Houston, She Can't Hear Me:

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[oncetheywere]

So it's been awhile since we posted. We spent all summer very busy recording our EP, and we're excited to give you our first single ever: Aeroplanes! Keep an eye out for the whole package in the next week or two!

[oncetheywere]

Cutting vocals for the record with Kate!

[oncetheywere]

remember improvement

Never forget to take a moment and look at the progress you've made.

This is important for not only all musicians, but all people. With anything, whether it's music, painting, going through college, or raising a family, it's inevitable that you'll feel you're not good enough sometimes. As humans we have a desire to be the best we possibly can and at times we fall short of our expectations. It happens to everyone. It's just how things are.

It happens to me all the time as a musician. Most recently I've been working on cutting vocals for our EP and there are certain bits that I still haven't gotten down even though I've done dozens of takes so far. These kinds of road blocks become emotionally draining and can have a devastating effect on confidence, self-image, and productivity.

When I was really down about the whole recording process I took a minute to go back and listen to some tracks I recorded about eight months ago. While I was listening to them I had what you'd think would be an obvious realization: I've gotten WAY better. The vocals cuts from then and now are like night and day. It's insane. Sure, I'm having trouble getting them down, but that's how it is for most people. Hearing the improvement from then to now helped me really get my mind back together so I can finish putting this EP together. Keep your eyes and ears open for it! : P

If you ever feel down on yourself, look back and try to find what you've improved on. It makes a world of difference, and it's so easy to forget.

[oncetheywere]

Be Honest

Honesty is important. That’s probably true in all facets of life, or at least you’d think it would be more. For now, though, I’m just talking about honesty as it relates to being a musician and a songwriter. If any of you regularly read what I post, you’ll know that I put a lot of time into studying what other musicians do and how it works…or how it doesn’t work, whichever the case may be. My brain has always worked analytically, so I have this natural tendency to approach music that way. I don’t think that’s inherently a problem, but I’ve found that it leads me to being dishonest, which is a BIG problem.

For example, I may be watching videos of Queen or David Bowie and fall in love with their stage presence, or maybe the way they really punch the music in the face when they’re performing live, or whatever it may be. Once I get into that zone I’ll feel that I need to bring aspect of them into my own performance. Now, influence is obviously a huge part of what makes you the kind of musician you are. It’s totally an awesome thing. My problem is, instead of allowing the influence to blend into what I do, I try to take the example and superimpose it over my style.

My real life experience of this happening is that I will listen to a lot of hard-hitting music that is rife with over-compressed guitar energy. I’ll love it. Then I’ll feel like I need (and that’s why this is a problem) to make my music that way. I’ll ditch my acoustic guitar to pick up my Les Paul, which in fairness is a beautiful axe. But after trying it out with the band I realize that something about it is wrong. It just isn’t really me.

I’m more of a mellow acoustic guitar. Trying to force a tube-screaming electric over my shoulder just isn’t right, and it’s not honest. I think that dishonesty is what makes it not work.

This whole clash over who I am as a musician has had me not performing as well as I used to. I think that realizing what my musical identity is will get me back together though. At least I hope.

[oncetheywere]

piracy. argh!

It seems that everywhere I look there is flak and support of virtual piracy abounding. Just this morning I was scrolling through hypebot and found this article about it. It's more of a vague conversation about the issue, but it's key point is that regardless of how piracy effects the music industry, we shouldn't allow it to harm the bands and artists who make music.  I'm honestly hesitant to choose one side or another on this issue as there seems to be pros and cons to both sides. As we all know, giving your music away for free will potentially get into the hands and ears of more people. But we also know that we make more money by selling one album than by giving away ten. Granted, many people contest that an artist can eat the cost of their music and make it all up by selling merchandise and touring extensively. There may be some truth to this...but it's a very small bit. Often people don't consider the exorbitant cost of touring. 

Regardless of my personal opinion (which I'm not sure of anyway) or anyone else's opinion, the fact remains that piracy of music (as well as pretty much any other media that can be loaded onto a flash drive) is, and will, for the foreseeable future, be an unavoidable issue. I could reel off statistics to you about how low music sales have dropped since Sean Parker put up Napster, but it's not necessary. We all know that music is downloaded illegally far more often than it's purchased. Even musicians and other artists pirate music. It's just a fact. That's how it is.

As such, debating about whether piracy is good or bad is a waste of time. We could bellyache about it forever but it's not going away. Rather than sitting on our hands, we (being bands and artists) need to just figure out how we can adapt to this new musical climate.

