I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Chad Urmstron who was in Chicago for the Feelin’ Better than Everfine Festival, where he was playing with his band State Radio.

The three man band, comprised of Brian "B-Say" Sayers, Chuck Fay and Chad, has a busy fall ahead of them. They are trying to finish up their new album, which is scheduled for an October 1st release. According to Chad, the new album will be more like their live stuff, with a solid rock vibe. Only two of the songs on the album are acoustic, as departure from the bands recent, more mellow EP, Simmer Kane. Still trying to incorporate the trombone which he played when he was younger, the new album will feature horns on one track. Although Chad said he would like to play that song live at some point, it may prove a challenge for him as the horns are played during the chorus.

There will be plenty of opportunity to play live though, as the band gets ready to kick off a tour this fall, first with Badfish and then with Ozomatli. Having learned from his experiences with Dispatch the benefits of "battle testing" songs on the road for a year before recording them, Chad is anxious to add the 15 new songs he’s written to what he promises will be diverse set lists throughout the tour.

When asked about Dispatch, Chad seemed very at ease with the current state of affairs for the band. He enjoyed his reunion weekend this summer, during which the band premiered their movie, "The Last Dispatch". Chad described as it as being just like the old times, and enjoyed hanging out with Brad and Pete without the pressure of the final show. In addition to an upcoming Chicago screening of the movie, at which all three former Dispatch members will be in attendance, Chad looks forward to playing together again during those opportunities where their new tour schedules overlap. He admits to missing the vocal harmonies that Dispatch accomplished together, and explains how he tried to get some of that back with Erin Lashnitz, who accompanied Chad on the Simmer Kane EP.

Chad still speaks very fondly of his experiences with Dispatch, and while he doesn’t expect "lightning to strike twice", he’s hoping to continue to make a career for himself with State Radio. Managed by Dalton Sim and Johnny Lisco from Nettwerk Management, State Radio is content staying independent for the time being. Although he knows this means a long road ahead, Chad believes that independence allows the band to maintain control. Having been part of a band which hosted the largest independent music concert ever, it’s difficult to question Chad’s approach. Of course Chad would welcome a distribution deal for State Radio, but acknowledges that right now, distribution would be a little bit of putting the cart before the horse, and realizes State Radio first needs to build a larger following outside of Dispatch fan heavy areas like Chicago, Boston, New York and San Francisco.

As for right now, Chad is taking the next month to figure out the next chapter for his band. As they practice together, working out new songs as well as some covers, he hopes that State Radio will live up to its potential as a "a good band, but one that can be a lot better". I for one am anxious to listen and watch as that next chapter unfolds.

SP: So first off how did your new project, Flag of the Shiners, come about?

CU: I had all these songs and I feel like if you don’t sort of work into the songs that they get old after a while. I think it’s smart when you’re creating something that like I wanted to record these songs pretty soon because they’re part of my life right now, and they may not be part of my life a year from now. You know, the creative process.

SP: Whose going to be in the new band when you’re playing live?

CU: Pete Halby from the Penikey’s Playaz, with Mike Greenfeld from The Ally, and Matt Taheny from the Splendid Nobody’s. It’s sort of like Pete and I have been playing together for a long time just for fun over the years, we’ve known each other since we were young. Our parents knew each other. We’ve always wanted to put a little something together. We’ve known each other since we were 7 or 8. He plays guitar. I’ll probably play guitar. Matt Tahaney will play bass. We’ll probably double up a lot on the rhythm stuff. Mike plays with a band out of Philadelphia called The Ally. They opened for us once. That was great. I just watched their set and was like holy shit, that guy’s a good drummer. He came up to record for a week about a month ago (for the EP).

SP: Do you plan to add any other instruments live, such as trombone, trumpets, keyboard, etc.?

CU: No, not right now. Right now, it’s going to be pretty stripped down, just sort of raw rock. Down the line, there’s a lot of vocal parts on the record, it’d be fun to get some more singers. Eventually I’d like it so that everybody in the band sings. I’ve always enjoyed when it wasn’t just one big lead singer.

SP: In your new EP, I’ve heard the influences of Marley, Rage and Sublime. Why did you choose to include these sounds in your music?

CU: I don’t know I guess it’s just whatever comes most naturally to me. I think it’s just what I like.

SP: Would you say there are any other influences present?

CU: I would say maybe Blind Melon. And then maybe Pearl Jam.

SP: What is a FTS show going to be like? Are you going to break out any acoustic guitar or is it going to be all electric?

CU: It’s going to be all electric.

SP: Once you establish yourselves, what kind of atmosphere are you hoping for?

CU: I think I just want it to be a fairly loose atmosphere, but just like rock you know. We’re playing in small venues, and I miss the old days of just playing in front of a hundred people, and the room is just slamming. That’s going to be the way touring goes for a while. Small rooms where the crowd is much a part of it as the people on stage.

SP: So do you think when you were with Dispatch you kind of lost that?

CU: Yeah. I found I sort of shut down a little bit, sort of closed my eyes more of the time on stage. You lose that intimacy. It’s almost so nerve racking to play in front of that many people. I just sort of shut down just to concentrate on my own playing because I was so nervous.

SP: How was performing on Kilborn, was that nerve racking too?

CU: There’s that TV camera in front of you and basically you just have one take. It was really freaky. It was fun. I hadn’t seen Brad or Pete for four or five months since we played Denver. So it was good. When we started Dispatch we were all friends. Now it’s getting to be that again, which feels really good. When you take the music part out of it.

SP: Do you plan to play any Dispatch songs with your new band or none at all?

CU: I don’t think so. I think may consider a different version of “Time Served.” But I think off the bat, this is a different project. I sort of like to look at it like some of my idols, like say, Clapton, Jimmy Paige. You know, he did the Yardbirds, and then Zeppelin. You know, this is a different project and a different identity. I’m not opposed to it down the line, but especially in the beginning.

SP: It’s probably going to be tough with everybody wanting to hear the popular songs.

CU: I know, I know. I’m not looking forward to that, with people yelling out different songs.

SP: Are there any covers you’re going to be doing, or are you practicing any?

CU: I don’t know. I’ve been looking for players, I’ve been trying out different people. I was just having trouble feeling the energy. It’s really hard to find someone who sort of locks in. And Pete Halby and I lock in because we’ve been friends for so long. But as far as bass and drums, it was hard enough to find Matt and Mike. So right now those guys are just learning the music. Mike played on the record. But Matt’s just learning all the bass parts.

SP: Do you think this is just a tentative thing with all the musicians in your band?

CU: Yeah I think Pete and I will always play in some capacity together. The other two guys I’m sort of hiring on just as hired guns. You know because they’re in their own bands. There’s a couple of guys I want to play with in Atlanta. The full on band will be sort of cohesive maybe sometime around January. Just take this time to just play with a bunch of different guys, old friends, you know, see where the music goes.

SP: Do you think you’re going to be touring the early part of next year also?

CU: I think so, yeah. The second bit of January and then February.

SP: Would you like to catch on opening for a bigger band, or do you want to stay headlining?

CU: I wouldn’t mind opening. I always liked opening in a way because you just play a short set. You play balls to the wall. You know you sort of do your best to get the crowd going. It sort of feels competitive which I sort of like, you know you’re this sort of opening band. So you’re the underdog. It’s just like no one knows you and you just get up there. I’m not opposed to that. We almost had a chance to open for Stone Temple Pilots at UNH. That was like a dream come true. But that got stymied at the last moment. But yeah I don’t mind opening. I think overall, with this project, Flag of the Shiners, we’re not going to jam out that much, and it’s probably going to be shorter sets than Dispatch did. More like pedal to the metal throughout the whole thing. That’s my favorite part about it. I was disappointed with the Dispatch shows when I felt like it would just go down too low. And I don’t expect the whole Dispatch crowd to be into what I’m doing now. And you know, if people like it, that’s great. And if the Dispatch crowd, if they don’t like it, that’s okay too.

SP: Is there anything you would like to do differently with FTS, compared to Dispatch?

CU: I think just more rockin’. More rockin’ and more reggae. Like heavier guitars and being able to switch back into reggae maybe a little bit more than Dispatch did.

SP: How many songs have you written that we haven’t heard at all, other than those six songs on the EP?

CU: There’s a lot, I think for right now. Before the bassist and the drummer really falls into place, we’re pretty much going to concentrate on maybe nine or ten songs, just because I’m going to be playing with different guys and teaching everyone the parts. I have a lot of songs. They’re not all finished, but there’s something like twenty or thirty that are pretty much done. Once Flag of the Shiners gets cooking, I’d love to play pretty different shows, just have a really large catalog to fall back on. I’d love to have like fifty songs. The problem with Dispatch is we stopped writing with each other. So I’m looking forward to a point that I’m with the band and if I come up with something that day, we can just do it. And we can just keep churning them out. And say we have back to back shows and have totally different setlists. I know people like to hear the same songs a lot. But I love the idea of presenting new stuff to people and maybe the tape trading guys will appreciate that.

SP: Is it fun being the man in charge?

CU: Yeah, it is. It’s definitely refreshing. I’m not a very decisive person. Decisions are a hell of a lot easier than they used to be because I just think about it a second or two and just call the shots, where as with Dispatch it was call Pete, call Brad, what’s Brad think. . . It was just so much back and forth. Sort of politics. And appeasing each other. Picking our fights. It feels really good to just be like this is the way it’s going to be. I don’t like that concept, you know. This band that I want to create, I want it to be a real brotherhood, you know. After being in Dispatch, I know that the roles have to be assigned and it’s probably going to be me captaining the ship.

SP: So what are the disadvantages and advantages of being in a trio?

CU: I think part of the coolness of it was that we switched around, and different people sang leads and stuff. The problem was we were all pretty head strong. It was like as we grew up together. That last seven years, I think we grew into pretty different people and our goals got more and more different. It was really hard. Being in Dispatch was really tricky. You know, you’re in a band, it’s a business. Money always gets to be an issue. Creatively whose doing more of this or that.

SP: What was most surprising about Dispatch?

