“We’ve started a record company called (Your Name Here) Records and we plan to ask all of our friends and fans to become big time record execs,” drummer Tony Lee says.

So what’s the deal? Much like public radio fundraisers, there are defined contribution levels — ranging from Cool Mo’ Fo! to Nuclear Monster From Hell! — replete with incentives and prizes for donating. Depending on the contribution level, the donor will get his/her name and a thank you in the liner notes of the album, a free download of the record when completed and a password that gets them into a special blog that documents the “unearthing of Treadmill’s rotting corpse.”  (The blog currently features snippets and demos of brand new Treadmill songs.) Additional thank-you gifts include everything from tickets to the release show (scheduled for 2009), a personal theme song written and recorded by the band and even a Treadmill performance at the contributor’s house and a chance to perform on the record. (Though those last two are, uh, quite expensive.)

“We just think the concept of trying to accomplish this with friends and fans is great,” cellist Heidi Carey says. “If it works, that will be amazing. If it doesn’t, we’re still making a record, because we really have a need to put something else out there.”

“I’m not sure if we really expect people to contribute or not,” Gianni adds. “I know some folks who will, but we just think it’s a super-cool and hilarious concept. Whether it works or not isn’t really that important. The main thing is that after playing together again we realized we had more to say, and one way or another, we’re going to say it.”

To donate to the cause or for more information, point your web browser of choice to treadmilltrackstar.com/newalbum.html.

Treadmill Trackstar initially broke up ten years ago.

The reality, it turned out, was just about the polar opposite for Gianni and the band.

“It felt completely horrible until we actually hit the stage,” Gianni says. “Then it felt awesome. Once we hit the stage, that feeling of dread completely disappeared and was replaced by pure enjoyment. It was just like another show, like we’d taken a short, decade-long break and everything was back to normal. Instead of feeling like people were yelling for something that used to be, it felt like they were yelling for something that was.”

In the past 10 years since Treadmill’s initial breakup, Gianni spent time trying to get back to normal.

“Really, after the band I had two goals,” Gianni says. “Make some real cash and get my relationship happening — those were two things the band really kept me from getting done. We enjoyed California for about eight years while I worked in commercials and film production, and then decided it was no place to raise kids so we chucked it all and moved to Asheville.”

It was the new proximity to his old musical stomping grounds that got the ball rolling on the band’s reunion, and last fall’s show was just the initial catalyst in what has now become a serious look at continuing as a band in some form.

“We have nothing to lose and nothing hinging on our success or failure, which makes it much more enjoyable than it was — it’s purely about our love of it,” Gianni says. “Our only goal is to enjoy playing. That’s a nice place to be and a very different place from where we were a decade ago.”

This week’s show is being promised as a preview of things to come, and Gianni says there are future plans in the works.

“We have a definite very elaborate evil master plan,” Gianni says. “I can’t say what exactly, other than it amuses me to no end, and it’s sure to amuse everyone else too. We have this insane idea that will involve all of our friends and fans.”

The band has been working on new material since last fall’s show, and Gianni says that several songs will make their debuts this week, with more to come.

“We’re all set to play two or three of the many new songs we have written since November,” Gianni says. “Something broke loose after that show, and they’ve been flowing like warm goat’s blood.”

Gianni’s uniquely colorful gift for words that are equally descriptive and disturbing shows up in one of the new tunes, “Hands Off (Climbing the Cross),” which culminates in Gianni singing, “I’m not Christ; I can’t forgive you.”

“That song was written a few weeks ago,” Gianni says. “I spent a night getting pissed off about all of the against-my-very-nature things I’ve let myself be made to do in my life.” The focus on new songs is one of the reasons the band is willing to continue playing as Treadmill, he says.

“We have no desire to be a nostalgia act,” Gianni says. “We’re not Sha Na Na. Although I think Heidi is taller than Bowser.”

Headliners is located at 700 Gervais St. The Stellas open. Doors open at 7 p.m.; admission is $7 at the door or $5 in advance. Call 796-2333 or visit headlinerscolumbia.com for more information.