The article I linked to goes over the fact that for some musicians, giving away their music for free is probably in their best interest. For others, it's counterproductive to their goals, and it would benefit them more to sell the stuff. I think this idea is totally on point. For my band I'm not worried about making money. Even if everyone that knew about us so far bought an album...we'd probably have a grand total of $100. That sort of money isn't consequential right now. Until we have more momentum, I'm much more interested in giving away music, possibly with a pay-what-you-want option. This may not be the case for some bands though. Like I said, I don't know if I like or dislike piracy. I just want to call all artists to stop complaining and discussing, and instead spend their energy adapting. 

[oncetheywere]

Flyleaf Concert!

Hey friends, nice to see you again! I went to a concert last night and it was awwwwwesome! So that’s what I’m going to talk about this week.

 In the spirit of transparency I’m just going to admit that, for being a musician, it’s shameful how few concerts I go to. I think this was the first big name show I’ve seen in years. Usually I’m too poor and busy to get to concerts, but after last night I’m gonna make for an effort. It’ll be my late New Years Resolution.

  Anyway, the concert was at the Theatre of Living Arts and it was co-headlined by Drowning Pool and Flyleaf (one of my favorites). I’ve been following Flyleaf since their first EP dropped and until now I had never seen them live, so I was super stoked.

  The first group that played was called Stygian and they were a pretty acceptable opening act. As it usually is for openers, the sound was a bit sub-par. They had some really good energy though. During their whole set the bassist kept making the weirdest faces and watching him was hilarious. Not to mention he kept throwing free stuff at anyone.

After them was the second opening act from LA called Stars in Stereo. I think I may have heard of them before, but I’d never listened to them. I’m going to be completely honest and say that I’ve never seen a better opening act in my entire life. They were just so freaking good. Their singer (Bec) had a sort of Hayley Williams thing going on, which I’m totally cool with. Stars had such a great stage presence, and I think that out of all the bands they were the most honest. Something about them was just really genuine sounding. Never in my life had I heard a crowd beg for an opening act to do an encore until I saw them. (Basically, go check them out!)

Once Stars was done playing it was time for Drowning Pool to come out. Now, I’m not really a fan of them, but I have to admit that their frontman had a way with the crowd. A few times in the set I started losing interest and he always managed to get me back into it. As a side note, despite how much of a novelty track ‘Let The Bodies Hit The Floor’ is, it was so fun in a live setting. The crowd pretty much did the vocals all the way through.

Flyleaf was up next, and that’s who I was there for. I honestly haven’t been so stoked for something in a long time. It was the coolest feeling. My friend and I had also managed to weasel our way up to the front gate by the time they’d started. Seeing the band in front of me (Kristen being right in front of my face at one point) was so awesome. It’s great to see the music you love have a physical presence, rather than just a virtual and auditory one. There’s something about live music that just connects you to it.

This tour is really important for Flyleaf because they’ve just selected a new singer. Co-founder and lead vocalist Lacey Sturm recently left the band in order to take care of her child and pursue other interests in her life. I know that, for me, no one will ever fit into Flyleaf as well as Lacey. Granted, I think that the band’s aesthetic exists largely because of Lacey. That being said, Kristen May is a stellar replacement. From a technical stand point she is objectively a stronger vocalist than Lacey. She has more sheer power in her voice, whereas Lacey has a more hypnotic desperation. May’s attitude is also really great, and I think that she’s doing a good job taking over for Lacey. I can’t wait to see the music that comes out once she’s a part of the writing

After the concert Stars in Stereo (that holy-shit-what-an-awesome-opener band I was talking about before) invited ten people or so into their tour van to hang out and listen to them play a few songs. First of all, being on a tour bus in general is just fucking cool. Let’s be real. Second of all, they sounded great stripped down. Hearing bands like that is always a lot of fun to me because you get to really hear how good they are. The whole band was friendly and I think I can honestly say that hanging out with them was the best part of the whole. The guitarist also gave my friend his pick, which was pretty nice of him.

I don’t know if talking about this concert matters to anyone who’s reading this, but I felt like I should. Over the last few years I’ve forgotten how great live music is and this show really reminded me. It also re-motivated and re-inspired me. Over the last few months I’ve slowly been losing sight of what I set out to do with this band, but I think now I’m back on track. Thanks for reading! Now I gotta go rehearse for one of our shows tonight. I’m walking there, but maybe in the future I’ll get to take a tour bus. ; D

  P.S. You’ll all be invited to hang.

