The Grey Race outtakes
So I've been obsessed with the Grey Race ever since this post, and last week I got to talk to drummer Ethan Eubanks, which resulted in this story.
Thing is, Ethan and I talked for a long time, and there was so much good stuff that just didn't make it into the story.
Hooray for the blog, though! Here are some choice quotes that deserve to be read:
[Talking about his preference for music from the '60s and '70s]
AMNY: How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?
EE: I’m 35 this year
AMNY: How did you get into all of this?
EE: My folks had a great record collection, so when I was growing up I had the run of a very amazing record collection. They had all the Beatles, all the Stones, and this was like, the original records that my dad had bought in the '60s when they were fresh off the shelves, like let’s go get the new thing. And so my whole exploration of music was through playing records, and destroying them and scratching them. I feel bad now but they were kind of like toys to me when I was a kid. And that was a big influence to me, the music around the house and growing up on those records. I never really turned on it, and said like, "Dad, your music sucks." I was into it from the beginning and I’m still with it.
AMNY: Are you a record collector yourself now?
EE: I live in New York City so I can’t really have vinyl because I don’t have any place to put it. But those records are there and they’re mine when I have a house of my own. I will definitely try to reclaim them and see if any are in playing condition but really it’s tough. It’s tough to dedicate that kind of real estate in your shitty New York apartment to records. It’s hard enough to get enough oxygen in there sometimes.
More after the jump ...
[On the hinderance of ego]
AMNY: have you been in bands where [the artist throws a fit if you try to rearrange their songs]?
EE: Yeah, I’ve been around that stuff a lot. I’ve produced other records where you want to make a decision and it’s something that you’re sure is right and the artist’s really tied to something. You always have to defer to the artist and make them happy but in [The Grey Race] everyone seemed to agree that the thing was right. We would try something that didn’t work and everyone would just say, yeah… that sucks. But if your agenda is to make good music and not to be right, things tend to work out. There was no pressure on this thing. Nobody felt like they had to fight for something because it was all in the name of good music.
[On working with your friends and being a grownup; I really wanted to get some of this sentiment in the story, because it's a side of being a musician you don't often hear about, but there was just no room]
EE: But you work with a lot of people in music and some of them are your friends and some of them are not your friends, some of them are nice and some of them are assholes but it’s so rare that you get to make the record with your friends for fun. Because everybody’s always running around helping other people make their music for a paycheck so it was really special to make this record. And when it came time to add extra things, we just called our friends that happened to be in NY and not on tour, “Hey you wanna come over and maybe play some guitar on this?” or “Just come over, no big deal.” There’s probably 50 or 60 musicians that we know that are out there and touring and it was just nice to make a record with friends and the friendly spirit it really helps the process. ... It’s something that really as professional musician when you tour, you kind of miss the experience of being in a band. I really hadn’t been in a band since high school because … there’s arguments and [personality clashes] … but we’re all grownups now. Everybody’s been through a lot and we’ve all worked for people who were insane and divas and whatever. So everybody has a good understanding of how to act, and that’s rare because you form your bands when you’re 20 and hopefully you get a good run out of it, your hit single and whatever. But when you do it at 35, you’ve got a lot of people skills, you've got a lot of things out of the way from, like, when you were 20 and you don’t really even know who you are. A lot of times when you start a band when you’re a kid, you don’t get a good friend, you get the guy who has a bass that lives in your neighborhood. He might be any kind of person, but at least he’s got a bass. And this way, we’re already dealing with professionals so the musicianship is at a really high level and we get to choose our buddies, people we know that we’ve toured with that don’t snore too loud and stuff.
See them at Mercury Lounge this Friday. I'll be there.
eh.www.amNY.com