The occasion was a full-blown music festival built around another long defunct local landmark, the live music club Rockafellas, which Gianni played in several incarnations of bands including Treadmill Trackstar. A number of other local bands reformed for the event also, but the buzz prior to the weekend of shows was all about Treadmill’s long-awaited return.

Why was it that important that a band broken up for a decade was playing again? Well, to understand that one must go back to 1997 and the release of Treadmill’s independent debut, Excessive Use of the Passive Voice, which established their formula of rock guitars layered with liberal amounts of cello, supporting the obtuse poetic lyrics of Gianni. In the post-Hootie & the Blowfish landscape of Columbia, Treadmill was the band everyone expected to follow their peers onto the pop charts, and “Shouldn’t I Take,” from that debut even garnered a significant amount of local and regional radio airplay.

After touring nationally and appearing on an early incarnation of the Vans Warped Tour schedule, Treadmill signed with Hootie-owned Atlantic subsidiary Breaking Records and re-recorded a number of the debut’s songs for Only This, which fizzled out on impact in the general marketplace. After fighting the good fight for going on eight years, the members simply moved on with their lives, never to look back–or so we thought.

Fast forward to 2007 and the roomy confines of Five Points Pub in Columbia, scene of Treadmill’s much-anticipated set at the Rockafella’s Reunion, and the years melted away as the band took the stage. Gianni was a little less thin, with shorter hair and heavy-rimmed glasses, but as soon as he opened his mouth to sing it was like the band had never left. Their trademark sound was always a wall of sound sonic attack not unlike the early Smashing Pumpkins albums, and with original cellist Heidi Brown as his onstage musical foil and drummer Tony Lee behind him (original bassist Chris Grigg’s spot was filled by local musician Mike Mills of the band Almost Jason), Gianni was able to faithfully recreate the band’s back catalog.

The songs, from, ”Pale The Bright Sun,” to, ”Velveteen,” “Walking With Madeline,” and the big ‘hit’, ”Shouldn’t I Take,” sounded as fresh as ever, and a lot less dated than one might think given their decade-old pedigree.

Gianni, for his part, was in a mood of apparent euphoria throughout the set, with a grin permanently pasted across his face even on the less-than-joyful numbers; the audience was in a similar state of disbelief, not only at the fact the band was playing at all, but that they sounded this good after a ten-year absence.

At the close of the set, Gianni thanked the crowd and jokingly said, “See you in another ten years!” Gianni and the band must have had a good time, because it seems we may not have to wait that long for some new music from Treadmill–A blog posted on the band’s Myspace profile recently hints at a possible new CD release sometime in the coming year, with new material and some multimedia surprises.

“I had absolutely no intention of doing anything but [that] show,” Treadmill frontman Angelo Gianni said in a press release sent to Free Times. “But, it was fun, I didn’t feel ridiculous and most surprising, the rock was flowing.” Gianni also hints that the band has an “evil master plan” to unveil, along with the first new Treadmill songs in more than a decade, which Gianni said, “contain a hint of the pent up anger and aggression that’s been building since we got dropped.” Doors open at 7 p.m., and admission is $7 ($5 in advance). For more information, visit headlinerscolumbia.com.

MM: Why do you write?

AG: It really started as a way to deal with having writers block with the music. I couldn’t stand that, it made me crazy, so the fiction and poetry stuff gave me some sort of output while I waited for the music to come back. Now it’s turned into something that I really want to become good at some day.

MM: What inspires you to write?

AG: It doesn’t really take much. Any strange situation that I get into, any weird people that I meet, a bad day, or something as simple as dropping a letter opener into my foot will trigger things. If you make yourself write every single day, you're bound to come up with something. I was on an airplane recently and sat next to this business guy who was really rude to me, I guess I looked kind of scruffy and probably smelled bad. Anyway, to get back at him I pretended to be asleep when the plane landed and wouldn’t move to let him out of the seat. It drove him crazy and he finally started shaking me. That became a poem called “Stupid Waltz.”