[oncetheywere]

Konstantine

Hey you guys! I was just gearing up to write the weekly post when I read this article about Something Corporate's infamous tune 'Konstantine'. I know I personally LOVE Something Corporate, so I imagine there's a good number of you all out there who do. Instead of vomiting some more of my own thoughts at you I figure I'd just share this article for the week. There's a great video of them performing the song live in there. Enjoy! http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/something-corporates-konstantine-has-been-haunting-us-for-a

[oncetheywere]

Keeping up appearances

Alright, second week in a row that I’ve got myself up and writing something. We’re off to a good start this year! Hopefully I don’t fall behind. Today I want to write a little bit about perception and how important it is as a musician. Specifically, I want to concentrate on how we—as musicians—are perceived by our audience.

I got to thinking about this subject on Wednesday. I was walking down Broad Street with one of my schoolmates and he’d been asking me about some of the stuff the band and I had been doing because he had seen that we were really busy. Just from passively viewing all the different posts and events about our concerts and recordings he had formulated an image of the band as an in-demand, productive contributor to the local scene.

This anecdote is full of insight about how the people connected with us view our musical presence. My friend’s never been to one of our shows or heard anything that we’ve done. He may have ‘liked’ us on Facebook at one point, or maybe not. However, as he continues seeing the bands’ activity in his social peripherals he’ll begin to foster some interest in it. After awhile, from sheer curiosity, he’ll look into the band a little bit more.

It’s this sort of growing interest that’s important. When we first begin to promote ourselves as artists we may not have anyone come to our shows. Our fan page might have a measly 22 likes. No plays may be happening on our Reverb page. But, we need to keep up our appearance. If we continue plodding along, eventually some of the people that are around will look into us. They’ll think something along the lines of: “Well, that dude’s been playing at all these different clubs and recording like crazy. Might as well check him out while I browse imgur.”

Noting these sorts of progressions are helpful because, at times, it seems that we’re getting nowhere with our music. Remembering that we’re always in the corner of someone’s eye is a good way to stay on track. Someday they’ll be interested enough to look.

[oncetheywere]

why we loved 'Call Me Maybe' after hating it for months

Hey fans, friends, and people of the Internet! Nice to see all of you again. Our show last week was pretty awesome, in case you were wondering. The concert was thinner than expected due to the snow, so we decided to postpone our audience gag for another time. We should be back at Dobbs in March and in May so we’ll have plenty of other chances to do it. Make sure you don’t miss the future concerts.

So, a few days ago I reviewed the new Tegan and Sara album, Heartthrob. Every now and then I do album reviews for ThatMag. (You can check out some of the other ones I’ve done there like T-Swift’s Red, and Mumford & Sons’ Babel). Anyway, I listened to the album and it was pretty cool. Nothing legendary or anything, but a nice, fun, pop record (in the way that only Tegan and Sara could do pop). 

Since hearing the album I’ve been listening to it non-stop, and it’s growing on me like crazy. As I said, I liked it off the bat, but it wasn’t anything special to me. Now, however, I’m finding that I’m really starting to love Heartthrob. I’ve been thinking about the weird power that music has to gain your appeal over time. It’s happened to me with other albums and artists before. I vividly remember HATING the song ‘Gives You Hell’ by The All-American Rejects when I first heard it. Whenever it came on the radio I got pissed off. But at some point I sat down, watched the video, and realized how fucking brilliant it was. Come on, that shit’s HILARIOUS. I had this same exact experience with Taylor Swift’s 2012 hit ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’ and Carly Rae Jepsen’s notorious ‘Call Me Maybe’.

Granted, I felt more open to Heartthrob than the others from the get-go, but they all grew on me in that weird way that music does. I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s experienced that, right?

…right!?

(Here is where I assume someone agrees with me)

Ok, awesome! I think this sort of thing has a lot more to do with our lives and us as people than it really has to do with music. Like I’ve said before, I love music like crazy, but I think it tends to be more of a medium through which we experience life and emotion, rather than some static object that we love purely for itself. I know that when I listen to a song or a record, it always mentally puts me into the part of my life I was at when I discovered it.

I think that when we go from hating a song to loving it, we’re really reflecting on our lives rather than the song (like I said, the song’s just the medium to channel that period of our life). My thought is that when we discover these songs our lives are at a sort of ‘neutral’ point. You know what I mean? Nothing spectacular has been happening, but nothing bad either. We’re just sort of going. I think that reflecting on those times later on help us see that we probably were pretty happy or content, and the music lets us sort of feel that contentedness again. I could be wrong, but I think it’s a nice sentiment.

