Everyone knows the music industry is in peril. With most major record labels shutting down or in the process of shutting down, new music has been reduced to American Idol winners and Disney television shows. We the Living has sought to change that. Taking their careers in a drastically different direction, the quartet decided to self-produce and self-promote their 2007 LP Heights of the Heavens, a sophisticated melange of piano rock, with no help from any record label. We talked to lead singer John Paul Roney and bassist Jasper Austin about the band’s work philosophy, reading Ayn Rand novels, and their recent shout-out from Perez Hilton.

Pensatos: How did you guys come up with your band name?

John Paul: We’re all really into literature and philosophy and so it’s from a Russian author named Ayn Rand, it’s one of her books and it’s actually the only book of hers that I haven’t read.

“The music industry stopped being an honest place. It stopped being people who honestly loved music and it started being people who could follow a formula and make a million dollars in a year.”

(laughs) That’s ironic.

John Paul: Yeah, I got like halfway through it when I realized it was just a romance novel and I asked myself, “How am I going to read this?” It’s good words though.

I saw your video on your website where you speak about your band straying away from the major label circuit and was really interested in your decision to do that.

John Paul: All of them are out of business, like EMI went out of business, Sony’s about to go out of business, Warner’s unofficially out of business but going to be soon. All the majors are gone. We didn’t know that last year. Last year all the majors were still in business and saying they had all these new plans. The music industry stopped being an honest place. It stopped being people who honestly loved music and it started being people who could follow a formula and make a million dollars in a year. So slowly the honest people got filtered out and then the only people left are rewarded by how many records they can sell right away. The only people that survived are people who can put out another Hannah Montana record, put out Daughtry, make sure Nickelback makes another record this year. We realized there needed to be another way because people still wanted legitimate music that was honest and that bands were writing themselves and really cared about. If we wanted to be just another band that was like, “Alright well we have this record and people like it so let’s go to a major label, let’s have them throw it on radio and see if it sticks and see if that works,” we’d be copping out just like everybody else. Really, we were interested in being one of the first bands to figure out the new way for real bands to exist outside of all that because that is a system that is rotted from the inside. We decided just to go with our gut, we’re just going to play shows, meet people, be good to our fans, and that’s it.

And so you do lots of your promotion through your fans and word of mouth.

John Paul: Absolutely. Basically radio and television were an artificial word of mouth. One person would say it’s good and then they could put it in the household of everybody. We realized that if the big money that made that happen was going to be gone, then we would have to go back to the fundamentals. If one person could hear our music and pass it on to one other person, that’s all we could hope for. That’s the best possible scenario, that people might get more than they normally do. So it’s been 100% of what we’ve relied on so far and it’s been very, very good to us.

“The lady was not a drag queen. She just wasn’t an attractive lady.”

Are you guys towards the end of your tour or still going on tour constantly?

John Paul: This style of tour and band promotions means constantly being on the road. What it use to be was you would spend three million dollars and put the band on television, radio, and print and then they would hit the road for three months and then hope to sell as many records as you could and then you’d stop, write a new record, record, and start all over again. Since there’s no more three million dollars in the equation we have to keep this constant interest, it has to grow like this (motions hands steadily upward) instead of going like this (motions hands rapidly upward and then downward). So we’re going to be touring for a while.

So living in a van is so far satisfactory?

Jasper: Well I’m ok with it. We have friends luckily across the country so it’s not like every night we’re sleeping with each other’s feet in our faces. Though we do occasionally. But it’s fun to see the country and meet people.

That’s an impressive work ethic. I don’t think I could do that. I need sleep. Jasper, I know you just recently joined the band. How is it so far?

Jasper: It’s my dream come true, playing music. I fell in love with We the Living last summer and everything that they had to stand for and so, I don’t know. I didn’t expect to be a part of it. It was a really huge surprise that they offered me the gig. I was traveling with them prior to that as tour manager and running sound and light and I was being inspired by three, four awesome guys every day. Just positive influences and intellectual conversations all the time and so now that I’m playing the music, my biggest passion, it’s just the best of both worlds. So yeah, I guess I like it.

I read on your blog that Perez Hilton gave you a shout out. How did that happen?

John Paul: I think we sent him a record when it came out. We’re friends with Rumor Willis and so we kind of knew him through that. He had the record for six months and my friends in LA would see him out and be like “You got to write about We the Living!” and was like “Yeah, yeah whatever” and then it just came out and it was a total surprise. I wish I knew anymore about how that happened. I was just very, very happy that it happened.

Sorry, I got distracted by the drag queens.

Jasper: Me too.

Lisa: The second lady was not a drag queen.

Oh my bad.

Lisa: Yeah, she just wasn’t an attractive lady.

 

+ Band’s Site: We The Living
+ video: We The Living ‘Best Laid Plans’