- May
06, 2004: Matt Embree and Where His Projects are Going
On May 6th, 2004, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Matt Embree before the Rx Bandits show in Tucson. He chose the spot, my car (in the 90 degree weather), and we chatted pretty informally about the Rx Bandits, MDB Records, and society. We went off on some tangents, but he gave some good insight into MDB and society today.
Eric - First off, the DVD is out on MDB Records. What’s in store for the Bandits now and are there going to be any new releases, and what’s the record label situation?
Matt - Well…Touring. We have written a lot of music for another album, but we haven’t really put it together yet, like album wise. Also, we haven’t decided completely as to what we are going to do as far as label situation. I think most likely, we are just going to do it ourselves and just release our own records on Mash Down, but umm, I also don’t know if with our touring schedule we could handle that sort of volume of record sales. So, we might end up going to a different label, or we might end up staying with Drive Thru, we don’t know at this point in time.
We are definitely going to release more Rx Bandits stuff on MDB for sure. The Apotheke (Ah-POE-Teek) Record is gonna come out in a month and a half, and that’s like basically the rhythm section of Rx Bandits like Resignation Era Jams. We did like 8 hours of jams, well more like 13 hours of jams, but then about 8 of them, we liked. So, we just took those and I think we’ll put out a few of them, I don’t’ know about all of them, but a few of the ones that we really liked the most, and the first one is coming out pretty soon. I think will probably be available by the next tour, so probably by June or something. Then, we wanted to put out this live record, not really record, but just a show recording that we did in Portsmouth, in England, on our last tour. We recorded on a pair of headphones, and actually it came out sounding really good because the guy who ran sound there was awesome, the whole staff there was really awesome, like incredible people. It came out sounding pretty good, so we might just put that out just to buy off the site and at shows, like not try to put it in stores. Just do 1000 of them made, like ever. Stuff like that, and then, hopefully, pretty soon, record a new record. As for MDB, there are some other projects in the work after Apotheke and the live record, probably like a MDB comp with some friends of ours and the bands on the label. Have all the proceeds go towards the Interval house or the Los Angeles Mission. So that’s all in the works, like I said, with the touring schedule that we have, its kinda hard to run a label at the same time, so we’ll have to balance that out in the future.
Eric - In the last year or so, MDB has grown from 1 project to a few. What’s in store for the label? How do you see it growing, and do you want a huge distribution in many stores, or do you like how its working now?
Matt - Well, I’ld definitely like to get distribution. Umm, I don’t ever want to be associated with any sort of corporation or company whose ideals I don’t agree with, or anyone who works with the company that I don’t like them. Just our whole bad experience with Geffen. Drive Thru has always been awesome to us and Richard and Stephanie have always been really cool to us and have allowed us to have total creative control and everything like that, but there’s a lot of people in the hierarchy of Universal Records who we have know clue how they are as a person or we have no clue if they even really like music, or anything like that. We don’t ever want to work with people like that again. So MDB, I like it where it is. I’ld like to get some distribution so that we can put out records and just know that they’ll be in stores. And that if kids and people want to buy them, then they can, you know. I’ld like to have that freedom, cause it would be nice to be able to put out whatever we wanted and just know that its there and people can buy it if they want it. But definitely won’t ever do anything that would compromise the way we feel about music and the way we feel about art in general.
Eric - What is Mash Down Babylon Records to you? And why is it important that the label is around, and what makes it so great for you and the musicians on the label?
Matt - For me, what makes it great is the absolute lack of commercial or financial pressure. Not that Rx Bandits really has any commercial pressure, because we’re not a very commercial band so to speak. I mean all of the record sales and all of our tours and whatever we have, have been mostly from word of mouth. Cause we’ve never been on the radio or MTV or whatever, so. But Mash Down is really cool cause it allows my friends and I, and just basically the whole collective musical community that we are associated with to, hopefully one day, be able to put out records and have a name for itself to where people that dig what we’re about, like our politics, and the way we run a label, will support us. Like I said with the distribution thing, and its just a really free feeling, ya know, putting out any project that we want, any type of music that we want, ya know, just pure artistic expression, ya know. I don’t care if the records sell or not. I mean I know that I’ll probably make my money back on most of the stuff and probably won’t make my money back on some of it. It doesn’t matter, its all about just playing what music we want to play regardless of how people are gonna be into it. And it’s a really good feeling cause we record everything, no pressure, in our studio, or in our friend studio, and its just a good time. Every recording just been a good vibe. We’ve just been chillin and just being able to be creative and experiment musically, its just great. I totally recommend anyone who is frustrated with the whole music industry and scene to at least give it a shot doing it yourself. From the outside it looks really overwhelming, but there are a lot of independent distributors who are willing to pick up a few copies of a record, no matter what, and if you work hard enough for it, then it will work out for you, ya know. Im not saying it will work out over night, ya know, and like if that’s what you are looking for as a band, then definitely the major label, like million dollar record deal is the way to go, but I feel it’s a more gratifying experience, just like in our experience with Mash Down, just calling up distributors, and being surprised at how many of them had heard of Rx Bandits and how many of them wanted to help us because we were doing it independently. Like, they were even more stoked than before. Definitely one in particular is Lumberjack Distro and Choke Distribution, they both…have much high regards for them.
