PUP FRESH INTERVIEW: GOLD MOTEL
Gold Motel were kind enough to take time and answer a few questions for us. Find out when the band will release their next record, what their future tour plans are, and more by reading the interview below!
Back in November, you released your 7” Talking Fiction to follow your debut LP Summer House. Since then, you’ve been sort of non-stop touring. Could it be some time before we can expect another full-length from you?
ERIC: As of now, we plan to have the second full length LP out by early next year. We just spent a week in LA in between our last tour with HelloGoodbye and SXSW fleshing out new ideas, and it was the first time since working on Talking Fiction that we’ve worked on new material. Since then we’ve been back home in Chicago, and we’ve blocked out some time to finish what we started in LA. We’re attempting to write the bulk of this material from the ground up as a band, so there are a lot more personalities and opinions involved this time around. Because of this, I think the process may take a bit longer but will ultimately be more rewarding for everyone involved. Depending on how things go, we may also release another 7” a few months before the album comes out.
GRETA: Absolutely. We’re excited about the new material! Hoping to have a new single and music video out this summer that will hint at our next full length.It’s been quite some time since your last headlining tour. You did a run on fun.’s Fall headliner, and just got done touring with Hellogoodbye. You recently announced your tour with Farewell Continental. How long before you go out on another headliner of your own? Who would you want to take with you on it?
ERIC: I hope that we can continue to spend the rest of 2011 as a support slot to really great package tours. The nice thing about opening for other artist is that you’re being exposed to a new audience who otherwise may have not seen your set if you weren’t playing with the headliner they came to see. Although Gold Motel has played many cities many times, we have been fortunate enough to play for a new audience every time depending on who we’re touring with. That variety of exposure is extremely valuable to a new group such as us who is still trying to build their fan base and find their niche market.
GRETA: Definitely! We’ve had great success opening for Kate Nash, Fun, Hellogoodbye in the US, and hope to play with tons of other bands we like soon. For the most up to date touring schedule, sign up for our mailing list: www.goldmotel.fanbridge.com. Next our our plate is a tour with Farewell Continental and then a UK/Europe tour with Hellogoodbye.Your label, Good As Gold Records, is something you set up in your garage, mailing out merch orders. So far, you’re the only band “signed” to it. Are you open to take on more artists, and maybe expand it from your garage to an office? Or is it more of a DIY placeholder while you get other offers?
GRETA: Good As Gold Records is pretty much run out of the garage of my house. We have two band interns who help with promotion + social media, as well as running our webstore. It’s a bit wild when we have an influx of orders, because it usually means watching ten Woody Allen movies in a row and writing addresses until our hands cramp up. Hopefully we’ll have a better infrastructure soon for our next album!
ERIC: Unfortunately Good As Gold Records doesn’t have a functional office. At least not yet. Because we are currently self releasing our material, Good As Gold Records is just a name we give ourselves. Due to the DIY nature of our infrastructure, we’ve all learned a lot about how the business end of music works, and how to employ modern day tools such as social media in an effective way to reach old and new fans. I think if we wanted to develop a roster and turn Good As Gold into a functional label we could, but it would be a lot of work and time I would rather invest into Gold Motel right now. We have to develop ourselves and solidify our careers before we can do that for others. A few years from now though…maybe Good As Gold will start “signing” other artists. Who knows…Since you guys started, you never really branded yourselves as “Greta from The Hush Sound, The Yearbooks, and This Is Me Smiling”—which is essentially what your band is (on paper). A lot of times, new artists will reference their former bands to gain some of the following after a departure. Have there been struggles not to take that approach and to work your way from the ground up?
ERIC: Well when the band first started we did exploit our backgrounds a bit in an effort to gain quicker name recognition as well as reach out to fans of our previous projects and expose them to Gold Motel. The audiences on our first tour of the west coast were primarily old Hush Sound fans who heard that Greta had a new project. As Gold Motel continues to progress, our roots mean less and less, and I think we don’t have to depend on them anymore. One of my goals for 2011 is that by the end of the year Gold Motel can be evaluated, referenced, and introduced as it’s own entity without any ties to our past. The best way that can happen is for Gold Motel to surpass the notoriety and success of The Hush Sound, This Is Me Smiling, and The Yearbooks. It’s a very realistic goal. We’re capable of doing that.
GRETA: We definitely have tried to reach The Hush Sound + This Is Me Smiling + The Yearbook’s audiences through posting on their websites / social networks, and we’ve taken a lot of those fans with us. I think Gold Motel has enough history as a standalone band at this point that we don’t really need to.Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. Is there anything you’d like to add/plug to the readers?
ERIC: Check out www.goldmotel.com for more information on the band, and follow us at www.twitter.com/goldmotel.
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