CU: I am continually surprised at the people coming out to the shows. I was so grateful. I felt like I could never thank everyone coming enough. I just know it’s an effort just to go to a show. I was just always amazed that people really made the effort to come see us again and again. That pretty much surprised me the most. I think it’s so cool. That’s pretty rewarding about being in a band. It’s just like that kind of that kind of relationship you may have with someone who likes your music.

SP: What would you say is positive about playing in front of thousands?

CU: It is exciting after playing for years in really small clubs, which is basically where I am going into now. That progression is really nice. At first you’re treated like shit and no one wants to hear your music and then you’re just like we’re going to do it, we don’t care what people think we’re going to keep playing and then eventually…

SP: To your roots, how did you get into music?

CU: My dad plays piano. My uncle lives with me too, and he plays the tuba. And my brothers played horn instruments. And I started playing trombone when I was in fourth grade. It’s sort of like you really didn’t have an option. It was just like anything, you just do it. We all played together.

SP: When did you start playing guitar?

CU: I was like thirteen. I stole my sister’s and almost started writing stuff just right off the bat. It was fun, you know. My favorite part of this whole process is writing songs.

SP: What are your inspirations, how do you go about songwriting?

CU: Some of it’s personal stuff like different experiences I’ve had abroad or in my own house or relationships. I like history a lot, so a lot of it is through history and books, you know.

SP: What are the most impacting trips you’ve been on?

CU: Probably Zimbabwe and Northern Ireland. I was playing soccer and coaching a team and teaching a little bit. After high school. I knew a family there so I went and stayed with them. Elias was just a friend of mine. I would play guitar with the kids in my class and we would make up songs and stuff.

SP: What were you doing in Northern Ireland?

CU: It was a year and a half ago. I was working at a peace camp for peace and reconciliation between Protestants and Catholics. The cover of the EP is a picture taken in Belfast.

SP: Are there certain people that you’ve met that have inspired you to go and write more?

CU: Yeah, I mean you always meet people. I lived in New York City for a couple years and everyday it was so inspiring just the different people you meet on the street. I sort of having my own political beliefs. You know I’m against capital punishment. I’m a member of the green party. I believe in peace. I think it’s important if you’re going to do the music thing and be in front of a crowd, it’s good to have something to say.

SP: Do you like the way U2 goes about doing their thing?

CU: Yeah I think U2 is great. How Bono is involved with Third World debt. And even how Springsteen does a lot. Obviously, Tom Morello and Zach de la Rocha do a lot.

SP: Have you met any of those people?

CU: No, I know Springsteen’s manager a little bit. Basically with Dispatch we met Dave Matthews, that was cool.

SP: Did that do anything for you?

CU: I like him, yeah. I think I get a little sensitive to people comparing us to him and this and that. I really liked him when he first came out. His first record, Remember Two Things, I liked. His newer stuff I haven’t been a huge fan of. But I like him as a person, he’s a cool guy, a funny guy. But other than that, I don’t know, I’m friends with Shawn Fanning. He’s a great guy. As far as other people, I met Ralph Nader. That was a thrill. I got arrested a year and a half ago. He wasn’t allowed into the debates. I’m sort of interested in social awareness.

SP: What inspired you to write the political songs “Open Up” and “State Inspector?”

CU: A lot my songs are sort of about the corruption of authority. Actually “State Inspector,” I work with people with disabilities. Mental and physical disabilities. I’ve just seen and heard horror stories of people not being treated well and being over diagnosed with pills. Been into some mental institutions that are just frightening with the sort of lack of care. “State Inspector” comes from a specific expose that the New York Times put out about a place called Seaside Manor, which is in Brooklyn. There are lots of other mental institutions that are just as bad and just turned out that way and got exposed by the Times. I think having been in that and having friends who were bipolar or who get labeled as being crazy and they just spend the rest of their life in these institutions, and people who are sort of in and out of institutions and knowing a bit about the disabled community inspired me. “Open Up” is basically about the Mexico-Texas border, racial profiling, sort of creating suspects and victims just so the policemen can fulfill the quota that they have to reach.

SP: How about “Gunship Politico?”

CU: “Gunship Politico” is sort of my own name for a gunboat diplomacy. Just the idea that if something’s wrong, trigger happy politicians resort to war. One thing that “Open Up” is sort of like it is the School of Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, also known as the School of Assasins, and it’s like a way we basically trained dictatorships to fight against their communist rebels in their own countries like in Nicaragua and Guatemala. Only because we were scared of communists, we would train these guys all these torture tactics, and really we were behind a number of different terrible atrocities in Latin America. It’s just like mind-blowing once you get into it. It’s that kind of mentality that really pisses me off. As far as “Gunship Politico,” it sort of has to do with saying you trigger-happy politicians, “I hope you don’t get what you’re after,” which is basically war. Some of it also comes from the Aminu Dialo, again sort of racial profiling, you know killing a guy just because he’s reaching for his wallet; he looks like he may be threatening or something. That’s some of the lyrics. It sort of starts off as a guy writing from prison, writing a letter to whoever’s in charge. The political prisoner is writing a letter to the gunship politico. When it says, “you let loose on the running man,” it’s the different accounts of policemen terribly overstepping their authority and you know, shooting. Dialo is just the most famous case. That stuff happens a lot. Like Leonard Peltier or something. That kind of police arrogance. It’s pretty mind-boggling. It sort of comes from that, it’s basically a song decrying against violence. More of that there are other alternatives than shooting a guy with forty-one shots or us going into Iraq with our smart bombs.

SP: Are you interested in keeping Flag of the Shiners independent, like Dispatch did?

CU: We were never totally against the record companies. We never met anyone who we liked. Who saw our vision. So were just like, “screw it,” and we’ll do it our own. I think with Flag of the Shiners, if we met someone who really saw the vision of the band and promised to stay out of it creatively. I wouldn’t say a major label, but maybe an Indie label is an option. I think Flag of the Shiners will be with some sort of Indie operation eventually and maybe or maybe not tied to a label. I know Shawn Fanning is starting up his own record label. Some of the music he’s looking for is wants to be reggae. That’s sort of interesting. And the name of his record company is “Ill Advised” which is a coincidence. We’ve been talking a little bit about that.

SP: Do you think you’ll have a full CD?

CU: I’m looking forward to that. Once the band really solidifies, you know. These songs were really tough because we never played them live and I was just sort of writing them as we go like the finishing touches. So I had them written for a while, but it was that last ten percent that I was sort of doing in the studio. I’m psyched to just have sort of a different style of recording next time and as far as like having the songs played live a bunch before we go in.

SP: Do you go to anybody once you’ve written your songs to see if they approve and see what they say, since your whole family is into music?

CU: Yeah, well I go to my brothers are lot. Just to be like, “What do you think of this song?” Really honest, you know?

SP: Just like yes or no?

CU: He’ll be like, “That part is sort of lame.” Then I’ll be like, “While then what do you think of this.” And he’ll be like, “Yeah I like that.” My brother, Ben, would be like, “That chord is too major, try going to a minor there.” He’s such a great supporter. I’ll send him tapes of just me on cassettes like with a little tape recorder. And he’ll like write notes and send it back to me. That’s really cool. He’s like, “Like this beginning,” “Don’t like this bridge.” It’s just nice, especially not having done that with Brad or Pete in the last couple years, my brothers are always great. And then Pete Halby is someone I always bounce stuff off of.

SP: So what’s in your CD player right now, what are you listening to?

CU: The Bad Brains. It’s sort of rasta punk. I’m listening to Fugazi. There’s a reggae band called Equalizer, they’re not playing anymore, but they’re from Montreal.

SP: Any newer bands that are out right now that you particularly like?

CU: Yeah, I love The White Stripes. They’re a fucking great band I think. I saw them at Lupo’s, which is in Rhode Island, a year ago. I like Tool a lot. I like System of a Down.

SP: Do you go to a lot of shows?

CU: I don’t go to that many. I don’t live in a city right now, so it’s sort of hard, I don’t see that many shows. Like when I was in New York, I would just wander around and peek in windows. But out here, I will just go in if it’s a band I really like. Besides the White Stripes, I did get a chance to see U2 at a small place up here. I don’t go to that many show. But there’s nothing better than going to see a band that kicks ass.

SP: Is there anybody in history that you wish you could have met?

CU: I like Abe Lincoln. I like Martin Luther King. Joan of Arc.

SP: Were you a big history buff in school?

CU: Not big. I liked reading the stories. The textbook, I thought, was bullshit. The stories in there that there was more to it than just the textbook dates. My dad’s sorta into that a little bit.

SP: How did Middlebury affect your interest in life?

CU: Not really. I was only there for a year. It was a cool place to go hiking. There were waterfalls nearby, we would go cliff-jumping and stuff. I liked that aspect of it. I liked snowboarding and stuff. It felt good to leave there and go to New York. Besides meeting Pete and Brad and a couple other guys, it really didn’t affect my songwriting except for that the music was pretty cool. There were a couple bands that I liked, and I played trombone in a funk band.

SP: Do you want to play trombone in your band?

CU: I don’t know. Right now I’m not feeling it. I do love it, but I think that may be down the road a little bit.

SP: Do you have any crazy experiences from being on the road?

CU: Our transmission dropped coming back in Wimpy in F-ingham, Illinois. Spent a couple days there, basically living in Steak-and-Shake. One time Brad and I drove away with a gas nozzle in Wimpy. We smuggled a couple girls into a Chicago show in t-shirt boxes. That was a pretty good one. And there’s some nights where we would just sort of get crazy and you know, sort of, it was pretty rare that we would “trash a hotel room.” But there were moments that it would sort of get out of hand. But nothing too bad. A lot of late nights just driving, trying to piece together gigs.

SP: Did you play a lot in the DC area when you guys were starting out?

CU: Not really, we played the Northwest Café, which is like a little like coffee show. We really didn’t play that much. Except we played like University of Richmond, you know.

SP: When you pick up your guitar what is the first couple notes you’ll play?

CU: I think it changes. Right now, I’m sort of working on whatever’s new the last couple days. Like I said before, the idea is to keep the band firing tons of new stuff. I don’t know, maybe it won’t be that good.

SP: After this short run of shows in the northeast, do you plan on playing show in DC, Chicago and the west coast?