Eric - On a side note, I don’t know if you ever watch them, but what do you think about the shows on TV, American Idol and Making the Band on MTV?
Matt - I’ve never seen them, but I know the concept. Isn’t it like standing in line till someone picks you and then u gotta sing.
Eric - Well you gotta audition.
Matt - Well, I’ll have to say this, what’s really positive about American Idol is that it is a perfect documentation and depiction in itself of American pop culture because its like, look, we can pick anyone who is marginally talented, and we are going to sell a million records to a bunch of dumb asses, or a bunch of people who really like pop music. Both ways, its like, you can’t really make a judgment. It sort of like just shows you the power of a marketing scheme. Like, I don’t know of any of the artists who have come out of that, but someone told me that one of them sold a million albums or something. Television is the new god, ya know. It really bums me out in a way, cause its like there are so many talented people sitting around watching there television that are like 15 times better than any of those people musically saying, man I wish I could be famous. Ya know? I don’t know, it bums me out, but its also good to have things like that for musicians like RxB or anyone else who is trying to do something honest, because ya know, you couldn’t ever say something is evil if you don’t have something good to compare it to. If that’s what you believe is the ultimate in commercial capitalism, and just like repeated stimuli creating capital, then there also has got to be something that is totally pure and beautiful to listen to and enjoy. Television, really makes me angry, scares me and really makes me angry at the same time, so I don’t watch it. Maybe it should to get more motivation or something, I don’t know.
Eric - Well there is this show on MTV that really grosses me out, it documents people getting plastic surgery that want to look like a famous person, called “I want a famous face.”
Matt - AHHHHHHHH…dude, that is not real! No, that’s a real show? OHHHHHH GOD. That is disgusting and horrifying. That’s like every business man’s dream, to sit in there high penthouse office saying yes, now everyone wants to look like these people, ah yes, more money for us.
It’s like I see this McDonalds add over and over again, “I’m Loving it,” and that just infuriates me more than anything. When the word love is used to sell things, cause to me, that’s a priceless word. It just goes to show you how far marketing and advertising people will go to sell anything. But, I’ve already sang about that way too much.
Eric - The first time I saw that show, I thought that was just like “Sell you beautiful” to the fullest.
Matt - Yeah, I wrote that song looking at a People magazine. All the lines in the song are quotations out of people magazine, all the verses. They were all like literally work captions or just like pieces of sentences, that’s how scary it is, cause they meant it to be serious in the magazine. But hey, there are plenty of beautiful things in life. There are incredible amounts of wonderful things to experience everyday as a human being and you just have to decided what you want to allow into your prospective and what you don’t.
Eric - When we talked a year ago Seekret Socyetee had just released its album, and you had just mentioned Ariano and 2DP. On top of talking about these bands, can you shed some light on Satori and Coke vs. Bills, and if we are going to hear any more side projects any time soon?
Matt - How did you hear about Coke vs. Bills?
Eric - Something on a website when another band was talking about check this side project out. The word got out fast.
