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Bandhappy Bandchat with The Summer Set

everybody, I'm thin. Mackenzie. I'm the head of the music and audio channel here on creative life dot com. If you are new to creativelive, were the world's best online classroom for learning how to make music. So anything from song writing to mixing to engineering this is the place to learn. It got Jess and John here from the Somerset to talk about the band Happy Masterclass they're doing every day on Vans Warped Tour. If you want to buy a ticket for that, go to band happy dot com slash work tour. Go find their class and you can sign up for it. And we're going to be asking at the second half of this interview we're going to be asking your questions. So if you want to ask congestion Jonah question, look at the little blue click on the little blue link below this video. This is chat live with the class or whatever it says. Click on that. I will read it and ask it for them. You don't need to spam it and ask 50 times. You can ask once, and I will see it s so with that out of the way. Uh, j...

ust John, You're getting ready for warp tour right now. What else are you guys up to these days? I'm just hanging out with my puppy. You know, that's usually all I do. And I'm not on tour, so I don't know what Johnson up to. You got a haircut? It looks like I got a haircut. Um, we we just got back from the UK about well, three or three weeks ago or something that we just finished. Our headliner, legendary headliner. Their legendary is the name of our album. You don't know that I'm not just not just describing the tour, but yeah, just hanging at home and getting ready for work toward Well, was was the tour, in fact, legendary. It waas it Wasit waas. Definitely. We finished it in London, and we put our biggest show we've ever played in London to date. Um, like 800 people at Islington Academy. And it was one of those shows I just didn't wanna walk off stage. It's just perfect. Nice. Well, you know, I've been a fan of the band since I don't know, 2009 or something like that. Whenever Chelsea came out. So I seen you guys have really come a long way. And that last five, like I saw you guys on the Macy's parade and I was like, What? The summer said. It's like the Macy's parade this crazy. So congratulations for as far as you come in, you know, since then, thank you. Um, so I guess on that note, you've leveled up a lot, maybe, especially in the last year or so. I feel like maybe two years. What would you go back in time and tell yourself as a musician, as a professional five years ago? You like Jess John of five years ago? Here's what you need to know. Yeah, great question. I think I told myself, Um, not not to stress out so much about, Like, time. Like such tiny little details. I feel like in the beginning, if you so like, freak out about. Like if someone on stage played something that wasn't exactly like what we had rehearsed or something. And I feel like I just felt like everyone in the crowd was watching me so intensely, and I think his years of gun on you just kind of realized it's really much music's much of a bigger picture game. And it's just all about vibe like everyone's, you know, feeling it, that everything is fine not to be so obsessive about tiny things. I agree. I think it's definitely to be a little more relaxed. I think When I first started touring, especially, I was pretty, uh, I would say it was a little more uptight, and I think you just kind of learned toe just kind of be more laid back and more relaxed and touring. I guess also does that to you kind of become a more relaxed person just being on the road all the time and waking up in a new city every day. So, yeah, I mean, I definitely would tell myself to be more relaxed and bring it out on the road. Maybe. Yeah, well, on that note, you know, I know. Ah, a lot of people watching this probably have, you know, dreams of going on tour themselves. Give people a little bit. You know, I've been a tour of my friend's bands quite a bit. Maybe give people a little bit of an idea of like what they can expect gets it probably on the road. Nine months out of the year or something. What's that like on a day to day basis? Well, when we first started out, it was a lot different in the, you know, way started touring in 2000 and eight, and John had actually just gotten out of high school hop. We hopped in a van the day after he graduated from high school, and we were playing, you know, toe, sometimes five toe 10 people a night. Sometimes we were only playing with bartenders that worked at that is so yeah. I mean, you know, you just you stick with any progress and you just, you know, we were having the best times of our lives even when we were like Teoh, you know, two people a night, and so it, you know, it starts out a little, a little slow that, you know, it obviously progresses. And as long as you stick with it and have a good attitude towards it, you know it. You kind of step forward. So I think you're your asking. Sorry. Oh, that's pushing us. And what advice you give, like based on touring, that you're just starting up touring again now just kind of like, you know what? What? I guess, Yeah. You know, like what? What to expect. You know, specifically Ah, a lot of waiting, for example. Yeah, it's It's definitely unlike anything else. It's Ah, it's not a vacation. It's not exactly a vacation. Tell us all my friends were like, Oh, you've got travel the whole world, which totally And I'm so grateful for that. But there is a lot of I mean it is, It is. You were there to play show and stuff. So it's a lot