CU: Yeah yeah, definitely in January. Definitely like early spring, late winter.

SP: What are your long term goals musically?

CU: I don’t really have one. I just feel with Dispatch, I just lost a love for the game, you know. It feels good to just get it back. Just to get that feeling back again. With the tightness with the crowd and there’s just no better moment when everyone’s just rocking out, with all worries aside. So I don’t have huge goals except if there’s some way in playing music I can create a little bit of social awareness and help causes that I think need to be helped that would do it for me, and just feeling psyched again, you know.

SP: How about going back to the Middle East?

CU: I’m psyched about that. That’ll feel good.

SP: Is there anything else you’d like your fans to know?

CU: Again, probably I just really appreciate all the interest that’s on the Flag of the Shiners website. You know, just whatever they’re doing, believe in themselves and give it a go.

SP: Okay my first question is, I don’t mean to pry but I don’t suppose you happen to have 6 fingers on your right hand?

BC: *laughs* No, I am looking for the 6-fingered man!

SP: I thought that would be a good way to start off.

BC: Great way to start it. In the airport in New York they were showing that little guy that says "Inconceivable!" so we were just talking about The Princess Bride yesterday.

SP: Best movie ever!

BC: It’s awesome.

SP: More seriously, you’re a musician now, what did you see yourself doing when you were in high school?

BC: I don’t know if I saw myself doing anything in particular. I loved sports and knew I wanted to be an athlete as much as I could.

SP: Lacrosse!

BC: So college was more about playing sports than playing music. And at the end of college, it kind of came around.

SP: Well that leads right into my next question, when you guys came together at Middlebury.do you remember how you met and how you discovered your mutual talents and everything?

BC: Yeah it kind of slowly unfolded, it was pretty funny. I had gone off my junior fall to do an introduction project, I was doing a lot of environmental studies classes and I took a semester off to go and work in Arizona. And when I came back, a friend of mine told me about this kid who he knew who was a soccer player and instead of playing soccer, he just played a ton of guitar. And so he gave me a call and it was Pete and he was like "Yeah I play the guitar," and I was like "Far out! Why don’t you just come over?" So he stopped what he was doing and came over and we jammed for a couple of hours and just really hit it off so he and I were playing kind of in a little acoustic duo for the entire spring and summer. And he and Chad had also met, Pete had played at Chad’s frat orientation, Chad had played at the halfway point in New York at little bit, playing for like 100 frat students each year and Pete played music at their little frat party and Chad said "Hey, I like your music" and so he and Pete started jamming. So Pete was sort of in two different projects. And that summer Pete and I started to record a little tape demo out here in Colorado so he came out and did that and then he flew back to the East coast and met up with Chad and recorded a couple of songs in New York. He had been working on both of us to kinda, to just quit the other projects and come together as the three of us but it just didn’t seem like it made any sense.

SP: Really?

BC: Cause all three of us were guitar players and all three of us were singers. So it was kind of weird trying to figure out who was gonna do what because were all gonna be doing the same thing.

SP: Oh, right.

BC: But finally we just tried it and pulled our voices together and they sounded really good and I gave the drums a chance.

SP: Yeah, how did you come about playing the drums?

BC: After about a year, well we played together for my entire senior year, the three of us just acoustic stuff, like we didn’t play any electric stuff and we got really bored, sorta like coffee shop music. Nothing to rock out. We were all big fans of Pearl Jam and Nirvana and Sound Garden, some heavier and bands and wanted to play with that energy and didn’t meet anybody at school that played those instruments so about mid-way through the year I started playing the drums a little bit on of Pete’s friend’s drum kit and Pete’s older brother gave Pete a bass to practice on. We just by necessity started figuring out the instruments ourselves. I don’t know man, I guess I was just an air-drummer growing up so I could jump on the drums and figure them out and the other two guys would play bass and they started swapping back and forth and that’s kind of how we got going on that.

SP: Wow. That’s so weird, you all started off doing the same thing and figured out a way to become this awesome band.

BC: It was funny cause Pete and I brought, his buddy had a drum set in storage and told us where we could go pick it up and we brought that up to Middlebury and a little PA system that we bought and Chad didn’t know about either and we just showed up and unloaded the car and Chad’s eyes were huge, like "What am I getting myself into?" It didn’t have a drum seat, you know it just had the drums so I used this old speaker and I didn’t have drum sticks we just went down to the art center and got those really nice hangers and stole two of them and broke the wooden dials off. We were a grass roots band! It was pretty funny.

SP: That’s awesome! Alright, so your music deviates a lot from the typical sounds heard today. Songs like Past the Falls and Seasons Movement III are really atmosphere in their musical nature. Where do you draw your inspiration from when creating not only these songs, but the sounds within them?

BC: That’s a good question. I think between the three of us we always thought that we could hear where we grew up in each other’s songs. I think its really true, like Pete having grown up alongside either a lake or the ocean his entire life. I mean, the water has definitely... his lyrics.

SP: Yeah you can definitely tell that.

BC: Yeah, I mean it’s there, it’s in kinda his artistry. I think my growing up in the West also has a bit of an effect on the songs that I’ve written – lyrically, and just the way they feel. But I love having like, Seasons or Past the Falls both have like kind of a real open air to them because the chords that I used have a lot of 3rd strings ringing throughout and I just like that, I kinda like having a real consistent thing running throughout a song. Some of my favorite artists have done that a lot, like Peter Gabriel. I think it just gives you a lot of, it gives everyone who is listening something that they can really sink their teeth into. I don’t really intentionally do it that way, I’m just drawn to it so, I don’t know but that’s a good question.

SP: Yeah Seasons is one of my favorite songs actually.

BC: That’s a really... I wrote that as part of my senior work at Middlebury.

SP: Right, on your senior project...

BC: Have you heard any of the other, have you heard the senior project with any of the other guitar-flute pieces?

SP: Yeah I have.

BC: They’re all kinda part of the same thing.

SP: Yeah, I thought that they sort of were.

BC: I thinking about putting a record together of instrumental music.

SP: Really?

BC: Yeah.

SP: Wow, well make sure you keep me updated about that! Alright, moving on to another song question. On occasion you’ve explained that Walk With You was first sung to a bunch of cows in Colorado? Is there any truth behind this? Or could you elaborate on that or the actual inspiration for the song?

BC:*laughs* It’s mostly true, it was for a bunch of cows in Arizona. When I went down my junior year I met these ranchers in Arizona who were really really cool and so I went back that summer after I had gone to Middlebury. So in the fall I was in Arizona, spring I was at Middlebury, and then in the summer I went back to Arizona to work on that ranch. I was there for 6-8 weeks and I just played my guitar every night. It was the coolest place because we didn’t have any electricity, it was just solar-powered. So when the sun came up, we would wake up, when the sun went down, we would go to sleep. Eat when you wanted to eat and when you wanted to play the guitar you’d play the guitar and otherwise you were just horseback-riding or taking care of the cows or something. I wrote Walk With You kinda for the couple that I was working for because they both had lived in Phoenix and had these six-figure jobs working in ad agencies and had a Mercedes and very materialistic lives and they just hated it. So they sold all of it and gave up everything they had and went to this little ranch that was absolutely beautiful but really hard to run. So I just thought that was really cool that they both kinda decided that with each other they were just not gonna have all that other stuff and go ranch in Arizona.

SP: That’s a really amazing thing.

BC: Yeah I think it’s a really, it’s a cool song. I think anybody can kind of read into it what they need to. I mean a lot of my faith plays itself out a lot in that song as well, you know that I think in life it’s really important to just let go and know that God has a plan for what you’re doing, which makes it a little bit easier to figure out or a little bit more anxiety-free to figure out where you’re headed.

SP: Yeah, I can definitely see that. Alright, do you have any pre-show rituals?

BC: Pre-show rituals... Let’s see here. Yeah I usually quote Top Gun lines to myself and visualize that I’m Iceman and it works for about the first maybe 3/4 of the movie but then I find out that it’s cooler to be Maverick so then I switch to visualizing that I’m Maverick.

SP: Nice, that’ll pump you up!

BC: Yeah and every now and then if I have to I can just pop right into The Princess Bride.

SP: Yes! Yes, that’s definitely the perfect thing to do.

BC: Yeah I can be the Dread Pirate Roberts!

SP: Perfect! Alright next question, the internet has been a major force in spreading the Dispatch sound. Online music is slowly becoming a major force to be reckoned with and as we have seen in the news it is starting to scare the major labels. Where do you see the music industry heading with the coming of this new online revolution? And do you ever think that there will be a time where the major labels are no longer needed or proved to be an obsolete idea?

BC: Hmmm...

SP: Interesting question.

BC: Yeah D, you’ve got some good ones! I think, yeah there’s no doubt that every year more and more people are using the internet not just for music, but for all of their commercial needs or whatever. I’d say probably in the next 5-10 years there’s gonna be a huge shift not away from the idea of an album entirely but I do know that it’s going to be more singles-driven. That people could, a band could go record three songs let’s say and put them on their website and make them available for download for 75 cents a song. And that people at home can then go, "Okay, I want two of those three songs, I don’t like the third one. And then I’m gonna go to another band and buy two songs." And you can download your own album basically paying for whatever you want to hear and not having to deal with songs you don’t like. And I also think that a third part about the internet aside from that, and at some point in the next 6 months to a year I think we’re going to do this, all of the bootleg shows that we’ve recorded since we’ve started, we probably have 2 or 3 hundred DAT tapes. I think we’re gonna hire a company to create a server for us and just upload every single thing that we’ve ever recorded. And do it like a fan club where if people wanna pay 5 bucks a month they can have unlimited access to everything we’ve ever done.

SP: Wow.

BC: So live shows, rare mixes, re-mixes, stuff that didn’t necessarily make it onto a record can be available to people who want to find it.

SP: Wow, people would go nuts over that.

BC: Yeah, I think it’d be cool, kind of like internet just gives you the opportunity to put up your archives and if people are interested they can go find it and if they’re not interested, that don’t even have to even know it exists.

SP: Yeah!

