There's always going to be a special feeling reserved for the first time you hear a great piece of music. There is a sense of discovery that first time that mixes with wonder and joy. Often that can fade as you listen to the music again, or it can grow into a profound sense of connection. The first time I heard a song by Bloomington, Indiana's Good Luck I was at the Louisville, Kentucky venue Skull Alley. I was loading in for a show that night and Jamie, the guy who runs the venue, was piping in their incredible tunes over the house system. When I first heard Matt Tobey sing, I knew for sure that it must have been the new Mountain Goats record, but somehow it extremely better than what I was expecting from Darnielle and Co.
One of my friends in another Indiana band, Away with Vega, who was playing that night quickly told me that I was mistaken. He said it was the new project from Matty Pop Chart's Matt Tobey and it was called Good Luck. Consider me hooked.
Good Luck has had rocket-fast growth in that Indiana soil, and with a ton of touring, an EP, and a full-length later, they have a pretty serious fanbase around the country. They didn't even start playing together until last year and have exploded into one of the most popular indie bands in the Midwest. They have appeared on The Pink Couch Series from ifyoumakeit.com and are the new favorite band of everyone I talk to it seems these days. This is no surprise considering their well-crafted songs that seem to have everything you could ever want in a song: unbelievably creative and melodic guitar riffs, harmonies, endless energy, and some of the best lyrics I've heard in a long time. With such strong songs like "Public Radio", "The Stars Were Exploding" and "Pajammin", I would be greatly surprised if Good Luck was not a household name for any indie kid within the next year or so.
If you've read any of this blog, then you are aware of my love for these fine folks. Ginger, Matt, and Mike recently and gracefully agreead to do an interview for the blog here and I am publishing it in its entirety. I couldn't tell you how much admiration I have for this band.
GLIu: To start things off, how did Good Luck come to be and how long have you been together? Are you all originally from Bloomington?
Ginger: Good Luck started in April 2007. Matt had just moved back to Bloomington, IN from Olympia, WA, and he caught me at the punk rock prom or something, and asked me if I'd like to play music with him sometime. I loved matt's music so I thought "of course" and we brainstormed of a drummer we could play with. Mike and I had been hanging out a lot so I suggested him, and Matt said, "oh yeah I played with mike once before I moved out of town," so it all made sense. None of us are from Bloomington. I'm actually from Mississippi. I lived there until 2006, setting up punk rock shows in an old dilapidated farmhouse in the middle of the Delta and playing for many years in a band called One Reason. I knew Matt because my band had played with his bands (Matty Pop Chart, Mt. Gigantic, Abe Froman) many times since he was 17. I actually went to his high school graduation party. How cute is that? I moved to Bloomington because it was the one place in the country that I already had many friends in the music scene (mainly the plan it x records scene), and because I had been here so many times touring and really loved it. Plus it's a small, low stress, low cost town to live in, not too much of a shock after living in the middle of nowhere for many years. I became friends with Mike shortly after coming here because he was basically my neighbor, and basically a great person.
Mike: I grew up in Louisville and lived there until around 2002. I had completely immersed myself in the Louisville punk scene throughout high school, going to shows, playing in bands, and booking shows at the BRYCC House (collectively run infoshop/venue). I was ready to move on after the original BRYCC House closed down, and by that point I had already been hanging out in Bloomington enough to know that I would be incredibly comfortable living there. I lived a few other places and was generally fairly transient until I decided to "settle" in Bloomington more permanently in 2004, where I've been ever since.
GLIu: How does the songwriting process work for you all? Do you write together as a band, or does someone brings skeletons to the other two and flesh it out together?
Ginger: We write pretty much all our music together. Matt will usually have a little guitar part that he comes to the band with and then we just have fun with it until it starts to go somewhere we like. Or if it's not working we leave it be for a while. It's a very organic process. Somehow we almost always agree on what sounds good and what doesn't in a song. Then at some point Matt or I will take over lyrics. Sometimes we work together on vocal melodies and bounce lines off each other but essentially once it gets to that stage it's one of us with a pen staring at a blank page for a while. Except for "Bringing Them Back to Life". Matt wrote that song totally on his own, then brought it to us, which was funny because it ended up then being the hardest song for us to make work as a band. It's like we couldn't keep it simple enough, couldn't make the singer songwriter thing work for how we play. Then when we were in the studio we had this idea to try it out as a complete rocker with me singing it, and it totally worked in like one take. We recorded Matt's original version too, which worked really awesomely in the quiet studio setting, but when we play live I feel kind of bad because we play the rock version I sing and everyone thinks I wrote Matt's awesome lyrics.
