’s van, kicked off rather abruptly –

pixie: Hi, how are you?

Dan: That truck just cut us off…

pixie: Oh, you’re driving as you do this?

Dan: Yeah. Don’t worry… it’s fine.

pixie: Powerspace is reckless! I’m going to put that in here….

Dan: Whatever. Whatever gets people to read it.

pixie: So, Tom lost his voice? Was it Lollapalooza that did you guys in?

Dan: I guess… I don’t know, he was fine, but I called him later and he could barely growl. Apparently, he had been talking too much.

pixie: And you guys are kicking off the tour tomorrow, right?

Dan: Yeah, we’re driving to California right now.

pixie: Well, tea and honey. Tea and honey for Tom. So, other than this, how was Lollapalooza for you guys?

Dan: It was a lot of fun. We had a really good time playing and we had a good turn-out for our show. And it was fun just hanging out and watching the other artists. We’ve gone the past couple of years, but just to watch…

pixie: And now you got to be on it. That’s pretty amazing, not many people get to go from watching it to actually being on a show like that.

Dan: Yeah. We had a really big favor done for us by Samantha Cox at EMI, who put in for us to play on the EMI Stage, and we played at a pretty good time of day, so we were really psyched.

pixie: So you’re kicking off the tour tomorrow, driving out there now. So what are your expectations for the tour?

Dan: We’ve been on tour with Just Surrender before and we really got along with them, so we’re excited to see them again, and we’re also excited to meet new friends…. And for me, personally, I’m just happy to be out on the road again and playing shows every day.

pixie: I respect you guys, with that kind of life. I don’t know how you do it. What kind of van or bus do you travel in?

Dan: We drive around in a 12-passenger van and we tow a 6×6 trailer….

pixie: Do you guys fight for the seats and all of that?

Dan: We have a pretty good driving system that kind of regulates who drives when. We definitely make it work. It’s not always perfectly comfortable and it can certainly get crowded, but it’s really not bad.

pixie: I’ve heard some horror stories, but it usually involves things like 16 people….

Dan: Yeah, yeah, we haven’t done that. I’m not sure why we’d ever need 16 people.

We’ve known bands that toured and don’t have anywhere near a need for that.

pixie: So, how does it feel to have the album out and in people’s hands?

Dan: It’s all been really good so far. We’re definitely proud of what we put out, and it just came out. We’ll wait and see how it did, but it will be a long process in terms of staying on the road, letting everyone know, and hopefully it catches on in the next couple of months. And then we can buy a bigger van!

pixie: Well, being on Fueled By Ramen is really good for that - look how Panic! At the Disco had their success, with such a slow and steady growth. A lot of labels don’t nurture a band to that extent.

Dan: Yeah, that went kind of crazy… they took about six months to really break, and that’s great for a new band. We can only hope to have a fraction of the success that a band like that had. So we’ll see what happens. You never know.

pixie: Fueled By Ramen is also interesting because they’re a label that has fans - I mean, you don’t hear people saying “yes! Epic! Big fan!” but people are fans of Fueled By Ramen… you almost have built-in fans by being on the label, no?

Dan: We definitely realized that when we were signing with the label and we realized that as soon as we announced we were signed with the label. We had people contacting us, fans of the label, we had a street team in a week - just because of fans of Fueled By Ramen. We have street teams that come to every show we do around the country, supporting the label, distributing promotional material. It’s really nice to have that kind of support from people who probably hadn’t even heard of us before we got signed.

pixie: But, in fairness, it’s an elite label to begin with; they don’t just sign any band, so it’s a huge vote of confidence in you, your EP and what you did before you were on the label, that they sought you out.

Dan: We knew that going into it that there were quite a few major labels interested, and we were being shopped to last summer, but during that process, Fueled By Ramen came in contact with us, and we were wary of all the majors. We knew FBR was unique. We knew a lot of bands on majors kind of end up as a drop in the bucket, if they’re not big right away, they’re just tossed aside. FBR was unique and right for us. And they opened a dialogue with us, letting us know that we would be a priority, something we wouldn’t get from a major label.

pixie: Speaking of the album, what does a “Kick of Passion” feel like?

Dan: We don’t like to discuss the title. Next question.

pixie: Okay…. Do you have any tour plans for autumn, after the August tour?

Dan: Not as of yet, we’ve kind of been weighing our options and seeing what’s out there for us. We really want to see what would be the best opportunity for us since the record just came out and be able to reach as many people as possible. So we’ll see what happens. For now, it’s just the August tour, but we’ll be doing something in September and all the way through the end of the year.

pixie: So, what about merchandise? What’s the weirdest thing you’d make, if you could make anything you want? KISS has a coffin; what would Powerspace have?

Dan: Let’s see… we’ve been talking about Powerspace condoms to promote safe sex, but I don’t know if our label is into that. Also we were talking about last night how Daft Punk has space helmets they pay and they talk like $65,000, so if we could have Powerspace helmets, and sell them for $65,000, I think we could really do well.

pixie: Cash only?

Dan: Yep.

pixie: Speaking of merchandise, can you actually buy Powerspace snap bracelets? [In reference to the song “Powerspace Snap Bracelet]

Dan: Yes. Yes you can. We hooked it up so anyone who pre-ordered our album, if you were one of the first 500, you got one for free. But we sell them at shows now. And I think you can buy them online.

pixie: See, I think that might be why Spin called you guys “adorably evil.” What do you think of that one?
Dan: That’s my favorite review so far, actually.

pixie: Are you actually evil?

Dan: I don’t really know what they meant by that…

pixie: Yeah, I was trying to find the “evil” in your music, but it wasn’t really there.

Dan: I think maybe they meant because some people consider us something like a guilty pleasure because we’re not like every indie rock band and some people feel evil when they listen to us. Or because all our songs are about THE DEVIL.

pixie: I missed that part, the devil part.

Dan: Yeah, all the songs are about Sa-tan.

pixie: So, is that why you have problems with Criss Angel and your MySpace? [The band’s MySpace claims he hacked it]

Dan: [laughs] We do.

pixie: What’s he doing to you?

Dan: I don’t know. He’s infiltrating our entire operation.

pixie: I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

Dan: Definitely good.

pixie: So, to wrap things up, is there anything you want to say to people thinking about checking you guys out?

Dan: Check us out, buy our CD, and you’ll never have to buy another CD for the rest of your life. Well, until our next CD comes out.

RSS feed

Comments »

Trackback responses to this post