BC: As far as major labels being rendered totally obsolete at some point, I don’t see that happening because they have so much money and so much political power right now that I can see them doing what they’re trying to do right now. It’s gonna be hard for them to, I don’t there will be as many of them and that they will have as much control as they do now but I definitely think that if a label wants to stay viable they’re just gonna have to literally buy up Sean Fanning and his ideas and make universal... create some sort of internet presence.

SP: Right, they’re gonna have to buy into the internet more.

BC: Well they’re trying to right now I just don’t think they’re doing a good job of it.

SP: Right, but they’re not going to go away.

BC: They’re not going to go away. But I think the greatest thing hopefully is that the internet is going to sway people away from horribly stale radio into the opportunity, kinda just like Napster did, for people to just find quality music. That would be a beautiful thing, I would love to see that happen because I can’t stand the fact that we don’t really have access to radio just because a record label hasn’t payed our way to get on the airwaves.

SP: Right, I’m sure that’s really really frustrating.

BC: Yeah, but Chicago for us was really cool.

SP: Right exactly, for that exact reason.

BC: So maybe somewhere someone will pick up the smallness of that you know.

SP: Right, it might take a while but hopefully it will spread.

BC: Yeah, and if not though we know that our fans are pretty tech-savvy and they can spread the word on the internet and so other people pick up.

SP: Right, it’s amazing that you guys have come this far without the radio, without any of that. That’s definitely something to be proud of.

BC: Yeah, pretty psyched. I mean last night I saw Jack Johnson...

SP: Yeah, I watched that, on Letterman?

BC: On Letterman! I just couldn’t believe it!

SP: I know I watched that too, it was a rerun.

BC: I mean how cool is that, that guys is just one of the greatest guys, I mean just so laid-back and really talented but at the same time, we can’t get on Letterman. There’s no way. Even if we’re headlining Central Park and Jack supporting us, we can’t do that.

SP: Right, you still can’t do that. That’s frustrating.

BC: Yeah but it’s kinda cool to know that we’re doing it on our own.

SP: It is! Alright so the Dispatch fan base demographic has shifted over the last 2 years from mainly college age to include a younger age category. With this change came a lot of growth. How do you feel about the young fans and the increase in size?

BC: I think it’s great! I mean, the more people that enjoy our music and find meaning in it the better. I’m not that psyched when I look on... I don’t know Star6 isn’t really a good barometer of our fan base because so many people are just like so excited that they can stir up controversy by making a post and then watching everyone kind of go nuts about it.

SP: Right, we’ve had problems with that.

BC: It’s stupid but it just comes with the territory. But I think it’s hard for older fans to wanna come to shows where they feel overrun by 15 and 16 year olds. So I wish there was a way to kinda balance that out a little bit it so that everybody who’s into our music would just be like "Yeah it’s a great live experience and people are good to each other, it’s not that big of a deal." But I kind of feel like it’s gotten into like this... you know kids getting drunk for the first time and that’s tough you know, there’s nothing we can do about it but I wish it was different.

SP: Sorta comes with the territory...

BC: Yeah it does, but I’m just really happy to know that we have more people smiling and enjoying our music and that our influence just goes a little bit further.

SP: Exactly, and take what comes with that.

BC: Yeah!

SP: Alright here are some fun questions for you. If you could back in time and change one thing, what would it be?

BC: On a song?

SP: No, on anything. Go back in time and change anything.

BC: Oh that’s a little better. Well recently it’d be that USA beat Germany in the frickin’ World Cup. Ahhh, just kills me.

SP: Oh I know! I watched that.

BC: Sickest game! Oh my gosh, I’m so proud of them though.

SP: They made it way farther than anyone thought that they would anyway.

BC: Oh no kidding. So I’m gonna have two different answers for that, that’s my athletic one and this is my music one: I wish that Bob Marley was still alive. I think he was one of the most unique contributors of all time to the realm of music.

SP: Yes. I watching the VH1 Behind the Music on him last night.

BC: Oh really?

SP: Yeah it was on, I caught the end of it.

BC: I haven’t seen that.

SP: Yeah I know, I was really happy, I never watch TV and I flipped the channel and there it was!

BC: That had to be way cool.

SP: Yeah, he was definitely an innovator in music.

BC: Yeah, huge innovator. And then on more of a global scale, let’s if there’s something I could change... I don’t know, man, this is just not even possible but if I could I would go back and try to eliminate the possibility of something like World War II from happening. It’s just one of those huge deals of violence, I think we should just kind of shake that idea that a political struggle should just become more of a military struggle. I wish that that wasn’t...

SP: The only way out.

BC: Yeah, I wish that wasn’t the deal.

SP: Well those are definitely worthy things of changing.

BC: Yeah World Cup Soccer, Bob Marley, and World War II!

SP: Yeah those are good answers! So along the same lines, if you could meet one person throughout history, who would it be?

BC: Oh, Jesus, no question. I think the more I’ve researched that guy the more I’m just amazed. I mean it kind of bums me out that Christians have kind of a built-in stereotype. I think the media has really pigeon-holed us but it’s really incredible because a lot of people are growing up in a Christian society or whatever a "Christian Society" is in Western civilization and they think they know who Jesus is and what Christians are all about and it’s just absolutely remarkable when you dig in and find out a little more about his life and who he was as a person. So I just wish that there wasn’t two thousand years between where we are now and the legacy that he left. I would love to, I mean there’s never been another person who has had such of an influence on civilization at all, period.

SP: Yeah that’s completely true.

BC: It’s just incredible, I mean wherever you look...

SP: ...there he is. So what’s in your CD player right now?

BC: What’s in my CD player right now? Do I have a CD player? *laughs* We’ll pop it open and we’ll see. This is going to be a funny answer because they’re all CDs that I’ve never listened to before.

SP: Oh, that’s good!

BC: Alright, let’s see here... are you ready?

SP: Yeah.

BC: Alright, I’m just going to answer this truthfully!

SP: Okay!

BC: Biota Bondo... these are all bands that our booking agent represents so I pop in the CDs and see what... a guy named Jim White. Dave Matthews, the Lillywhites... the Lillywhite sessions.

SP: Oh nice, are you a Dave fan?

BC: Yeah. Let’s see what is this... Nancy Griffith with the London Symphony Orchestra. And this is... Live, the band Live.

SP: Oh nice, what CD?

BC: It has stars all over it, I don’t know.

SP: Oh, I don’t know which one that is.

BC: But so a couple of those I don’t even have a clue what they are.

SP: Alright, that works.

BC: I’ve been listening to Pearl Jam’s "No... Uh-oh.... *slight break while Brad sneezes and blows his nose... his allergies were acting up* Okay! I’ve been listening a lot to Pearl Jam’s "No Code."

SP: Oh I love that CD!

BC: Yeah, it’s awesome! And the new P.O.D. record "Satellite."

SP: Oh I’ve never listened to them. So what’s your favorite book?

BC: Favorite book...

SP: Besides The Princess Bride.

BC: Obviously. Ummm, golly...

SP: Any ideas?

BC: Well off the top of my head I’d say The Bible, but that’s not really fantasy reading. I mean The Bible is probably my favorite book because it’s the one that I spend kind of repetitive going back to whereas I don’t really grab one book and read it three times if I like the story. But I would say that... golly, I absolutely loved... I’m starting to read the Tolkien books because of all the hype around The Fellowship of the Rings.

SP: Oh really?

BC: Yeah and that is just some of the most amazing writing.

SP: Yeah it is, I read those a long time ago.

BC: Yeah, or the Chronicles of Narnia? C.S. Lewis?

SP: Oh I love those!

BC: Yeah you could say my favorite authors are C.S. Lewis and J.R. Tolkien.

SP: Nice, that works.

BC: And the old hairy dudes that wrote The Bible.

SP: Interesting answers again! Alright, here’s some more questions on Dispatch. Instrumentation is imperative in making a group’s sound unique. What sort would you add to the Dispatch sound if you could; not necessarily in the way of performers, but rather in the instruments themselves?

BC: Gosh, like a really really good reggae-keyboard player would be incredible. I don’t like just flat-out keyboards because I think they sound kind of cheesy but really good old-school keyboard players are just incredible. You don’t really notice them that much, but they just make a huge difference.

SP: That’d be cool.

BC: That would be cool. What else... I’d just love to have another percussion player with us. So a really cool developed percussion section that you might find with Paul Simon or Carlos Santana, that would be cool.

SP: Well you had, I can’t remember his name, guesting with you in New York and Boston...

BC: Guitar player?

SP: The percussionist.

BC: Oh, the percussion player. Ray, yeah, Ray Dejesus. Yeah he’s very cool.

SP: Alright, so what’s on a lot of people’s minds right now is the recent new that Dispatch will be going on hiatus until 2003. Can you guys us some insight into the reasons you decided to do this?

BC: Yeah, definitely. This is a really important part of the interview I think.

SP: Yeah it is.

BC: The three of us have spent so much time together, I mean kind of living in each other’s lives. Really for the last 7 years, just imagine spending 7 years of your life with two other people. Imagine that those two... Imagine you’re a painter and that you’re working with two other people and every canvas that you paint on, everyone has to work together. It’s really really difficult to share the same art and feel that that’s the only outlet that you have. That’s one reason why we’re going to take some time off because each one of us has so much undeveloped, personal material that we want to get cracking on. Pete’s done an incredible job, he’s got a second solo album that will come out sometime soon. And Chad’s has about 40 or 50 songs that he hasn’t even played for us that he’s going to use for his first solo project and I’ve got a lot of stuff up my sleeve that I’d like to do in the next six to nine months. So creatively, it’s just time for each one of us to kind of have our own chances to just have total control over. Our greatest strength is that we work together on Dispatch projects and our greatest weakness is that we work together. Because we all, well also, we all play the same instruments and we don’t have kind of our own little series of influence. So, that’s kind of a creative answer. As far as the lifestyle... we’re exhausted. It’s just not fun to not have a roof anywhere, sort of living out of a duffel bag. I mean it may look exciting and it is exciting at times to be up on stage and to have those moments, have those moments of just... it’s amazing connecting with a crowd and having five thousand people jumping up and down but less than probably one percent of those people have even any idea who you are off the stage. And so there’s this kind of strange loneliness that grows in the midst of all that attention and excitement that you realize that no one really knows who you are, and you don’t have a home and don’t really have a family or a community that you are engaged with really, so I think each one of us really wants to spend as much time as we can while we’re on hiatus with our family and just connect with a community and living somewhere and having a bed and a desk and living a little bit.

