Interview with Craig by Little Comments

The seventh interview to be held EXCLUSIVELY at Little Comments is with Lushfarm! This is definitely the best interview I've ever read. Anybody else care to top it?

1 How are we today?

We are grand!  Bummed that Steve Jobs died yesterday (This was sent back the day after Steve Jobs died.)  though.  Say what you will about PC vs. Mac or Android vs. iOS--if you use a computer or a smartphone, you’re carrying around a piece of his legacy.  I hope Apple doesn’t become an evil(er?) empire now that he’s gone.



2 Firstly, how did you come up with the band name?

The band name was generated by a giant archaic super computer in the moldy basement of a community college in East Central New Jersey.  We asked, “What band name would get us no chicks and ensure that no one would ever want to hear our music?”  Keep in mind this was an old sassy mainframe from the 70s.  It’s only response was “Your mom,” which was printed out on a small piece of ticker tape from a giant metal box in the corner of the room.  We were pretty perturbed that we’d come all that way for your mom, so we left and got beer.  We came back a while later and tried reasoning with the old room of dusty metal boxes, but all for naught.  The sass had run its course and the mainframe was powered down for the night.

We ended up drinking so much that we passed out on the floor and woke up to a grizzled old security guard prodding us with his night stick.  As we were ushered out I noticed a small piece of ticker tape in the giant metal box in the corner of the room, and I easily broke free of the old man’s brittle grip to run back and retrieve our prize.  Written in a nice scripted font, much different that the system font we’d gotten the night before, was one word written in all lower case lettering... “metallica.”

3 Did you have any songs or ideas completed prior to going in the studio?

Well, we recorded this album ourselves.  A couple songs in Kresimir’s basement and the rest in a bedroom at Binney’s house.  All the songs were written prior to recording.  A few we wrote with our old keyboard player a few years ago, and a few we’d written and played with our old guitar player last year.  Part of the reason it took us so long to record the album was that we had 2 member changes in a little over a year’s span, so it took us a while to get our feet planted.

There were parts that were added in during the process, but for the most part all the ideas were there.  The cello and saxophone were two things that none of us had any experience with (playing or recording) and it was fun to work with the instruments and kind of figure them out sonically.  I think we did a pretty good job for a first go around.  Also, the two older members came back and did some parts (the keyboards and a few of the leads), and we also had some friends come in (lead guitar on the opening track, and backup vocals on a few tracks) which was really cool.  I’ve always been of a mind to do everything ourselves, but this time I was like fuck it, we’re going to get as many people as possible on this recording.

4 The album is great, and has a great nostalgic feel to it. Was this a sound you
wanted to achieve?

Well, our first record was recorded in two professional studios with people who have lots of recording experience.  While I think it sounds good, neither person quite nailed our sound on the head.  It was kind of like, “Okay, do drums, guitars, keys, and bass for every song,” with very little experimentation or deviation from the original idea.  Because we were paying for it there was a time constraint which didn’t really allow us to let ideas sink in or get tossed out.

This time around we had the time to do whatever we wanted.  I think the sound we were really going for was just “lushfarm.”  not lushfarm produced by so and so, or early 90s, or anything in particular.  We all grew up in the 90s though, and I would say we all have influences from that era... SEGWAY!

5 If so, what bands from the 90s influenced you?

Me: I listened to Smashing Pumpkins a lot.  They’re my favorite band (despite whatever Billy Corgan is doing nowadays).  I also love Radiohead, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Pavement, Alice in Chains, Counting Crows, DJ Shadow, Mobb Deep, Red Hot Chili Peppers.. There are other bands that I really liked back then that I don’t like so much now and would not consider influences on any part of my life.. haha.  Oh, and I also like Nirvana now, but I avoided them for years.

Kresimir: PJ Harvey, Nirvana, Beck, Primus, Mr. Bungle, Faith no More, They Might Be Giants.. Everyone else I want to say influenced me in the 90s were not actually active in the 90s.

Binney:  Sunny Day Real Estate, Jimmie’s Chicken Shack, The Pixies, Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees, Soundgarden, Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Meat Puppets..

6 What’s next in store for Lushfarm?

Just continuing to play shows.  We’d really like to do more out of town stuff but it’s hard for us to set up a tour because we all work full time.  So basically we need to make a quick million on iTunes so we can all quit our jobs and do lushfarm full time.  For now we’re going to do long weekends.  Also, we have a single we’re going to record this month called “Stories.”  We’ve played it at shows and people have responded well to it.. This will be the first time we’ve recorded a song within a month or so of finishing it.  We’ll let you know how it turns out!  :)

7 If you could make a Little Comment right now, what would it be?

Don’t sleep on your dreams.. though you can’t dream without sleeping

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