Cross Post......

[ez_willis]

from a&a(you'll need to register to view this and any further content), BUT, it has a lot of info about a being in a new band on a major label, and how some things work. it's just a few life experiences that may or may not answer questions that some of you have:

Hey how did The Poorboys get discovered? Did yall send out hundreds of demos, or was it a fluke discovery?

we were together for 3 months and had 7 songs. the 1st gig we did, the singer for the bullet boys walked up to us on stage and said "don't talk to anyone, my manager will call you".

the following friday we had our 2nd gig. we were opening for another local band and an A&R guy was there to see them. He used to be the singer for the unforgiven & the stepmothers. those bands came from our area. anyways, that A&R guy walked on stage and said "don't speak to anyone in the industry before coming to the Disney lot on Monday morning.

the next day we played in L.A. at a happening club, but we played at 8pm and the place didn't get jumping until about 11. When we went on, the cleaning crew was still unstacking chairs and the only other people there was about 10 suits representing each of the majors standing in a line in front of the stage.

a bidding war ensued. we went with disney. they put us on salary for 2 years and let us write songs and get better as a band.

How did the tours work? Did Disney just book a tour and sent you on your way?

in certain instances. the first place we went to was before the record was done. we played a SXSW in Austin and just drove there in a Disney van with two friends helping with gear.

the label was good about having us do songs for movies and pay us about $10k each to supplement the salary we were getting. we did a song for arachnophobia way before the record came out and they sent us to disneyworld for a week to play at pleasure island but the guitarists and i got a little crazy on the 2nd night and they threw us out of florida and sued our band.

every other tour was either supporting national acts or headlining club tours. on each of those tours we would go out for between a month and three months and had tech support, tour manager/sound guy, bus driver, hotels, the whole bit.

Man that's awesome. So how long did it last, and what made it end?

we got signed right before my 20th BD and i didn't really go back to work until i was almost 25.

after our 1st record and the tours that supported it, we were ready to record the 2nd. everytime we had a break between tours we were in the studio ourselves recording demos. the songs were there and ready to go and the label was restructuring. they fired everyone from the president down to our a&r guy. the label was a ghosttown, and what people were there were strangers. we moved to get off the label and it was granted. we fired our drummer and got someone else in after much auditioning. we never got picked back up.

and so ya know, the drummer for cinderella came in and was begging us hire him.

Lol @ Cinderella

So did the new people at the label just not have any interest in you guys, or did it fuck over many bands?

a lot of bands either got dropped or moved to be released during that transition period.

Also, that was right about when grunge was peaking, right? Do you think that had something to do with no getting picked back up?

I remember being at the label going over the artwork for our record and one of the label people pulled us into his office and cranked up Smells Like Teen Spirit for the first time and i almost crapped.

it was a factor. the black crowes thing was a factor, too. we got signed before the crowes but they released their record before us. our manager managed slayer(still does) and they were on def american and working with rick rubin and brendan o'brien at the time. we auditioned B O'B to do our record but he was only allowed to do one non-def american record per year and he opted to do the STP record instead of ours. We knew of the crowes and they knew of us because of those common aquaintances. they beat us to the punch and it hurt us afterwards. we were always called a black crowes wannabe band but in all honesty, 6 of the original 7 songs that we got signed with went on our album.

i'm not a firm believer in everything happening for a reason, but i have no doubt that i'd be dead right now if we achieved any more success than we had.

Wow that's all very wild. Sounds like a crazy time. You're the only person I know that's achieved any kind of commercial mainstream success, so thanks for indulging my questions.

So, was life on a real, big-budget tour really like they portray in movies and shit?

depends on the tour and depends on the movie.

lots of shit. we had to play music for 40 minutes a night, 5 or 6 nights a week. like i said, we had a bus driver to get us to and fro, a tour manager to make sure where we needed to be, and techs to handle the equipment. there was very few constants, but after EVERY show, the band would go to the back of the tour bus immediately after walking off stage and hook up with the tour manager who was also the sound guy. he video taped every gig from the sound board. we would go over what worked and what didn't work and we'd work on fixing inconsistencies on setlist issues. then me, the guitarist and the sound guy would smoke a joint and go back in and watch the headliner when there was one and if they were good.

during the days, it varied. there were a few tours where the singer and i brought our bikes along and we would explore as much of whatever city or town we were in before our gig. we would hit local music stores and pawn shops and check shit out. we'd also go to thrift stores looking for clothes and shit, eat at local restaurants, talk to people about the cities they live in, etc.

I was watching a show on the travel channel the other day called the chowdown countdown or something. I told my wife that i wished i was smart enough to have written about all the restaurants we had eaten at during that time, because i have distant memories of some awesome eateries. there was one in Houston that was great. It was a spanish(not mexican) restaurant that was one of my fav's. i remember fried bananas and black beans. mmm. sorry. sidetracked.

somedays would be travel days where we'd wake up on the bus while driving to the next city and be on the road until we went to bed that night. those days would more times than not be a rolling party if there was no gig that night.

after the first time or two playing in a city, the next time through you'd have "friends" there to pick you up and take you around before the shouw and "out" after the show.

there was also radio promotion shit we'd have to do sometimes during the days. we'd visit stations, do on-air interviews and performances, meet-and-greets, etc.

 

[ez_willis]

what kind of spinal tap moments did yall have?

lol. Lots. One time we were at the mayor's party(of los angeles) at one of the soundstages on the disney lot. It was an open bar and we were good and fucked up. We were big fans of los lobos, but our guitar player in particular who was a latino that grew up in el monte very near where ll emerged from held that band as one of the greatest ever. He and i were standing there and cesar walked up with a homeboy and rik grabbed him and basically told him what a huge influence he was on him and how awesome he was, then he fell straight backwards and landed in a fucking trash can. Cesar says in that totl cholo voice, "hey man, you guys remind me of spinal tap".