Matt - Umm, yeah, I think you can check that stuff out on the internet. I don’t know if it will ever be released. 2DP is playing a lot of shows right now. I try to get most of them up on the MDB site, but like I said, when I’m on tour, its harder for me to do. They have their own site now, and I know they go on the rxb message board. They are doing a lot of shows. Ariano is actually doing another project. Which is gonna be released under a different label, but if not, I’m gonna release it, but it wouldn’t be for a while because we don’t want to compete with Blurry Wisdom, which I think is a really great record. They are playing shows, sometimes we play as their backing band, like play the live music behind them. I’ld like to take them on tour with us sometime, that’ld be really cool. But its really hard for them to change their work schedule because they all have to work. Satori is pretty much Borth’s project. He writes pretty much all the music, all the chord progressions and all they lyrics, and he’s the lead singer. I think we are gonna try to get a full length out by the fall, but I don’t know, its really up to him. And there’s no pressure. Im not some dude that’s like “come one where’s the songs at, we need your single bro, fucking lo fi reggae is coming back. We can make some bucks off the 12-17 demographic.” No, but I don’t know. I really like playing in that. I play bass and its really cool getting to chill.
Coke vs. Bills is a project that Joe and I did. I was playing drums, and Joe was playing bass and guitar and we both sing. Its all Joe’s lyrics, and its all Joe’s expression and its pretty dirty and grungy, and to quote Ryan Noble of DESA, he called it “Gruff.” Cause he thought it sounded like two Billy Goats. But I don’t know if that will ever come out or not. But you can check it out on the internet, I think. Adam Davis from DESA said he’s gonna put it on the internet on purevolume. He’s got it and he’s really into it.
Eric - You said that MDB will be a label that will never have any bands sign any contracts. Does this make for more of a family, then when a label like Drive Thru calls themselves a family?
Matt - Umm, I don’t know. Its not a competition to me. The reason is, like I said, I don’t, I’ve been turned off by the business side of music. It’s made me really sometimes really sad and very lonely feeling sometimes, where you know you made a good thing, it’s a very honest expression, but due to however it works out, you’re just not able to do with it whatever you want to do with it musically. I never wanted to get into the business side of music, I don’t even really…I mean technically I guess I am the owner of MDB, but I don’t really even consider myself an owner, I just consider us a collective. Like I don’t take any extra percentage of bands records. Like if I played on the record, then I take an equal share of what we do, and every percentage, all the money stuff is worked out by talking about it and having a meeting about it. I don’t lay down a certain, I don’t say well this is how much I get and this is what you get. We just talk about it, everything is mutual, an agreement. There only people that will ever be on our label is our friends, so bringing contracts into friendships, to me, is something that I never want to do.
Eric - Do you ever think that because of the music industry and how everything is today and if you aren’t on a major label, do you think that your goal of playing music and letting people hear it will not be able to be accomplished because the distribution won’t be there that enough people will be able to hear it?
Matt - Yeah, in a certain way, that’s true. Though thankfully enough you can still make a living playing music as an independent artist. Though, its really, in a way you have to contribute to a major label. Most labels contribute to a major label in some way or another. Like Fat or Victory and Saddle creek and label’s like that, but all their distributors are major labels, there all distributed by major labels. They’re not funded but they are all using that distribution. Its getting to the point where there’s so much money in that industry. For example, you could never be as big as Brittany Spears or N’Sync, or put any huge pop or hip hop act name right there, you could never be that huge without the money that major labels put behind bands. There’s just no way, because the majority of the population is influenced to buy things by advertisement. And the majority of people are gonna buy that because of repeated stimulus, or because that’s all that they know there is, so they think they like it or they really do like it, or what have you. Whatever, I’m not making a judgment on those people but and independent artist doesn’t have the money to promote themselves to sell like 10 million albums. I mean Im sure there are plenty of independent bands that have sold, I mean Fugazzi sold a million albums of a couple of their records. But that’s after being the only truly punk band left, and they’ve been around since 87, so almost 20 years. Putting in so much work touring and everything. It’s harder work, but I think in the end, its just way more gratifying. I definitely would totally be stoked if I could continue to make a living just playing music independently, but like I said, I don’t have anything against the people that go for the million dollar record deal and stuff, ya know, I’ld much rather, if I was in the situation and it was like choose to work as a manager at McDonalds or play in a band and get paid a million dollars, honestly you have to eat. I mean, luckily we are in a situation where we don’t have to be like that. We already have our own fan base, but we’re very lucky and we work for the situation we are in and I know its not that way for some bands.
And I’m sweating.
Eric - Well thanks a lot Matt.
Matt - Your welcome, thank you Eric.
And with that, we got out of my sweaty car and I proceeded to watch them play some amazing music. I hope you guys enjoyed the interview.
Eric Freed - www.rx-bandits.com
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