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Interview with the Party People
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The Party People announced their presence in the world with the My My EP, released on Velvet Blue Music in late 2002. The band is a rock and roll supergroup of sorts, bringing together four musicians from all over the country from bands like Denison Marrs, Starflyer 59, the Young and the Useless and Ghoti Hook. When their powers combine, I am Captain Planet!
Tyler: So let’s start out with basic introductions and what you do for the Party People.
Eric: I’m Eric and I a singer and a songwriter for the Party People and I also play guitar.
Cloud: I’m Cloud, I play Bass. [In girly voice] I’m Adam, I play drums!
Dean: I’m Dean, I play guitar.
Tyler: How did the Party People get started?
Eric: Just me, sitting at home having these crazy songs come in my head. I look over at Dean and I was like “Dean, write some good stuff for these songs so they’ll be good.” So he wrote some good riffs. We recorded a demo and sent it over to Cloud and-I probably should mention that Dean and I live in Florida, Cloud lives in California and our drummer lives in D.C.-so I sent the demo over to Cloud and he liked it and said “Hey, I wanna be in the band. Let’s get Adam to drum and we’ll go record an EP and start jamming.”
Cloud: We’re all in other bands, and we’re already all super busy. So since we live in the four corners of the United States we figured it would probably be a good idea to start a new band.
Tyler: How do you function as a band with everyone living in different places?
Eric: Airplanes.
Cloud: Every tour we do we have to start with a day or two flying out, practicing, and working on new songs or whatever. It’s a little weirder than the usual thing.
Eric: It’s worth it. When we’re on tour I usually introduce us and say “This is just a really good excuse for friends to get together and have a good time.” We all met each other through our other bands and we kinda wished we could just hang out more, so this is just a really good excuse to do that. It’s turning more and more serious as we go along, we’re having a really good time and we have a lot of fun when we’re together, so it gets cooler and cooler.
Tyler: How did you start off practicing?
Eric: Just sending CD’s and demos, “What do you think of this? What do you think of that?” Then we get together, like Cloud said, we have a couple days of learning new stuff and practicing and recording. We recorded a new song on tour at a friend’s house on tour.
Cloud: We kind of just go on vacation and in the evening we have to play shows.
Eric: A lot of bands it’s just stress and drama and the Party People is just a good time, hanging out and having a blast.
Tyler: Eric, you said you write some of the songs, whereas you started off as the primary songwriter. Is it becoming more of a collaboration?
Eric: Yeah, for sure. For the first songs it was mostly just me saying “Here it is.” Now I’ll show the guys a song and they’ll add their flavors.
Cloud: There are two other songs that aren’t on the EP on the Party People website.
Eric: It’s kinda just all over the place. I’m not a tyrant or anything, if anyone has a good idea just bring it to the table and let’s go at it. I think that helps make it a good time, there’s not anybody ruling over anyone and being the boss.
Tyler: What are the goals for the Party People, long term and short?
Cloud: We just want to record a full length record and put it out, either on Velvet Blue ourselves or maybe on something else so it’s not so much work for us. And go on tour when we can.
Eric: We’re already more of a band than we planned on being. At first it was just a way to make music, then we had some offers to play festivals and we were like “OK let’s do that. We’ll already be there with our other bands.” Then we tried touring to see how that goes and that was really fun, kids were showing up and having a good time. So we’re kind of just having a good time and seeing how people react, it’s getting better and better. So the band is becoming more and more… I don’t know that we have any long term goals, we just want to play and tour and have a good time.
Tyler: How has the response been so far?
Eric: It’s been really good.
Cloud: It’s been really cool because when we’re on tour a lot of people come out because of the other bands so they don’t know what to expect. But all the shows we’ve played at have been great, it seemed everyone was stoked. I’m sure some kid is bummed that we’re not Denison Marrs but I think it’s been really good so far. And the CD has sold real well so far just being an independent thing.
Eric: Like today, people just stand up at their seats and come up to the stage clapping and singing and going crazy. That’s what we wanted, we want people to have a good time with us because that’s what we’re up there doing, that’s how it’s been at every show. We’ve always been like “No one’s going to be here tonight” and people have been coming, it’s a pleasant surprise every time we play a show. Whether it’s four people or twenty.
Tyler: I know you’ve done a mini tour, for a pseudo indie supergroup have you had any four people shows?
Cloud: The last tour, we opened for Living Sacrifice and we opened for Pedro the Lion, we played with Mike Knott and did a few shows with Anberlin and Underoath so they were already going to be good shows.
Eric: It’s cool when we’re playing these shows, we’re hoping people don’t go outside while we’re playing and then we have people singing along and we’re like “What the heck’s going on?”
Tyler: Who is the cutest member of this supergroup?
Cloud: Cloud.
Dean: Yeah.
Eric: The bass player.
Cloud: [again with the girly voice]I’m Adam! Cloud!
Cloud: Who eats the weirdest stuff? Dean.
Eric: He loves sauces. He dips all sorts of weird stuff in crazy sauces.
Dean: I’m not going to deny it.
Tyler: What kind of sauces?
Cloud: You name it man, if it’s a liquid form and Dean can rub it on some food, he does.
Dean: Give me a grilled chicken salad and I’ll pour some buffalo sauce on it, some ranch and some blue cheese.
Tyler: Have you guys run into any problems with your other bands working with them and the Party People at the same time?
Eric: No, not other than like touring conflicts with scheduling. Other than that, everybody from our other bands are really cool and supportive, helping us out however they can.
Tyler: If the Party People became the next huge rock band, and because of that all of your individual bands became huge because they were side projects of the Party People, how would that make you feel?
Cloud: Awesome. I’d buy Dean as many sauces as I could possibly buy. I’d have the biggest condiment selection humanly possible on our tour bus.
Eric: Tour bus?
Cloud: Yeah, if we were huge.
Eric: What if we had our own jet, like Led Zepplin?
Tyler: The way I see it, each scene is basically like seven people in ten different bands, and you guys are huge parts of the “indie Christian scene” which is really small, so you have to join together. There’s no one else to be in a band with. How many other Jeff Cloud’s are there in the world?
Eric: Exactly! There’s only one Cloud.
Cloud: Actually, there is another one, he pops up on the internet sometimes. He’s a basketball player, not me.
Tyler: Not an impersonator?
Eric: Little does he know what he’s missing. Electrician by day, record label owner by night.
Cloud: No, I’m that by day too. Electrician and record label owner by day.
The Party People Official Website:www.thepartypeopleusa.com
Velvet Blue Musicwww.velvetbluemusic.com
Decapolis Review: My My EP
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