(
Sept.
20, 2008)
PCM's Kristyn spoke
with Baxter Teal, vocalist and guitarist for the band Deepfield.
They spoke about the band's CD, "Archetypes and Repetition,"
a little bit about life on the road, and some of the influences
that shape Deepfield as a band.
Kristyn: So basically just to start off
how are you enjoying the latest tour? Can you tell me a
little bit about what life is like on the road?
Baxter: Well it's crazy! I am enjoying it to an extent. Drowning
Pool tour of Texas was a lot of driving, silly routing, but
I guess that's what comes with it. A lot of eight to ten hour
drives a day. Playing the shows are a lot of fun! We were
a little scared playing with Drowning Pool, but the crowd
for the most part enjoyed it and we had a couple of hecklers
but I guess that made for an interesting time.
K: Yeah definitely I know how that goes
I've seen some opening bands especially at metal shows.
B: Yeah, yeah so we did as much metal as we
could so, obviously Fall Apart and some of the Top 40 stuff
were not played on that tour.
K: Ah.
B: Yeah.
K: Tell me a little bit about the band.
How is the chemistry and how does that affect the writing
process overall?
B: Well Lee and I the drummer have known each
other for years. He actually played in another band with
me. So we write well together his influences are similar
to mine and yet he's got a lot of different influences that
I don't have and J.T. our guitarist is the same way. I think
the blend of all those diverse influences sort of give us
an original sound even though it's mainstream rock we feel
it has its own flavor. The creative process is three parts
and it seems to work well. That's how we write so a lot
of it is rhythm based and a lot of it is just melody based
and so far we're doing a decent job at it.
K: Definitely. What would you say is the
main message that you're trying to convey with the recording
of "Archetypes and Repetitions"?
B: The meaning of the record?
K: Yes, what would you say that you're
trying to convey?
B: A lot of the songs have religious connotations.
I wanted to avoid writing the typical mad at a chick song
not a lot of relationship songs on the record. Some of it
is completely fictitious and some of it is very heartfelt.
I wouldn't say its like a therapeutic process for me to
write a record that way lyrics wise, but I think it's gelled
and its' got that southern feel to it on some songs, that
at the same time its just the record that we wanted to write
after hearing the last several years of mainstream rock
especially on radio kind of being letdown as far as the
quality of music. We want to do our best to change that
whether or not that happens we'll just see. A lot of that
is maybe a shove at the music scene or the music business.
There are several songs on the record that have to deal
with people in the music business. "Into the flood"
is one for example. It is easier to write the pissed off
songs than the ones that are from your heart.
K: Yeah I can agree with that. Speaking
about what you mentioned with just being pissed off about
rock radio where do you see the future of music heading
and where do you see the band fitting into that?
B: Well right now I think that a lot of bands
are just trying to rehash, like there's the 80s disco drumming
thing that carried over to rock and roll and now it seems
that a lot of bands are dipping back into the seventies
to be kind of gritty like Bad Company indie rock sort of
things and the genre of music to me is kind of a weak class.
Then you have bands like Creed that sold millions and millions
of records, it wasn't everybody's favorite type of music,
but at the same time they got the formula and they made
a lot of money doing it. We want to take our music as far
as it can possibly be taken in the rock field on a level
somewhere near Nickelback even though we don't particularly
like Nickelback or the type of music they play. We're not
going to sit there and short our songs to stay cool and
have that cult fan base that won't pay to buy your record,
but will download it for free and then you're broke all
the time like… We do have credibility and I think we're
all different musicians it's just we write what we want
to write and at the same time we think we have the potential
to reach out there and cross over with a couple songs on
our record. I guess to be on top of the world at some point
that's our goal!
K: That would be fantastic. Who would you
say are some of your main musical influences? I did read
that you often times cover The Beatles and Pink Floyd live.
B: Yeah, we did ten cover songs for Bob Ezrin
back in the day when working with him and those have sort
of become legendary in the business with people talking
about them, they've never been released but somehow people
know about those songs. We play "Eleanor Rigby"
live by The Beatles and we occasionally throw in Tears for
Fears song "Head over Heels". I say as far as
the eighties it would be stuff like Tears for Fears and
that whole scene in the seventies is Boston, Bad Company,
and stuff like that and Journey obviously. But Lee is a
big prog rock guy so we got the Rush thing and he's a big
DreamTheater fan. J. King our guitarist comes from more
of a punk background so that whole genre blending maybe
makes for cool music.
K: Well, it sounds like you have a lot
of different types coming in there.
B: Yeah, yeah. (laughs)
K: I love the comparison of Deepfield and
space. I was reading about how the other galaxies can be
seen through the Hubble telescope image.
B: Yeah.
K: What does Deepfield mean to you?
B: When we started the band that other reference
to space and all was really cool. That's just a very historic
thing that's happened in our lifetime. To see the end of
the universe is pretty phenomenal and to know that science
is going to have to evolve no pun intended from that whole
Deepfield picture. As far as the band, it's about evolving
and growing and reaching as far as you can, but not in a
cheesy way like "oh we're reaching for the stars!"
K: Right. (laughs)
B: But yeah it's a process where this is the
furthest picture ever taken into space so potentially this
is as far as can be reached. It's the end of the universe.
Maybe its like you're at the very end of the universe and
you're trying to reach the Earth. I don't think I can come
up with a cool way to look at it other than the whole concept
of it being a long ways away, as far as possible, and its
going to shake up the world of science in the next few years
and the way we look at things and have looked at things
for hundreds of years. It's just a very big scientific step
and I guess we're paying homage to that and what not and
its cool sounding name.
K: I like it! It's different and you know
reading that was kind of was like "wow that's cool,
and I learned something new"
B: Thanks. Where are you located by the way?