MM: Your writing seems to land somewhere between William S. Burroughs and CharlesBukowski? Have you read their work? Who are your favorite writers, literary influences?

AG: Damn, if I landed anywhere in that neighborhood I’d really be happy. I love them both and if there’s a book by either one of them I haven’t read, I don’t know about it. The only poetry I can really stomach is maybe Plath and definitely Bukowski. He’s like punk poetry, it’s raw as hell. I don’t think I really get most poetry. Also love Tom Robbins, Don DeLillo, Sam Shepard, Jerzy Kosinski, and King God of the World is Milan Kundera.

MM: How does the writing of song lyrics differ from this kind of writing?

AG: It’s totally different. I’d never put lyrics in a book like this. Most of my lyrics usually rhyme, which would be ridiculous out of the context of the song. Also, in a song you have about 3 minutes to get your point across. With this stuff you have a little more leeway to screw around.

MM: Do you find writing as artistically satisfying as playing rock ‘n’ roll?

AG: Yes, as far as the creative aspects it’s the same. You start with nothing and end up with something- that’s what’s so cool about it. The only thing missing is the performance, and even though you can do spoken word, that just can’t compare to sweating your ass off and screaming on a stage. That’s the best place in the world.
What is the status of Treadmill Trackstar? Treadmill has been dropped from Breaking/Atlantic Records. Our last show will be at the Elbow Room on June 6. After that we are taking six months off to shop the record (we retained all rights to it) and work to try to get ourselves out of the massive individual debts we’ve gotten ourselves into while touring for the past four years. Hopefully the record will get picked up and we’ll be touring again in November. There’s no telling, anything could happen.

MM: Could you clear up any misinformation circulating out there about the band being dropped by Atlantic/Breaking? Some are saying the band made bad decisions, others say it was a coldhearted business decision?

AG: Well, Atlantic dropped five bands that day and we were one of them, that was that. Breaking was always very supportive and excited about Treadmill, but I think I can say that Atlantic never really liked us at all, and Atlantic held all of the cards. And that’s really all it takes. If the head of the radio department thinks you suck, then you’re pretty much screwed. As far as the band making bad decisions, I’m not exactly sure what you mean, but of course we’ve made a bunch. That’s unnavoidable.

MM: What’s next for you on both the literary and rock ‘n’ roll fronts?

AG: On the writing front, I’m sending out this book to publishers and agents to try to get some sort of distribution. That’s a long shot. At the same time I’m shopping the “Litmus” manuscript to publishers, and if that doesn’t happen, I’ll put it out myself as soon as I have the cash. As far as music,Treadmill’s doing a new demo, I’m recording some solo stuff just for fun, I’m keeping my fingers crossed about the band, and moving to Los Angeles until something happens, or until it doesn’t.

The band has played in support of such bands as Edwin McCain, Dillon Fence, Matthew Sweet and Hootie & The Blowfish. Hootie & The Blowfish shook so much rump to Treadmill's music that they received the honor of being the first band to be signed onto the Blows own label, Breaking Records.

The guitars on the album are pretty straightforward rock, but the addition of the cello sets this band apart. The cello is where it's at. The melodies and harmonies that the cello makes are awesome.

With the melodies beating in my ear, I can easily get my groove thang on, which frightens some people, but they just don't understand the groove thang. So go check them out and be amused, or not. Maybe your groove thang will show itself in all of its glory.

The band also has a web site. It's URL is http://www. treadmilltrackstar.com. There, you can find out all sorts of neato stuff about the band and even hear some real audio samples of their music.

Mixing a dreamy pop landscape with beautiful cello musings, landmines of ripping guitar and incisive cut-to-the-emotional-bone lyrics, the band whose name denotes running in place has been able to leave most bands in the dust. The band was based around the often brilliant, tortured songwriting of Angelo Gianni but quickly developed into a tight cohesive unit smartly utilizing the rare double threat of guitarist/vocalist Gianni's lyrical gifts and the dramatic, resonant qualities of the cello, rounded out with a powerhouse rhythm section capable of enhancing without overpowering.