GLIu: According to your MySpace profile, it says you guys have been together since 2007, but your songs are incredible and I haven't heard anything that doesn't blow me away. To what do you attribute such a quick progression?
Ginger: Heh, Thanks a lot. Things did go very quickly as a band as soon as we started, it was kind of crazy for us. It was incredibly easy to write music together that we were all happy with. But all of us had been playing music for many years in different projects, so it wasn't new to us. I think it was really easy for me because I'd always loved sort of complicated but very pop indie music. Like Braid was my favorite band in high school. But I never really played much of that because I was doing a very loud punk rock/folk thing. So I was really excited to be playing a kind of music that I loved but hadn't ever done before. And I also hadn't played bass very much before this, I had been a guitar player. Somehow it's almost easier to write when you first start doing something new because everything is fresh and you don't have to worry about not repeating yourself.
Mike: When we first started I was pretty surprised at how quick everything was together, and it became clear that this was the type of band I had been envisioning being a part of for years. I had played in other bands in both Bloomington and Louisville, but they never progressed past a certain point because I guess we were always too young and indignant - it was always a life or death, now or never mentality. We were never able to fully mature as a band. I attribute our quick progression to the fact that Matt, Ginger and myself all respect each other as friends and bandmates, and we pretty much know how to communicate when writing songs and resolving other issues. It's one of the most important and necessary aspects of being in a functional, self-sustaining band.
Matt: Same things really, I had been thinking a lot for a couple years about wanting to play guitar in a loud band, and what kind of parts i wanted to write. Good Luck is basically exactly that. I had only ever played drums in bands before this, so i think there's was just a large well of vague ideas. I think it's pretty lucky that we all had similar ideas about what this band was going to be like.
GLIu: Who are some of the bands/artists/whatever that influenced you all personally and as a band?
Ginger: Well, as I said I really loved Braid when I was in high school, but that was quite a few years ago. And I also have been influenced tremendously by bands I've played with over the years, mostly small punk bands like Operation Cliff Clavin, the Carrie Nations, Pezz, the Good Good, Defiance Ohio, Hot New Mexicans. It's mostly the friendships with people in those bands, seeing them progress in front of your eyes and staying up all night with them talking about music that has changed me. But then I'd say my biggest other influence is Bruce Springsteen. I know the other guys are going to groan when they hear that because I talk about it all the time. But I think he's an amazing lyricist who also somehow managed to surround himself with a talented group of musicians who were his friends. A lot of the guys in his band he's been playing with since he was like 20 years old, and he's what, 58 now? That's an inspiration to me, to be that age and still have the people you have cared about for that long writing original music with you. And you can see onstage when he's playing that he still loves it, that rock and roll music is still the thing that makes his life tick. He has this great song about driving all night across a desolate highway, leaving a stupid job trying to get home, and he's searching the radio for something, and then he yells "Hey Rock and Roll deliver me from nowhere." And coming from nowhere, Mississippi, I think that's what playing rock music did for me. It gave my life shape.
Mike: Growing up in Louisville in the mid to late '90s it was easy to believe that the musical universe revolved around my town. Some of the first bands I ever saw and were heavily influenced by were Guilt, Kinghorse, By the Grace of God, Metroschifter, Crain, Hedge, and a myriad of others that few people outside of Louisville still actually remember. When I was learning how to play drums, I would pretty much stand on the side of the stage and watch every drummer's every move, and then get home and try to play exactly what they did. Most of those bands were playing fast hardcore or bass-driven, technical mathy/indie rock so it kind of forced me to learn some pretty crazy stuff. I also got into a lot of Gravity Records, Amphetamine Reptile Records, and Dischord stuff around this time. But in the late 90s I started to pay more attention to and became more influenced by other political crust, hardcore, and metal bands that had gotten little notice in Louisville... Born Against, Zegota, Catharsis, Reversal of Man, His Hero is Gone, Kill the Man Who Questions. After a certain point and for a solid three years I think I pretty much liked any band that had screamy vocals, heavy metallic guitars, technical drumming, and a political/crust punk aesthetic. I think I tried to channel this influence into my old band Bodyhammer's music as much as possible. After I started hanging out in Bloomington in 2001 I became more inspired by the Plan-It-X crew of bands like This Bike is a Pipe Bomb, Soophie Nun Squad, the Bananas, Against Me, and Abe Froman. They got me stoked on this amazing community of people playing upbeat folk-inspired music, and thus made poppy, melodic, and often sloppy music a lot more listenable. Kind of helped me refine my palate, and made me appreciate melody in song! As a drummer and an active participant in the song-writing process with Good Luck, I think I've called on too many past influences to specifically name... I think every band that has affected me shows itself in the songs I play in some way.
