band - Promise to Burn 2.28.06 interview w/Heath, Damon, Derek, Ben, Luke

BP: What's up fellas? Thanks for the interview. PTB: No problem. We appreciate the opportunity. BP: If you would please, introduce all of the band members. PTB: We have Heath Hartwell as our lead singer, Luke Sample on lead guitar, Ben Sample on drums, Derek Pearson on rhythm guitar, and Damon Pearson on bass. And if you're curious why we have five guys with only three different last names, it's because we have two sets of brothers. BP: Let's get to the geography of the band, then we'll move on. Where are you guys from originally? PTB: Heath is from Fagus, Missouri which, for anybody that might not know, is south of Poplar Bluff. Ben and Luke grew up in Scott City and live in Cape Girardeau now. Derek and Damon grew up in Matthews and also live in Cape Girardeau. BP: Ok, from what I remember, PTB was created out of the ashes of the band Closure, a band who never made it a secret that they played for money - first and foremost. How did the metamorphosis between the bands take place, and what ideas or experience have you taken from the old band? PTB: All the members of PTB were in Closure at one time or another except Luke who just sat in from time to time. The idea that Closure was only in it for the money is a little bit of an exaggeration. We knew that the band had the ability to make money, so why not make it? With Closure, we just wanted to play to as big of a crowd as we could because it was more fun for us to play to packed bars. When you can fill a bar frequently, you can make more money and we needed that money for equipment and future recordings. The metamorphosis took place when we went from being a bar band to trying to make this our career. As far as the ideas we've taken from the old band, we've learned a lot about promoting shows and marketing in general. BP: PTB is a fairly new band, yet has enjoyed some deal of success - some would say due to working with producer Malcolm Springer (who's impressive resume includes producer creds with Matchbox 20, Collective Soul, Fear Factory, Faith Hill, among others.) Tell us how the band hooked up with Malcolm. PTB: Local musician Bob Glastetter was friends with Malcolm for years, and he lives beside Ben and Luke. After taking some interest in the band, he brought Malcolm to come check us out. Malcolm thought we had some potential and we went to work with him right away. While as Closure we had all played a lot of shows, this was before Promise to Burn had ever played a show. Malcolm had caught a Closure show years ago, so he was already pretty familiar with most of us. BP: What kind of value is it, for a newer band such as PTB, to work with a producer of this caliber? PTB: Well, if a band catches the eye of somebody with that kind of experience in the industry, then they probably have some potential. And for any band, you need an outside perspective that can be objective and help you sort through your song ideas and help you realize which parts are really interesting and unique and which are not. Working with Malcolm taught us a lot about the industry in general, and about how to go about arranging songs. We would recommend working with a producer of that caliber to any band serious about trying to make their music their career. BP: I've read that the band has garnished interest from some major labels. Can you tell us which labels, specifically, have shown their interest? PTB: While a lot of majors have expressed interest (Road Runner, Virgin, and Universal), we want to build up some leverage so that we can actually negotiate a decent deal with whoever we end up with. In order to get a deal we'd be comfortable with, we would need to have several labels interested and we would have to prove that we will inevitably be successful regardless of which label we decide to work with. With all of our members now out of college and pursuing music full-time now, we are moving towards showing that we will be a profitable investment for any label that might be interested in working with us. BP: Could there possibly be anything in the works with labels at the moment? PTB: There is something in the works now. We have a few shows in Los Angeles in January, including one at the Viper Room on January 21st which has a pretty good reputation for new bands. We have a few meetings set up with different industry people there, and we should know a lot about what path our career will take after the trip. BP: Most labels won't even take a glance at a band who doesn't have a strong following of fans and toured extensively. Though it seems Promise to Burn is gaining fans every day, you guys don't play many live shows. Are you taking a different approach to getting signed? PTB: Touring extensively and building fans one at a time by playing six nights a week is a thing of the past. With the complete change in music through online downloads