Interview With Infomercials on Primetime

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Interview With Infomercials on Primetime; Music & Instruments
Topic Started: Jul 14 2007, 07:42 PM (353 Views)
Morgan	Jul 14 2007, 07:42 PM Post #1
Dinkin' flicka. Posts: 1,950 Group: Staff Member #2 Joined: June 28, 2006 Gender: Male Name: Morgan Location: Sarasota, FL Last.fm: rockon1824	Interview with Infomercials on Primetime by rockon1824 I recently had the pleasure of conducting an interview session with MusicTalk's own Dion (Ninja Muffin on the forums) and Billy (self-claimed "sexy beast") from the up-coming Tampa area band "Infomercials on Primetime." They have recently released a demo, which you can listen to on their MySpace and download for free at DMusic. Also, with a purchase of an Infomercials on Primetime t-shirt (only $12 including shipping), you receive a free hard copy of the demo. Not a bad deal. How did "Infomercials on Primetime" come to be? Billy: I don't know the entire history since I'm one of the newer members. I remember Tyler asked me to join his band, which was nameless at the time, since Dion quit. I was currently in a band called 'Under the Influence', but we had only one practice so I couldn't really call it a band. The name "Infomercials on Primetime" came from me when I was writing down a bunch of random ideas, and lucky for us it was a very catchy name. Dion: Well, yeah. "Infomercials on Primetime" is the product of something Rick, Tyler and I tried to get started in middle school... I ended up "quitting" the band for a little bit because of some personal issues. When I came back Billy had been playing with them and they had a few songs in progress. Within no time I had started making some t-shirts for us to sell, we finished the songs, and recorded a demo. Wow. What an eventful two months! How would you describe your sound? Billy: I'd have to describe my sound as a mix between a punk and alternative, with a little bit of hardcoreness sprinkled on top. Dion: Yeah, its definitely a punk rock style. It's in your face, but not too aggressive. [Laughs] If I get my way though, you'll start too hear some prog in our sound too. What artists have served as main influences on the band's music? Also, who are your main musical influences individually as guitar players? Billy: [Laughs] That's an easy one. Rise Against has always been one of my favorite bands. I just loved the way they played straight up in-your-face style punk music, so I try to incorporate that sound into some of my songs when I can. My favorite guitarist, however, would have to be Mic Jones (the lead guitarist of Foreigner). He played so effortlessly, I was so inspired to work harder at guitar so I can be somewhat as good as him. I still have a ways to go, that's for sure... Dion: Since Billy has written the songs we have now, the biggest influence is definitely Rise Against. You can also hear some Blink in Rick's drumming style. My main guitar influence would definitely be Adam Jones. Yes, I am a Tool junky. What can I say? Describe the songwriting process the band goes through. Billy: The songwriting process is very stressful on me. All the pressure is on me to write entire songs, since Dion's style of music is a lot different than mine and Tyler just has no clue what to do. Once I do get a song idea, I play it over and over at practice until Rick comes up with an amazing drum part. For my songwriting, in most cases, song ideas come to me at the weirdest times. Sometimes something hits me right before I go to sleep, and sometimes something would hit me while studying for a test or doing homework. I can never write music when I simply feel like writing music, it's pretty funny the more I think about it. Dion: Right now, it's basically Billy brings the stuff to the table at band practice and we go from there. Like he said, our styles of writing are VERY different, so I pretty much stick with what he wants me to do... I just can't write catchy punk riffs like he can. [Laughs] I have trouble staying in one time signature most of the time... (Get a taste of Dion's writing style here.) How do you approach your guitar playing? Do you play at a set time or just whenever inspiration hits you? Billy: It's all about when I'm in the mood to play, which sometimes is all day, and other times hardly at all. Dion: I have to agree there. You can't really force something like playing guitar. It's pretty much when I find time and inspiration too. Generally that works out to every day, but sometimes its all day, sometimes its for a few hours. As a young and upcoming band, what have you guys been focusing more on: playing shows to get your name out there or building your musical catalog? Billy: We all agree that it's very important to get our names out there as well as write more music on the side. We have all the time in the world to do gigs, so it's not one of our top priorities. Dion: Yeah. We are just in high school and have a long while to tire our ourselves doing frequent gigs. Right now our focus is getting our names out and perfecting everything we do. There's no point to put on a half-assed show, now is there? We want to be able to put on the best show possible before starting to gig seriously. Most smaller bands litter their MySpaces and demos with cover songs, but you guys have stuck to original material. Why is that? Billy: It's probably because we actually have the ability to write original music, unlike some other bands. We also don't want to be known for doing a good job (or bad job) playing someone else's song... but I guess if we had a sixth music slot on our MySpace, we'd be able to fit in a cover song. Dion: Before I left the band and Billy came, Rick, Tyler and I had experimented with some covers. It was fun for a while, but you can't get very far being known as "that one band that plays "Smells Like Teen spirit." People seem to respect you much much more when you at least try to write music. What's your favorite track on the demo guitar-wise? Billy: I'd have to say 'Say Nothing At All'. It's just the funnest song for me to play, guitar wise. Also, it's just a little bit different and more distinct than all our other songs. Dion: Yeah, 'Say Nothing At All' is a lot of fun to play. [Laughs] 'Hands Off My Tricks' is fun for me too because of the squealies I get to do. What gear did you use for the songs on the demo? Billy: I used a Gibson Les Paul Studio through Line 6 spider III series 120 watt modeling amp. It's fun to use because it has a very wide range of tones for me to work with, and it sounded pretty good when recorded. In the future, I may need some better equipment... but this'll do for now. Dion: I ended up using my Ibanez s520ex through a Marshall amp. I don't even know where I got that Marshall from...I think it's my brother's. Either way, I was messing with it and found a tone I liked.. so I didn't use my GNX4 at all for the recordings. When working on your guitar tone and playing style, do you like to like to emulate your favorite guitarists or try and experiment to see what you can come up with? Billy: Since I have a modeling amp, there's many presets built in from many famous artists. There are so many for me to choose from, but I ended up finding some Hawthorne Heights distortion and tweaking it a little bit. I'm still experimenting with different tones, which gives me a lot to do on rainy days. Dion: I usually just mess with the hundreds of presets for my GNX4, edit them, and make my own. You can get so many different sounds out of that thing. When can we expect an album, or better yet, a tour from Infomercials on Primetime? Billy: At the rate we're going, you should expect to see an album within a year or so. As for the tour, it just depends on how much people like our music as well as how our financial situation is. We can't go anywhere if we don't have any gas money. You never know what'll happen, but for now we're working on sounding better. Dion: Actually, a full album this year is definitely a possibility. Hopefully we can at least do a mini-tour of Florida next summer. But like Billy said, it depends on our financial situation...so go buy one of our t-shirts! Infomercials on Primetime Links - MySpace - DMusic
	Страшный суд скоро, все как свечи гореть будем.