Just as Gianni's songs are miles off the familiar beaten path, the band itself was formed under strange circumstances. "Originally, I had another band named Treadmill Trackstar that just didn't click with what I wanted, with how I wanted the songs to sound," Gianni begins. "So I decided to do the project in reverse and record before I had a band.

I've always thought our drummer [Tony Lee] is one of the greatest drummers and we had been in a band together before...but besides him, I started from scratch. I had a friend that I convinced to play bass on the record [current bassist Chris Grigg joined the band courtesy of a want ad in Charlotte, NC] and I felt two songs needed to have a cello on them so we brought in Heidi [former bandmember Heidi Brown, since replaced by Katie Hamilton]...and liked the result so much that we decided this is what we needed to make our sound original."

And so the band went, picking up both bandmembers and fans at a rapid pace, touring constantly and playing anywhere and everywhere, not only catching the eye of people looking for original sounding, well crafted pop, but also impressing other bands, most notably Hootie and the Blowfish, who chose Treadmill to be one of the first bands signed to their label, Breaking Records.

"When Hootie got their label deal, they wanted to help bands in the area but also were concerned with the business side of it," Gianni said. "That actually helped us get signed ahead of a lot of other bands. Besides what we offer musically, we had played the same circuit they did and they had seen our tour ethic, that we are constantly gigging, constantly working and increasing our fan base. They knew we had a business acumen and a mindset to succeed, the same mindset they had and used when they were struggling and that's what I think made us one of the first bands signed to their label, even more so than the music itself maybe."

But, what excellent music. "Our producer Joe Hardy was a real key to this record coming off so well. We talked to a lot of big names that Breaking and Atlantic had set up for us but we wanted the cello to be a real voice in the band and not sound added-on or overdubbed like a string section and he understood that. He understood we wanted a different sound, that the songs needed a special framework and that's why it went so well. That and the extra time we had to record. We were able to do the new songs correctly and go back to some of our older material and do it some justice."

The real justice would be if more bands with an original framework, like Treadmill Trackstar, would get airplay. But I can dream, can't I?

With its second album, "Only This" (released Oct. 28), Treadmill Trackstar takes the classic guitar-pop approach and tops it off with the wafting harmonies of Katie Hamilton's cello. It's the brain child of lead singer-guitarist Angelo Gianni, who longed for an unconventional sound in a "same-as-it-ever-was" rock world.

"The individual parts are fairly simplistic, actually, but there's so much layering in the music that the cello fills out harmonically," Hamilton said recently. "Everything fits together and intertwines. Most people who listen to it don't get it at first, but after a few listens, they do, and after they walk away, they usually end up singing something. They're hooked."

Tracks such as "Shouldn't I Take" and "Velveteen" and Treadmill Trackstar's gritty determination won over Hootie, who made them Breaking's first signing last year. They recorded the album last winter at Memphis' legendary Ardent Studios, overseen by producer Joe Hardy (ZZ Top, The Hooters).

Carving their own niche was just "a bit of dumb luck," drummer Tony Lee said.

"On our independent record, there were some songs that needed to be acoustic and not rockin'. So, we thought, 'Let's have a cello in there,' " he said. "We kept the cello and kept working with it, and it turned out really well. On the basic level, it's another melodic thing besides the voice. Angelo's not into guitar solos; we're not that kind of band. The cello fills in all the spaces just right."

It almost didn't happen at all. After a short stint with Lee in another band, Gianni started Treadmill Trackstar in 1993, but since Lee had moved to Los Angeles, he was purely on his own. He assembled several musician friends to help record an independent CD, co-produced by Hootie guitarist Mark Bryan.

Still needing a band to support the album on tour, Gianni convinced Lee to return to Columbia. He then added Hamilton and bassist Chris Grigg.

