After a pretty conventional first half of my interview with American indie rock outfit Titus Andronics things seemed to take a turn for the weird during the concluding questions. Read on and be sure to check out the first part of the interview here if you haven’t already.
Taylor Farnsworth: How has your touring been so far on this tour?
Ian Graetzer: “It’s been going pretty well. More people are coming out to our shows. On previous tours there had been a lot of dead shows but not really on this tour.”
Patrick Stickles: “This tour hasn’t really had any big duds.”
Amy Klein: “We’ve met a lot of nice people and a lot of really cool bands in unexpected places, like South Dakota. It’s always nice to see the kids out in full force in a little town that you didn’t know had a scene.”
Patrick Stickles: “The greater joy of finding these little places of joy and exuberance.”
Eric Harm: “We were also testing ourselves to tour more than our previous tours.”
Patrick Stickles: “We haven’t taken a single day off.”
Eric Harm: “We have about 9 days left and we don’t plan on taking any days off. We’re playing about twice as much as we usually play. We’re looking to play 80 minutes compared to the 40 minutes we’d usually play.”
Patrick Stickles: “We’re playing for much longer times. We’re pushing it to the limit. Why not, we’re young, we’ll sleep when we’re dead, or in like a few years.”
Amy Klein: “I’ll sleep tonight and a lot next week.”
Taylor Farnsworth: What has your weirdest tour experience been?
Patrick Stickles: “Definitely this interview! Just kidding, haha.”
Ian Graetzer: “We slept in a storm drain once.”
Amy Klein: “We stayed with a sleep walker recently.”
Patrick Stickles: “That was not as weird as everyone is saying it is.”
David Robbins: “They were incredibly nice though.”
Ian Graetzer: “Not too much weird on this tour, some weird stuff on previous tours though.”
Amy Klein: “There are some weird smells coming out of our tour van though.”
David Robbins: “We saw people with AK47’s in Detroit. There were people lining up outside the building and cops in camo. The National Guard or some sort of special force.”
Patrick Stickles: “It was freaky.”
Amy Klein: “We also played in this community center that was having this senior citizen’s bingo tournament in the next room, so when you went down the hallway you were confronted by pretty much 500 senior citizens really involved in a game of bingo. I have never seen bingo played with that intensity and dedication, I was pretty impressed.”
Eric Harm: “I also lost $3 in the Keno machine that night.”
Patrick Stickles: “That same night we stayed at this dude’s house, but it was really his parent’s house and his mother had prepared an Easter basket for us. That was weird but quite nice.”
Amy Klein: “This very nice woman asked that we sign her brand new waffle iron, that was by far the coolest thing that I’ve ever been asked to put my signature on.”
Ian Graetzer: “It’s not weird but I got a haircut by a very qualified stylist that we stayed with.”
Patrick Stickles: “Then we watched Blu-ray.”
Amy Klein: “That was pretty weird.”
David Robbins: “A little too realistic.”
Taylor Farnsworth: When will you know that you’ve made it in the music industry? Do you feel that you’ve made it now?
Eric Harm: “When everybody loves you and nobody hates you; when you’re on top of the world.”
David Robbins: “When about 40% of the band still lives at home, I don’t think we’ve made it yet.”
Patrick Stickles: “When we make our final compromise. For example, for this concert we didn’t want to exclude any kids. So this was the only venue that would do an all age’s concert that wouldn’t be ridiculous for us to play in as far as size goes. As a result we have to be done by like 9:30. So tonight we probably won’t get to play as many songs as we would like.”
Ian Graetzer: “But it’s definitely worth it.”
Patrick Stickles: “We’ve got to do it. But we will have made it when we can play all non-discriminatory shows and do whatever we want at them”.
Amy Klein: “I think that making it is playing music that makes you happy as often as you can. Personally, making it for me is being able to go onstage and inspire other girls to play music.”
Patrick Stickles: “What about other boys?”
Amy Klein: “Well there aren’t as many female role models out there. You can inspire other boys.”
Patrick Stickles: “I want to inspire other girls too.”
Amy Klein: “You can do that as well.”
Patrick Stickles: “My success will be inspiring any humans or maybe even animals.”
Amy Klein: “I want to inspire everyone in the galaxy.”
Patrick Stickles: “I want people to bring their dogs to concerts and have their dogs howl along with the music.”
Amy Klein: “I want to inspire ninjas and all of the robots out there.”
Patrick Stickles: “Are you saying that ninjas aren’t human?”
Amy Klein: “Ninjas and robots.”
David Robbins: “One of those things is definitely humans.”
Patrick Stickles: “But I really would like to inspire all humans. I was just kidding about the dogs. Although it is cool when dogs get to come to the concerts.”
Taylor Farnsworth: Where do you think your fans are the most receptive to your music?
Patrick Stickles: “I’d say probably New York City, where we play the most.”
Taylor Farnsworth: Any new music recommendations?
Patrick Stickles: “We’ve got to give a shout out to ‘Stuck On Nothing’ by Free Energy. We listened to it in the van today, the record’s great.”
Ian Graetzer: “They’ll be coming to the concert tonight actually.”
Eric Harm: “We’re looking forward to a pending release from Battle Ave Tea Club. I don’t know what the name of their release is.”
David Robbins: “A few of us have been into Hunx And His Punx. Also, I really liked Lady Of Lourdes, a garage rock band from South Dakota, they were awesome.”
Patrick Stickles: “I also loved a band at that show. It was Union Electric, the band that played right before them. The Nice Nice, we played with them in Texas. Although I’m not sure if I can recommend their record, they need to be seen to be believed.”
David Robbins: “It’s amazing what they do live.”
Amy Klein: “I have my own solo album which you can get for free.”
Patrick Stickles: “That’s a shameless plug. How about a hair transplant place called shameless plug?”
So that wraps up a great interview from a band who truly seem passionate about their music while at the same time are always having fun with what they do.
To check out more of my work head to my website, Shoot Me Pics. Check out some of the shots I took from their performance at The Barbary by clicking here.