of venues and a lot of hotels in a lot of gas stations. It's a lot of the in between. Time is what I think you don't really expect when you're about to go on tour for the first time. And that was one thing that's interesting. Is all that downtime in between and just the kind of hurry up. So wait kind of stuff is Joshua Guitar says, just kind of Go, go, go, go, go! We got to get there and then you wait for three hours. So what for me? I think why? I find, like, a lot of a lot of my enjoyment from touring now is Are those in between moments? Those moments At first I was confused by I was like, Wait, isn't it supposed to be like Spinal Tap isn't supposed to be a party all the time, and then you realize how important that downtime that downtime is. And it's really it's really about the adventure of finding a new adventure every day. Whether it's in the city, um, your inner it's an off day and just kind of getting, you know, enjoying the time you have together with the band. That's not just work related business related show related, just, you know, going and finding some, whether some shitty pizza place or going to, like, zoo or something, or going checking out like a go a city, you know, modern monument or something. It's kind of in between moments are really what make tour enjoyable. Cool. Well, can you maybe talk a little bit about how important it is to you guys were musicians, of course, but you're also living, like, literally next to each other much you know, as much as brothers and sisters. So can you talk a little bit about like how important it is, toe? You know, stay friends and not hate each other. And like what? How you managed to do that. When you're stuck in a bus with each other so often, I'll tell you, I'll answer that question when I figure it out, I guess. Haven't had any lineup changes have, you know, in the same lineup for seven years. I mean, I think we kind of be my my brother base where we had to set the bar for as ugly as it can possibly get right at the beginning. So I think everything else, you know, fight wise on tour just kind of falls short of new my brother. You know, we're siblings, so we, uh we can say the meanest things to each other because we know at the end of the day, if one of us needs an organ or something, you know where the world the other one's got. But no, it's it's interesting. After seven years, I feel like I know that one of my band more than I know some of my extended family members, it really is. It's It's crazy. I think we all know the boundaries as well, because we have known each other for so long. And we are like brothers and sister. I'm their sister, you know? I mean, I guess we just know, Like, if you do get into a fight, you know, you know, how did how much space to give them and how much time they need to cool off. And then, you know, you're the next, you know, the next time we see each other, you're probably having a beer or something. You know, you kind of get over it pretty quickly and you're on the road together. Your family So you it's literally like fighting with the sibling. You love them, but you hate them at that moment, right? Okay, well, so let's ah, let's talk a little bit about your band. Happy master. Classroom teaching on warp tour this year can give people a little bit of a sneak preview on what you plan on covering in that class. Yeah, we're all kind of like drafting up, I guess what you call it. I find trouble calling it a lesson plan because all of us kind of ended our academics, like, immediately after high school, but actually call it that. I think interesting stuff. We want to touch on is kind of we like, like, like, just was saying earlier we I hopped like straightened van from high school. It wasn't like we built up and we built up some sort of following online, but a lot of our planner How we saw the music industry, especially at that time, was you saw a lot of bands hopping into 15 pastor vans and was like, Yo, to make this work, we have to go out. We got to get in front of people physically, uh, and go show them. You know what we're doing? So I think what we're gonna want to cover in the class is just for anyone who's interested in other working on tour or or growing a band themselves or their band is about to go on tour and they want to know what to expect. It just kind of talking about this building blocks that were so important to the foundation of our band, kind of from you know, it starts from a local show. It starts from, you know, local shows that's going and finding, you know, acts similar to us that we're on tour on your flyer flyer ing like physically. I know it sounds crazy that some kids a little younger than us, but like people used to And you might still when people use actually flyer outside shows like not just, like tweet stuff. So, um, we went through this class. We want to retrace the history of kind of like a This is like how we did it. We went from local shows and firing outside local shows, playing locally to go and regionally playing the state. So we're closest to you to finally what it is actually like. And a lot of kids always ask, like, how do you How do you book a tour like what happens and kind of, you know, going into our experiences from how it tours books now for us and how it's always booked our very first tours. So well, Jeff, So I wanted to ask, are you Are you gonna be covering the same kind of stuff? Were you gonna focus on drums stuff? I know you have an unusually high profile for a drummer in a band in your genre. Eso I'm curious. Do you get a lot of demand for drum specific stuff? Um, yeah. You know, I'm I'm actually