"When Angelo and I first met, we clicked on many levels," Lee said. "When I moved away, I really missed music in my life. I tried to play with some other guys in California; everybody I played with loved me and wanted me to join their bands, but I just couldn't see it. I came back and recorded the CD with Angelo, and I thought, 'This is it.' So, when I went back to L.A., it started playing on my conscience and Angelo just kept riding my ass to join the band. One day I decided, 'screw it, let's do it,' and I haven't regretted it one bit."

In record stores, a sticker on the cover of "Only This" calls it "cello-driven power-rock." Lee prefers "colorful rock."

"It's lush in a lot of ways that rock music isn't," he said. "The artsy-fartsy bands of the '70s, like ELO, Pink Floyd, in some ways, I guess we hearken back to them or evoke them. The songs definitely are adventurous."

The album suffers from the usual maladies that befall ’90s rock bands. Lyrics and delivery are somewhat narcissistic and humorless. Then there’s the all-too-common curse of the jam that won’t die (too much Phish or Colonel Bruce in their formative years, perhaps?). And very good songs like “Rattles,” an upbeat slice of nasty pop, would be just right if some prudent person would snip off the last few minutes of extraneous tinkering. There’s the usual tendency to blow out the speakers on a few choruses as well. Fortunately, though, only a handful of tracks are spoiled by these excesses, and some great songs and musicianship rescue the CD.

Despite a few glitches, Only This is a sturdy beginning from a talented foursome, and some tighter production reins on their second outing may yield more consistent results. – Lisa Lumb

Treadmill is at the point now, he explains, that, "We don't want to put out something less than perfect, just to have a new record out. I don't think any of us want to put out anything that's not better than the last one." A petty tall order, considering the sonic resonance and poetic flow of that album, Excessive Use Of The Passive Voice. Gianni's lyrics manage to be simultaneously delicate and blunt, and their musical backdrop, colored by acoustic and electric guitars and the symphonic elegance of Heidi Brown's cello, uniquely complements the twisting, turning wordplay.

This musical individuality has been both help and hindrance, according to the band members. "Look at the touring bands that are huge on the circuit," Treadmill drummer Tony Lee challenges. "Uncle Mingo, Jupiter Coyote, Everything, they're all really goood at a specific genre--funk, jam-rock, ska, whatever." This, he explains, helps when people are looking for a type of music to go see. "For example, if there's a good punk rock band in town, all the punk rock kids are going to be there. How do you get people to come see us--'Hey, everybody, there's a great eclectic band with a cello playing tonight, let's go!'-- We don't fit in any neat, specific style."

To combat any confusion, and maximize their promotional efforts, Treadmill has been a leader locally on the Internet, with their own Website, which is one of the most creative and entertaining band sites around. It has received thousands of 'hits' since debuting this past spring, and in addition to the usual tour schedule, band bios, and merchandise offers, the page has been offering entertaining updates from the road and some free form writing samples from Angelo. He explains, "I check out other band’s web sites, and they're the same for months. We wanted to do something that would constantly be updated and changing." For Treadmill fans, it's been a way of keeping track of the band's adventures and mishaps on the road. For example, in one entry, Angelo tells about the night he," Sat down with a huge crazy guy who was missing a bunch of teeth. He just sat there all night with an old sketch pad drawing the Incredible Hulk and naked sci-fi women and drank Peach Snapple. He was definitely interesting and told me he would do artwork for us." Also revealing are the descriptions of places that Treadmill has performed. They claim they haven't played a bowling alley yet, but some clubs sound just as bad. Of one, Angelo wrote," When we walked in the first thing we saw was some pictures of the beach bands that had played there recently standing in those silly poses with tuxes on, I'm scared. We started our first set at 11 and the crowd consisted of older, tourist type, shag dancers. We started playing and half of them got up and immediately filed out of the door. That doesn't do much for your confidence."

