Interview

My apologies, this is long overdue. Two of my buddies and I sat down with Matt Kirby, the band's spokesperson and rhythm guitarist. He was great, incredibly down to earth and sincere. The show was a blast as well.


EP: First I just have to ask the standard “how the band came to be” question. I actually heard…Did you guys go to high school together? How did you all meet up?

Kirby: Tricky question. There are five guys in the band. The lead singer (Kevin) and myself went to college together at St. John’s University. The other three guys went to high school together here in town, and they formed a band and were looking for a lead singer. They found Kevin. At the same time that they were forming a band, Kevin and I were writing songs and forming a kind of pop/rock band while the other guys were kind of a hard rock band. They needed a guy to play the guitar and sing back up vocals and we needed a full band. So, there was a time when we were doing practice for their old band and I’d be playing, and then we’d have practice for our band, and they would be doing the back up stuff. It got a little hairy and people started to step on people’s toes a bit because we wanted to this, but their direction was different, etc. So we decided to combine the two together and take the best songs from each project and kind of made what we have now.

EP: Ok, I have to ask. You boys used to be called Sneaker 2 Bombs. Where did that come from?

Kirby: That was a late night decision at a local tavern and somehow, I’m not going to say anything incriminating, but somehow it just stuck. That was actually the name of the other pop/rock project I mentioned prior to this.

EP: Why did you eventually change the name to Quietdrive?

Kirby: Quietdrive is the name that we always liked, and we went away from it at first because it was already kind of growing in Minneapolis, like those three had developed a small fan base. Since we were coming up with a new project, we didn’t the stigma of the old name. That was the reason we switched. But we always liked that name and always kind of wanted to come back to it. It gave us some time to escape from the name a little bit and put on a new pair of shoes and change direction a bit. So when we did come back to it was really…comforting.

EP: Tell me if I’m wrong…but up to the point that you guys had signed with Epic, you were pretty much still just a local band. So, I’m really interested to hear about how they found you and just the whole courtship in general.

Kirby: Well, actually that guy who just walked in the door is, or was, an A&R scout for Epic Records…

EP: Oh really? I need to talk to him then…

Kirby: Haha, but yeah he found us on MP3.com a long time ago. He found us right at the time when the old band, the harder rock band, was getting started and right at the time when were forming the new project. We called him up and said, “We’re changing direction, don’t know if you’re interested at all, but this is what we’re doing…”
And he was he like, “That is exactly what I wanted to hear, I’m excited to hear it…” So he flew out with an official A&R guy – they had been listening to us for months prior to…

EP: Wait, so how long ago was this?

Kirby: This was in June of 2004.

EP: Oh, wow so quite a while ago.

Kirby: Yeah, it’s been awhile and we actually ended up signing in December of 2004. It took awhile of trying and trying and trying, and it just kind of hit when we decided to merge the projects. They were really excited about that because they had liked certain aspects of each but weren’t really in love with either of the two. But they liked the combination and we did too so it worked out great.

EP: You guys are booked solid until mid-August, right?

Kirby: Yeah, at least! Our booking agent is here too, so you can kick him in the face for that. I’m kidding. No, but we love being on the road. The happiest we are is when we’re in the van. It gets complicated when we’re back in one spot for too long. But when we’re in the road, stuff gets done and we’re just more effective, so we love it.

EP: Well I was wanted to ask if there are any bands that you’re particularly excited to tour or play with?

Kirby: Yeah! We are going on tour with Houston Calls. We’ll be with them from June to August so we’re really excited about that. A couple bands, one of them here tonight actually…This Providence is going to play a few shows with us and then a lot of the other dates are just sporadic, scattered sectionals – like we’ll go out East for a bit and meet up with a couple of friends and bands that we like…

EP: Awesome. Well as far as the record is concerned…I know that Butch Walker was behind the knobs on this one. I have Butch’s record so I know he’s a great songwriter. Did he help you guys re-work any of your songs or was it just strictly a recording/producing type of thing?

Kirby: He kind of enlightened us to songwriting. We had a producer here in town that we had worked with for a long time and he knew like sonically what we wanted to produce and sonically what were capable of –but Butch was cool because he taught us these little lessons in songwriting and song development and arrangement, and that’s why we were stoked because we learned so much from him. He didn’t have a whole lot to change from the demo versions, but it was the stuff that we took from him outside of the final product that we took with us – a lifetime of knowledge. He’s just been around the block so many times and he is absolutely brilliant – from performer to engineer to producer to tactician. He was on our same label and he just had all this knowledge and we were just sponges for a week taking it all in.

