Interview w/ Baxter Teal and J.King of Deepfield!!!
So recently we were able to set up an interview with the guys from Deepfield, VIA their MySpace page. After their show at Jannus Landing in St. Pete, Florida, we headed on over to the local Starbucks and got to talk to the guys for a few minutes. Here is how it all went down.
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So what’s going on guys, how you doing? Baxter Teal.: Good, good, a little tired, a lot of traveling Where did you come from last? B.T.: Tyler, 17 hours, actually 17 hours turned into about 21, we had like the worst rain storm ever come through in Louisianna, I was just waiting on Jim Coutoure to pop up and do a weather channel special, people floating off and crap, oh it was nuts. So why don’t you guys introduce your self, and exactly what you do in the band? J.King: My name is J King, I’m the guitarist B.T.: And I’m Baxter, the singer/guitarist
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So how did you guys come up with the name Deepfield, what did it derive from?
B.T.: Um, Deepfield is actually the furthest picture taken in space, and it’s essentially, back in 95 they took a picture out in space, into the deepest part of the sky, it was about a ten day exposure, and it was uh, basically, like 3,000 galaxies, uhm appeared, that they has never known about. And it was essentially the end of the universe, and the beginning of time. In part it’s significant historically because it starts, people believing that the universe is not only finite, it’s not infinite, but it actually has a shape to it. I’m not going to get into to much nerdy talk, but Deepfield is basically is far as you can get from anything, it’s everything you can see in that image is dead, it’s been dead for billions of years, and it’s seeing a ghost image of galaxies that are no longer there. And for that to happen in our lifetime is very significant, and I felt like that name really sat well with what was going in our life’s musically, and trying to make it, and to some extent it still is, so it still means a lot, but it’s just a cool name, and it stuck.
So a little confusion here, on the MySpace profile it says Chicago slash Charleston
B.T.: I live in Chicago, the band originated in Charleston, South Carolina, and our bass player is from Atlanta, so we’re sorta all over the place. So we tour, and tour, and tour. Then when we get done, we go home, take a couple weeks off, get back together a week or two before the next tour, rehearse, and go back out. So it’s like, being that we play a 30 minute power set opening for these nationals, we know the set like the back of our hand, so it’s just a matter of fine tuning things, and it works out, so we’re all happy doing it.
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So how does the band write the songs, does it start with your vocals, or is it more musically driven? B.T.: It’s weird really, cause he and I started writing the music. He writes some stuff on computer, and I have a melody for it, and we turn it to a song, I mean we did, we did 70 songs for this record, and we turned a lot of different pieces into songs, and our producer in Memphis, helped out with that. We actually worked with some big names before we settled on Memphis. We worked with Bob Ezrin who did The Wall by Pink Floyd, um Kurt Helsey who did a couple Creed records, and Vergus Rimo. And from all those different type of producers we sorta found our nitch, and I can’t say they really helped us song writing wise, cause I thought we had something good going. It’s more of a time, over the time, us being with those people, and not playing a lot of shows out, because we had our hearts set on locking our self in the studio and writing the record we wanted to write, as apposed to going out and whoring your self out every night in a local pub cause bands are going to get tired of you, or fans I should say, and they’re never going to hear the song, you know, if you write a song it’s going to change ten times before it goes to a record, so why don’t you do the record first and then tour, so people aren’t confused. We wanted our set to be ready when we came out with it, and we think we wrote a record that is kinda genre less if you will. I don’t think it sounds like any particular genre out there right now. And maybe that’s a bad thing, I know with corporate American rock, that’s hard to do, because people expect with major labels, that single and nine other songs that sound like that single, and for some reason that still sticks, and I don’t know why. It’s sad that bands like Zeppelin, and Foreigner and Boston, and Bad Company, and even Def Leopard, Whitesnake. Up until the, I’d say, unfortunately, bands like Nirvana, and I have a lot respect for Nirvana, but they killed a lot of the edge, sort of the, I don’t know, arena rock if you will. They made it cool to be uncool, and that’s all good. You know we adapt to it, and we take it as it comes, and the music business is really tough right now. But we’re out here doing it, and were very thankful to be out on the road, you know 6 nights a week and just playing in front of different crowds, and gaining as many fans as we can. So as much scorn as many bands have for it, it could be a lot worse you know? It’s still here, it’s still an art, and people appreciate it, so you know, we’re going to keep doing it until we can’t do it anymore. |
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So when was the first time you ever picked up a guitar and what got you into it?
