Before their show at the Rickshaw Stop (San Francisco, California), we sat down with Joseph, Kevin, and Bryce of The Band Ice Cream to ask them some questions about their new album (Numbskull), touring, and their experience as musicians.
Fog To Smog: We really liked your new album, Numbskull. How have you changed as a band and how has the process of production changed since your debut album, Classically Trained?
Kevin: We moved into a new practice hall, which is nicer, so that’s a big change. Not much else though, honestly. We’re still going to play as many local shows, but it is nice knowing that we have we have more listeners on the internet. That’s a little more motivating to say, “Yeah, let’s fucking do a tour and we’re going to play this random ass place,” because we can look and see that people are actually listening from that random ass place, which is cool.
Bryce: Between albums, our drummer Louis, who played on Classically Trained, left and we have Dante [not present for this interview] on board now.
Joseph: I would say as far as recording, it was a lot different. The last album was very segmented and disjointed. There were three songs on there from our EP that were just remastered. Then the other songs were recorded in two separate sessions, which took longer than it took to record Numbskull. Numbskull is different because we recorded it really quickly. We did all of the floor tracks, except for maybe one, all in one day. It flew by compared to recording Classically Trained. The other thing was that we recorded demos for this album. While we were writing songs, we were recording demos at the same time. I really think that writing and recording, at least for me, is a better way to write because you know how it is going to translate when you lay it down. I feel like it is easier to experiment and play things back.
Fog To Smog: Back to what Kevin said, how do you think the internet has affected you guys as a band?
Kevin: Pretty drastically. Classically Trained was released on vinyl and tape. That cost the label, Urban Scandal, a ton of money to do and we’re just now breaking even with the label in terms of our cuts and percentages from Classically Trained. This time around, instead of putting the label in the situation where they have to front a ton of money and there’s a lot of pressure, we decided not to do vinyl on Numbskull and just do cassette. We also didn’t do any external PR to help at all. We just decided to focus on booking the tour, playing good shows, and letting whatever press that wanted to review our album just come organically. That ended up working out way better because we end up getting people who are genuinely interested, instead of people who are being begged on behalf of you by another person. That ends up being really forced, really awkward, and really rushed. Instead you get genuine people leaving comments and creating genuine internet buzz in this phony world of PR shit. We’re good friends with Stephen, who runs Urban Scandal. He’s more of a friend than he is our boss or manager, so what’s the sense of stressing everybody out? We’d have to push vinyl sales and naturally, we’ve noticed that in the past two years, most of the people that approach the merch table want a t-shirt. The cassette is more if people want a memento of the album. Those who actually drop $20 on a vinyl is such a small percentage of people, definitely less than 10%. If people really want that and the album becomes massively popular, we can get another label that has a bit more cash flow and it doesn’t put them in a weird spot to re-release it. We’re not really stressed on it.
Fog To Smog: What inspired the song “Softboy Rock”?
Joseph: “Softboy Rock” was kind of my idea for a little diss track. I definitely have some frustrations as far as what kind of bands and what kind of stuff is popular on Spotify or whatever. Sometimes I just feel like punk rock is a little dead. It feels really old school in kind of a frustrating way. This was a track to express that in a funny way. It’s a diss track for all the bands who play mopey rock and spend more time figuring out what outfit they’re going to wear in their Instagram photos than they do writing their songs or trying to innovate.
Fog To Smog: What about “In The Band”?
Joseph: I was really stoked to write the lyrics for “In the Band”. Generally, I’m not super stoked to write lyrics, but I really like the concept of “In the Band”. I was actually watching one of Luke Sweeney’s music videos when I thought of it. I just love the culture of watching bands, then wanting to be in the band, then actually being in one, starting out really shitty, getting better, and then playing bigger stages. That whole process is really cool and fun. Anyway, the track is about that story. Someone goes to a bunch of shows and then getting the confidence to say “I think I want to be the one on stage and the one playing for other people, and I think I could do it just as well or even better than these people I admire.” I also really like the process of taking an artist that you like and really inspires you, or even two different artists, and creating something even better out of it. Like, “I wish there was a band that sounded something like Deftones and Pearl Jam,” then combining them. I like that whole process.
