When bands agree to meet for an interview, they usually have some kind of agenda. They want to come off looking super cool, or in the case of the current Emo trend, super aloof.
Or, they just want to plug their latest album/tour/music video. Nine times out of 10 they try to be subtle about it by dropping little hints or whispering subliminal messages into the reporter's tape recorder when they aren't looking.
But Phoenix's new indie favorite The Format has no problems with blatantly clarifying their mission for the interview at hand.
"You know how some people say one word like 'dude' every day?" asks lead singer Nate Ruess as he lights up his third cigarette of the evening. "I want 'hater-aid' to be the next 'dude.'"
The band's manager Mike Jarmuz explains the proper usage of the band's new favorite term.
"If you didn't like something I said, I would be like, 'Why you drinkin' hater-aid?' Or if you walked into a room where you get a weird vibe, you'd just be like, 'Dude, hater-aid's on tap in here.'"
Ruess and Sam Means, guitarist, make up the humble duo that is The Format. They joined Jarmuz for what was possibly the band's first "serious" interview Monday night to talk about their music and their fledgling success.
Their first single, aptly titled "First Single," is playing on The Edge (103.9 FM, KEDJ) radio station in regular rotation. The song got its break on the station's make-it-or-break-it segment, and like Ruess says, "it super-made it."
After that success, the song was added to the set list of specialty shows and slowly made it into regular rotation.
Since their recent rise to success, Ruess and Means are relatively new to the media game. So far they have been interviewed for a local paper and for a Web site in California. Recently they had their first on-air radio interview on Dead Air Dave's afternoon show on The Edge.
"They had us do this female moment thing where a girl calls in and we were supposed to give her advice off the top of our head," Means says.
"We went blank. We just sat there and were like 'uhhhhhh.' I almost walked out right there," Ruess says. "I think Dead Air Dave was pissed."
The onslaught of attention has yet to have any major effects on the band so far.
"It really hasn't hit us yet," Ruess says. "We're really just a couple of boring people so we don't know how the word spread so fast."
"They're seriously the last people you would ever see out at a party or at a show," Jarmuz adds.
"You can usually find us working hard or hardly working at playing video games or hanging out with our girlfriends," Ruess says.
Ruess and Means came together after their band, Never Gonna Score, dissolved. The two had similar tastes in bands such as Counting Crows, Ben Folds Five and Radiohead. They also found it easier to work on songs with just two people as opposed to a group of five band members that might have conflicting interests.
Ever since, Ruess and Means have devoted themselves whole-heartedly to their music.
In one of Ruess's last run-ins with academia, he attempted to take a Spanish class in order to fulfill a deficiency and attend ASU. The band he was in started to do well so he had to drop the class. This happened for two more semesters until he finally decided to throw in the towel.
"I ended up giving my Spanish book to an A&R guy in this bag of stuff from the trunk of my car. I think there was also an extra-extra large Buck O' Nine shirt from 1994 and a box of 99-cent condoms in there," Ruess says. "It was a party pack for sure."
Although the guys say they know that a lot of the reasons for their success come from within, they say they also realize that a lot of it comes from the city that they're playing in.
"The scene here is great. If you want to get out there and play, you have plenty of opportunities. Anybody can get a good show," Ruess says. " It's not like being in California where you're drowning in a sea of bands."
"And it's not like being in Nebraska or someplace where there isn't anything going on. It's a really good medium," Means adds.
"There is definitely no hater-aid being served to the local scene," Ruess says in a final attempt to push his agenda on this very professional interview.
It's cool though, there's no hater-aid on tap for new ideas by this reporter.
Reach the reporter at joy.hepp@asu.edu.
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The Format with Reuben's Accomplice and Ember Coast. Mondy at Nita's Hideaway, NE corner of McClintock Drive and Rio Salado Parkway, Tempe. 8 p.m. $6. 21 and over. 480-966-7715. Also at Edgefest Sept. 28 at Peoria Sports Complex. |