Now you’re in management with Indegoot?
B.T.: Indegoot, it’s a record company, and it’s distributed through Fontana Universal, and Bill M is the president, and he owns the management company called Indegoot management, and from that company come bands like Shine Down, Chevelle, Puddle of Mudd, Saliva, and Theory of a Deadman. That about covers it?
J.K: Uhhhhhhhhh
B.T.: As you can tell I do most of the talking
J.K.: I’m waiting to get in, but every time there’s a pause I don’t have anything.
B.T.: So yea, it’s a sweet deal because, all these bands that they manage and broken, I mean Bill broke Creed, he broke Three Doors Down. I mean he’s been a legend in the business for years, and he can hook us up with a lot of good bands on the road. We already toured with Shinedown across the country, Puddle of Mudd, Saliva, so it’s been a lot of fun, and we’ve had some great exposure. And uh, his weight alone at radio alone is very powerful, and obviously we wrote many of the songs, to have that market, because we felt like radio needs a good kick in the ass, and we want to provide that, so, so yea, here we are.
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You guys are now on tour with Nonpoint, a whole bunch of other guys, The Exies, how did you get on board, how’s it been so far, I know it’s only been 2 or 3 days, but anything stand out in your mind? B.T.: This is you really because it’s Brandon. J.K.: Yea, I don’t really know. No, a friend of mine in Charleston told me about an internet radio station that he worked for, and you know, everyone’s got one of those, I didn’t really think about it, he’s a buddy or whatever. And it turned out to be this really huge thing, like every where we would go people would know us cause he would just pump us. And I guess Becky from Cage Rattle got a hold of us, and asked us to join to tour. So is Cage Rattle the actual internet radio station or? J.K.: It started with Breaking Benjamin. B.T.: Yea, it kinda morphed from Breaking Benjamin’s Shallow Bay radio, or what ever they called it, into Cage Rattle Radio, and from there they just took some bands they were really into. I know they pump Sick Puppies a lot, and all these bands obviously, and a couple of bands that are a little less known, but you know, there doing their part. And with the music business the way it is, everything little thing helps. And this kind of promotion is out of the box, and it’s really cool, so for us to do a tour like this is unique, and we’re privileged to do it, and excited.
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Yea you see a lot of smaller little rock contests, see who does the best, you don’t see it go anywhere. It’s good to see a company finally promote it and put the guys out there.
J.K.: It’s a good thing, and if it can get better, it will happen more and more
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So, is there any memorable pranks over any of the tours you guys have done? B.T.: Pranks? I think every night is a prank really. I mean depending on where you stay, we’ve ah. What happened in Wichita? We had a bad day, we ran out of gas in Wichita, This isn’t really a prank; I guess it’s a prank on our selves. J.K.: We do a lot of those. B.T.: We ran out of gas in Wichita, and I’m talking Wizard of Oz Wichita, like you couldn’t imagine, or Kansas I should say. Um, we don’t know where to turn around, or walk, or where to go. So we creep down like this, this main country road, and this fire marshal or somebody in a pick up truck, picks us up, takes us to the next town, gets a tank of gas. J.K.: Pays for it B.T.: Pays for the gas, and so we make it to the club, we’re a little late, and on the way home, Dawson, the ex bass player gets like a $350 ticket in a work zone for like going seven over, and the cop was the biggest prick ever, and the show was like in a rolling rink, so that was, by far was the most interesting night ever.. J.K.: As far as pranks, like, were still kinda new, so usually the headlining band pranks the opening band. So we have gotten back at one. We were on the road with Saliva, and we use the in ear monitors, and during our whole set they pumped porno through our in ear monitors so we couldn’t hear the music. So, and you know, they have a little more money then we have, so we did what we had to do. So we got a bunch of tampons and put ketchup on them, and plastered their entire stage. |
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Watch out for Nonpoint, we interviewed them back in August, and they were talking about putting shit in bags, and putting it on roofs.
