Fallen Angel

For being the producers of some of the most raucous (in a good way) party hits of the past few years, the boys of 3OH!3 are remarkably subdued and levelheaded guys. Aside from talk of heading to the moon one day soon, they have few plans that are out of reach for the exceptional 24 and 25 year olds, and they also have no illusions about who’s brought them to the top.
Read on for their thoughts on their fans, their twitters, censorship and bear hugging!

Cliché: So what made you choose “Robots” to release as a single on the 20th of June?
3OH3!: Um, I think it was cool for us because it was a song that was kind of like a throwback song for us. It’s a little bit harder and rappier, kind of reminiscent of our older styles. Um, and so we knew we were gonna do Warped Tour, where I think there’s a lot of our older fans, who have been listening to us since those days so it kind of made sense to release that song, and kind of gear it really especially for fans, you know, it’s kind of cool to do stuff directly for fans and it’s what we wanted to do.

C: And how’s the response been?
3: It’s been awesome. It’s been awesome. I think people online seem to like it a lot and seem to appreciate that we did it all on our own—like, producing at my house A to Z, and I mixed it. It’s been great, we actually just released a video for it today that a kid from here made and killed it, he’s awesome. It’s a cool song, and it really is geared towards fans.

C: I was actually gonna ask about the video—have there been a lot of fan submissions for the small video clip leaks of the Robots video?
3: Yeah, there have been, there have been. You know, we try to do a good job of promoting it online and, you know, kind of building some hype around it and making sure that at least everyone knows about it who wants to know about it. And so far it’s been great, it came out today and we’ve seen the views go up. We’ve always been a band that’s based prettily heavily on the internet.

C: Have you been involved in Music Saves Lives and has it changed your views on anything?
3: Yeah, they came to us to do a PSA, and like an animation PSA with Captain Steve, and it was really funny. It was cool to do animation for us. It’s a good charity and I think Warped Tour has some good charities on it and it’s good even for what it does—blood drives and stuff—but even to raise awareness to kids to show them that they can make a difference, no matter what it is. It provides an easy access for kids to make a change if they can.

C: You’ve played with and supported countless bands and acts, which one’s your favorite?
3: (laughs) I’m trying to think…I mean supported, we went on tour with Katy Perry in Europe which was awesome. I mean, it was a lot of fun. We know her whole career and her band and her very well, and it was great. And we’ve played a lot of shows with a band called Innerpartysystem who have gone on tour with us and those guys are rad. We’ve learned a lot from those dudes about how a live show runs and kind of the technical in and outs of our show and that kind of comes back and feeds our creativity and so kind of molds our live show so they’ve done a lot to help us in that sense. But we’ve had the fortune of being able to play a lot of different shows and it’s just that variety that’s really been awesome.

C: Definitely. You guys use a lot of web based media to get your stuff to fans. How do you think that impacts your fan demographics and promotion?
3: I think it’s been huge for us. To be completely realistic we started out as a MySpace band and I think that without that unbelievable form for our music we would have never been able to go on tour or do any of this. So for us it’s huge and we know that it’s huge, and it’s great for us because we’re a band that doesn’t really give a fuck about that kind of mystique veil between band and fans. It’s just about being dudes that make music and being able to disseminate it in any way we can. I think the current forms, whether it’s through facebook or Twitter or Ustream or any of that stuff, it’s cool. It breaks down that barrier and allows us to release music more easily and allows everyone to have access to them.

C: Definitely. A lot of your songs are pretty tongue in cheek. When performing do you have any lines that make you laugh?
3: I thought, I mean the lines, honestly, it sounds kind of bad but the lines kind of become muscle memory. You kind of just do it. I think it’s the variations at the shows that are really funny. Like, I’ll look over and I’ll see Sean grinding on a mic stand or hanging upside down from the drum rise or something. It’s the variations on the shows that are funny and I think that’s probably what’s funny to fans too. We try to make every show unique and doing something funny that’s different from last night’s show and that’s what keeps it fun for us.