SP: That’s understandable.

BC: That’s frickin’ huge! And then also, just from kind of like a career standpoint, we’re not totally sure that this is what we want to do. I mean, its pretty exciting to have this opportunity in front of us but it’s pretty daunting also to think, "Wow if we did this for another five or ten years it would change the path of our lives to the point where we couldn’t really come back." I would like to have more of a stable lifestyle at some point so that I can settle down and have a family someday. I would never want to have my wife and kids on a tour bus. Maybe just for like a month or two out of the year. We’re just all of a sudden at the point where we want our lives back and if we’re going to continue to play as Dispatch or to push our music careers forward as individuals or collectively it’s going to be a totally different style. I bet we would do... I don’t know maybe two or three months of touring as opposed to twelve months. Or we would record probably, record records in a different way...as opposed to recording over six months we’d probably just knock it out in six weeks. Just take a lot more time to live, to live independently. And so we just maybe don’t feel like we’re in each other’s hair as much. It’s been a really interesting ride and it’s been just an amazing life lesson to understand that relationships and friendships are so much more important. I mean we’ve had a lot of offers to kind of... to go, to go for it and to get a huge chunk of money up front and to just have MTV and the radio and kind of the world at our fingertips and it created such a strain on our relationships that the band almost broke up. You know, I mean it was just so difficult when we were really starting to experience success, understanding how the three of us were going to deal with that. I mean they would just do anything and offer you anything in order to almost drive a wedge between the three of us, you know?

SP: Yeah, that’s not what you want.

BC: Yeah and we just realized that, golly you know, we better get through this and kinda put up some walls to defend each other and to defend ourselves against this crazy temptation and hopefully get through it. And taking the spring off was huge because even though we had such a wonderful fall tour and the tour bus and the dream crew and the shows, we just weren’t enjoying it the way we should’ve because we were really burned out. So we took a bunch of months off and we wanted to put at least these shows together, the two in Boston and the one in New York and the one here in Colorado and know that if this was going to be kind of a slowing down of Dispatch that we go out with a huge bang. And we ended up playing these shows and we’re enjoying ourselves! Enjoying it for what it was.

SP: Yeah, it seemed like you guys were having a ton of fun up there.

BC: Yeah! We are really hopeful that after six or nine months we’ll have figured out a way to strike a balance between our personal lives and just the crazy cool phonetic traveling dream that is Dispatch and I think that we’re capable of doing that but right now the only way to make that possible is to walk away from it. Feel like we have control again and our friendships are intact right now and I’m so proud of that and if at some point we decide to walk away from Dispatch in order to kind of preserve the beauty of the story, the fact that the three of us are still like brothers, it’s a miracle. We’ve been through so much together and we’ve had some of the most unique and exciting experiences together and we’ve also been way down in the dumps with each other, I mean it’s been really hard for us creatively, philosophically, and emotionally in a world of three people. We’re very different people but together we just know that we’ve just created something so we’re trying to preserve it ultimately rather than go the industry route. I’m really hopeful but knowing the three of us are okay with each other, I don’t care what happens. That was the goal, that we would enjoy everything that we did together and when it became more business than friendship then we needed to kind of reevaluate.

SP: Right, cause that ultimately is the most important thing, your friendship.

BC: Yeah, definitely.

SP: So are you working on solo stuff now?

BC: I have a couple of projects that I’m actually trying to work on before I do anything personal like Alice in Chains, when the lead singer Layne Staley passed away I realized that with Brett Eliason, Pearl Jam’s sound guy who helped us with the live record and the DVD, that I had an opportunity to create something positive around that and right now I’m working on trying to organize a benefit record. I’m going out and finding bands who have been influenced by Alice in Chains who would be willing to record a Chains cover and send it in and we’d create a huge compilation record and call it "Break the Chains" and the benefit would be that all the money that we would raise would go either to drug rehabilitation clinics in Seattle and to drug prevention awareness. There are lots and lots of very high-profile artists out there who would be into it and I just think it would be really cool to bring positivity out of a pretty sad and dark story. We wouldn’t be glorifying his life, we would be glorifying his music and saying, "Hey, take a quick look at this story and you know, be careful." Even Layne Staley, it’s just you know, gosh I just have never seen anything so awful as seeing a best friend waste away. I think people need to find out about his life for what it was and also learn from it rather than just kind of closing the door. So if I can get that off the ground, that’ll probably be a pretty cool little project over the next six or nine months. And at the same time I think I’m gonna try and help out some bands, one that you’re aware of in particular, The Lost Trailers. I think I’m going to help them record a record. I just love producing and I love working in the studio and I think I’m going to try to help some friends get some of that stuff done and then in the process just start writing songs again and take time to kind of let my own creativity come back out because I haven’t played much guitar in the past two years and that’s just not my style. Somethin’s comin’!

SP: I can tell you’re really excited to have all this time to yourself again.

BC: Yeah! And I’m gonna go become sort of a world traveler Deirdre. Goin’ to Costa Rica in August and then I’m going to Fiji in September, coming back for a wedding and then I think I’m going to New Zealand. So I’m gonna spend some time doin’ that stuff.

SP: Wow, that’s some amazing world traveling there.

BC: Yeah, I’ve always wanted to do this.

SP: Alright, I think that’s all the questions I have for you. Do you guys ever check out SpatchPatch? Do you ever?

BC: Yeah I think I’ve checked it out probably seven or eight times, the last time was probably a month ago. I thought it was amazing. You guys have more info at that site, if I want to learn something about the band, I’ll go there! I mean if I’ve forgotten what my favorite cereal is, I’ll go there.

SP: Yes, yes we’ll have all that information for you. Anything else you’d like to tell the fan community?

BC: Yeah, I know there’s a lot of questions as to what’s going on with the DVD and when the project is going coming out.

SP: Yeah, I was going to ask about that.

BC: So I’ll give you a little more information about that. We decided to delay it because of the CD that we’re going to include and we wanted to include a CD because we’ve got these really cool re-mixes of "Bang Bang," they’re incredible -- like Beastie Boy drum root remixes of songs. Really funky cool. And we’ll have live versions of "One Truth" and "Gasoline Dreams" and a new song called "Stinkin’ Like a Fat Old Pig."

SP: Yeah, what is that all about??

BC: *laughs* I can’t tell you! There’s other songs like "Mayday" and "Walk With You" we have live versions that weren’t included on Gut the Van, so we thought about including those. So it’s basically going to be a collection of really cool remixes of songs that people haven’t heard before. And the DVD is going to be on shelves with CDs. It’s not going to be like on the DVD rack in the back of Best Buy or something. It’s going to be packed in such a way that it’s going to look like... have you seen like Ben Harper’s little box set? With the canvas cover?

SP: No, I haven’t but...

BC: Or maybe like the Bob Marley re-masters? They’re like CDs but they’re like double thick. But that’s what it’s going to be like, it’s going to be the dimensions of a CD box but probably two to three times as thick and it’s going to unfold and open up so it will have the DVD on one side and the CD on the other. And we’re going through Universal distribution, which is huge. That’s probably going to be the easiest thing of Dispatch to find, period.

SP: Yeah, and that’s kind of funny.

BC: It is, it’s gonna be in all the stores everywhere. So we’re just taking the time to set it up right because now that we’re working with a record label on the distribution side it takes like 8 or 10 weeks to set up. Right now we have all the screenings lined up between July 18th and August 8th and then the DVD should be coming out mid to late August.

SP: Okay, and for the DVD screenings a lot of people have been asking if you guys will be performing? I understand that Rich Price will be there, right?

BC: Price is going to be at I think all the shows and I’m going to be at all the shows and so he and I will be playing a bunch of music together. And then there will probably be two or three shows where Chad or Pete or Chad and Pete will be there. But there aren’t going to be any shows where Dispatch plays like a set of music. But when we play in Austin and Houston and Toronto, places we’ve never been before, I’ll probably jump up on stage and play three or four Dispatch songs and then Rich will probably play three of four of his songs and then we’ll just be playing together. Let me give you the layout too because I haven’t seen all the dates on the website yet so let me just tell you where we’re going to be and you can say that SpatchPatch has the info!

Shred: Okay it’s 10:00 Sunday night right here on 104.1 WBCN Boston, time for Boston Emissions. Tonight dispatch playing live in the BCN studios. We’re not sure if we get two or three of the members but they’re at the door so someone should probably let them in.

Shred: Dispatch going to be playing live in the WBCN studios, that’ll be happening sometime around 11 o’clock. The band is playing two shows at the Fleet Boston Pavilion on this Friday and Saturday night. Here’s one of the bands that’s going to be opening for them along with Strangefolk, this is The Kickovers from their Osaka CD and a band that also played live in the BCN studios, this one is called "Grounded" from The Kickovers.

*Grounded from the Kickovers played*

Shred: The Kickovers, warming up for Dispatch *laughs* on Saturday night at the Fleet Boston Pavillion, one of the two nights *laughs* that they’re doing – Everybody’s gasping because everybody in Dispatch and their entourage are in the studio with me now, not tuning their instruments or anything but watching the Western Conference Championship game in the NBA, so there you go. Yes we have a little TV here in the BCN studios, but it doesn’t get cable which kinda sucks. Also, oh yeah the Kickovers, like I said, playing with dispatch on Saturday. They’ll be playing live it the WBCN studios in about 45 minutes or so.

Shred: Well past 11 o’clock so sorry we’re a little delayed, we’ve been teasing the fact that we’re gonna have the Band Dispatch play live for you in the BCN studios, we’l that’s been cancelled, sorry. No, they’re all right here and they’re ready to play for you live in the BCN studios just like we have been talking about all night so would you please welcome Dispatch live on WBCN.

Brad (with British accent): 'Allo love.

Chad (with British accent): 'Allo.

Brad (with British accent): 'Allo then. Cheers mates, thanks for waitin'!

Chad (with British accent): Right.

Pete: How you doin?