going to be doing my own drum lessons on the side. But for as far as our band lesson goes, I'm definitely gonna focus more on, I guess, how are banned started And maybe like how we all came together, how I joined the band and me and John and Stephen started up. You know, when we were teenagers and, yeah, I guess we'll go from there. I do have You know what I'm doing on the side for the band stuff? I'm gonna keep it. Maybe I'll tell stories of you know what, What it's like to be the only girl in the road And some funny stories I've got of of the boys. Maybe so. Well, you know what's funny, though Jesse's is I didn't know. I feel like in a local music scene, like girls do come up, Teoh you. It shows more than it surprised me. How many girls come up to you? It shows and say, Oh, my God, I'm a drummer to like I want to, like, know your ministrations. Like I'm like, where were all these girls? Like when we were starting? I don't remember anyone drumming. You were like you know the girl drummer that I ever knew exactly? Like the whole Arizona Like Phoenix seen, So I think it is cool. It's on me, girls and even guys. But, like, it's surprising how many girls there's like, I drum, too. So, um yeah, yeah. Maybe it's starting to grow. I hope so. It's awesome. Yeah, well, just you've been pretty serious about drums for a long time, right? I mean, isn't your dad a drummer or something? Yeah, my dad is a drummer. And, uh, yeah, so he kind of forced me in a way to play drums because I wanted to play guitar. So, uh, yeah, he got me into drums when I was like, I think I was 12 years old and then me, John and Stephen started playing together, you know, in middle school. Pretty short after that. So, yeah. So I've been playing for at least 12 years now. I guess I could think my dad was May I What? One of my friends is just being it is being a loser right now. Hey, it happens well before we get to the audience questions, which again, if you want to ask the question of these guys. Just click on the little blue link below this video and click on the chat Live with class participants and I'll after I will see your question. Alaska. So, uh, just you had really encouraging parents for anybody at home who is a parent with a child who wants to get into music or a child of the with parents who maybe don't understand. What would you tell them about, you know, about what? What advice would you give to them for the kid that wants to have a career in music? So you cut up saying, What advice? Parents. Yeah, What advice would you give for the parents? That a child that wants to get into music? Well, I guess the only real advice, like really say, is as a parent, I would think you're the biggest gold life is that you want your child to be happy until toe live a happy life and what more than to let them follow their dreams or their goals. If they want toe, be a musician or they want to be an actress, you know, whatever it be, I think as a parent, you should just be supportive of what your child wants to do. And although my parents were definitely has it been, let me drop out of school to jump into a van with a bunch of boys. You know, the crowd now, and they're very happy now. And so, uh, I guess that's a lot to say is you know, if your kid wants to do, you should be supportive of it. So, um yeah, like working out what just said, like, first of all, I don't think I'm any. I agree with everything. Just said my parents were so supportive throughout this whole thing. Uh, I feel we're giving advice as like, a 23 year old to a parent consigning thing I could ever imagine. Like what that's like. But, um, but you know, one thing I would like definitely like if a parent was somehow for some reason asking my advice. The music industry is not like American Idol. It's not like this like a game. Show it like numbers and graphs that show, like how popular your you know son or daughter is and what you know, chances. They have it being successful. Whatever. It's not like that. It's a very abstract back name. You were chasing you. I don't think art is not usually some artists aren't usually known in the masses for making a lot of money or for being, you know, just super like instantaneously. You know, uh, well known. I mean, some of the greatest artists, you know, some of the girls are just the last 100. 200 years were died, poor and not even known. So, like, I know it's hard as a parent sometimes not see like that. Normal, not do not see that kind of chronological ladder, if you will, that is, in the world of like, academia are like chasing a normal job route. It's not there. It's much more abstract. And, yeah, the music industry. It's not like it's not like American Idol at all. So, um so I mean, it's It's something. It's something. Don't take time and like it's patients. And if you're a parent like my parents, luckily, you know they were patient enough and they don't really asking too many questions. They were kind of looking for instant results, instant success. It's something that takes a little time and you know it most great things in this world Do you take a lot of time? So I think that's my little bit to sensitive your parents. Good advice. Well, so I will move on to some audience questions here from snoozy Que Are you looking for looking for a merch person? I'm guessing you do have a merch person, but for somebody who wants to get into that, how did you find your merch person? Or what do you look for in somebody? What makes a good merch person? Uh, well, I was gonna say I mean, we've gone through a few different, you know, people of friends that want to come on the