C: Absolutely. How did you get to work on the Alice in Wonderland soundtrack?
3: We actually have a great relationship with Disney who was doing that movie obviously and we actually did our “Starstrukk” remix video, the one with Katy Perry, with Disney too. So the A+R for that record hit us up and asked if we were interested in the project and we said yeah, of course we were. We’re a big fan of Dionne Hish and she was our friend before that and I’ve wanted to work with her for a while so it was a cool opportunity to do that.

C: You guys often have “Censored” labels on your CDs. Do you take censorship in to account when writing your songs?
3: Nah, not really, no. I mean, you try not to. I mean, there’s ways to get around it these days. Actually, that’s a complete lie, we definitely did—for a song called “Touchin On My”, we used censor beeps to become melodic elements in the song and sort of play on the notion of censorship. So on that song yeah, we did. On the rest of our stuff we try to just write it. I mean it sucks. Censorship is really kind of garbage, especially with language I think it’s kind of stupid, but you have to work around it.

C: And how did you get started? What do you credit your rise to fame to?
3: Fans. I mean, fans who like coming out and listening to fun music. I mean, we started just as a hobby, you know, we were in college just making music in between going to school and taking classes. I think it was really that feeling of infectious fun both on our side making music and then playing it and hopefully other people listen to it and it’s just grown in to what we are now, which is awesome.

C: And what are your plans for the future exactly?
3: Go to the moon. Visit the space station. Plant a tree. Hug a bear.

C: Those are pretty diverse.
3: Yeah, I mean, just keep working on music. We’re going to try and release a collection of stuff next year and keep doing what we’re doing. Just make music that’s fun and put a smile on people’s faces.

C: Anything you wanna talk about that you’re gonna release that we can upload for you?
3: Yeah man, I think really what we have right now is that Robot song. To just have people hear it whether they buy it or not. I think it’s an interesting song and it’s cool, it’s a little bit outside the box for us which is always fun.
Interview conducted by Jeremy Fall / Questions by Lauren Pires

You can visit the original page here: http://www.clichemag.com/2011/07/11/3oh3-interview-cliches-music-corner/

The spunky front man of pop punk band, Cobra Starship, had a successful mainstream success with the summer 09 party anthem “Good Girls Go Bad.” With the help of Kara Diogaurdi and a drop from Leighton Meester, the “Hot Mess” album was an album that was on repeat everywhere. Since Cobra’s last record, the band has recently gotten back into the studio to record their fourth album .. Gabe and I got to chat about Miley vs Selena, Justin Bieber, the old MTV and insights from the next record.

Alex Kazemi: HI Gabe! How are you? How has New York been treating you?

Gabe Saporta: Hey Alex! I’m good. I just went shopping and right now I’m trying on some stuff I bought from Super Saturday. They had some nice polo shirts for like fifteen bucks. I bought my dad some too.

Kazemi: I’m going to check it out when I go to New York. I understand you moved to the big apple recently. Has living in New York been a big inspiration for the music on the upcoming record?

Gabe : A lot of our inspiration comes from our experiences at night time. As a musician you don’t really keep track of your schedule. I don’t come home until 2 in the morning and even at that time I’m still kinda crazy. You can always find something going on musically in New York, there is a lot of cool creative people in the city and were lucky to hang out with them sometimes.

Kazemi: Who are some other influential artists who have influenced the sound of the upcoming record?

Gabe: Chromeo has been one of my biggest influences from the start of the band in the first place.. It’s funny cause when Cobra just started, Chromeo just started too. Me and Dave from Chromeo dated the same girl so we met through this girl who put us in touch and we tried to work on this song together. I wanted him to produce stuff for us. It’s cool. I’m totally inspired by their attitude, they have fun with it. They are really good musicians but they don’t take themselves too seriously, they have fun with it. I actually went to see them on Wednesday and it was honestly one of the most fun shows I’ve been too in New York in a long time. Everyone was dancing; good vibes. He definitely doesn’t try to be too cool for school at all.

for the rest of the interview visit: http://alexkazemi.com/2010/08/interview-gabe-saporta/