Interview by Samantha Reyes
Photos by Yvette Hammond
“…like giving birth to a really fat ugly baby…”
Members:,
Colton- vocals
Robb - guitars
Walter - bass
Hollis - drums
Tom – keyboards (and phantom)
Revamp: How did you all meet?
Colton: I’ve known Hollis since middle school.
Robb was in the band 'My Friend Sam' since 9th grade. I wanted friends to play with me. Saved them from the mish mash.
Revamp: How did you come up with the name?
Colton: When I originally thought this up, I was sketching in class. I wanted it to be Colton Saylor and the Rocketships.
Hollis: It’s not the easiest thing to say, so if he messes up, he sounds like a dick.
Colton: It’s a certain level of cuteness. It makes us seem cute. I like Kevin Devine and the Goddamn band.
Revamp: How do you deal with that whole its 'Colton Saylor' and the band?
Robb: I enjoy it.
Hollis: We’re secretly planning to be bigger than him.
Colton: I rely on these guys so much. I write some the guitar parts and I write some of the drum stuff. I pretty much rely on them. Like, I do so much, but then, they make everything so much better. So much of my music is lyrical so they add more of the musical element to it. I think it’s a hard life but we do a pretty good mix, having good musicians back me.
Revamp: How do you keep yourself from becoming a neurotic, self-involved asshole?
Colton: I’m very critical of solo artists, like singer-songwriters in particular. I think I try to bring that up a lot in my songs because I see this very sort of like self-destructive lifestyle where you creative your own genre. I feel that its sort of like an elitist standard of I create and you consume. I always try to do the Bruce Springsteen sort of like “everyday, every man” sort of thing. I try to keep it grounded. I try to be as approachable as possible. Anyone can do what I do. It’s not hard at all. I feel like too many people are discouraged from doing it. It’s like communism.
Revamp: Tell me about your strangest tour moment.
Colton: I’m afraid to say some of them. I remember we almost had our asses beat at an Indian Reservation by a crazy anarchist dude who lives in the woods because we didn’t want to play at his house. We were supposed to play the next day at another guy’s house. And he’s like, “Hey, come over and drink with us.” We were tired, we just got in, we just want to relax and I keep talking to Jessie and she’s a bigger name. And he was like, “You fucking bitch, get over here right now.” And Jessie’s like, “What the fuck?! Fuck you, no!” And then, they go crazy and start running and saying “Come over here. We will kick your fucking asses.” At Indian reservations, it’s like another country. There’s no real law there. It’s their fucking place. Its all prohibition there so there’s a lot of bootlegging. The guy we were staying with was sort of like a ringleader of this big bootlegging thing. So 40s there are like gold. The guy we were staying with had a bunch of 40s and he was like, “I can get killed with the amount of 40s I have.” So there were a few times where there were loud knocks on the door and we’d be like in the living room. The other people we stayed with were pretty cool. But that one guy was fucking weird and we left the next day.
Revamp: How would you describe your sound?
Colton: I don’t know. I actually made up a name for it recently. I call it Indie Beard Folk.
Walter: Some of the band doesn’t have the ability to grow a beard.
Colton: I like a lot of country. My Dad raised me on country, but I think its more based in folk because its really lyrical.
Robb: I think it always starts off in a particular genre, and then after everybody listens to it…
Colton: its kinda weird. It starts as folk and moves more toward alternative. I like a lot of 90s alternative and I think it like heads towards that way.
Revamp: Who would you ideally want to tour with? If you could play any show, which one would you play?
Colton: Say Anything. I would tour with Say Anything. That’d be awesome.
Hollis: Say Anything now?
Colton: I don’t know. I would just like to tour with Max Bemis and follow him around. I could get kicked off the tour very quickly.
Robb: Amsterdam on 420.
Robb: It can be Kottonmouth Kings.
Colton: I could play the Reading Festival because I remember watching a video of Snow Patrol playing at the Reading Festival. Its fucking massive. It was like so epic. All these lights are going off.
Walter: I probably want to play Warped Tour if Paramore was playing just so I could hit on Haley.
Colton: I thought she was going out with the guitarist
Walter: I don’t care.
Revamp: Any plans for the future?
Colton: Right now, we’re working on a winter tour for California, and then a possible larger tour in February like on the east coast with this band Leftmore and Jessie Williams. I recorded some new tracks and I plan to record a split with Jessie. I haven’t really written a lot of stuff for the record yet, but I have ideas. Maybe a new record next year, but we’ll see. I feel like I never really give myself enough time to make the record special. I feel like I should work on this one a little bit more. Maybe a little longer than that. Records are very important to me. They take a while for me to make. They’re like fat children. If I had to tell you how it feels to make a record, it’s like giving birth to a really fat ugly baby. It’s like so painful and time consuming. And afterwards you’re not happy with it. Everyone else thinks it’s cute because it’s a baby, but I don’t know man.
Revamp:If you had to be associated with a cause, what would it be?
Colton: I’m really into racial equality stuff. I’m a Black Studies minor. I do a lot of like African American literature. I like education. Inner city education programs. There’s a lot of fucked up white privilege stuff going on in our educational system that Id like to fix if possible. That’s a whole other thing.
Robb: I don’t want to say anything that sounds stupid. There’s a lot of hungry people that should be fed.
Colton: Invisible Children is cool.
Robb: I don’t think I can single out one particular issue.
Revamp: If you could be any mythical animal, what would you be?
Robb: We’re going to be at this table forever.
Walter: I’d be a liger.
Colton: That’s not a mythical animal. Its real. I saw pictures. There’s another one that’s more of a tiger, a tigon.
Walter: A unicorn, that’s a good one.
Colton: Probably a jackalope. It’s like the best of both worlds. You’re a land animal, a rabbit with horns and stuff.
Hollis: I’m gonna go with Sasquatch because I’m almost there anyway.
Robb: Loch Ness because I’m Scottish and I’m doing a lot of studying on Scotland. Cryptozoology was not a route I was expecting to go in.
Revamp: If someone made a movie about your band, what would it be called?
Walter: The band that sucked really bad.
Robb: Colton Saylor and the She Sells Seashells. Colton’s Crumby Life. A Man Apart. I may need more time to answer that one.
Colton: How to Suck Playing Live and Alienate Fans.
Walter: Almost famous 2.
Colton: 4 Dudes, 1 Cup.
Robb: 3 Dudes, 1 Cup, Robb Standing.
Colton: Isn’t there a movie they’re making about teenagers making a band.
Hollis: It’s the people from High School Musical.
Colton: That always pisses me off. How do these kids tour? I couldn’t afford instruments. I had to borrow instruments. And they’re all super attractive.
Robb: Can we redo the whole interview?