road Sometimes our current merch person is someone that we met through work tour last year and was friends of our band. And, um, yeah, I mean it. If you want to get into it. You really do just kind of have to 30 self into the music scene, maybe goto a couple shows and offer to help out. You know, uh, the band and maybe you have a friend that works for a band or something You can offer to help them out. You obviously kind of maybe have to start out for free at first. Mikhail, I'll help you, you know, load in some merch and just kind of show them that irresponsible and that you're really there, that you really wanna that your passion about it and that you're you know, you're you're serious about it cause there are definitely some people who I just want to get on the road to get on the road and go out and have fun and drink and do that type of stuff. But if you're serious about a job and getting into it, you just have to show that responsibility. Definitely you, I think first for murder, somebody behind the scenes that ah lot of people don't understand. It's gotta be outgoing and kind of spontaneous and really draw a lot of people. And that goes for banter. Band, some band wanted merchandise is gonna be like on the table, like dancing and, like, you know, trying to sell CDs that when he walks by some bands or more like a just keep it show. We're not really about that, but beyond, just like the exterior of like, how you see merchandise act. A big thing is like his numbers and if you've worked in retail, I know that's a huge one up on people, if you like, worked in retail and you understand Um hey, I you know, I have this amount of this left this month of this the last five shows. Here's this trend of this shirt's not doing so well, this one is doing well. If this trend continues for 30 shows, I'm gonna need a reorder at this time. You know, I should probably reorder, you know, And there's a whole thing that goes into it is like Okay, I'm on the West Coast, my merch companies on the East Coast. I need to look two weeks ahead of what I think is the next order I need to make because, you know, I'm gonna pay crazy rush shipping if I order this too late and you know, there's just there's a lot of factors like that, but I think one thing that kids don't see is there's a lot of it's a lot of It's a number game, and it's a pretty simple number game, but it could be complex for your first time. So it's definitely something that is learned over time, but I think it's interesting. A lot of kids don't think about that at first. It's kind of an interesting little bit of it. By second, give people learn numbers. Be good, it predicting what's selling and what's not in order it accordingly, in a border on time. It's a lot more than someone just saying, Hey, I want that and you handing it to them and taking their money and you're in charge of the whole stock. So don't don't skip math class question from Lobi, which is something I'm interested in, how to combine relationships, family and touring for a long time. And so what I where I'm headed at this is my friends were on tour Huaren touring bands. I see him once every four months, and they and then they disappear for another, like three or four months. And you know, life goes on without them, and they're kind of off in their own little bubble like you being on the other side of that. How do you maintain your like non music relationships with friends and family and stuff? I mean, it's definitely tough. Um, you know, it does take a lot of effort on our end because I do think a lot of our friends think, you know, when John was talking about the whole hurry up and wait thing earlier. I think our friends don't realize we have that much downtime because we really do. And so our friends don't like one above the rest. And our families don't bother us, sir. You know, our significant others, they kind of let us do our thing, and then we have to be the ones to kind of, you know, get in contact with them or make sure that we keep the relationship up. So I mean, it definitely goes both ways, but I definitely feel like on our end we do have to try a little bit harder because I think they do think we're a lot busier than we really are. And for a lot of my friends, it's we have the relationships where you just kind of pick up where you left off. And some people, you know, do you get a little bummed out when you don't keep in touch. But if you know if you're good friends, you can usually pick up where he left off, and it seems like you weren't even gone. So got a little bit of a different request here. There's a girl named Rachel in the chat room who's having brain surgery and cant goto warped er this year. I bet she would appreciate it if you said best wishes and that you'll be thinking over. I know Rachel very well. And best of wishes to To you, Rachel, I think we had a long discussion last time. I was the last time we were in the on the East Coast. So, um, yeah, definitely. I know everything that's going on there. So what? I wish you the best of all of the summer's that we wish you the best. And we do too. Ah, a couple questions about your detailed questions about your classes. So can you talk a little bit? Render wants to know. Are the individual, like contract about the different screen, your individual session and the group session, and kind of why would someone want to do one versus the other or both? Uh, well, I think small specifically for me, you know? I mean, my individual tosses air just solely focused on drumming and drums, and I'm just going to be doing that, but for the band stuff, I think we really