low water interview

We came across Low Water through the website iFilm.com, where the band's first video, Strange New Element was airing. They are currently filming a new music video, which of course we'll have when it's finished, plus they are making the rounds in the metro N.Y. area and gaining fans all over. We cornered the three members of Low Water and made them talk to us about the latest happenings with the band and some other cool stuff as well.

UNSIGNED: How did you guys come up with the name Low Water?
JOHN: I wanted to convey the blue collar, working class aspect of the band. Low Water is a slang term from the 40's for not having any money. It's amazing how that's proven to be appropriate.

UNSIGNED: In your first video, "Strange New Element" you actually have Sumi Das from CNN in the video. How did you hook up with her and who's concept was the video?
DAVE: Sumi has been a fan of the band for a long time - from when we were in California. We were talking about action movies one day, and she admitted that she wanted to be in one. So I started working up the idea for the video with Sumi as the hero. I wanted it to look like Our Man Flint, so I asked several of our friends from
TechTV (Morgan Webb, Chi-Lan Lieu, Cat Schwartz, Sarah Lane and Laura Swisher) to be in it as well. The concept was about trying to get every silly thing that happens in spy movies to happen in about 4 minutes - the secret lab, the bomb under the chair, the "cutting of the red wire", jumping from a plane, cheap disguises, and so on.

UNSIGNED: How long did it take to shoot?
JOHN: It took us 1 day...
DAVE: The pre-production took several weeks. I made all of the sets and props, which was time consuming, but a lot of fun. The radio station is my favorite part - it's all cardboard, and it's modeled after the cover of "The Nightfly" by Donald Fagen. The actual shoot took a day and a half - the half-day was in the plane with Sumi and Chris Leary. It was a tiny Cessna 172 that was chained to the ground. The full day was at my old apartment. And we had a big party afterward.

UNSIGNED: Tell me about Low Water's music. How would you describe your sound and who are some of your influences?
JOHN: I think basically we're a rock band of the same mold as The Kinks, The Replacements, Wilco; meaning we write what we think are solid unpretentious songs that reflect where we're from... and that could be a fast pop song, a country tune, loud distortion or an acoustic ballad... whatever. If we have a "sound" it's due to the fact that we've been together for a long time and we're comfortable playing anything, as for influences, besides who I've mentioned, I listen to a lot of old country, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, The Louvin Brothers... I love Paul Weller, Big Star, ...and I'm a huge fan of the Australian band You Am I.
DAVE: I don't know if we sound like anyone. We have a lot of different types of songs - which makes it more interesting to me. With the bass, my influences are Paul McCartney and Geddy Lee. With guitar I like blues stuff, Willie Nelson, Billy Zoom and The Pixies.
NICK: I guess it's kind of funny. I'm more into and influenced by loud rock bands than anything. Brainiac or No Means No or The Flaming Lips. I take that kind of sound and intertwine it with what Low Water does. At a live show, you'll probably hear a crazier drum sound than you hear on the record.

UNSIGNED: What was the most difficult part of putting Hard Words in a Speakeasy together?
JOHN: Besides basic tracking, we did everything ourselves. So I think the hardest part was having relatively limited time (after work/weekends), having to work around everyone else's schedule when it came to other musicians who we wanted to have on the record, not being booked into a studio where we could relax and have large blocks of time. We had no budget, so when we wanted to use horns, pedal steel, congas...etc, any instrument we weren't proficient on we had to find folks who were and get them to come around, sometimes having to wait weeks. Also, I think it would have really helped to have had a producer or another set of ears at times because we were coming up with and recording guitar sounds, drum sounds, etc...and putting them straight to tape.
DAVE: The most technically difficult part was figuring out how to record Katy Rexford's violin for "Persist". She had just had back surgery, and wasn't allowed sit up for more than 20 minutes at a time. I took a four-track machine over to her apartment and recorded her in the living room. Of course the four-track wasn't really running at a constant speed, so I had to fool around with the speed afterward to get it to sync up to the recording. I felt a little bit like George Martin working on "Strawberry Fields Forever".

UNSIGNED: What can we expect from your new video for "New Company"?
JOHN: We really liked this old black and white Miles Davis footage from the late 50's that we had seen. We thought "New Company" would be a good song to shoot in a similar way; straightforward and classy, but also harshly lit and pretty raw. I especially think lyrically the song is well suited for this treatment.
DAVE: It's loosely based on a tv broadcast of "So What" by Miles Davis from 1959 (I think). I want it to look like we're playing in an old tv studio to a group of "music enthusiasts". I made several of the props - don't believe everything you see!