EP: What’s your favorite song to play live, or which song gets the best reaction out of the kids?

Kirby: The best reaction usually comes from a song that we haven’t even recorded. It’s called “Handsome Devil’s Benediction”. It’s on Purevolume – it’s the only place we’ve put it up. I think were going to take it off soon, but we like to give people a little taste of a different side of us that I think were going to expand upon on the next record. We get pulled into certain genres and categories often and we just don’t want to be set in one genre. I mean, we decided to make this album the way it is. We made it intentionally this way and we’re going to make another record intentionally another way, you know? This is another side of Quietdrive. So like, we dressed up the violin and we have a special surprise for you guys tonight actually. The other one is probably “Rise From The Ashes.” It’s the first single that we have so it gets thrown out to the media a lot.

EP: I read on the website that Kevin used to call up his answering machine to record little song ideas that he had. So…I wanted more insight into the songwriting process. Is it more of a group effort or does he come up with a lot of the ideas and then you all work from there?

Kirby: It started that way. It started as a group effort and we found a certain level of success doing that, but then it just kind of graduated to where he was taking things and saying “Well, I’m going to finish this all the way through before I present it to the band because this is kind of what I want to get across.” We just started taking that as our standard songwriting process. We always like to look at it like he is the architect of many of the songs and he contracts out parts. Like, he’s got the plummer, and the house framer, and so on. Each person has their role in the songwriting and I think it takes a certain level of maturity in the songwriting process to understand your role and when it can be applied and where people have certain strengths. As far as the chief songwriter of the band? I mean, its not limited to anything – everyone is open to write. We’ve just found a certain amount of success with the way we’ve done things with this album. It’s cool because he’ll say, “Hey, I’ve come up with this great melody that I think is going to work, but I need a guitar lick – JB go figure something out,” or something like that. Then he’ll sit and work on the rhythm section with Droo and Brandon and then I’ll come in and work on the harmonies and vocal arrangements and stuff. Everyone has got their own shtick, but he’s definitely the chief builder of the songs.

EP: You guys have actually been signed for a while, but were there any bands, and venues too, that were particularly supportive you guys before you had signed to Epic?

Kirby: The Quest was always good to us in Minneapolis. Dropping Daylight, from Minneapolis – we’ve been playing cards with them and hanging out with them since we started. It’s really cool because we both went through the same steps at almost the exact same time. They signed on with a label at the same time, they’re on Octone. So we went through picking a label at the same time, picking a booking agent at the same time, and management, and business management, and touring, and getting a van, getting a record out, getting told “no”, recording, re-recording, spending more money…everything was happening at the same time so we were always talking to eachother about how “that sucks” or “that’s so stupid, we had to do the same thing!” There’s a band out East called The Underwater – they’re our unbelievable close friends.

EP: The Underwater? Aren’t they kind of more of a harder rock band?

Kirby: Yeah! They’re phenomenal!

EP: I’ve heard of them! They’ve actually got this one track called “Branded” that I absolutely love!

Kirby: Yeah, they’re phenomenal as a band. I mean, I feel like I’m leaving some out but those are the ones that really stick out.

EP: Besides Minneapolis/St. Paul, as a band, what is your favorite city to play in?

Kirby: We’re excited to play in Denver. There’s a top 40 radio station there that has been playing our song “Rise From The Ashes” for the past few weeks and it’s one of the few radio stations in the country and that is really behind and it pushing it. So, we’re excited to see how that turns out. We’ve done a bunch of radio spots in there. It’s going to be kind of weird to go in there but I think its going to be pretty well received and we’re getting pretty excited to jump on top of that market.

EP: The “Time After Time” cover – why did you guys decide to do that? Had you played it live once and it just kind of stuck?

Kirby: No, we started playing it live after we recorded it. Kevin was cruising through K-Mart and heard it in the store and back when were practicing he just started working a drum beat and that song just kind of came together in the studio. We made a demo of it and sent it over to the label with the rest of our songs – just as a joke. Like, “Hey, A&R guy – check this out.” He was like, “Dude, that kicks ass.” Of course we were like, “Oh, shut up” and stuff like that. And a week later he was like, “No, I really want you guys to at least record the song when you record the cd and see how it turns out.” We recorded it and we really liked it. He said, “This could put a nice little push on your record and do something a little snazzy.” So, we put it on the record and we’ve been playing it live ever since.

EP: Well, that’s all the questions I have. So thanks for meeting with us, we appreciate it.

Kirby: Oh, absolutely! No problem!