Brad (with British accent): Peter.

Pete: I'm doin' great. We're gonna...

Brad (with British accent): Can you do it with the accent man? Fantastic!

Pete (with British accent): With an accent... don’t have one of those things.

Brad (with British accent): Play a bloody song will you?

Pete: We goin' right into it?

Chad: Aye.

Brad: This next song is the second...

Chad: second song

Brad: ...second song on our third album.

Pete: Alright, it's a tune called bullet holes.

*Bullet Holes* (acoustic)

Shred: Dispatch!

Pete: Alright!

Brad: Alright!

Shred: Live on WBCN - Boston Emissions. Why don’t you guys play that, you know, musical chairs thing...

Pete: Musical chairs, alright...

Shred: ...right now because they you can set up for the next song. One of the things that happens at a Dispatch show is they change around and reconfigure and play all sorts of... everybody plays everybody else’s instruments and since there’s only two acoustic guitars here tonight, they’re just reconfiguring microphones. But we do have Brad, Chad, and Pete...

Brad: and Shred!

Shred: And Dispatch! Live in the WBCN Studios. Chad, I love that shirt, the PawSox 1977 AAA Baseball. I’m all about the minor leagues, love it.

Brad: Chad, were you alive then?

Chad: Yes, I was one years old.

Brad: One years, dang.

Pete: What a, what a year.

Brad: What a fan you must have been.

Shred: Also, remember, speak right into those microphones.

Pete (louder): What a year!

Brad (louder): What a fan you must have been!

Shred: Okay, Brad, you don’t have to speak that much into the microphone!

Brad: What a fan... sorry.

Shred: Okay, we’ve got all these little scribbling marks, questions on pieces of paper, things that I wanted to ask you. I went to your website, dispatchmusic.com, and I don’t know what’s wrong with it or if it’s something with my computer but it was almost like a porno site that you go to and you click on and it just keeps on... windows keep popping up and popping up and I couldn’t access any of the information that I wanted to about, like, bio, tour dates... It would keep on popping up the DVD window and then it would pop up the tour date window and it just set me in this cycle and I’m like, "That’s okay.. I’m just gonna hang out with them and talk stuff; I don’t need to see the website."

Brad: Well, we like to throw a lot at you. We throw a lot of darts just to see if any of ‘em stick.

Shred: Those pop-up windows stick! I mean, you got the one pop-up window that’s about the DVD release... I mean, do you know if there’s problems with your website? Or is it just problems with my computer?

Brad: Well we’ve never even...Chad have you ever seen the website before?

Chad: I didn’t know we had a website.

Brad: Yeah, there you have it.

Shred: You have a website! As a matter of fact I think your likeness is on there.

Chad: I’ll have to check it out

Shred: You should really take a look at these things.

Brad: Chad you’d love it, man, you just hit ‘Return’ a lot.

Pete: Worldwideweb...

Chad: ‘Enter’

Pete: That’s weird, I thought it usually worked, I don’t know. It can be troublesome, most computers, you know.

Shred: Right, I mean, I’m not the most computer savvy person out there. You guys came from Chicago... was that not last night, but Friday night?

Brad: Friday night.

Pete: Yeah, we had a great gig in downtown Chicago. It was our biggest gig, it was I think 8,000 people.

Shred: Did you play a venue there?

Pete: It was just an outdoor festival for The Zone, radio station out there, 94.7 I think, is that right fellas?

Brad: Yes indeed.

Shred: Oh yeah, you know if they’re listenin’ out there, they’ll tune us in.

Brad: It’s the only place we’ve really gotten rotation and they kinda tested us out a couple months ago and now we’ve bumped up to heavy rotation. So it’s a brand new format, I guess they’re trying out a bunch of independent music.

Shred: And they invited... they flew you out and invited you to come play the festival?

Dispatch: Yes.

Shred: Who else was playing the festival?

Pete: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Sensefield.

Shred: Oh right. Well that’s an interesting...

Brad: It was awesome.

Shred: That’s an interesting bill for you guys to be on.

Pete: Yeah it was cool.

Shred: I mean, was there any sense, and now, have you played Chicago before on tour?

Brad: Couple times but much smaller rooms.

Pete: I mean the Metro and the Vic.

Shred: But the Metro is pretty big

Pete: Yeah, I think it’s 1100.

Brad: Those are amazing places to play.

Pete: Cool room.

Shred: Yeah, and at the Metro you’re right next to Rigley Field.

Brad: Yeah, such a great town.

Pete: It was awesome.

Brad: Such a great town...

Shred: So this one, you basically just flew out there for that, it was like a one-off radio festival and then you guys flew back in and all of you flew back in and thank you very much for coming tonight Pete, I heard that there was a chance that you might have to go to New York City.

Pete: Yep, no I made it. I’m psyched to be here.

Chad: It’s good to have you hear, man.

Pete: Charlie!

Brad: On be half of Chad and I and the rest of the band, we’d like to thank you for coming.

Pete: I didn’t know we were going right into a song there so...

Brad: You did great, man!

Pete: Did I? Okay we went right into it. Okay, good.

Brad: I’d like to thank Milwaukee, Chicago, and Providence for having me today. It was, it was great.

Pete: Oh, they flew you right in?

Brad: Yeah, the mayor met me in each, it was great.

Shred: You mean that was your flight route?

Brad: Train, plane, train, bus.

Shred: No automobile?

Brad: No, that’s comin’ later. I mean, after this we’re gonna automobile it for a while.

Shred: You’d be part of a movie... Steve Martin and John Candy.*

Pete: That’s a great movie. You’re going the wrong way!

Brad: You’re going the wrong way! What??

Shred: Don’t get your hand caught in between those pillows! Alright, well how does it feel.. I mean, you guys are, you’re on the radio in Chicago, but how does it feel to be such a kind of, like, large band? I mean, you’re playing two shows, pretty much should sellout at FleetBoston Pavilion, that’s like 9000 tickets. And to be really largely ignored by the radio? *laughs* "Feelin’ really good Shred... thank you very much for asking."

Brad: Shred! Shred you want us to really answer that?

Shred: Isn’t that just I mean..the only...

Brad: Well it’s cool that we’ve done it without radio I guess, but it’d be nice to get acknowledged at some point. That’s why Chicago was a pretty cool moment for us, you know.

Shred: Okay.

Brad: So, I don’t know, we just looked at touring as something that we could control. We knew we could book gigs and play, but we never knew if we could get radio support without being on a label. So...

Shred: Right.

Brad: ...we just kinda kept doing it.

Shred: Even if you’re on a label though, a lot of the bands don’t get radio support.

Brad: Yeah, there’s no guarantee really anywhere.

Shred: I mean, there’s a lot of the bands that, and I mean I think I want to go into that a little bit later on but there’s a lot of bands that maybe you get into and stuff that maybe don’t get the radio support that build phenomenal live followings. I mean, it could be anybody, as big as Phish or even, you know, smaller than that. So I mean, to me it’s kind of like you’re in a control position as you say because that’s the thing that you can control– touring, you can control recording your records, you can control selling your records because you don’t have a label that gives you all those, that is dictating all this to you. You’re dictating it to everyone, even to your fans.

Pete: I guess what we’re hoping too is that other radio stations get involved ‘cause I thought what The Zone was doing was really cool, playing a lot of good music. And we always felt that our records were recorded well, so you know, maybe at some point radio will pick it up.

Shred: Yeah, right, maybe...

Brad: Shred!

Shred: Keep the dream alive, Pete!

Brad: Hey, do you know anyone at BCN? Shred, do you know anyone at BCN?

Shred: Yeah, you’re on the radio right now aren’t ya?

Pete: Yeah Boston!

Brad: What’s up! Sunday Sunday Sunday!

Chad: Monster Truck...

Shred: Let’s have you play another song. This is one that Brad’s gonna take...

Brad: I’d like to congratulate England and Sweden on a great game today. Look at that goal!

Pete: Look at that goal!

Shred: Are we gonna have to turn off the TV guys?

*Prince of Spades with Alice in Chains "Rooster" cover*

Shred: WBCN with Dispatch performing live in the BCN Studios. Really Brad I thought it was gonna be Chad that did the "Rooster" thing and not you.

Brad: Oh.

Shred: I thought he was the big Alice in Chains...

Brad: We, gosh, whoever gets to it first!

Chad: I just sing Jerry’s part in the back, it’s all good.

Shred: Alright well Dispatch performing live in the BCN studios. You have two shows coming up June 7th and 8th. Both shows are on sale or did one show get...kind of taken...

Brad: The first show

Shred: ...is it sold out? pretty much?

Brad: I think it’s close enough that they’re not selling any more tickets.

Shred: Right, right.

Brad: The second show there are definitely some seats left.

Shred: Okay, and that’s this Friday night and Saturday night. You guys have been together exactly how long?

Pete: Seven years

Shred: man...

Brad: Seven long fat years.

Chad: Long years.

Brad: Seven lean years and seven fat years.

Pete: Still to go...

Shred: For a little while there, I don’t know maybe a year or so ago, there was talk about you guys...I mean it just started coming up real quick. I mean, did you guys feel like it came up real quick? I mean, seven years and then all of a sudden - Bam! "Wow, we’re playing to a hell of a lot more people now." And I mean, but that, to me after seven years wouldn’t seem quick because you’d been doing it for seven years but then all of a sudden in six months you went from playing, I don’t know, smaller venues to much bigger ones.

Pete: Yeah, it definitely happened fast. I think it was, we did a lot of touring of the schools -- high schools, you know we would play morning assemblies, we would play all the frat parties, weddings, and then I think it just kind of spread word of mouth and then we were lucky to be, you know, right when Napster was really big and so music was spreading. We went out to Pomona College and played a Halloween party.** We’d never been out there and a thousand people showed up singing a bunch of the songs, and so it was really kind of weird occurrences like that.

Brad: It was good timing, definitely.

Shred: So basically the free music exchange really helped you guys.

Brad: It was huge for us. And that was the closest thing we could get to radio. If people wanted to hear our music, they could go to Napster and find it.

Shred: Right.

Brad: So you know, we became good buddies with Sean Fanning*** and while there were plenty of flaws in his system, it was kind of a cool step towards just quality music rising to the top.