Morgan	Jul 14 2007, 07:43 PM Post #2
Dinkin' flicka. Posts: 1,950 Group: Staff Member #2 Joined: June 28, 2006 Gender: Male Name: Morgan Location: Sarasota, FL Last.fm: rockon1824	Don't worry about this one, Josh, it's already been added to the site. However, there are still two other articles that need to be added when you get the chance.
	Страшный суд скоро, все как свечи гореть будем.


ana	Jul 14 2007, 09:52 PM Post #3
eskizo Posts: 5,814 Group: Staff Member #27 Joined: June 29, 2006 Gender: Female Name: Ana Location: Madrid	nice one, guys.
	I'M SPAINISH! *I DOSENT SPLEL WEL!*


Liberation	Jul 15 2007, 04:34 PM Post #4
LOL WUT? Posts: 2,385 Group: Members Member #8 Joined: June 28, 2006 Gender: Male Name: Trevor Location: Edmonton, AB Last.fm: BloodAndBelief	Love it. I think it's a great idea to have something like this for the guys (and girls) on MT who are actually part of a band.
	IloveKristian<3


Morgan	Jul 15 2007, 05:06 PM Post #5
Dinkin' flicka. Posts: 1,950 Group: Staff Member #2 Joined: June 28, 2006 Gender: Male Name: Morgan Location: Sarasota, FL Last.fm: rockon1824	The question is: who's gonna interview me when I release my solo stuff? Maybe I should just interview myself...
	Страшный суд скоро, все как свечи гореть будем.


Liberation	Jul 15 2007, 05:57 PM Post #6
LOL WUT? Posts: 2,385 Group: Members Member #8 Joined: June 28, 2006 Gender: Male Name: Trevor Location: Edmonton, AB Last.fm: BloodAndBelief	Ooooh! MEEEEEEEEE!
	IloveKristian<3


jimtaco	Jul 20 2007, 02:36 PM Post #7
i enjoy tacos. what of it? Posts: 1,306 Group: Members Member #3 Joined: June 28, 2006	hey this was pretty cool! i like dion's dissonantvector stuff, too.
	-jim


Morgan	May 29 2008, 07:39 PM Post #8
Dinkin' flicka. Posts: 1,950 Group: Staff Member #2 Joined: June 28, 2006 Gender: Male Name: Morgan Location: Sarasota, FL Last.fm: rockon1824	Congratulations, your article has been accepted! It will be added to the Music-Talk.org website in the next few days and 5 MT Points will be added to your account. Thank you!
	Страшный суд скоро, все как свечи гореть будем.


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