Interview: Band Of The Week - Slow Runner - Page 3

A shiv is a something that is sharpened into a weapon that they use in prison, is it not?

Exactly. And it worked on several levels because we feel like we got shivved by the record industry/label; and we wanted to shiv the listener.

SHIV! is a big departure from No Disassemble isn’t it?

Yes, but I think you can tell that the songs come from the same place.

Yes, because they are all written by you.

Right, but the songs are kind of the same. They are a little weirder in some ways but… it’s a little different.

So tell me about your major-record label experience.

There were about three months when it was just lovely. There were things happenin’ and music was getting in TV shows and we were on the road all the time and everyone was doing their job and it was cool. That was three months out of a two year experience. All the rest of the time it was basically us sitting around wondering why they weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing, or waiting for them to do something they said they were going to do, or something they said was going to happen falling through and “ah, here’s plan B”. It was just a constant experiment in disappointment.

The label we were on, J records [part of the Sony BMG umbrella] is mostly American Idol type stuff, there was nothing on it remotely like us and so I don’t think… It was never a huge deal to begin with, we had no illusions that we were going to be a huge priority for them. I just figured “we’ll do this and see what happens, and get what we can get out of it”.

Okay, so now what? You’re not with them anymore?

Nope, now we are free agents again. So it’s good and bad. I miss the tour support, that was pretty nice – knowing you would at least break even on any tour, that’s a real luxury.

It got to the point where they were clearly wanting a certain kind of record from us, which wasn’t anything like No Disassemble and that I was… I went up to New York for a week this past spring and co-wrote with some people that they wanted me to write with. They were like “Oh yeah we got all the songs, we’re just missing that one radio smash”. So I went up there, and I knew it was going to feel bad but I was like “I’m going to go up their and I’m going to do it. I’m going to put my immature little holier-than-thou…. I’m going to ignore all that stuff and I’m going to try and do what they want me to do. And I just couldn’t do it. I tried. I wrote some songs with these guys and I hated the songs and they really liked them and they hated that I hated them…. And I think that pretty much spelled the end of our relationship.

Article Author: A.L. Harper

I'm a writer and music journalist originally from Salt Lake City, but now living in Scotland. I was a Punk/Goth in the '80s and these artistic influences have stayed with me; although a love of Chopin, chamber music, and Spanish guitar would seem to belie this. …

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