Shred: Is that, I mean, essentially do you attribute a lot of your rise to Napster? I mean, was there any other sort of things that came into play? Other than a lot of hard working and touring? Finally?

Brad: Well our booking agent I’d say had a lot to do with it too, I mean we we’re lucky enough to have kind of residency gigs here at The Middle East and in New York at The Wetlands but we couldn’t get ourselves booked, you know, across the country even though we knew we had pockets of fans. So once we got with our booking agent he just put us on really good tours and got in front of all those people and we were able to kinda step over a lot of the smaller gigs once we proved that we had a good fan base out there.

Shred: Yeah, and I mean it’s a tremendous fan base now. Is it all the way across the United States essentially? Or is there still, like in Demoins, Iowa, still doesn’t know who the hell you guys are.

Brad: Yeah, we haven’t done that much in the midwest. Actually, Madison was awesome, Chicago...

Chad: Minneapolis was great.

Brad: Minneapolis, First Ave.

Shred: First Avenue, right.

Pete: Great room.

Brad: But San Fran, Los Angeles, sold out the Fillmore, sold out the House of Blues.

Shred: And essentially is this like a network that people are plugging into? I mean every band in Boston right now is like, "How the hell did they do it? What did they do? What’s their secret?"

Chad: I think, well, especially in Boston you just sort of grow it locally and then you just, you know, build it from there and I think we gotta hand it to The Middle East for letting us sort of have sort of a residency there, you know play like once a month.

Brad: Guys like Gamelan/the Avalon... they were our best promoters, you know. We didn’t have a booking agent and they just plugged us in whenever we could play in town.

Shred: I beat Andrew Stall every day...

Brad: Andrew! What up Andrew? It’s Brad, remember me?

Shred: ...on the roller hockey court...every single day I go and beat him up, every day.

Brad: Yeah, they were awesome to us.

Shred: And you used to be the band "One Fell Swoop" and that was basically when you guys were all in Middlebury College together?

Dispatch: Yep.

Shred: And you played down here significantly. You played Harper’s Ferry a lot...

Brad: Emily’s, little-known Emily’s.

Shred: To me, it sort of solidified for you guys when you played the hometown gig at Avalon in between Christmas and New Years.

Brad: Oh yeah!

Shred: It was like, "Oh my god, what is going on here?" Because essentially, school’s out! School’s not in. You know maybe the kids are coming back home for vacation, for christmas vacation and stuff. But that was I mean, everybody had said "Oh, this band’s got a college fan base. When these college kids go home, it’ll dry up." And you guys booked that show, and I was at that show, and I was just like "Whoa."

Brad: We were like that too, man. That was our first time getting headline. We were floored.

Shred: And it was at Avalon.

Brad: Yeah, we had opening there a couple of times, you know playing at like 6:00.

Shred: Essentially you had opened for Pat McGee and The Samples there?

Brad: Two different times.

Shred: Right, and that also helped out your fan base. And right now you’re giving it right back to Pat McGee Band by having him open up at the FleetBoston on the first sold-out night. And that’s great, that you know you’re able to give that back to Pat after you know, well I think that you handed him a hand as well with the Avalon show that you played with them and also The Samples, you know and then I think that that’s where people were like, "Oh my God... is this band... I mean, can we get this band to headline?" I guess maybe the people over at ClearChannel or whatever, they like took a chance and it was a slam dunk...unlike Shaq.

Brad: Well the first time we went West we went with G. Love and played some really sweet rooms and the promoters just kinda gave us their ear after that. I mean, there have been a lot of bands that have helped us out that we were really fired up to play with.

Shred: Right, yea there’s another great guy who maybe doesn’t sell a lot of records but still has a tremendous live following.

Brad: Yeah, definitely.

Shred: Can you tell us about some of the experiences because for a little while there you guys, and I think I got off the track, for a little while you guys were kind of breaking up... not breaking up... you know maybe there was a point where, "Well maybe we wont talk with each other for a little while and let the dust clear and figure it out."

Brad: We spend so much time in a van or a bus, you know. I mean the last six or seven years of our lives have been... they’ve been good but at the same time you kind of wonder where they’ve gone. So each one of us at times have just needed to get some fresh air, either do our own music project or just get away.

Shred: Right.

Brad: We don’t see our families as much as we’d like to. We’re not really "home" ever. So it’s been... it’s been tough, but it’s been good.

Shred: Now the only one of... Pete you released a solo record.

Pete: Yeah I did.

Shred: But you’re the only one to basically step out and say, "Alright, here’s my solo record." And do some dates around that as well, do some live shows.

Pete: Yep.

Brad: There’s some more Pete Francis coming in the fall!

Pete: It’s great I think that we all love playing with a lot of different musicians, recording in different studios and I think that our progression as a band will probably be something like the way Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, the way they go off and do projects and then come together. I think that we always had trouble, the three of us, being put into a formula that might exist at a record company and we just really wanted to stick by our own schedule. And so I think that we’re just pretty proud of being independent and playing the rooms that we’ve played.

Shred: Oh yeah, and I mean now, look at those rooms! Can you give me an idea what it’s been like talking with some of the major labels that you’ve been talking with because I know that they’ve been hitting you with a barrage of different stuff that you’re just like, "I don’t know, man, we’re just a rock band."

Brad: Get in there Chad...

Chad: I think, we had those meetings and we’re floored by walking into the Sony building and the whole, you know, all our favorite records on the wall. But it just never seemed to, you know... We met with a lot of different people from the biggies and their vision never synced up with ours so it just never made sense for us to do anything but stay to our own path.

Shred: Were they asking things of you? I mean, some of things, the rumors that I heard were essentially like, "You guys haven’t written a hit song." Yet, you go to one of your shows and everybody’s singing your songs! So I mean, I don’t get that myself.

Pete: Yeah, I think that we felt and we still do feel that the songs on our records are radio-worthy. And it’s obvious with songs, for instance "The General," I mean I think if the radio picked that up and played it, people would want to know what song that was.

Shred: Right.

Pete: And we wanted to stick by that because we felt like we really wanted to show the progression of our band where at the beginning we were sort of learning how to record, to sing, and all that and if we had sort of glossed over that and had the big producer and all that come in, and other musicians, I don’t know if people would have seen how our band progressed. Meaning that, you look at our records and you can say, "Okay, in a way it’s sort of like the way the Beatles, you know their records were sort of simple at the beginning and then they evolved." I think that’s what we wanted to show as well.

Shred: I think though by whatever... I don’t know if labels were actually waving money at you saying, "Alright, sign with us but we want these kind of concessions" or not, but by building up what you guys have built up and your own fan base and this going from Boston all the way out to California or whatever with great markets in there, then obviously you’re gonna bring a whole lot more to a record label and the ball’s gonna be, even though you want something from them maybe that they can achieve for you like radio – a single to get pushed on radio, ball’s still kind of in your court, though, because you can do this and you survive off of this band. On your terms.

Brad: I think we really did... what Pete was saying was really crucial because we never, we’ve had so many different influences and three of us write, all three of us sing and play each other’s instruments and I think on the first couple of records there’s a lot of kinda, a lot of other people sat in and played the instruments we couldn’t for instance and then when we started to figure out our own instruments we got a bit of a style emerged from all those influences. So all those records were so critical and at the same time we have the leverage now if we’re ever in a situation where we meet the right team of people at a label, we at least have a track record and we have a sound and we have a fan base and they’re not going to be trying to reinvent us. I just don’t know if we need it.

Shred: In a certain way they might have to kinda reinvent you a little bit because you don’t have something on the radio so once you do hit radio or MTV or whatever mainstream media then a whole new doors opens with that much more people.

Brad: I don’t know if we’re ever really gonna go... I mean, it’s gonna be a backdoor deal. What’s going on in Chicago was so unbelievable to us. I mean, we met with the president of ABC, runs a couple of stations in Chicago and the program directors and they told us how it just kind of seeped in through the son of the programming director’s friends’ and it’s now one of the, I guess they do their researching deal where they call out and we’ve asked them, they’ve been playing us for four months and we wanted them to play other songs! Cuz it’s the same thing.

Shred: "Come on, move on, we’ve got another single on there I know it!"

Brad: Yeah!

Shred: "We’re gonna come out with a video real soon!"

Brad: So, they’re just, they’re fired up that people are really reacting to it we’ll just, we’ll see if we can fan that fire a little bit.

Shred: Right.

Brad: Our DVD is going through a major label because we want the distribution and the promotion. And that’s going to be awesome, and there will be a CD of some kind of funky-cool remixes in there and some audio stuff.

Shred: I didn’t understand that the DVD was going through major distribution and who is it going through?

Chad: That’s a good question.

Brad: At this time I don’t think we’re allowed to go public with that?

Shred: Okay, okay. But essentially you do feel like major distribution is being lined up for the DVD, which I mean, that’s kind of strange.

Chad: Yeah.

Brad: It’ll be on the shelves though with a CD in it. There’s like an 8 or 9 song disc and a DVD and it’ll be in the same package on the shelves with the rest of our stuff. But it is kind of ironic that our film of the history of the band is going to be the easiest thing to find. You’re not going to be able to find our records as readily, but I mean, it’s getting better.

Shred: And it’s going to be called Under the Radar?

Brad: Under the Radar.

Pete: *spookily* Under the Radar...

Shred: Do you guys want to switch around and do another song? Cause we’re starting to run out of time here.

Brad: I gotta go, yeah I’ll see ya.

Shred: There’s only two switches that need to be made here. Okay well Dispatch is with us on Boston Emissions tonight playing live and talking with them right now in the BCN studios. All set? And they’re going to play another song right now. Dispatch live on WBCN.

Chad: Are you ready kid?

Pete: Ready, I’m all set. All ready.

*Open Up* (acoustic)

Shred: Oh yeah, Dispatch live in the WBCN studios on Boston Emissions. We’re pretty much running out of time and... just about out of time. Just got a couple of more questions, where are all the band members living these days? Are you all in New England? Pete, do you live in New York?

Pete: I live in New York City, downtown, right near Washington Square Park.

Shred: Oh wow. Okay, okay.

