INTERVIEWS

Bomb The Music Industry | 4.26.07 Interview with Jeff Rosenstock by Devon Kay

Q: First off state your name and occupation.

I am Jeff Rosenstock. I wash dishes at Transmetropolitan Pizza, and I
am also a freelance graphic designer (mediafrenzydesign.net). On my
better days I take care of a bunch of instruments and singings in a
band called Bomb the Music Industry! When I can, I run a donation
based record label called Quote Unquote Records where all the music is
free and payment is only suggested.

Q: How long have you been involved in the music industry?

I don't think I've ever been a part of the music industry... maybe for
a few days here and there when I would send ASOB CDs out to record labels.
That's about it though. I've done my best to be involved with music
outside of the industry for about twelve years now.

Q: When you got started in this industry did you ever think you would reach the point of entrepreneur, songwriter, and to some legend?

I work really hard on the songs that I write, booking tours, helping
out friends in bands, graphic design and all of that other stuff and I
always have. There was a point right before I started Bomb the Music
Industry! when I tried to stay away from music and I ended up writing
a bunch of songs and I guess I realized then that music is going to be
something I'm always doing in my life. And I don't mean owning a
hugely successful record label some day or being a higher up at MTV or
something, those aren't goals of mine. I'm always gonna be here trying
to write better songs, and I never expected anyone to like them but
I'm glad a bunch people do. As far as entrepeneurship goes, that kind
of stuff isn't intentional, I just do things that I think would make
sense or that would help out bands that I like. I really have no clue
what I'm doing. My life is too boring, normal and full of mistakes to
use the word "legend."

Q: Could you talk of some of the hardships of being an independent artist trying to reach an audience without CD sales? How about some of the upsides?

The only downside to what I do is that you can't reach an audience
that doesn't have the internet pretty much. Also you've gotta rely on
word of mouth for it to keep growing, because you can't just build a
career on a few sites posting news on your band. The upsides far
outweigh them though... there are almost no boundaries in people
getting to hear the music, put it on a CD or MP3 player and listen to
it all the time, show it to their friends, make mixes and what have
you. A large part of the success Bomb the Music Industry! had right
out of the gate was due to the fact that before we played a show we
had an album available for free with lyrics so people could get into
the music really easily if they wanted to. It also makes all the
finances a lot less worrysome; our expenses are more minimal because
we do shirts and music the way we do, so a lot of the times the little
money we make from the door coupled with a handful of people being
very generous and donating gets us gas to the next show, a couple
extra bucks for food and pays back the cost of spraypaint and CD-Rs.
So it works in THAT sense for now. Not having a tangible record bums
me out a little because I like buying that stuff for the artwork,
liner notes, better quality and all that but when the goal is just to
get the songs to anyone who wants to hear it, putting them up for free
is a no brainer.

Q: How has going from what some would call "stability" of The Arrogant Sons of Bitches to basically putting all of the pressure on yourself to create?

Towards the very end of ASOB, I was starting to take over writing
songs entirely, record them Bomb the Music Industry! style and go from
there with everyone else. The songs that I had written on the last
ASOB record were so old to us by the time that record finally got out,
I mean we'd been playing those songs on tours for years. I was always
excited for the chance to record one-off songs for the discography and
compilations and things like that, but I guess in the span of four
years we wrote maybe fifteen or twenty songs. A bunch of the songs for
the first Bomb the Music Industry! record were supposed to be the next
ASOB songs, but we couldn't start working on them until that album was
out and that took so long. So basically, when ASOB took a break and I
tried to stop playing music, I started working a LOT more songs in my
head that were just held back from the ASOB days and eventually I
became quite a bit comfortable with writing songs, recording ideas and
all that. So it's a lot of fun and very relieving, even if I do get
ahead of myself with all the booking, recording, releasing, graphic
art and record label shit.

Q: The name Bomb the Music Industry! is quite the powerful name, when
you chose it did you feel like you where making a statement, and if
so did you follow through with those intentions?

I was watching a lot of Style Wars when I named the band and I liked
the idea of "bombing" as a positive thing, especially considering what
a dirty word "bomb" is in the world these days. I guess I always like
to have something that will push some people away from it immediately
upon hearing the name, even though that doesn't seem very smart. When
it started, it meant to me kind of putting my little tag on this huge
behemoth, maybe trying to make something more creative out of it.
Since naming the band, I've kinda decided that I'd rather just try and
create my own thing outside of it but I still like having a band name
that people can give us shit about when we sign to Epitaph.