Fog To Smog: What is your songwriting process normally like?
Kevin: Super democratic, probably more than any musical project I’ve been in. Somebody brings an idea and everyone jumps on it, then adds their own flavor. Even before Dante joined the band, we had all the songs written and we thought it was 100% ready to record. Then when Dante joined, we reworked them all before recording so that his flavor would be added onto the album as well. It is our collective album. One person brings a small idea to the table and it doesn’t become a song until everyone can put their own mark on it. Bryce will put a signature bass riff on it, or I’ll do something with the guitar, or we’ll be inspired to write lyrics based on the music. We don’t have a lot of particular writing credits, it’s just always everyone in the band.
Fog To Smog: What is your favorite song to play live?
Kevin: “Back, Tonight” for me.
Bryce: You could ask me on any night that we’re playing and I’d probably say a different song, but I like playing “Mexico”.
Joseph: I like “Sick Over U” a lot just because, this sounds funny, but it’s really easy to make it sound good. It’s got a lot of groove and it never really goes wrong.
Fog To Smog: You just got back from tour, what was your favorite moment?
Bryce: I got it! The last day of tour, we played this show with The Shivas at Doug Fir Lounge, in Oregon. At the end of the night, everybody had to get back to work on Monday. The plan was to get back in San Francisco at around 9 or 10 am. We played second, then The Shivas played and it all ended around midnight, so we had the van packed and we were ready to drive straight back to San Francisco, no stopping. It took us a little longer, so at around 12:30 am after we got paid, we were looking for Dante. We all had seen him though.
Kevin: I was packing the van and we were like, “Dante, we’re rounding everyone up. Where are you going?” He was running up the loading garage and he just turns around, gives me two middle fingers, and runs away. I’m like, “Dante! Where are you going? We’re leaving after this song.” The van was packed and everyone was ready to go, but we were all drinking except for our tour manager, Julian, because he was driving.
Bryce: I wasn’t drinking either. Everybody is texting Dante, everybody is calling him, and there’s no answer. Then Julian gets a FaceTime call from our buddy, Clay, in Oregon. On the FaceTime call it isn’t Clay, it’s Dante passed out in a pizza store blocks away. Clay’s like, “Yo! I found your homie. He’s at the pizza store!” and we’re like, “What?!” We’re all trying to get going and Kev goes to get him. Julian and I were the only sober ones. We finally get him and we’re walking him back across the street and he had no idea that he had fell asleep in the pizza shop. That was probably the craziest moment for me. We ended up leaving Oregon at like 1 am and ended up back in San Francisco at like 1 pm.
Kevin: Dante woke up the next day and he was like, “Why do my ribs hurt?” and we told him, “Dude, when we finally found you and corralled you back into the van, we stopped at a gas station for Taco Bell and fuel, and you fell out of the van on your face.”
Bryce: He saw all the Taco Bell rubbish on the ground in the van and he said, “Did I eat Taco Bell last night?”
Kevin: He ate two slices of pizza and a crunch wrap supreme
Fog To Smog: Lastly, is there anyone who was specifically influential in regards to this album and tour cycle?
Bryce: I do want to say a thank you to Jack Shirley. He recorded this album and kept us on track. Like Kevin was saying, we all basically trade off on things and throw around ideas. Sometimes we just dig so far into an idea and we get away from what we were originally going for. Jack kept it simple for us, telling us, “That sounds good” or “You’re starting to lose something.” He just kept us on point and that was how we were able to finish all the floor tracks in one day, which I thought was crazy. Shout out to Jack.
Make sure to check out The Band Ice Cream’s new album, Numbskull.
Photo: William Wayland (for more of his work, check out his instagram here. for more photos from this night, check out The Bay Bridged’s post here)
Interview conducted by Emma Fong and Brigid Ahern