Contrary to what that night might have been like, Treadmill is on a performance tear, both in Columbia and elsewhere. Their most recent shows here have been some of their strongest ever, and the band really seems to be enjoying themselves. According to Cris Grigg, "Just the short time we've been together as a band, this touring thing has given us time to really come together and play well."

The band is quick to credit some recently added, much needed logistical help, also. "Harry Conner (former manager of Blightobody) has helped us out a lot," Angelo maintains. "He's freed us up to practice, play, write, and to not worry about a bunch of stuff--it all makes for a better trip every time we go out." The other addition, road manager Steve Cook, is also a handy man to have along, for various reasons. "Steve is like a comedy club along on tour with us," Tony says. For proof, head back to the Web page, where some of Steve's best lines are preserved. In one memorable moment, Angelo writes, "Widespread Panic was playing the Civic Center down the street and when it was over Steve went out into the street and yelled at all the hippie's to come to our show. He was yelling that we were all barefoot in the club and that they should come on in. It didn't work but it was amusing." With Steve along, also, the band admits, "We've got someone else to blame stuff on, too."

As infrequently as Treadmill Trackstar makes it back to their hometown, you will have nobody to blame but yourself if you miss this week's appearance. Treadmill Trackstar will be at Rockafellas this Saturday, August 10th.

You gotta love an optimistic pessimist. This Columbia, SC band--joining Gianni are bassist Chris Grigg, drummer Tony Lee and secret weapon Heidi Brown on cello--have staked out turf somewhere between the ruminative soft rock of your Pearl Jams and the, well, ruminative soft rock of your Toad The Wet Sprockets, that middle neighborhood that bands like Live and Seven Mary Three have found to be a pretty successful place to hang out. A Bob Mould comparison is not all that much of a stretch, a point underscored by a plaintive reading of Husker Du's "Too Far Down" near the end of Treadmill Trackstar's debut, Excessive Use Of The Passive Voice.

DL: A lot of your songs don't have a very definite storyline, or the story line is more in the subtext than the lyrics themselves. Is that on purpose? AG: Yeah. I don't really like songs that say exactly what they mean to say. I'd rather have the chance to make up my own interpretations of what its about. DL: Do you think people like that, or would they rather be led more?

AG: I think it goes both ways, you know. It's a pretty even split probably. My favorite songwriters, like Bob Dylan, you know those are pretty specific stories, but then again there's all kinds of other stuff going on too.

DL: Dylan's not like anyone else, most songwriters I've ever talked to mention him as an influence, but almost none of them try to write Dylan-type songs.

AG: I don't think you can really chose how you're gonna write a song. well, you probably can... you can try to write a certain kind of song, but I think if you do that then you're not really doing it the right way. I mean for me, I'd rather just...you know, whatever comes out.

DL: Do you need some sort of personal connection with the material in your songs?

AG: Yeah, most of them start out that way. Like Walking With Madeleine... I collect, like, childrens books and childrens records and stuff like that and I was reading all those Madeleine books, you know...I read those when I was a kid, too...And it started with that. She was a spunky kid, kind of lonley, but real curious but she was stuck in an orphanage and shit so she couldn't really go anywhere...so it was relating that to how I was feeling sort of being stuck in Columbia. A good many of our songs are about spinning your wheels...you know, working hard and not really getting anywhere. Those kind of themes.

DL: Why?

AG: I don't know, it's just sort of an obsessive thing I've got. Almost everything I write has got something to do with that...ah with futility, sort of, and feeling trapped in situations.

DL: Columbia's like the weather, everybody complains about it, but nobody ever does anything.

AG: Laughs...Yeah, I felt that way for a long time, but it really is a great place. There's not many other places.

DL: Tell me more about how you write. What's the process?