J.K.: Yea somebody else
B.T.: Well we already have shit on our roof so…
J.K.: It’s not going to really hurt us
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So I set up this interview with you guys this morning VIA your MySpace page, which obviously means you guys are really in depth with your fans, how do you stay so close to your fans? B.T.: It’s tough, I mean, honestly we spent way too much money on PDA phones so we could like maintain it on the road. We’re always trying to respond to every fan that e-mails us in, it gets tough occasionally, when we do bigger tours obviously your going to get pages and pages of e-mails, you can’t answer everyone of them, but…The ones that are sincere, I’ll try to look for the ones that are long, and mean a lot, and if a song or a set that we play touches someone, and turns them into a fan, I feel like it’s our job to thank them, and hope to see them next time. So what better way to do it then through the internet, and that’s the thing about 10-12-15 years ago, bands couldn’t do that, it was just weird, it was such an isolation, but with MTV, doing like a CRIB’s thing, or this reality stuff, it’s like rock stars aren’t rock star’s anymore. They’re just people, who play on stage, and afterwards you hang out with them, I mean we don’t have this pretentious thing that we walk around on. And that’s just cool, to me that’s more sentimental and sincere then being sorta cut off from the rest of the society. But I would take the money back from the 80’s that was a whole lot better |
I have to admit you guys are one of the few bands that I e-mail on their MySpace page and get a response, most of the time I have to go through the record label or management, and I was really taken back that I got a response so quickly and set up
J.K.: I mean we do things like that, where they tell us what to do. But if someone’s going to take time out of their day, to talk to you about your craft or what ever, why wouldn’t you, you’d be an idiot not to do it, on any level you know.
B.T.: And I actually sent you that e-mail back at about 82 miles an hour, I was driving. So, hey, you know what, that’s what I call high speed internet.
So if you guys could put together an all star tour including your self, who would you add to it?
J.K.: Just us pretty much, we’d play for about 2 hours
B.T.: Yea, us opening for us, with an encore by us
J.K.: I don’t know, maybe Carrot Top could open up the show
B.T.: Carrot Top and Gallagher
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Carrot Top and all the steroids? B.T.: Oh yes, plenty of watermelons, yea. Gallagher is ripped now, he’s like, well he’s never been funny, but he’s like ripped, so I can’t really take him seriously, not that anybody’s supposed to take him seriously. But all star tour, I don’t know, dead/alive, what? Anything B.T.: Metallica, like Metallica, the hair days obviously, that would be awesome J.K.: Pantera, that would be a great one, ahh, I don’t know, they might kill us B.T.: Yea, we’d get our asses kicked, we toured with Drowning Pool and we feared for our lives in Texas every night, we had to bring the metal. Those guys are super cool and we never; we never got our asses kicked. J.K.: Their crowd is a little more aggressive, but management built it up, they warned us about it. And you kind of think about it a little too much, but after that first show it was fine. If people like music, if it’s good, they’ll dig it, you got some shit heads out there that like only like what they like. There is plenty of them out there J.K.: Yea but 90% of people, if its good music they’ll like it B.T.: How about this music in the background, is it jazzy? |
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So if you guys weren’t in the band, you know, had no choice, you couldn’t play music ever again, where would you be now, and what would you be doing?
B.T.: We bartended together, maybe we would bartender again
J.K.: Yea, doing some flare
B.T.: Cocktail part 3
J.K.: I’d probably work at like Bed Bath & Beyond or something like that, that place just smells so good, you know what I’m talking about
You got the beautiful ladies coming in everyday
J.K.: Yea, you see a lot of ugly ones there to, but like, still, it smells good in there
B.T.: Yea, it does
Well that’s all we got, thank you very much for your time, is there anything you like to say to your fans before we let you go?
J.K.: You know, thanks for checking us out, pick up that record, it’s good
B.T.: Yea, you can get it in Best Buy, F.Y.E., Amazon.com
J.K.: I just heard the other day that its record of the year, somebody said, somebody said, on the internet
B.T.: It’s certified balsa as of last month. But yea, thanks for having us, and we look forward to seeing you guys again in town
To visit Deepfields's MySpace page click here
By. Drew Zambrano