If you’ve got any thoughts on it, shoot us a comment or something! I’d love to see if anyone else has any ideas on this kind of thing. I love talking about this stuff. Until next time, you stay classy Internet.

  -Chris

[oncetheywere]

Trying it out

Hello, hello, everyone! Nice to see you all back here again. I’ve finally settled myself back into the swing of higher education. As such, I’m going to be posting something up here every Friday, that way our content doesn’t go stale. Hopefully I can keep this going without missing any weeks. Here’s to hoping.

Anyway, we’re gearing up for our first show of 2013 at The Legendary Dobbs TONIGHT! We’re super excited because it’s our second main stage performance there, we’ve got a great time slot, and we’re opening up for The Parachuting Apostles, who are this months 93.3 WMMR Artist of the Month. We’re so stoked to open up for them and hang out all night.

For such a special performance we’ve decided to try out some new things for the live show. I just finished this new song called ‘Aeroplanes’ and we’re gonna give it a whirl. It’s a fun little pop tune with a hook that I expect everyone’s going to find oddly recognizable…not going to give anything else away though!

We’ve also got an audience participation bit we’re gonna throw at everyone and I’m really hoping it goes over well. Whenever I come up with ideas to spice up our shows I always get really excited and really worried at the same time. It’s always one of those cases where it COULD be awesome as hell, but it could also be totally lame. I’ve always got to push myself to actually do it though (I almost always chicken out). But I’ve learned from past experiences that I might as well just do it, because if it sucks then, whatever. If it works though, it’ll be dope. It’s fine though. Most of the time I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anyway.

[oncetheywere]

Etiquette

Being in a band you experience a lot of different people. Some are brilliant. Some are helpful…and some are just ‘jive ass motherfuckers’ as the Jazz Robots would put it. You can read all about these kinds of people on websites like www.musicclout.com where you can get first hand insight from other musicians. Or you could just read about it right here! Who wants to bother with hyperlinks anyway!?

So for your pleasure and convenience, I give you 4 Reasons Other Bands Won’t Like You

1) You’re Late

In my experience the people who are in charge of booking shows are very specific about what time you need to be at a show. These times (usually about an hour before show time) are meant for ALL the bands on the bill. There is no rule that says ‘if you’re the third band you can wait until twenty minutes before your set to show up because no one cares about the openers anyway’.  That kind of attitude is disrespectful and, frankly, rude as hell. Now I realize that some bands are touring and may get caught up in traffic coming from New York to Philly and that’s fine, but being a touring act isn’t a free pass to just blow off the local musicians who are working their asses off to fill the clubs. Schedule your trip better. Budget your time. And hope for light traffic.

2) You Leave Early

If you’ve bumped around your local scene for any length of time then you’ve most likely ran into that one terrible opening act that skips out after their set (or maybe if they want to look like they care they’ll wait ‘til after the second). In my two years or so around Philly I’ve encountered this a few times, and it’s maddening. I go to a gig where my band’s playing at 11:30 PM and the call time is 6:00 PM. I am there, right on the dot. My evening is going to include standing around for four hours listening to who knows what, and then playing for an empty room at 12:15 because the first act was late and the second blew an amp. You know what I would really appreciate? If the other goddamned bands stuck around for my set. I mean come on! I spend my whole night supporting other acts, and then most of ‘em ditch as soon as they can. Don’t be those people. I do not like them, and no one else does either.

3) You Criticize During the Show

 As a musician it’s very hard to shake the desire to be the best. Unfortunately, most of us are so far from the best it’s laughable. Most people lack the security to be satisfied with their abilities, so they tend to overly criticize others to feel like they’re better than they actually are. I know that I was guilty of this for years before I finally owned up to my own abilities and stopped trying to shoot other people down. I’m not saying being insecure will make other musicians hate you, because we’re all that way at one time or another. My point is that you shouldn’t be projecting DURING the show. What if the band you’re criticizing hears you? What if a journalist covering the show hears you? What if the lead singers mom who thinks her son is the next Freddie Mercury hears you? If nothing else you will have put yourself and someone else in an awkward, uncomfortable situation (which we all suck at dealing with). Not to mention, it’s just fucken rude. Wait ‘til you leave the show to make your comments.