want to kind of engage with our fans and let them know, you know, from Day One, how are banned started how we started getting in the music industry. Like like how John was talking about, you know, how we jumped into a van after he got he got out of high school. And we want to take questions and, like, tell stories, you know, fun stories from the road like we want to focus on our band and our experiences we've had as a band and as faras in, I guess our individual classes air more focused on our instrument. Or for John's gonna be doing song writing classes. So exactly yeah, the band, once more the big picture. And then I guess, uh, between drums and song writing. It's just the The little details are what our costs are so but you know, even if you're not a drummer, if you're not a good tourist, I think I would encourage you to check out both of them because you can actually learn a lot about your instrument from people who play other instruments so I would encourage you to check them all out of your fan and Somerset, Um, question from someone whose name I can't read. Kara Chico. For someone who was going to school for music business, would going to school for management really attract the band to hiring them for road management? So I guess the question there is, you know, part of being a band is assembling the right team. The people you can trust you can count on, you know, how do you How do you decide whether you can trust someone enough to take a chance on them? And and do you care where they went to school? You know, uh, we don't Well, Susan, this is an interesting, definitely, really a question and something that's asked a lot. I don't I don't know any tormentors personally who we haven't found any through, like, a school. Um, that's usually how business works, you know. And in many forms of this is just people who know people and, you know, experience it just experiencing, uh, it's all about, you know, your network. I think they teach you that in, like, any type of business. You know, it's all about kind of who you know, and you use your contacts to your advantage. So I definitely think that that's an attractive quality, especially for maybe, like a management firm, like a bigger management firm. Or maybe like a agency. Um, you know, like some of the big agencies, you know, the William Morris paradigm, Those those agencies might, you know, I'm sure those people taken, you know, college graduates, you know, from, you know, internships up. And then that could be a really great way toe. Make a connection with this agent of this group, and maybe you start in a management cider working in an office. But personally, I don't know anyone who came into tour managing from college, but I'm sure that I know there's Some are store managers talk about some bigger, almost like a businesses that are full of, like, a group of tour managers that they represent a bunch of them, and that might be a way. But I have the experience. I'm sure there's other bands out there that do you have, Um, yeah, but as far as our band goes like, we really just look at the experience that our crew members have had in the past and, um, you know, take recommendations from other bands that have, you know, given us, um, you know, resumes or whatever. And I think actually, the experience that we look out the resume Yeah, pretty much. One last question from Dmitri Love. What do bands really look forward to in a venue? Because I want to create a music venue in my hometown. So somebody's booking a band. What can they dio? Especially if it sounds like this is gonna be, like, kind of moral local d I y kind of thing. What can they do at that level to make the band have a really good experience? Well, hospitality is something I think that's a big, like being able to have, like, you give a venue, it just be able to set aside that area, that one little area, um, that the bank can relax in. It was like a fridge. And, you know, um, you know, a few couches and stuff like that is when a band especially doing a smaller venue, you're having a lot of bands and bands like you just look forward to getting out of the van and just at least be able to sit down somewhere. So I think hospitality is a big a big thing that I look for. Yeah, I agree with that, for sure. I think that's the biggest thing we usually look for. Is just having a nice place to relax before you know, after you get out of the van and then before you have to play, it's just really nice to have a nice little area for yourself and to hang out in. So and then, you know, And then also make sure the stages is decent. Is decent enough sized pretty much I really could make it. I feel like music venues. Uh, making a venue is just kind of common sense. That might be meat being too hard on some people because we've been you've been in. There's venues everywhere across the country have been in what you're like. What were you thinking? There's like enough that this room for like, one due to sit on stage. There's no green rooms like Is there even bathrooms for, like fans to go in like, but it's pretty much common sense, but you know, if you're asking from a band perspective, hospitality goes a long way and you know, stage is a decent size. All right, well, that's about it for us. If you want a chance to talk more about this stuff with these guys than go to ah band happy dot com slash warp tour and buy a ticket for either their group class or the individual classes that they'll be doing every day with Band Happy on Vans, Warped Tour, Jess and Everybody in the Somerset. Thank you so much for joining us, and that's a wrap. Thank you the