K: We're in Delaware.
B: Delaware.
K: Yeah. (laughs) Heard of it?
B: Yeah it's funny it's such a small state
but I've never been to Delaware.
K: Aww. (laughs)
B: I've been to it. I've eaten at Cracker
Barrel in Delaware.
K: Oh really? Wow, I never even realized
that Delaware had...
B: I think it's the furthest place that you
can find sweet tea as far as going up north is at Cracker
Barrel so...
K: Hey that's my favorite. (laughs)
B: I love it. (laughs) Are you from
there originally?
K: Yes I've been here my whole life.
B: That's cool. We're seeing some different
kinds of things being on tour. In the Midwest and down in
Texas is like seeing a whole different breed of human being
I mean it's just funny how people are very different in
different areas and Kansas in particular is literally like
being in the Wizard of Oz
K: We are very close to Philadelphia, more
city-like
B: Yeah I got you, so you're near the metropolitan
area.
K: Well I'm definitely excited to come
out and check out your live show in October.
B: In the Theater of Living Arts right?
K: Definitely.
B: Is that a cool club?
K: Yeah for the most part they just changed
the name to The Fillmore but you guys should like it.
B: Awesome, awesome. I've never been in the
city of Philly but I hear it's a really cool town.
K: Yeah.
B: Cool
K: So have you had any crazy fan experiences yet?
B: Oh my god everyday is crazy I mean we ran
out of gas in Kansas on a back road and we had to have someone
give us gas to get to the next town. We were on our way
to Wichita that same night and on our way home our bass
player got pulled over in a construction zone at 1am and
got a 300 dollar traffic ticket for being in a work zone.
We thought that was pretty lame! I mean other than the bugs
of Texas and the flies being caked on our trailer and windshield
from the traveling it's been crazy, but everything is starting
to run together. We literally had a fight the other day
about what day it was and I swore I would never be like
that but it truly gets like that after a while.
K: I think it's just life on the road.
B: Yeah but at the same time it's better than
working for a living even though it is work.
K: One thing I do have to ask is about
that buffalo picture on your myspace page.
B: That picture was taken out in Wyoming I
thought it was really cool the way the snows coming sideways
and hitting them head on, it's like they're making their
final journey somewhere. I thought it was really symbolic
it might not be, but that's what I thought when I saw the
picture.
K: I noticed it and had to know about that
one. *laughs*
B: It would be an awesome t-shirt that's what
I've always said.
K: So how do you guys relax in your spare
time, if any?
B: Well yeah exactly. We have occasionally
a day off in the tour where we are staying at the same hotel.
We kind of take a rest and keep away from each other. Right
now I flew to Chicago because I am moving there after our
tour is over. I am looking at real estate and enjoying these
two days. We play Friday with Puddle of Mudd, so that should
be a lot of fun, we playing with those guys and Saliva.
I play golf , so I go play golf to get away and it's all
cool because we all kind of gel with each other and we understand
our personalities and know when to stay away from each other
and at the same time we have a blast everyday. At some point
we all giggle and laugh about everything, so it's good therapy
I guess.
K: That's fantastic. What is your
favorite track off the new CD?
B: Wow, to listen to I would say "Fall
Apart" or "Here Forever", simply because
the mix is amazing, "Dreams" as well. We did an
awesome job with the more laid back stuff that makes it
really warm and it jumps out at ya. As far as live, I love
"Dead Horse" it's become one of my least favorite
songs and one of my favorites and "Into the Flood"
sounds really good to me. The song I tend to skip is "Wayside"
simply because it is the first song we ever wrote as a band,
the first song we sent to the record companies, on a three
song demo so it is just a little old to me. Yeah, that is
basically it, we don't listen to the record that much. I
guess those songs are my favorites.
K: How did you come about to choose En
Vogue to cover?
B: Oh yeah
K: I love it though!
B: A lot of people don't even know that is
a cover song, our producer, the first two weeks, she said
"this is a really cool sound, we can make a hit, but
what's up with the lyrics?" "It's so cheesy"
I was said "I didn't write this song!" You know
it's funny, yeah, a lot of people are digging it and I guess
the fact that an R&B band did it and we're making it
really heavy, I've felt the intro to the original song had
a lot of balls to it and I thought it would capture with
rock radio or the whole 3 min version of that song condensed
would sound really cool and it came out well, so a lot of
people are digging it and we are going to try to start playing
it live soon.
K: That really got me, I was said, wow,
that is awesome!
B: You know who En Vogue was right?
K: I did, I did
B: Most people are like Wow, this is like
a hit song?" And I am like of course it is a hit song
it won a Grammy!
K: Why did you choose "Get It"
to be the first single?
B:
We didn't, actually that is a really good question. We thought
"Wayside" was going to be the first single and
of course at the last minute I guess the powers that be
and consulting radio people felt like "Get It"
was going to be a hard rocker, to start out with and it's
done well. " Into the Flood" is going to be the
second single and it's starts spinning the second week into
the Puddle of Mudd tour, so two or three weeks from now.
I felt almost like it should have been the first single
and now I am happy it is going to be the second. "Into
the Flood" was getting 20,000 downloads a week when"
Get it" was on the radio, so our record company was
a little freaked out about that, this song was getting more
hits than "Get It" was, but I guess that is from
internet interest and what not, but we are just glad people
dig it and we look forward to putting it out on radio.
K: That is great; we are looking forward
to it as well! Well that is just about all the questions
I have for today. But if you saw my review, then you have
to know I think the CD absolutely rocks
B: Awesome!
K: I can't wait to come out and review
your live performance in Philly.
B: Thanks a lot and we look forward to meeting
you soon
K: Thanks again and see you soon
K: Bye
B: Bye
