What is the story behind your band’s name?
Well the name of the band actually dates back to my days at Amherst hanging with the original members of Full Service (FS) — Mike Sullivan ’00, Pat Reavey ’00, Niberto Moreno ’00 and Kevin Downes ’01. Pat’s dad had made us all gas station attendant t-shirts that had our nicknames on them, so we decided to wear them at some party we played and go with a gas station theme. Nowadays, it’s stuck around because it doesn’t really pin us to any particular genre. As [band member] Hoag recently said, if your band name is something like “Killing Floor” or “Murder Magnet” or something … what do you do if you wanna write a song with a salsa beat to it? You’re pretty much stuck with playing metal, ya know?
How would you describe the band?
Honestly, I hate this question! When I was at Amherst, I took an English class in which I tried to write a paper describing the music of John Coltrane. My sassy professor (I forget her name) said that it’s impossible to write about music because you have to HEAR music. I disagreed and she actually kicked me out of class that day. Now as my eternal punishment, I am always asked to describe our music!
Hoag recently described FS as “Viking-meets-Pirate-
meets-Frontiersman” and that we play “deep grooves, three-part harmonies and ‘woah-that-was-nuts’ guitar solos.”
[The band consists of:]
Bonesaw — guitar / vocals (Amherst ’00)
Hoagman — drums / lead vocals (Yale ’03)
TwinkyP — bass (he’s from Houston)
Smellman — percussion toys / backup vocals (I think he grew up in the woods)
What were the big changes for the band in the past year?
Well, up until summer of 2008 we were pretty much just touring the country playing little bars and clubs and gaining fans one by one. It’s a rough road going that way, and … there really wasn’t a clear path for how to get our music to a broader audience. So we cooked up an idea we eventually called The Takeover Tour. Here’s how Hoag tells that story.
“We were confident that it was a great idea, but we were not confident that it would succeed. Great ideas are often so ridiculous that a prediction of its success or failure would be impossible. I don’t recall exactly who came up with it. I think it was me, Bonesaw thinks it was Bonesaw, Smell thinks it was Smell, and Twinky-P thinks it was either me or Bonesaw. In any case, it ended up being a huge success. The idea was simple; follow around a major act tour with our generator, our Whale (van), our instruments, two helpers, an e-mail list, a documentary crew and 5,000 demo CDs. Before the main act played their set inside the amphitheater, we’d play out in the parking lot for the tailgating crowd.
We ended up choosing 311’s 2008 summer tour because their touring schedule was perfect for the idea (three weeks, starting in Boston, finishing in Austin, our hometown), and because there’s enough overlap in style between Full Service and 311 that their fan base would probably enjoy our music. So we did it, and eventually we got the attention of the 311 camp (something we really didn’t set out to do; we were simply looking to explode our fan base by borrowing someone else’s), who later asked us to open three shows on their tour this past fall, which obviously made for the most glorious finale to the documentary we made about the Takeover Tour. We’re calling the doc “Where Should We Set Up?” and it’s coming along nicely. Hopefully out in the summer of 2010.”
So that has also led us to an alliance with a band called Badfish: A Tribute To Sublime which has been taking us on tour with them and pretty much every show this year has been on the bigger stages we’ve always wanted to be on … but as an opening act. To try to get that next big bump, our new idea for 2010 is another themed tour, this one called “Recycle This Tour” that is based on gaining press and attention for the band while helping fix a hole in the environmentally un-friendly world of big concerts. When we play these huge venues like the House of Blues in Dallas, for example, at the end of the night they literally scoop an ocean of bottles and cans into the trash and throw it away. I thought it would be a cool thing to see if we can fund our entire tour through recycling those bottles and cans. At the time of the idea, we didn’t even have the tour booked, but since we have been added to the Badfish winter tour (so in that sense it’s already been a success for just that reason). So where it stands now, we’ve got some interested sponsors like Budweiser, who look like they will be funding the tour (in exchange for placing their recycle bins at the venues). We’re toying with the idea of performing in big green jumpsuits and really going over the top … walking through the crowd and trading promo CD’s for empty bottles, etc. It’ll be an adventure! It’s all in the planning stages now, but I made a Web site www.recyclethistour.com that you should check out.
Were you involved in music at Amherst?
I took some classes in the music department including a course my friends and I made up that we eventually called “The Reck-N-Roll All-Stars” after the professor of the course (Professor Reck… I think he’s retired now). The highlight of the semester was when the guys in the class threw a huge party at Hamilton and performed all the classic rock songs we studied in the class. Ol’ Professor Reck was there in his hippie clothes and rocked OUT by the keg! Classic…
Otherwise Full Service was started at Amherst (with completely different people) in the basement of Stearns freshman year and played parties and SoCo events throughout my time there. [We] wrote many songs sitting outside by the fields and whatnot. I was super shy in college so playing shows with the band were the times when it was way easier for me to feel comfortable at parties and such. I don’t know if it’s still like this, but the people in the admin department gave me a key to this dingy basement of Hamilton to practice. We lined the walls with discarded single-bed mattresses (who in the those houses keeps the school-issued beds, really?) and pretty much had free reign over that whole room. There were rats there, but it was appropriately grungy for a rock band to jam in. Baseball was more my thing at Amherst, though the coach made me tuck my long hair under my hat whenever I was within sight of the baseball facilities.
Have you been back to Amherst since you graduated?
I’ve been back a bunch of times recently with the band. Before moving to Austin, Texas to get the band started, I taught middle school history at a school in Hartford, Conn. and eventually several of my more awesome former students became Lord Jeffs (Steven Stuart ’09, Ben Levison ’11, John Ware ’10) and through Ben and Steve we put together a few shows last year. One was a classic people-hanging-out-the-windows house party at Psi U and the other was last spring out on the social dorm quad. That one was great since it was that first day of spring at Amherst where the weather is hot and everybody comes out looking all pale and desperate for some sun. Happens every year! It was the last day of our spring tour (which included a big show at Pearl Street in Northampton) and so when SoCo gave us all free t-shirts, well they instantly became our only clean ones.
Though we’ve toured a ton all over the country, we hadn’t been up to Amherst yet, so I was glad to finally show the other guys where I spent so much time. We took a hike to the Notch in the Holyoke Range and played some hoops with Levison and some members of the girls’ hoops team. I got a tour of all the new buildings and whatnot from my friend Professor O’Connell, which was another highlight. I was disappointed that they didn’t remember me at Valentine and we all had to pay $10 each to eat lunch!
When and where is the show? How can people get tickets if they want to attend?
The show is at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton on Friday, Nov. 6. FS plays around 10 p.m. and there are tickets at the door or online at www.iheg.com. It’s all ages. [It] will probably be a looooong time until we make it the 2,000 miles back up this way from Texas so if people wanna get served, this is the time!
Or come visit us in Austin. The weather is nicer — 3601 Wilson St, Austin, Texas 78704!