When and how did you decide that you wanted to make music your career?
My life has almost always been focused on sports and music. In fact, when my brother Hoagman (Full Service drummer/singer) and I were 18 and 16 we made a home-recorded album and called it “Sports and Heavy Music.” It was like the soundtrack of our summer, and we subconsciously decided then, I think, that that’s what we wanted to do for the rest of our lives. Baseball was my first dream and I had a fun, rewarding career playing through college at Amherst, but as Coach Thurston would, I’m sure, tell you, “Right Kepner, you can hit and throw, but you’re too slow!” So since about halfway through college, I started thinking up the master plan of how Hoag and I would make rocking into a living.
When did you realize that you could actually pull it off?
Well, I’m not sure that I can really say that I’m “pulling it off” quite yet. I’m not making any money for myself at this point, though the band is able to pay for itself and about to tour, put out albums, all that. But it’s not really about money anyway, right? In the sense that we’re a working band without day jobs—save for giving a few lessons here and there—that tours from California to Boston and all over the South, has put out albums, has actual fans instead of just friends … I’d say it’s been within the last year. When an anonymous fan from somewhere outside of Houston sent us shall we say, “dirty things” in the mail, I guess I knew then that things were changing for the band and the career. Ha! That’s only half a joke.
The band’s sound shows off a vast number of musical influences. Which guitarists influence your personal playing style most?
I have a life-sized cardboard cutout of Slash that is still in my bedroom back in Philly, where I grew up. That should tell you something for sure. For the last two years I’ve listened almost exclusively to Brent Hinds and Bill K from Mastodon. Those guys are mind-bendingly good and innovative. I’m trying to figure out Brent’s whole “chicken pickin’” technique—a country thing that he uses in metal. Other than those three, it’s not so much guitar players as musicians in general. Chuck D from Public Enemy, B Real from Cypress Hill, my brother … just influenced by their approaches to performance and music in general.
What was your musical experience at Amherst like?
Full Service actually got its start in the basement of Stearns before graduating to the basement of Hamilton with all those old mattresses up against the wall, jamming with my friend Sully [Mike Sullivan ’00] on drums and Bert Moreno ’00 on vocals and Pat Reavey ’00 on rhythm guitar. The school afforded me lots of opportunities to perform at parties and TAP and all that stuff, and I thought it was great how they let us rip it up in the basement of Hamilton. Professor Reck in the music department was a badass and an inspiration for the possibilities of what you can do with music. Is he still there? The students were pretty receptive, as receptive as drunk college kids can be I guess! We didn’t have the best luck trying to play out of
Amherst, though. I remember one gig in Hadley that was attended by zero people!
What kind of subjects did you focus on while you were here?
Amherst ruled for not having a core curriculum, so I could study whatever I wanted. History was my main focus, but I really just tried to take classes with professors that I could connect with, especially in the English department [Barry O’Connell] and history. You really come to appreciate how luxurious it is to have so much time and opportunity to focus on making yourself better, smarter, more aware of the world and expose yourself to new ideas and books and everything when you’re in college. It’s a rare and brief opportunity. Luckily I get to read tons on tour in the van.
Did you feel any pressure do take a more “conventional” career path while at school?
I feel like there’s really two things that can happen, and do happen, to people who go to a school like Amherst. On the one hand, being at such a mind-opening institution and associating with such brilliant peers have the effect on many people, like me, to have the courage to buck the system and do something unconventional. I have one friend from Amherst, Josh Bernstein ’00, who is making art by taking pictures of himself naked in really weird places with nothing on but a pair of crutches and a necklace of “corn penises.” That’s what he’s doing now. I got another friend who has traveled everywhere in the world and another who was helping sick people in Thailand for a bunch of years. When your friends are doing crazy stuff like that, it motivates you to do something crazy yourself. There’s the other path that Amherst opens up, to solid and ‘conventional’ careers in teaching and banking and lawyering and all that, which is great too, just not for me. So I would say that Amherst took pressure off in my case as far as doing something different.
How does life on a tour bus compare with life in a dorm?
Ha! Not that different, to be honest, except that on tour when we stay in hotels, I actually have to sleep in a bed with another dude instead of just on a bunk! Luckily that dude is my brother and we’ve had to share beds on trips since we were little kids. But the other two guys stagger sheets and still, after three years of touring, the bass player sleeps in his clothes. Having traveled with sports teams and my two brothers so much growing up and also having the whole dorm-life experience, it feels very natural to spend so much time in such closer quarters with the other guys, but for Twink [Full Service bass player] who was an only child, didn’t play high school or college sports and had never had a roommate before he moved into my house, he gets a little freaked out after a few weeks out on the road. I will say, though, that my standards of what it means to be “clean” have significantly lowered since before my band days.
Best “Spinal Tap” story?
There’s a “Spinal Tap” moment almost every day. I was in front of our biggest crowd ever last Saturday at the Austin Reggae Fest—probably 3,000 people. I have this HUGE solo at the end of a song called “3 Will Ride Forth,” that is, like, my signature solo. I walked out into the sun onto this big ass platform in the front of the stage and started to rip it, and started with the wrong part. Totally whiffed. Yikes!
What is the best rock song ever written? [Interviewer’s vote: “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who]
What an awesome question. My favorite straight rock song of all time is Mr. Brownstone by Guns n’ Roses. Killer opening, bluesy riff. Modern day, best rock song has got to be “Blood and Thunder” by Mastodon.
What advice would you have for someone who wants to make a living playing music?
It has to be all or nothing. You can’t play it safe and try to be a rocker. Take every risk you can, but make them smart risks. The cool thing about it being music is that the crazier you act, the bigger stunts you pull, the better it is, and you can always get away with it because people expect rockers to be nuts. I don’t mean like breaking stuff on stage or getting all hammered and what not, but more in like performance and promotion. We have patented this thing we call the “Takeover,” where we have a generator and a group of fans, and roll up with all our gear to a big concert or a big gathering of people or a rooftop or the middle of a college campus and just start rippin’ while our fans give out demos and stickers and stuff. Sometimes we get shut down, but usually people are all about it. There are no rules. The second main piece of advice is to have a plan. Talk to your friends or mentors who have started their own businesses—see how they organized it, marketed it, sold it. Do the whole six-month/one-year/two-year/three-year plan and write it out with specifics. Then you can just go do them and you’ll feel great when you accomplish them. But you must write it down. Man, I could go on forever on this question, but the one more I’ll give is that it’s all about cooperation, not competition. If the scene grows, your band grows. You’re not competing with other bands, you should try helping each other, do shows together, make alliances with venues and do cool promotional stunts that benefit them and you. Alliances will help you along, not enemies.
How do you define success?
Killer question, this one. I’m in my head all the time, worrying about why we haven’t “made it,” how I want to make it. Yet, thinking about how I can make it happen, wondering if we’ll ever get the shot to take it large, all the things everybody doubts about themselves. It requires me to often, sometimes daily, step back and see what we’ve accomplished already and how much success we’ve already had. I get to play music and sports all day. I don’t have to go into an office ever. I get to tour the country and meet people and have real fans sings along to our songs when we’re on stage in states very far away from home. It may be small-time, but it’s exactly what I want to be doing. I think that, on the one hand, is success. But on the other hand, it’s not fulfilling me yet. When I feel like I’m fulfilled with music, like I’ve gotten my message out, when we’re on tour in front of thousands—that’s when I’m guessing I’ll feel a little more relaxed about “success.” It’s something that gets redefined all the time.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
I’m not falling for that trap!