UNSIGNED: Who does the principal writing for the group?
JOHN:I write the basic song structure (lyrics and chords), Dave and Nick do a lot of the arranging as well as write their own parts on their respective instruments. By the time the song is brought to the band and we start to work on it together, it becomes a group effort.

UNSIGNED: You guys made a big move from San Francisco to NYC. What prompted that move and are you glad you made it?
JOHN: We figured if we could make it there, we could make it anywhere
DAVE: I was pretty much done with San Fran when I got a call to work for FUSE, which is a great music video channel in NYC. It's given me an interesting perspective on how the music industry works. It's better here.

UNSIGNED: Are you working on a new album?
JOHN: At the moment we have close to 2 albums-worth of material already written; some of the material is brand new and some of it has been around for a while. I think it's important for songs to have a gestation period. We're looking
forward to doing some recording, possibly an EP of new material in the spring. We'd also like to release "Hard Words" on a larger scale if we could find the right folks to put it out.

UNSIGNED: How have sales been for Hard Words?
JOHN: I would say considering the fact we had a zero dollar budget, no advertising and relied solely on word of mouth it has done surprisingly well.

UNSIGNED: If Low Water could be any other band in history, what band would you want to be?
JOHN: Thatís a tough one, but what comes to mind instantly I would have to say is the Beatles in the late 60's, the luxury of having one of the greatest producers of all time coupled with 24-hr studio access is pretty hard to beat. I don't know? Early 70's Kinks? The Jam? Different bands in different eras are equally attractive.
DAVE: I'd like to be The Beatles - all of them stacked on top of each other so we could be the greatest and tallest band ever. Also it would be cool to be Big Star.

UNSIGNED: Where can readers hear and buy Hard Words?
JOHN: iTunes, Not Lame, CD Baby. Also there are MP3s and videos at http://www.lowwatermusic.com and MySpace.

UNSIGNED: In 3 words describe your band.
JOHN: It goes on.
NICK: Turn it up.
DAVE: How about four...?