Matt: I didn't even start listening to music at all until i was about thirteen, and my sister started dating this awesome guy who was into a lot of punk bands. He was a really positive influence on my life as well as my musical tastes, and he introduced me to the first bands i really liked, such as Pinhead Gunpowder, Avail, Fifteen, and Screeching Weasel. Mostly Lookout Records bands. He, my sister, and I started our first band soon after that, a pop punk band, and since then, it's mostly been one big mash up of influences, people I've met and played with mostly. I'd say as far as what influences my playing in Good Luck, it's more recent bands with cool noodly guitar stuff! Like: Ted Leo, Kickball (from Olympia), Superchunk, Deerhoof, the Good Good (from NYC), and the Weakerthans.
GLIu: You all are getting ready to head out on another impressive tour, but, to my knowledge, you aren't on a big record label or have a huge booking agent. How do you have so much success in booking all these shows? Do things like MySpace help out with that?
Ginger: Myspace does help simply because it's a centralized space that you can find people who are scattered around the country very easily. It's easy for people to find you as well, and keep up to date with your shows, and contact you personally to say "If you come to my town, I can set up a show for you at this place." So myspace, and the internet in general, makes it very easy to get out the word about your tour without needing a lot of big promotion through the more traditional routes. My friends Harry and the Potters go on these insane three month long, very successful tours, and they have built their fan base just by interacting with them online mostly. They have like 100,000 friends on myspace, or something ridiculous, and do very well, but they have no record label, no booking agent, nothing. They do everything themselves, and because they are willing to put forth that extra effort to not hand over part of their band to someone else to manage, they get control over how things are presented. And the great leveling effect of the internet is that in that kind of setting, you get back exactly how much work you are willing to put into it (give or take a little for talent). But actually we had all been touring for a long time before myspace existed. It hasn't changed that much since. The underground punk/indie scene is all about supporting each other (hopefully), so we've set up shows for many touring friends' bands when they come to town. Then you go to their town and play with them there. Multiply that over many years and many bands, and that's pretty much how it works. Mutual support. You could not go on tour as a punk band if there weren't many people and bands in all corners of the country who want to help you for basically nothing other than friendship and community. There isn't really enough money in it either way, at least at this level, for it to be about anything more than that.
GLIu: In a lot of the underground music scene, there is a weird disconnection where people will listen to your music online and love it, but never actually buy records. Do you all experience any of that?
Ginger: Not really that I've experienced. I think people will buy your record if they think you are honest and deserving. So you should have your band be honest and deserving. If your records cost too much then they won't buy it, because by now people ought to know that even a very nice cd doesn't cost more than $2 to manufacture. They feel ripped off, because they should. At $8 our record costs more than any other record I've ever released as a band before, and we gave that price a lot of thought. But we spent quite a lot of money recording and pressing the record. We spent a lot of time at a local studio here called Russian Recording, but it was only enough to make it the best album we thought it could possibly be. And our engineer, Mike Bridavsky, is an amazing, hardworking, totally talented dude who deserved every penny we gave him. Then we got a 100% recycled digipak and insert because if you are going to be putting that many of something into the world, you should think about its impact at least a little. So the costs add up a bit. But most of what people pay for when they spend $15 a cd is for record companies to put ads in magazines and to put out shitty cds by other bands that no one will ever care about. So if someone understands, "hey, when you buy this cd, it puts gas in our gas tank to drive to your town and play," then they are much more likely to directly support you. Besides that I'm sure that you can download our record tons of places right now, and anyone else's record, and there's just about nothing anyone can do about it so folks need to just move on.
GLIu: Why make music? Why be in a band?
