THE FINGERTIPS Q&A

Brad Armstrong

[continued]

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Q: Ringtones: good or evil?

A:Neither. Mundane at best. Indicative of a poisoned youth at worst. Either way, they're just a symptom. In the same way popcicles were a symptom of the '70s.


Q: Does the existence of the internet, and digital distribution of music via the internet, now influence how you think about music, and how you write music?

A: No. We still write what we have to write. If you try and plan writing music, it doesn't work and you end up with someone being everything to someone else. Per the rest of it, I don't know fuck all about it. I've decided that we're going to just make the records, and put them out one way or another, and tour when we can, and that's all I'm interested in thinking about. Too much pondering on the subject tends to block me up. If we're eventually reduced to a digital-only release, it'll bum me out and I'll still get the damn thing pressed, because when I die, I want to be able to point to a shelf in my room and say, "That. That's what I did." And the digital revolution has killed that. Now, there are some who would say that's a good thing. Maybe it is on some levels. I mean, the tools are now available to the masses. Maybe that's good. It's certainly Socialist. What I'm saying is that maybe everybody shouldn't be able to make a record. That maybe the enormous financial hurdles we had to overcome in the '80s and '90s in order to make a record acted as a kind of stop on shitty artistry, and maybe then it was easy to differentiate between corporate shit and something with integrity, and maybe now it's not so easy. Because everyone in my generation that had talent and heart and something to say found that wasn't enough and had to make car commercials, and now we've got really rad car commercials. I heard Grandaddy on a car commercial tonight. Wow, I said to myself. Not that I have a problem with Granddaddy selling out or anything, I'm not one of those guys, you've got to put your kid through school and any way you can get the job done is fine and correct, I'm just saying that it's somehow a bummer, because that same guy who made that commercial in 2008 was making really earth-shaking shit in 1972.


Q: A lot has been made of the assertion that in the future, people won't buy music, and artists will make a living only via performance. What are your feelings about that idea?

A: I think that's fine. Records started out as a commercial for the show. That's why they were invented in the first place. People forget that. People get really precious about their record, like someone somewhere is going to put it on in a dark room and take acid and have an experience with it. That's not the norm. That was what happened for like six years 30 years ago. Now, it's more like it was in the dawn of recording, which is, hey, this is my song, come hear my band down at the viaduct. I'm all about that. We'll be at the viaduct all week, by the way, so come on down and check us out.



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Also available:
the Fingertips Q&A with Dirk Darmstaedter (September 2008)
the Fingertips Q&A with Jonatha Brooke (August 2008)






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