What Made Milwaukee Famous, a superb indie rock band from Austin, TX, will be invading Off Broadway on Thursday, and for $10, well, you don’t have an excuse to miss it. Now with Barsuk Records, WMMF recently released their latest album, What Doesn’t Kill Us, and it’s a keeper. So much that it’s one of my favorite albums so far of 2008. So put on your comfy clothes and dancin’ shoes and join them for a great night of music at Off Broadway tomorrow night!
The band recently took some time answer 12 questions for insideSTL.com.
1. Tell us a little about why you're on tour and the music you're going to be playing.
We’ll be out on tour again this summer promoting our new album What Doesn’t Kill Us that came out in March of this year on Barsuk records. We’ll also be selling a limited-edition white vinyl copy of the album (which is exciting to finally be on vinyl). We’ll be playing songs from WDKU and our first record, Trying to Never Catch Up. And probably a few covers. And maybe some new ones. And maybe some old ones that you haven’t heard.
2. Have you ever been to St. Louis? If so, what do you know about the city?
We have been a few times. I think that Drew used to go to school in St. Louis, too. The only thing that I know about St. Louis really is that Ozzie Smith should probably be mayor. Or is he already?
3. What was the best moment during the recording of your newest album, What Doesn't Kill Us?
My favorite moment of the recording was making the noise build-up part in the middle of “Blood, Sweat & Fears.” Or having Pink Nasty in to sing back-up on “Cheap Wine.” Or having Kim Deschamps in to play pedal steel. I’d say that those were my top 3.
4. What was the most frustrating moment during the recording of your newest album, What Doesn't Kill Us?
I don’t know if I could narrow it down to one most frustrating moment. But there were several moments that I almost acquired rabies from having to stop and re-tune guitars in the middle of recording. It was raining like crazy and we were using different tunings on the songs. So, the humidity was totally messing up the intonation of the guitars. We literally had to stop a take once to tune the guitar and punch back in. It was ridiculous.
5. Who are some of your favorite bands/songwriters?
Well, you’d probably get different answers from each of us. I can do my best to try to represent a few of what we’d each say.
John – The Replacements, Fugazi, Mission of Burma, No Means No, etc.
Jrm – Simon Dawes, Queens (of the Stone Age), Self, Herbie Hancock, M.I.A., Yeah Yeah Yeahs, etc.
Jason – Stevie Wonder, Simon Dawes, UGK, Queens, Paolo Nutini, YYY’s, David Bazan, etc.
Drew – Grandaddy, Elbow, the Flaming Lips, Supergrass, the Kinks, etc.
Me – the Beatles, Richard Buckner, Elliott Smith, Radiohead, Chris Whitley, Gillian Welch, Brendan Benson, Simon Dawes, Ryan Adams, the Grifters, Spoon, the Constantines, Jeff Buckley, Kathleen Edwards, Queens, Bowie, Aceyalone, Grant Lee Buffalo, the Sundays, etc.
6. What are some of your favorite venues you have played while touring across the U.S.?
The big ones. Except when there’s not a lot of people at the big ones. Actually, we really liked playing at the Avalon in LA. And the Metro in Chicago was great. Actually almost all of the venues we’ve played in Chicago we like. The Bowery in NYC, of course. The Bottle Tree in Birmingham. Ummm…. the Creepy Crawl?
7. What's your favorite part about performing?
Personally, my favorite part about performing is when everybody sings along with a song. You see and hear it on live albums or shows on TV and it sometimes seems kind of cheesy when Bono points the mic out at the audience for them to sing along. But seriously, there are not too many better feelings than to have a majority of the audience singing along to one of your songs, word for word. See! Goose bumps. Just then. It’s great.
8. Take us through a normal day on tour.
Well, first of all, no day on tour is normal at all. The last few have been mad hustling and breaknecking from city to city. It can get to be quite a grind at times. But you always look back on it fondly. As soon as you get back into town and there’s never enough things going on to satiate your appetite for the frequent activity that you experience while on tour. That being said, there is quite a bit of sitting that gets “done” on tour. We try to counteract that terminal boredom with iPods, PSP’s, and DVD players. Basically, we (try to) get up around 9 AM and get all our stuff together to get in the car and drive about 6-8 hrs. to the next city by load-in at 5 and sound check at 6 and then we sit around the venue until doors open and then we drink too much bourbon, rock out, load out, get to the hotel, check our e-mail, go to sleep at 3, and then wake up the next day at 9 to do it again. I make it sound grueling, but the shows always make it worthwhile.
9. If you could tour with anyone right now, who would it be?
I’m going to have to speak for myself on this one. Again, the answers would probably be across the board on this one if you asked the other guys. There are plenty of artists that I’d love to tour with right now (Kathleen Edwards, Spoon, Radiohead, the Constantines). But I’ve actually put it on my goals list to tour with Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. Not together, though that would be amazing. Just at some point in my career. It’ll happen if I say it will, right? Cross your fingers.
10. What are some of your favorite albums?
I’ve actually been trying to compile a top 100 list of all the albums that I wouldn’t be me without. I guess that 10 I couldn’t live without on a desert island (or that would just make my stay a little more bearable) would be:
Loveless – My Bloody Valentine
Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd
Heartbreaker – Ryan Adams
Badmotorfinger – Soundgarden
Devotion + Doubt – Richard Buckner
Check Your Head – the Beastie Boys
Dirt Floor – Chris Whitley
Bubblegum – Mark Lanegan Band
Talk Talk – Spirit of Eden
Wheat - Medeiros
11. What's the funniest/craziest thing to ever happen to you while on tour?
Definitely not the funniest, but pretty crazy - a pint glass was thrown at us on-stage in Boise. Don’t get any ideas.
12. The best way to support my music is to...
Hmmm….. Not really sure exactly what the answer to this would be in this day and age. Album sales equals exposure equals more opportunities to get in front of more people equals “success” which equals Letterman (to me). But I understand that with the current climate of the music industry, you can’t really bank on that. I don’t even care if people get a burned copy of the album. I just want people to listen to it. I think that there’s something in our music for everyone. And all I really want is for it to be heard. Of course, when people actually purchase the albums it’s going to make things better for us and facilitate us to be in a situation where we can financially afford to keep doing this. Gas prices are murdering our bottom line. Not sure if album sales will counteract that, but it can’t hurt. Ok, how about this. If you burn the album, you have to come to a show. Just an unspoken agreement between us. Maybe we could put vouchers for tickets to our shows in each of the physical copies of our CD’s. So, you’d get in “free” to one of our shows if you buy the album. And everybody else who burned the CD would just have to pay to get into the show. There seem to be a few details to work out in this plan. Just popped into my head. I need to get back to the drawing board on it. But I could be on to something. Or it could just seem to be a better idea than it actually is because of my hangover. Bottom line – the best way to support our music is to give it a try. You’ll like SOMETHING about it. Or your money back (if you burned it).