Ginger: Well, I was talking earlier about punk/indie music giving my life shape. It has, it's been the one major thing I've been doing with my life since I was about 15. I'm 27 now, so it's worth reflecting on and asking "why am I still doing this?" And you have to hope it comes down to it being more than just the thing that you are used to doing. For me, I've met almost all my friends I have from playing music. And because they are creative people, they are constantly coming at you with new inspiration. Just being around them and seeing what they do inspires me to do more. Plus, there is really no better feeling than when you have written a new song that you think is really great. Maybe because when you play it you forget about all the other bullshit you have to go through during the day just to get to that moment, your job and your romantic disappointments and being broke, all that falls away on a good day. And lastly, writing lyrics can be very good for your soul when you get it just right. There's one song on the album that is about this really personal moment after I had become estranged for almost everyone in my family, and I was visiting this city and went to a church and lit candles for them because it was my grandparents church, and I was feeling like I was helpless with no one to talk to. And I never told anyone about that until I wrote a song about it. Some people, like me, aren't as gregarious with their emotions until they have an outlet.
Matt: It's a question I ask myself almost constantly. And i still haven't totally come up with an answer. Like Ginger, I have been playing in bands since i was a young teenager, touring starting at 15, and that has been my life for the past eight years. Touring so much that I've never had a steady job for more than a few months at a time. Not until recently have i even started to question if this is what I still want to be doing with my life. Why make music? It just happens. The need to do it is there. I'm not even sure where the need came from. I don't feel like I have all sorts of important ideas that I simply need to share with the world. On the contrary, writing lyrics is nearly always an utter struggle to come up with anything. it's almost painful most of the time. Then something always appears after i'm about to give up, and i almost always feel good about it. Why be in a band? To me, the actual playing of the music is probably the most enjoyable experience that occurs in my life. That's why I keep doing it. There's not much I would rather be doing. I guess the question is if it's worth putting other things I'd like to do on hold, more long-term things, in order to be able to go on tour a lot. In order to have those thirty or so minutes every night of that feeling. It's a strange thought. Whether or not I plan on playing music full-time remains to be figured out in the coming months and years, but I know that i will continue playing in some fashion for the rest of my life.
GLIu: How's the band relationship on the road and off? Are you all really great friends?
Ginger: I think we are pretty great friends. If we weren't I don't think we could or would do this. I feel lucky to have Matt and Mike in my life. It's easy to squabble on the road but it's usually just about the day to day issues of everyone getting what they need to be comfortable in a pretty uncomfortable living arrangement. I think we are all pretty good at taking a step outside of that and saying "ok, I totally love you guys, I'm sorry I just yelled at you because you inferred I don't know how to read a map." (wink, mike)
GLIu: I've heard from a few people that you all have some connection with Kimya Dawson. Is there any truth to that, and, if so, what is it exactly and how did it come about?
Matt: Yeah there is a connection, she's a good friend of mine. She and I played a show together in Maine in the Fall of 2004--it was completely random, i was on tour with a friend of mine Justin Rhody, and the guy who set up our show in Falmouth, ME decided to ask Kimya if she would come up and play with us. Kimya lived in Bedford Hills, NY at the time, and she came up just for the heck of it. I had never heard her music before, but i loved it right away, and we became friends instantly. She came with us for the next few days just for fun, back down to New York. And we've been buddies ever since. I lived with her and her husband and daughter in Olympia for a couple months, and we've toured together many times now--I am usually "her band" on tour. It's been interesting seeing her rise in popularity and dealing with the issues of the music industry. Kimya's an amazing and inspiring lady and a terrific mom. I really respect her and i think if there's anyone whose songs should be heard by lots of people across the world, it's her.
and lastly,
GLIu: Are there any current bands/artists that you guys are really into or think are doing something really cool?
Ginger: There are about a million bands and artists out there doing cool things. I think bands get all the credit, but there are tons of people in our friends alone doing great things. Matt's roommate Nate Powell is an amazing cartoonist, our friend Pat Crann runs a screenprinting business that caters to punk bands called Shout out Loud Prints, our friend Dave Garwacke hosts a website called Ifyoumakeit. com that has high quality videos of lots of great underground bands, our friend Eric Ayotte does a traveling film festival called Gadabout Film Fest that shows lots of hilarious and beautiful short films all around the country in punk venues, and just about every house that lets bands play in the basement is doing something good cool. Even if you don't really listen to underground music, I think that's where most great bands found out how to be great bands.
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