and Myspace, you can't use the same strategy bands used 30 years ago to try to get noticed. It's just not efficient. That's not to say we won't eventually play a lot more live shows than we do now, but each of the shows we decide to play will serve a purpose. BP: I've seen the band's MySpace page, and it gets tons of traffic. For example, your song "Head" has over 45,000 plays alone. What's the secret to your MySpace success? PTB: The Myspace success has surprised us. We've tried to use it to promote ourselves, and a lot of the fans we've made on MySpace have taken it upon themselves to promote us to all their friends. The song Head is catchy and a lot of different kinds of people can all find something about that song that they like. I dont think there's a real secret to the success. We just write the best songs we can and hope that people will enjoy them and spread the word about the band. BP: It appears you guys have a great deal of knowledge about the business side of music. Tell us your philosophy about being in a pop band... PTB: Well we don't know exactly what you mean by pop music. If by pop music you mean popular music then we'll agree with that label. If you mean pop music in something that is trendy, manufactured, or lacking real substance, then I don't think its a very accurate description. There is no real philosophy behind it. Success in this industry is measured by how much you sell and how many people can relate to the music you play. It seems to us that becoming popular should be the goal of any band that wants to be successful. If that makes you a pop band then so be it. But whatever is pop in general changes from day to day, so to use it to describe a style of music indicates that the music has a limited shelf life. We're not of the mindset to write the songs of the moment, but we'd rather write songs that will remain interesting and relevant as different trends come and go. BP: As I said before, the band has enjoyed a good deal of success locally, and it seems that has alienated some other local bands. Do you think its jealousy? PTB: With Closure it was no secret that a lot of other bands didn't like us. We had our trailer, cars, and houses egged a few times, our cars got keyed, and a lot of our signs and flyers were destroyed. Of course a lot of this stuff was done anonymously. With Promise to Burn though the only real evidence that we have that other bands are alienated by us at all are from people writing criticisms behind the safety of a keyboard on online forums. Very rarely have we ever been criticized by another band in a face-to-face talk. I know we've stirred up a few heated internet debates on local music forums, but ignorant online criticisms dont really mean a whole lot to us. And almost all of those criticisms come from people that have never seen us play live. Obviously, jealousy could be a part of those types of criticisms. For some reason, a lot of musicians think that one band being popular takes away from the popularity of other bands. That thought is completely ridiculous. If we get new people that don't typically go to see shows to come watch us, it's only improving the scene. It's sure not hurting any other band. Whether or not it really is jealousy or some other motivating factor, we're not sure. You'd probably have to ask other musicians what we're doing to alienate them because we don't understand how we're hurting them. BP: Let's talk about the cd. When/where did you guys record it, and how did the recording process go? PTB: Most of the tracking we did in Malcolm's studio in Portageville though some of it was finished up in Nashville. We did preproduction in January and tracked between February and April. We mixed at SoundStage Studios in Nashville in May. Overall, the process went pretty smoothly for the most part. The toughest part for a lot of us was working in the time to record while having full-time jobs or college. There was a lot of working a 10 hour day, driving to Portageville to record for 10 hours, and driving back to go to work again the next day. BP: Has the band sold a lot of cd's online? PTB: We've sold quite a few more than we expected for not playing a whole lot of shows. We sell quite a few online without a lot of promotion. Sending out the CDs we sell from Myspace alone is going to be a full-time job for somebody soon if we continue at this pace. BP: Which leads me to my next question; tell us where we can go to buy the Promise to Burn cd... PTB: You can buy a CD online on our myspace site at www.myspace.com/promisetoburn. BP: Well, I could probably come up with another 20 questions, but I only have so much space on my page. Thanks for the interview, and best of luck to you guys in the future. Here's to finding a good label and making a million bucks.... PTB: We appreciate the opportunity. ( www.BANNEDPROMOTIONS.com/PTBinterview )

(From Left: Luke, Ben, Damon, Heath, Derek)