4) You Don’t Rep Well

Take this point with a grain of salt. No matter how good a band is or how big their following, there will always be shows where they just don’t get bodies in the door. Sometimes it’s just out of the artist’s control. However, it is very frustrating for bands to play for the same people over and over again. I know that my band (shameless self-promotion alert!) can usually get twenty people or so out to a concert. That’s a pretty fair draw, but for us it’s the same group of people usually. We love to play for them, but it doesn’t help us grow our fan base. So when we go to a gig where we bring twenty people and the other two acts round up about five between them, it’s disappointing. Not only that, its sort of a waste of time. Like I said we LOVE playing for our fans, but that time that we’re playing that gig we could be playing a different show with bands that rep just as well. We’d get exposed to fifty new people, and that could translate into a larger following. Basically, when you’re going to play a show, rep hard.

All of this basically boils down to one thing: BE PROFESSIONAL. When you act professional, you’re perceived as a professional, and that’s all that really matters. Now go my friends, and don’t let other bands hate you!

[oncetheywere]

need motivation

Hey everbody! I know it's been waaay too long since the last post. It's gotten to that point of the year when everything is happening once, as I'm sure many of you are experiencing. In the uproar of school, work, and copious amounts of Doctor Who, the blogs gotten a little neglected. Get's sorta tough to find the motivation to write stuff sometimes (musical or otherwise). That's why this post isn't going to be much really, but more of a conversation starter.

I'm sure you've all found it hard to get motivated sometimes, so I wonder what kinda stuff helps you to get back to doin what you need to. Throw some comments down and let me know, then maybe I can get my shit together again. haha.

[oncetheywere]

Live performance of After All!

[oncetheywere]

restore the shore

Hey readers! One of my friends today was telling me about a benefit concert he's putting on in Philly for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. The lineup is really awesome, and if any of you are gonna be around Philly I think it would be great to check it out. You can check out the Facebook event for it HERE.

[oncetheywere]

Our cover of Little Talks and our original tune Rose Petals

[oncetheywere]

[oncetheywere]

it's not important

            Hello people of the Internet! (So basically just people in general, right?). It’s been awhile since my last post. Sorry about that, I’ve been sort of short on ideas lately, not to mention stressed out. In fact, that’s part of what this entry is going to be about.

            As you all know (or at least I hope you do), I am a musician, as I imagine many of you are. If so, I’m sure that you’ve had the same experiences that I have with the frustrations of studying music. It can be really overwhelming sometimes. Between singing those fifths flat, dragging in the chorus, forgetting lyrics, missing chord changes, and just screwing up in general it can be pretty discouraging. The fact that all your friends seem to always sing in tune without even trying doesn’t help either.

            I’ve recently fallen victim to this negative aspect of being a musician and…well it sucks. For a very long time I was entirely positive and productive with my music and what I was doing. Unfortunately, I’ve become so focused on overanalyzing and improving my technical facility lately that I lost sight of my most basic philosophy about music: it’s not that important.             Don’t question my love of music. I knew when I was twelve that I wanted to spend my life playing, writing, and learning about music. It’s one of the biggest parts of my life. But what I try to recognize is that it’s ONLY A PART of my life. Just a part. It doesn’t inherently define me, nor does it directly correlate with my value as a person. The ability (or lack thereof) to always sing the third scale degree in tune doesn’t make me a better or worse person. What’s more is that no one else watching thinks so either. Let’s be real. None of your friends are going to up and leave because you just can’t quite tune that flat ninth.

            The thing about music is that it’s something that is inherently good. I’m racking my brain trying to come up with anything negative about music itself and I honestly can’t come up with a thing. Any potential negativity from music (such as the musicians’ chronic confidence issues) stems from people being intellectually influenced by it, but it’s not the music itself that’s negative. What I’m getting at is that music is a wonderful thing, and I don’t think there’s any justifiable reason for it to be the cause of strife. As soon as music creates pain or frustration it’s totally defeating the point of itself.

            I know that I didn’t become a musician because it’s frustrating and it drives me absolutely insane, and I don’t think anyone does. We do it because of how much we love music and because we have some deep desire to be a part of it. And that’s a wonderful thing. I always try to remember that when I have a rough time with music.

            Just try to keep in mind that the ability to play music perfectly is not the beginning or end of the world. It has so little effect on what’s really important. Some of the greatest people I know can’t carry a tune for their lives. Many of the most influential people in my life wouldn’t know a vibraphone from a glockenspiel. That sort of stuff isn’t important, not in the way that it can seem when you’re stressing out about that new song that isn’t coming together. Just remember to always regain some perspective.

            Music’s great, and it should make you feel great. If it doesn’t…you’re doing it wrong.