AG: Almost always it just comes from screwing around with the guitar and coming up with something that I think sounds cool. I use a lot of weird, weird tunings, and once I find a tuning that I like it's almost definite that three of four songs are gonna pop right out of that. Once I've gotten a song structure down on the music it seems like usually a chorus or just a line will pop out and it might not make any sense...Like this new song we have called Burrow. There's a line in the chorus that goes, "It's already ruined..." and that just came out. Once that happens, then I can try to figure out what it's gonna be about. Like with Walking With Madeleine, that line came out before I was really consciously thinking about Madeleine the book or any of that stuff. That's just what came out, and then I tried to sculpt the song out of that.

DL: Do you try to write on a regular schedule, like setting aside a certain part of the day or anything?

AG: I used to try and force myself to do that, but I found that if I push myself to do it, the stuff that I come up with I never end up liking and it all gets thrown away. Plus it can stress you out a lot if you think you need to be writing songs all the time and you don't come up with anything for a couple of monthes, so now I just wait...I try not to put any pressure on myself because I've never come up with anything good that way.

DL: Tell me about some of the songs on the CD, like Shouldn't I Take, give me an idea of how that came about.

AG: That was another one that just popped out; The line Shouldn't I take.

DL: Even before the music, or did you have a chord change or anything in mind?

AG: I had the chords and all the guitar stuff and that came out first. You know, thats one that I've tried to remember because, everyone in the band they're real interested in the lyrics and they want to know what I was thinking so they can play accordingly. If the song's about a certain thing then they want to know that so they can play with that in mind and try and get it across musically too. But I can't really remember what I was thinking at all when that was written. I mean I know it was about, you know, sitting around and...shouldn't I just get up and grab a bunch a shit and that kind of thing. But as far as specific lyrics, (laughing) I'm really clueless as to what the hell I was thinking about.

DL: Is there any one thing, or group of things, that characterize an Angelo Gianni song?

AG: Well, one complaint we get a lot is that thers's lots of parts to our songs. There's never just a verse chorus, verse chorus song, it's usually a couple of different verses, a bridge, a chorus, and then usually another separate bridge part that we stick in there. So that's one thing that one thing that people complain about, and lots of times it's the band, you know, when we're starting to work on a song and there's so many parts. But, that's something that's sort of distinct about us too. We try to stay as simple as possible....I mean, some of the best songs out there are just simple as hell. Dylan songs are a great example of that.

DL: Who else do you like?

AG: As far as songwriting, I don't have any real songwriting heroes. If I had to pick some, I'd say Dylan. As far as music, I'd say Michael Hedges was a huge influence on me. He plays a lot of acoustic guitar with really weird tunings...just amazing stuff. I think the last rock record I've gotten into a lot as far as lyrics is the latest Afghan Whigs record. It's just evil. But as far as like overall people I've tried to copy I don't know.

DL: How important are lyrics and songwriting to the overall scheme of what you're trying to do with the CD and with the band? Which is really two different things given the odd genesis of the project, with the CD being completed before the band was even together.

AG: Yeah...Well, for me the lyrics have always been vital. If we're playing a song thats just great, but the lyrics just suck it's gonna end up on the side of the road. We won't play it anymore 'cause I just can't imagine singing a song like "I'm moving to the country to eat a lot of peaches" and, you know, gettin' into that. I can't stand hearing those kinds of lyrics. I'd much rather it be something maybe ridiculous or stupid, but at least there's something that it could mean deeper than the actual lyrics. DL: So you wouldn't write something that would be strictly narrative or topical in nature?

AG: Not especially...Like Liz Phair, I think that record is awesome, and a lot of her songs are straight stories that are pretty much about what she's talking about...I mean there's other things you can get out of them, but she's a great example of a story songwriter that's just awesome. I would love to be able to write songs like that, but for some reason I started out writing songs like that about certain people or certain events and the actual lyrics were this is what happened, this is what I'm talking about, but I'd rather be more vague and leave it more open a little bit more. Like all the nonsense songs that the Beatles wrote...I've read interviews with them where they say this is nonsense and it doesn't mean anything at all, but it does anyway, you know. Even if they wrote it just off the top of their head, it's still taken on some type of meaning over time.