	Our Unsigned Magazine cover story... (here are the pictures)
We came across Low Water through the website iFilm.com, where the band's first video, Strange New Element was airing. They are currently filming a new music video, which of course we'll have when it's finished, plus they are making the rounds in the metro N.Y. area and gaining fans all over. We cornered the three members of Low Water and made them talk to us about the latest happenings with the band and some other cool stuff as well. UNSIGNED: How did you guys come up with the name Low Water? JOHN: I wanted to convey the blue collar, working class aspect of the band. Low Water is a slang term from the 40's for not having any money. It's amazing how that's proven to be appropriate. UNSIGNED: In your first video, "Strange New Element" you actually have Sumi Das from CNN in the video. How did you hook up with her and who's concept was the video? DAVE: Sumi has been a fan of the band for a long time - from when we were in California. We were talking about action movies one day, and she admitted that she wanted to be in one. So I started working up the idea for the video with Sumi as the hero. I wanted it to look like Our Man Flint, so I asked several of our friends from TechTV (Morgan Webb, Chi-Lan Lieu, Cat Schwartz, Sarah Lane and Laura Swisher) to be in it as well. The concept was about trying to get every silly thing that happens in spy movies to happen in about 4 minutes - the secret lab, the bomb under the chair, the "cutting of the red wire", jumping from a plane, cheap disguises, and so on. UNSIGNED: How long did it take to shoot? JOHN: It took us 1 day... DAVE: The pre-production took several weeks. I made all of the sets and props, which was time consuming, but a lot of fun. The radio station is my favorite part - it's all cardboard, and it's modeled after the cover of "The Nightfly" by Donald Fagen. The actual shoot took a day and a half - the half-day was in the plane with Sumi and Chris Leary. It was a tiny Cessna 172 that was chained to the ground. The full day was at my old apartment. And we had a big party afterward. UNSIGNED: Tell me about Low Water's music. How would you describe your sound and who are some of your influences? JOHN: I think basically we're a rock band of the same mold as The Kinks, The Replacements, Wilco; meaning we write what we think are solid unpretentious songs that reflect where we're from... and that could be a fast pop song, a country tune, loud distortion or an acoustic ballad... whatever. If we have a "sound" it's due to the fact that we've been together for a long time and we're comfortable playing anything, as for influences, besides who I've mentioned, I listen to a lot of old country, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, The Louvin Brothers... I love Paul Weller, Big Star, ...and I'm a huge fan of the Australian band You Am I. DAVE: I don't know if we sound like anyone. We have a lot of different types of songs - which makes it more interesting to me. With the bass, my influences are Paul McCartney and Geddy Lee. With guitar I like blues stuff, Willie Nelson, Billy Zoom and The Pixies. NICK: I guess it's kind of funny. I'm more into and influenced by loud rock bands than anything. Brainiac or No Means No or The Flaming Lips. I take that kind of sound and intertwine it with what Low Water does. At a live show, you'll probably hear a crazier drum sound than you hear on the record. UNSIGNED: What was the most difficult part of putting Hard Words in a Speakeasy together? JOHN: Besides basic tracking, we did everything ourselves. So I think the hardest part was having relatively limited time (after work/weekends), having to work around everyone else's schedule when it came to other musicians who we wanted to have on the record, not being booked into a studio where we could relax and have large blocks of time. We had no budget, so when we wanted to use horns, pedal steel, congas...etc, any instrument we weren't proficient on we had to find folks who were and get them to come around, sometimes having to wait weeks. Also, I think it would have really helped to have had a producer or another set of ears at times because we were coming up with and recording guitar sounds, drum sounds, etc...and putting them straight to tape. DAVE: The most technically difficult part was figuring out how to record Katy Rexford's violin for "Persist". She had just had back surgery, and wasn't allowed sit up for more than 20 minutes at a time. I took a four-track machine over to her apartment and recorded her in the living room. Of course the four-track wasn't really running at a constant speed, so I had to fool around with the speed afterward to get it to sync up to the recording. I felt a little bit like George Martin working on "Strawberry Fields Forever". UNSIGNED: What can we expect from your new video for "New Company"? JOHN: We really liked this old black and white Miles Davis footage from the late 50's that we had seen. We thought "New Company" would be a good song to shoot in a similar way; straightforward and classy, but also harshly lit and pretty raw. I especially think lyrically the song is well suited for this treatment. DAVE: It's loosely based on a tv broadcast of "So What" by Miles Davis from 1959 (I think). I want it to look like we're playing in an old tv studio to a group of "music enthusiasts". I made several of the props - don't believe everything you see! UNSIGNED: Who does the principal writing for the group? JOHN:I write the basic song structure (lyrics and chords), Dave and Nick do a lot of the arranging as well as write their own parts on their respective instruments. By the time the song is brought to the band and we start to work on it together, it becomes a group effort. UNSIGNED: You guys made a big move from San Francisco to NYC. What prompted that move and are you glad you made it? JOHN: We figured if we could make it there, we could make it anywhere DAVE: I was pretty much done with San Fran when I got a call to work for FUSE, which is a great music video channel in NYC. It's given me an interesting perspective on how the music industry works. It's better here. UNSIGNED: Are you working on a new album? JOHN: At the moment we have close to 2 albums-worth of material already written; some of the material is brand new and some of it has been around for a while. I think it's important for songs to have a gestation period. We're looking forward to doing some recording, possibly an EP of new material in the spring. We'd also like to release "Hard Words" on a larger scale if we could find the right folks to put it out. UNSIGNED: How have sales been for Hard Words? JOHN: I would say considering the fact we had a zero dollar budget, no advertising and relied solely on word of mouth it has done surprisingly well. UNSIGNED: If Low Water could be any other band in history, what band would you want to be? JOHN: Thatís a tough one, but what comes to mind instantly I would have to say is the Beatles in the late 60's, the luxury of having one of the greatest producers of all time coupled with 24-hr studio access is pretty hard to beat. I don't know? Early 70's Kinks? The Jam? Different bands in different eras are equally attractive. DAVE: I'd like to be The Beatles - all of them stacked on top of each other so we could be the greatest and tallest band ever. Also it would be cool to be Big Star. UNSIGNED: Where can readers hear and buy Hard Words? JOHN: iTunes, Not Lame, CD Baby. Also there are MP3s and videos at http://www.lowwatermusic.com and MySpace. UNSIGNED: In 3 words describe your band. JOHN: It goes on. NICK: Turn it up. DAVE: How about four...?
		`©2005 low water`