Q: Being a huge fan of your music I must ask a question for myself.
I am very drawn to your music due to the raw and real lyrics, you make
the listener feel exactly what you are going through. Be it a
contradiction or what feels like just madness you write like a human
thinks and it is very impressive. My question is what was the
inspiration for the closing rant on the song "Side Projects are Never
Successful" about corporate rock?

That song pretty much is what it is. I had a bad day in traffic court,
sat in a hot hot hot car for hours and hours with a scratched CD-R of
the Arcade Fire that barely played and nothing else, so it got to the
point where I was just thinking about the stuff I think about; what it
would take to make honest music, trying to exist non-commercially in a
very commercial culture, how long I've been staring at a Verizon
billboard that says "America's #1 service" when my Verizon cell phone
sucks shit, trying to work outside of the system but in a way that I
would be able to do for the rest of my life, etc. Then when I got to
work, I sat in the air conditioning upstairs for a few minutes,
punched in and walked down the street to get a Subway sandwich and a
coke and just thought to myself "haha, i am sooooo a part of this no
matter how much i don't want to be." That's when I stopped thinking
about "fuck the system" and started thinking about "well, let me try
and make the things I can control nice."

Q: Could you please give me your current opinion of the music
industry today?

It's kinda great? I don't see MTV-type bands as much of anything
anymore except for celebrity... which is weird but whatever. Also,
there are too many bands with makeup but when I was a kid it was too
many bands with blue hair so I guess you gotta get into the subculture
through some watered down version of it as a youngin' so I can't be
too bummed out about that. Other than that, it seems like independent
music is doing fucking awesome. I mean, it sucks if you wanna see
these bands, but the Shins, The Decemberists, Arcade Fire, Modest
Mouse and that whole scene... they're playing in huge huge rooms and
selling them out. You can go to YouTube and see/share the new Thermals
video or the new Big D video or the new Tom Waits video any time you
like. Bands are doing better based on word of mouth because they're
good, not because of video-based marketing. A few years ago, it seemed
like you were supposed to wait for your knight in shining armor to
come along and help you out with tours and recording and stuff. Now
that record labels are falling, it's kind of like "be your own fucking
knight." Which is awesome for me, because it means I can make music in
a way that I'm comfortable with and not eat THAT much shit.

Q: Do you ever see yourself selling your music to the iTunes store,
or does that just seem silly because you give the music away? Do you
see the iPod going the way of the walkman?

I was considering doing that just to see how dumb people would be, but
obviously it makes no sense for our records to be available for money
digitally when they're available for free digitally. I mean, we're not
even on a lot of those torrent sites because there's no point. I think
that MP3 players will eventually become dated technologies because
that's what happens. I have no idea what's next though, I hope it's
something that sounds good though.

Q: Has any major label frowned upon what you are doing? Do you
ever feel like an outsider in the music industry due to your new form
of business.

It's a really good shit filter for who you associate yourself with.
I've lost touch with bands because they think that this is some stupid
bullshit and after all the talks we had when I was in ASOB it seems
like I'm just throwing away everything. But then there are bands like
Mustard Plug who are open minded and seem to get that this is a real
thing too, it's just different than theirs. To be able to go to
England with the Ska is Dead tour was amazing. To be able to get a
free trip to see my family on Christmas by touring with Catch 22 was
great. To be able to do tours with bands like We Versus the Shark, O
Pioneers, The Matt Kurz One, The Rick Johnson Rock and Roll Machine,
The Fad and Chotto Ghetto has been awesome - none of them sound the
same but we all seem to believe our souls not our wallets. I guess I'm
an outsider to some music industry, but it's nothing I want any part
of. Fashionista bands who only screw each other over to get their
faces on MTV - I feel like they have as much in common with how I feel
about music as a dentist does, maybe even less because I bet that a
dentist would probably go home and listen to music and enjoy it
whereas bands like that just try to copy haircuts and mic swings.

Q: Give me your opinion on the internet's help with music.

It's giving people access to music that is no longer provided to them
by mainstream channels. I mean, I'm just a kid with a microphone and a
computer who holds down some pretty shitty jobs. But at least 10,000
people heard the last Bomb the Music Industry! record because it's
available online for free. THAT'S FUCKING CRAZY. When you're in a
small band selling CD's, selling a box of a thousand seems like the
hardest task ever. So ostensibly, because of the internet I've been all
over America, to England and Ireland, met some really awesome people
and have had a handful of people think I'm some important guy. And at
the end of the day or the tour or the show, I go home and go to bed
and go to work the next day. If the internet can make people who are
honest as lucky as it has made me, and steal money from the
small-hearted whores who try to rid music of all it's fun, charm,
mystique and energy only to replace it with marketing messages, then
the internet is gonna save rock and roll. Which is ironic because it's
totally for nerds.