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[ez_willis]

what were your "duties" besides showing up on time and playing bass?

nothing, outside of contributing as a writer and improving as a player and singer.

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[ez_willis]

did you guys hand pick your techs and roadies to travel with you, or were there local crews waiting at each stop?

no, both guys were our good friend's. There was a drum tech and a guitar/bass tech. Our drummer liked to play rock star and treated the drum tech like a slave until we went up on him and humbled him. They knew what was expected of them and handled their shit. The tour manager would accept nothing less. He'd just as soon send them home and get one of his guys.

Our tour manager had been on the road for years. He lived with steve marriott during the humble pie era. He would tell us stories about him and frampton all the time. We were huuuuuge hp fans. We'd always tell him he was full of shit and bag on him. One time we did a gig with frampton and at soundcheck he just walked on stage and stood there when frampton was checking guitars. Pf looked at him, set his guitar down and started crying and hugging him because they were so close for so long and they had been apart for decades. It was awesome to witness.

That dude was one helluva sound man too, and a great fucking friend after all of that. He lived just outside of nyc in jersey. When we did gigs in the area he would schedule 3 days off so he could spend time with his family. We would all stay in the bus outside and feast with him and his wife. She had a baby while he was on the road with us and it was like a birth in the family.

I fucking love that man and miss the shit out of him. He knew my parents well because we'd do the same thing when we were in or around l.a. He would come to our houses and feast with us.

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[ez_willis]

did you guys hand pick your techs and roadies to travel with you, or were there local crews waiting at each stop?

no, both guys were our good friend's. There was a drum tech and a guitar/bass tech. Our drummer liked to play rock star and treated the drum tech like a slave until we went up on him and humbled him. They knew what was expected of them and handled their shit. The tour manager would accept nothing less. He'd just as soon send them home and get one of his guys.

Our tour manager had been on the road for years. He lived with steve marriott during the humble pie era. He would tell us stories about him and frampton all the time. We were huuuuuge hp fans. We'd always tell him he was full of shit and bag on him. One time we did a gig with frampton and at soundcheck he just walked on stage and stood there when frampton was checking guitars. Pf looked at him, set his guitar down and started crying and hugging him because they were so close for so long and they had been apart for decades. It was awesome to witness.

That dude was one helluva sound man too, and a great fucking friend after all of that. He lived just outside of nyc in jersey. When we did gigs in the area he would schedule 3 days off so he could spend time with his family. We would all stay in the bus outside and feast with him and his wife. She had a baby while he was on the road with us and it was like a birth in the family.

I fucking love that man and miss the shit out of him. He knew my parents well because we'd do the same thing when we were in or around l.a. He would come to our houses and feast with us.

were there ever any instances in which some poor tech had to find you a certain kind of bass string at 3 am in some bumfuck town?

fuck no. That was lame wannabe rock star bullshit. Fuck all that. That ain't what we or that band was about.

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[WhiteStrat]

Good stuff ez--thanks for posting. I'll head over and read the rest.

 

[ez_willis]

Good stuff ez--thanks for posting. I'll head over and read the rest.

cool. this is the bulk of it. it's too easy to not copy and paste.

 

[Chili]

Nice EZ, thanks for posting it. Wow, so it sounds like you were close to fame and fortune.

Are you sure that restaurant in Houston wasn't Colombian?? They weren't bananas, they were plantains. Love them. Plantains and beans is a typical Colombian dish.

 

[ez_willis]

Are you sure that restaurant in Houston wasn't Colombian??

no idea. there were so many great restaurants that i can barely remember. i can't remember for other reasons, too, but i don't want to influence any children that might stumble across this.

 

[ez_willis]

here's an online folder with some PB's songs. most of those were on the record but there's a couple from an on-air show we did for a radio station in boston.

 

[ez_willis]

tell me something about your songwriting process. Did you write songs as a band, did one guy write most of the stuff, or did you each bring in songs and piece them together? Who was the "leader"?

it varied. The singer/guitar player is a songwriting machine. He told me recently that he has written over 400 songs. There are really two or three phases of that band. The lead up to the record, after the record, and after we got a new drummer.

There was already 5 of the 12 songs written by the singer and other guitar player when the original drummer and i joined the band. Between that time and the lead up to recording the album, which took almost two years, a majority of the time the singer would bring a completed song song in and we'd fit that parts together. That varied slightly, but for the most part that was the case.

The drummer and i spent a majority of our energies getting better as players. When we met with andy wallace 6 months before we went into the studio with him, he told the drummer that if his meter didn't improve before we went into the studio, he wouldn't be playing on the record. That really motivated him/us to getter better as a rythym section. Our a&r guy broght in the drummer that played in the unforgiven to coach us. He was, and still is a jazz drumming instructor at a local university, and he is very musical as a drummer. The three of us got together as much or more than the whole band did for 6 months. We improved greatly and were tight as fuck when we entered pre-production.

After the record, when we were touring and during the breaks, we would work on new material. In a few instances, very few, the singer brought in completed songs. For a majority of the time, either myslef, the singer, or other guitar player would bring in bits of songs, a verse, chorus, or progression that rocked, and we would work the song out as a group. Some great songs came out of that.

After we got a new drummer, the band was firing on all cylinders. We would get together at rehearsal, pick up our instruments, and write a new song or two in a few hours. All of the big down low stuff came from that. We recorded most of those songs on a tascam cassette based recorder in our band room. Some of the songs were recorded and mixed by us in local budget studios.

That's part of the reason why it has been so difficult for me to get songs recorded here at home. I've had to learn to write a complete song without another head to work ideas out.

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