DL: Well, it has different meaning to different people that hear it, but I think that's sort of a copout. I mean you can pay lip service to the idea that this piece or another has interpretive value or this means different things to different people that hear it, but surely you had something in mind when you were putting it on paper, right?

AG: Yeah, absolutely.

DL: When I was on the way over here I heard a full gospel choir on the radio doing a cover of Blowin' In The Wind; it made me wonder about the effects of arrangements and music on how lyrics are interpreted. So, I was wondering, along those lines, has the interpretation of the songs on the CD changed since the lineup of the band has solidified and you all have been playing together and playing shows on the road?

AG: Are you talking about the lyrics, or the songs as a whole?

DL: Well, specifically the lyrics, but the music too. I mean you come up with a song, and you write it sort of in a vacuum, then you bring in these other performers; does that have an efffect on the songs interpretation over time?

AG: I'm not sure if it changes the lyrical interpretation that much, I think time does that by itself, without the band. A friend of mine was doing a media project and he asked me to do an anlysis of a song for him. I wrote it for him... that was a while ago; I just read it over and my idea of the song had completely changed since then. (At this point the phone rings, Angelo gets up and answers "Raging Rose Records;" the band's label.)

AG: But yeah, like you said, the songs are sorta written in a vacuum and then I bring them to the band. At that point, they can change drastically. I write everything on acoustic and its very basic, it has a real folky sound to it usually. And that's what's so great about the band. I can only bring my part to it, you know, and then they take it and just bend it up and add all this other stuff. That can make me look at it in a different way too, once it's all done. I like that, because everything they bring to it always makes the song better.

DL: Are there any things that you consciously try to avoid when you're writing a song, like lines about moving to the country and eating lots of peaches?

AG: That song drives me crazy! And it's catchy, too, and that drives me even more crazy. (laughing)

DL: Lets talk some about the CD. Excessive Use of the Passive Voice has gotten a lot of attention because of the multi-media aspects of it. Not many CDs have a companion book of poems and stories available.

AG: Yeah, well the way I was thinking about was I may only get to make one CD my whole life, so we better put as much stuff on there as we can. We couldn't afford to record more songs, so we put a bunch of spoken-word stuff at the end. And we put some of the story stuff in the liner notes...and the artwork....that's all really important to the whole package.

DL: How much of those other media aspects of the songs are you able to bring to a live performance?

AG: We've tried to bring some of that to the stage since we first started; we'd really like to get something going with film at the shows. Not just documentary-type footage, but...I mean I would never want to just go through a song and do a straight video to it; just following the words and doing what the words are saying, but just finding some visual themes that go along with the music, that would be interesting to do.

DL: A minute ago you were talking about putting as much stuff as you could on the CD because you weren't sure if you'd ever get to do another one, but now it looks like you probably will.

AG: Yeah, we recorded that live show at The Elbow Room, but just like the film thing it all comes down to money sooner or later. We haven't been able to do the film yet because of money, but we're getting ready to just do it anyway. You know, our little independent record company that's basically just us is poor. We've just about paid for the last record and we had to find a way to get our new songs out there.

DL: Do you have enough new material to fill the entire record?

AG: Yeah, we've got plenty of stuff, and it's totally different from what's on the CD; it's different people and the songwritings changed....So hopefully we'll be able to get the live recording out. We can't afford to go to the studio right now, but I think we can get that done and at least get that new material out where people can hear it. Hopefully in the next couple of monthes.

DL: Gotta play those gigs.

AG: Yeah man, we are, we're busy!

DL: You guys are going on a little tour here soon, right?

AG: Yeah, we're going to Atlanta this week, and then New Orleans, Wilmington, Charleston....pretty much pounding these Southeast in the next two months. We're hoping to play 300 gigs this year.

DL: Wow, that's a hell of a lot of gigs.

AG: Yeah, everyone in the band's attitude is that it's nice to be home, but we'd much rather be on the road. I personally love being in the van driving somewhere weird and I think everybody else does too. It's just fun travelling and playing new places.