onelinedrawing, Smoke or Fire, and Her Head’s On Fire have a few shows left of their joint tour, ahead of their sets at The Fest October 29, with each of them celebrating new releases on Iodine Recordings this year. We (well, Iodine Recordings) got them to sit down and ask each other all kinds of questions for your reading pleasure!
The Artists:Jonah Matranga (onelinedrawing)Joe McMahon (Smoke or Fire)Sid Jagger (Her Head’s on Fire)Sid Jagger (Her Head’s on Fire) to Jonah Matranga: Was developing OLD after the success you had already achieved with Far and NEO liberating, terrifying, or a mix of both?Jonah Matranga (onelinedrawing): Well, onelinedrawing actually started before New End, but New End’s ‘supergroup’ hype was kinda weird. It put some expectations on me and the music, and maybe some preconceptions as well. I don’t enjoy either of those things. As for the post-Far thing, I was mostly scared of not being able to make a living, so when people showed up for the early oneline stuff, I was just grateful. Overall, that time period was kinda when I think whatever was ever interesting about emo got all commodified and boring.Jonah Matranga to Joe McMahon: If you had to choose one way or another forever, solo or band?Joe McMahon (Smoke or Fire): That’s difficult to answer. I don’t think there is any feeling like being on stage with other people and making music together, but I think I’m at the point where I like the simplicity of being solo and not having to depend on anyone but myself. So I would choose solo if I had to.Joe McMahon to Sid Jagger: what would you say is the number one reason bands break up and what advice would you give to young bands to keep it together?Sid Jagger: I think bands honestly break up because of “artistic differences” which may or may not come out sideways as the band goes through the process of breaking up, but it seems to me that bands have a natural lifespan and when they end, let them end. You are getting 3-8 people (hi ska bands!) to share a chapter of their young lives with, akin to roommates, or friends from high school, etc and some people will splinter off and others will stay along with you as the sort of folks you’d like to know the next decade and the decade after that. But we seem to shed collaborators much in the same way we shed friends or acquaintances, some people are along for our whole journey with us and us with them, and others only visit us for a few fleeting moments.
Sid Jagger to Jonah Matranga: When, if ever, over the course of your storied career have you come closest to compromising your artistic principles in desire for more commercial success (a challenge I think every artist faces at some point)?Jonah Matranga: Coke offered New End $150,000 to use ‘Lukewarm’ in their big summer ad campaign in the US. The theme was ‘real’. I talked it through with loved ones, and thought about it a whole lot. While I was pondering the big US thing, they gave us $15,000 to air it in some faraway lands for a couple weeks, places where it was already summer. I never got to see it on TV, but Steve Thursday wrote to say he saw it in Australia when they were playing a festival over there. The whole thing was strange. In the end, I turned down the big US thing, mostly because I realized I didn’t want someone coming to shows because they heard my song in a soda ad. Given everything that’s happened since with indie music and advertising, I probably shoulda just taken the money and milked the publicity, but there you go.Sid Jagger to Joe McMahon: Camaraderie and the bonds of everyday interactions seem to be a theme that runs through a lot of your music. How has living as an expat for so many years altered your songwriting perspective?Joe McMahon: It has completely altered it. When I moved to Germany I read something online that said ’10 things you need to know will happen when you leave America’. The first one was you will lose all your friends back home. I laughed but people stopped writing very quickly. And now with this tour I am getting texts from people all over the east coast that I haven’t heard from in 7 years. Like nothing happened. I don’t know what to think about it. It’s part of American culture. You keep what’s close to you day to day. Sometimes I think I love living as a stranger in a strange land so that I don’t have to depend on anyone.Jonah Matranga to Sid Jagger: How’d you meet Jeff Dean, why is he in every band ever, and how do you all figure out band practice living all over the place?Sid Jagger: The insanely prolific Jeff Dean and I met when our old bands (All Eyes West and I Hate Our Freedom respectively) were playing shows together on the east coast around 2010. We always were on the same page musically and he used to send me song sketches for help with melodic ideas here and there, and I simply suggested we start our own band, make one 7”, and play a couple of shows. We quickly recruited the other guys and it became a much richer endeavor than I could have imagined. Lovely guys, fun music, and loud guitars. As to why he is in EVERY band ever, I think of his musical soul much like a promiscuous citizen of the free love era in the states at the end of the 60s and beginning of the 70s. He’s got room in his heart for us all.
Joe McMahon to Jonah Matranga: As someone who was playing music before the internet, do you think it had been a good thing or a bad thing for independent music? Has it changed the way you make music?Jonah Matranga: I basically think it’s been terrible. The internet had some real potential in the early days for artists to do some neat stuff and get paid in interesting ways, and I did my best to use it that way. I was messing with sliding scale in 1999, and crowdfunded patronage in 2000. It was beautiful for a little while. As with every other major technology, though, we turned it into a wealth-hoarding monster (hi ‘social networks’!), and a few people made a ton of loot, and the smaller independent artists got screwed. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.Joe McMahon to Jonah: ‘Never meet your heroes’ is what they say. Have you, and what has been your experience?Jonah Matranga: I honestly don’t have any bad memories of meeting people I admire. When I met Thom Yorke, I tried to ask some would-be smart question, and he was a dick about it, but I knew it was kinda my fault. When I saw him again later that night, I was simply honest about how much the music meant to me, and he gave me a big hug. Sincerity never goes out of style, at least in my world.Jonah Matranga to Sid Jagger: What’s your dream for HHOF in terms of success, money, etc?Sid Jagger: I have little to no control over our level of success, other than making my art/performance the finest it can be. I think I just make the art itself something I am proud of and if it succeeds to any barometer then it is icing on the cake so to speak. I always assume people won’t enjoy my art, so if anyone other that myself and my bandmates does I’m pleasantly surprised.
Joe McMahon to Sid Jagger: you are now in what we would describe as a “supergroup“. How is being in a group with the best of the best from other bands different from being in a band with your friends from the basement?Sid Jagger: How fortunate am I to be able to play with the caliber of musician that I am? The biggest difference is after years and years of touring and making several albums there is a flow and generosity among the bandmates. I always say “we’re all on this sinking ship together, grab a bucket and start bailing water.” And with these bandmates, everyone is already knee-deep and soaked to the core to extend that analogy.Jonah Matranga to Joe McMahon: Do you ever write or sing in another language besides English? If so, why, and how does it feel?Joe McMahon: I’ve only just wrote my first lyrics in a other language. German has been a really different language for me but my goal is to be able to perform a bit of my set in German here eventually. I just haven’t had the confidence in my speaking skills yet.
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