Pete: Right, I’ll be playing out there..

Shred: Right, I’ll be playing there with Jacko.

Pete: I’ll be playing a couple of shows out there the 25th and 26th at House of Blues, so if anybody’s around come down to that.

Shred: Alright.

Pete: Yea I’m psyched, playing a few more dates at the end of the month.

Shred: And then Brad and Chad, do you still live local? New England?

Brad: Denver, Colorado, go Avalanche.

Shred: What? Get out of here.

Brad: No, man. I’m sorry about your Bruins.

Shred: Speak into the microphone.

Brad (louder): I’m sorry about your Bruins, you guys have a phenomenal team.

Shred: Yeah, whatever... ass kissin’. You guys are gone seven-nothin in game seven.

Brad: Say hello to Raymond Borque.

Shred: You did mention that you sent out a song to Ray Bourque.

Brad: I don’t know if we got him a CD, but we’re working on it.

Shred: You should, you should, you should definitely get him a CD. And Chad?

Chad: I live in Sherborn, Massachusetts.

Brad: We know Chad

Chad: It’s sort of just, it’s bustling in the same way that New York City is.

Shred: So you, you have the mailing address, you have the P.O. Box.

Chad: Yes.

Brad: Chad has his own zip code.

Chad: This is true.

Shred: And then, the last question I wanted to ask you this evening, do you know of any famous people who are Dispatch fans that you’ve met along the way?

Chad: Oh! Me! Me!

Pete: I do!

Brad: Natalie Portman.

Pete: Yes...

*clapping*

Shred: And that totally made your day, yeah?

Chad: Of course.

Brad: Totally did.

Shred: And have you met her?

Brad: Yeah.

Shred: Oh, there you go, did she come to a show?

Pete: She organized the show at Harvard.

Brad: Yeah, she ran the concert commission over there.

Shred: Wow.

Brad: Yeah, we were pretty psyched.

Shred: Nice, so that’s the most famous so far?

Chad: Ummm

Brad: Ummm let’s see here... oh oh! Julia Roberts. Chad gave a CD to Julia Roberts.

Shred: He gave...

Brad: I gave one to Claudia Schiffer! I gave one to Claudia Schiffer in New York City, that was my peak.

Pete: I don’t think that they’re fans.

Chad: We gave one to Tom Green.

Brad: Tom Green, on our way to Seattle, before he swam through the lake.

Shred: He ate it though, thought it was food. Okay well Friday and Saturday night! Friday night it’s Pat McGee Band and Chauncey, pretty much sold out, FleetBoston Pavilion. Saturday night tickets on sale as I speak, Strangefolk and The Kickovers playing those shows. I mean, you picked a very interesting and diverse pairing each night. You’ve got one sort of jam-rock band and one rock band, or punk-pop band. So nice job with that, I mean obviously you guys wanna see diversity and everybody does.

Brad: We’re tryin’.

Shred: Okay, well best of luck to you and thank you for dropping by BCN studios.

Chad: Thanks for having us.

Shred: Alright, Dispatch and that is Boston Emissions for this evening, thank you very much. Did we wanna give away some of those CDs?

Brad: Sure!

Shred: Well we’ve got some Dispatch CDs so if you’re just tunin’ in your radio and you don’t really know about this band and you wanna pick up one of their CDs then we’ve got ‘em for ya. The WBCN contest line. Well thank you very much. Yes they are, see they’re ringing off the hook. Thank you for listening to Boston Emissions tonight. Dispatch!

* reference to the 1987 movie Planes, Trains & Automobiles with Steve Martin and John Candy

** This show was at the Pomona College Ball Room on October 27th 2000.

*** Sean Fanning is the creator of Napster. On April 3rd, 2001 Dispatch did a special free show in support of the Napster Senate Hearings at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C.

**NOTE: JH- Jes, MB- Burton, GB- Greg Brown**

JH-To start off, how long have you been working with the band?

MB- Since about January of 2001

GB- 3 years Give or take

JH- How did you become involved?

MB- I met them the spring of ‘96 at Holderness School (note- upstate New Hampshire), and introduced myself. Then again at Hamilton College, in the fall of 96. I helped them set up some gigs there. When WAWLF (Who Are We Living For- Dispatch’s fourth album release) came out in September 2000, I was job searching and they happened to be looking for someone and that’s how the magic happened

GB- My brother went to Middlebury, where the guys went to school. He was younger then they were. He was the one who introduced me to the music. Then, they were looking for help so I jumped at the chance.

JH-What made you decide to become involved with the music industry?

GB- I always had a passion for music. I had wanted to go in from the time I was in college. And Dispatch was the right time and place.

* Note- No hard feelings Burty, I didn’t ask you because you had already answered it*

JH- What did you do before becoming a part of Dispatch/ One Fell Swoop?

MB- student/traveled

GB- attorney in New York

JH- How has becoming a part of this band impacted your life?

MB- We were on the road the first 6 months I began to work for them, from Jan 01- June 01. It was wicked fun. I also now have a girlfriend I met through Dispatch, so that’s good Many experiences come out of working in the music industry, lots of positive things.

GB-* note: wants the public to know that the band HASN’T got him a girlfriend too bad Greg!* I like to see the idea of small business and turning into a big time thing. There has been major growth with the larger venues. But we’re still very much in touch with fan base. That’s what makes Dispatch unique.

JH- What is the most difficult thing about touring?

MB- Has to be either the long drives at night, or when Greg doesn’t help out with equipment

GB- Just being out on the road. It’s like, I want be home. * note- Burton was weak, geeky kind of guy with glasses when we met him. We decided he need to bulk up we make him carry everything.*- Also, with the tour bus, (note- Tour Bus’s name is Pearl, for all you curious fans out there) it’s sooo much easier. But on the management side, keeping track of everything is difficult from far away.

JH- What do you foresee for the future of Dispatch?

MB- I think the DVD will be a HUGE success. Although it’s underground, I think it will set a new standard for music DVD’s. In terms of studio work, I think they will stay independent. *note- Earth shutters as diehard fans breathe sigh of relief* There is nothing that they want out there yet. With a label you lose a lot of creative control and they don’t want to give up yet.

GB- The guys have shied away from a label. They want to do the same things that they’re doing now. With plans for some shows in summer, there will be time off. Other then that, they’re just goin’ on with business as usual.

JH- What are your 3 favorite albums to listen to? How come?

MB- #1- Dave Matthews Band- Lillywhite Sessions, (note: Burton wishes this not to sound sexual BUT) The songs are orgasmic
#2- Ryan Adams, Heartbreaker- The songs are country/southern rockish, but slow and relaxing
#3- Jack Johnson Brushfire Fairytales- I LOVE the acoustic sound.

GB- The Coldplay album R.E.M.- Fables Dave Matthews Band- UTDAD (Under the Table and Dreaming) and the Samples

JH- If you were on a desert island, what would be the only thing you couldn’t live without, and why?

MB- My acoustic guitar. It’s a Martin HD28.

GB- Water??? Probably a radio because it’d be boring without music and CD collection. *note- what, did you think Jessica would let him have a radio without a CD collection? Dude, do you LISTEN to the radio? We want him to survive, not rip his ear drums out!*

JH- What’s the strangest thing that has happened while on the road?*note- Jessica apologizes to Russell in advance Remember, this is Burton speaking*

MB- Well, there are many strange occurrences on the road. One that sticks out in my mind was when Wimpy broke down, I think in Kansas City, MI, going to get Brad’s cousin Russell at the airport. The boys flew on a plane to wherever they were going, so it was just the crew. We could NOT get engine to start. We totally thought we were going to have to leave Wimpy there. Then Brad’s cousin Russell from Tennessee, gets off the airplane. Now my expectation was *note- DIRECT QUOTE* he would be a mullet wearing chain-smoker, but he wasn’t! So, we’re like, We can’t leave Wimpy! So Russell takes a wrench, sticks it against this bolt somewhere under the hood, and BAM! starts the engine. Magic

GB- Again, there are MANY strange things on the road. But one time we had to drive from Upstate NY to Connecticut, so the guys could do a TV interview on a local news channel. *note- Jessica wants a tape of this if anyone has it* So, someone, probably Burton, was driving all through the night. Everyone was dead tired. When I was awake, I was sitting with Chad. But, to sleep, I layed on the floor and went to sleep. 4 times during the night I woke up SUCKING on Chad’s dreds. I was deathly ill, with the nastiest cold for like 2 weeks It was gross *note- Jessica is a little freaked out by that!*

JH- What was your very first Dispatch show?

MB- When I was at Holderness, in 96.

GB- No idea but probably one at Middlebury.

JH- What have you learned about the most from being in the music business?

MB- Not all of it is the stereotype. Media portrays this sex, drugs, rock’n’roll image. But, I would guess that’d be only bigger named bands.

GB- Personalities have a lot to play with it. There’s a way to build without using the radio as a stepping stool. And bands can be very successful without it.

JH- Have you met any really cool famous people, because of being part of the band? Who?

MB- The manager of Dave Matthews Band, G Love, Natalie Portman and the youngest girl from Fresh Prince of Bel Air

GB- Dave Matthews, Bono (U2) Moby *note- When asked why Burton does not meet as many cool people, Greg replies- Burton is too busy with his girlfriend!*

JH- For Greg: How come they call you Honey?

GB- While recording WAWLF (Who Are We Living For), I said some off the wall comment to Jack, our producer. Mind you, this is in Woodstock, NY, the middle of the woods. Jack replied totally calmly, Brown, why don’t you rub some honey on your ass and go and let the bears lick you? *note-. Can’t say to much on that, other then wtf?*

In conclusion, after my interview with these crazy rabbits, I have come to a conclusion. Dispatch has the best crew ever. (Not that I know many other bands’ crews, but it’s the principle of it that matters). Not only are they SUPER awesome nice guys (and girls if there are any), but they really can connect with people. Without the crew, Dispatch would be just three guys, and not the family that it has grown to be. The crew, the band, the fans- we are all connected with one thing, a strong love for music.

Thank you Steve Bursky, Mike Burton, and Greg Brown You guys are a few of the many that make Dispatch happen.

~jes harwood~