Kheer Magazine - Japan - September 2001

Stateside

Kheer Magazine - Japan

INTERVIEW WITH JOHN PAUL KEITH

Kheer Magazine, Japan, September 2001

Please introduce yourself to Japanese fans.

Greetings from Music City USA! My name is John Paul Keith and I have a rock and roll band called Stateside.  Our album, Twice as Gone will soon be available in Japan.

Please tell us your favorite bands/artists from childhood to now.

My parents are big country music fans, so I grew up hearing Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and things like that.  Later on, I became interested in all kinds of music, especially hard rock like AC/DC and Led Zeppelin.  When I was a teenager and began writing songs, my influences were The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, etc.  I also learned to love old blues and soul artists, such as Muddy Waters, Otis Redding, Ray Charles, and Motown. In the last few years, I've listened to many kinds of music, such as The Who, Badfinger, ELO, and current artists like Tom Petty, Foo Fighters, and Superdrag.

Japanese fans had no chance to hear your personnel. Give me the details of The V-roys & The Nevers.

I joined the V-roys when I was a teenager in my hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee.  The band consisted of Scott Miller on guitar and vocals, Paxton Sellers on bass, and Jeff Bills on drums.  I sang and played guitar.  Back then we were called The Viceroys, but when I left the group to start my own band, they learned that there was already another band called The Viceroys so they changed their name to The V-roys.  Later, I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where I currently live, and I started The Nevers with drummer David Jenkins, bassist Paul Noe, and guitarist Rick Tiller.  We signed a recording contract with Sire Records in New York and recorded an album, which they did not release.

How did you know Ryan Adams? And The Have Nots was a masked band, wasn't it?

The Have Nots was a side project that myself and some friends recorded just for fun, while we were still waiting for Sire to release us from The Nevers contract.  The Have Nots album consisted of songs I wrote when I was in The V-roys which never got recorded.  We did it as a masked project because we thought it would be funny, and also because I did not want the public to think that I only wrote alternative country songs.  I like alternative country, but my real love is rock and roll and that's what I want people to know about me and Stateside.   I met Ryan Adams when he moved to Nashville last year.  I was busy putting together Stateside but I didn't have all the members yet.  Ryan was also putting together a band and asked me to be in it as lead guitarist.  We were called Ryan Adams and The Pink Hearts and we recorded half of an album for his label, Lost Highway Records.  Recently however, I left The Pink Hearts to devote all my time to Stateside.  I was replaced in The Pink Hearts by a guitarist named Brad Rice and they recently completed the album.  It is supposed to be released next year.

I feel the Stateside is more rock than The V-roys and The  Nevers. Were you inspired from your latest favorite bands?

Yes, we wanted Stateside to be more rock than what I'd previously done.  I was inspired mainly by Foo Fighters, who in my opinion are one of the few bands active right now who write good songs while at the same time rocking very hard.  I like that hard-edged guitar sound.  I was also inspired by Tom Petty.  That's sort of our formula: Tom Petty-type songwriting with a big, aggressive Foo Fighters-type guitar sound.

Your latest album Twice as Gone has the song that you gave to the Swedish compilation.  Are there any songs that you composed for The V-roys and The Nevers?

Most of the songs on "Twice as Gone" were written when I was in The Nevers, but since that album did not get released, I wanted to re-record them with Stateside because I felt they were good songs and I wanted them to be heard.  "Long Way Down" and "Salt in the Wound" were written after The Nevers split up, and "You Were Made for Me" was written when I was a teenager.  We put it on that Swedish compilation, then decided we wanted to re-record it with Stateside and put it on "Twice as Gone".

Why didn't S ire release your album?

Sire didn't release The Nevers album mainly because they were in financial difficulties.  They had signed a lot of artists but none of them were being very successful.  They did release one Nevers song, "Watch You Sleep", on the soundtrack to the film Drop Dead Gorgeous.  After that, we felt that Sire was never going to release our album, so we allowed our contract to expire and then decided to break up the band.  The other members wanted to get married to their girlfriends and get on with their lives.  Our experience with Sire was very stressful and frustrating and we all just wanted to move on.

Do you have any plans to release The Nevers album?

No.

You moved to Nashville from Knoxville. Please tell us the scene of both cities.

Nashville has countless musicians, but the rock scene here is kind of tame.  Most Nashvillians don't get very excited about rock bands.  However, there are a lot of good rock bands in Nashville, like The Shazam and Will Hoge.  Knoxville is a college town and the rock scene is much more rowdy and exciting, although there aren't as many bands there.  Superdrag is from Knoxville, as well as Scott Miller, The Faults, and Apelife.  People in Knoxville like to drink alcohol and dance more than audiences here in Nashville.  However, I enjoy living in Nashville for many reasons, including the fact that there are many, many recording studios, and things like that.

We know Nashville has many good bands. Do you have any interchanges of personnel between them?

Stateside's drummer, Brad Pemberton, has played on many projects, including Ryan Adams and The Pink Hearts, Patty Griffin's Flaming Red album, and a great punk rock band called Iodine.  Billy Mercer is also involved in The Pink Hearts, and has been in a lot of Nashville bands.  Adam Landry, Stateside's guitar player, has a terrific side-project called The Sways.  They have an album coming out soon.  Stateside's album has some guest appearances from many of our Nashville friends, such as Bucky Baxter who used to play with Bob Dylan, and Kevin Teel who is in a band called Bare Jr.  Ryan Adams also sings backup on one of our songs called "Little Black Dress".

Does Stateside play any shows now?

Stateside is not on tour at the moment, but we are playing shows around Nashville and Knoxville and we hope to tour Europe early next year.

I like the Twice as Gone album very much. It has good elements of alt-country, country and power pop (Foo Fighters, Superdrag, etc).  What kinds of fans does Stateside have?

Stateside has very cool fans who have good taste in music, and I appreciate them very much.  I think people who like us are fans of all the types of music you mentioned.  Fans from Europe and Japan have been particularly kind to us as well, and we would love to tour those places.  

I heard that Twice as Gone will be distributed (in Japan) by Wizzard In Vinyl.  How many country do you ship your CD?

Hopefully our album will be released in stores in Europe early next year.  It's available in the US on Disgraceland Records (www.disgraceland.com).  Anyone in Japan who is interested in the album will be able to buy it from Wizzard In Vinyl.

Okay, this is the last question. Please tell us the Stateside plan.

After the album is available in stores in the US, Europe, and Japan, we hope to tour as much as possible and record our second album soon.  I have written a new album (along with our guitarist Adam Landry) and we can't wait to get started on it.  We're just trying to make the best music we can, for the largest amount of people possible.

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