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Joel
Sprayberry Band Interview Questions
Your
name, birth date, city of residence:
Joel
sprayberry,
feb
15 1972
,
duncanville
Family
members names as you would like them listed in the article (spouses,
children, etc., if applicable):
LaDonna
How
long have you lived in this area?
d/fw
9 years,
Duncanville
4
years.
Timeline
of your educational background (schools attended, years of graduation,
degree(s) received, etc.):
Grew
up in
lumberton
,
tx – graduated klein high school in
houston
in
1990
Went
to sam
Houston
state university in 90/91
Moved
to
Lubbock
,
graduated from texas tech in ’95 with a business degree.
Timeline
of your professional background (jobs held, companies employed by,
how/when you became a musician):
grew
up playing drums and piano. Started
playing guitar when I was a senior in high school.
First time I performed in front of people was after I graduated
college. Moved to d/fw in 1998
to make music my full-time career.
What
inspired you to record music:
when
I was in college I had a good buddy offer to help me make a copy of some
recordings of my songs on his tape player to give to our friends.
He would accept $5 from a few of our friends and we figured 10
people or so would like to have a copy.
All of a sudden, the list grew into 50 people and then 100.
I ended up going to a small recording studio in
Lubbock
and recorded 1hr. it cost me
$75 for the recording and they ended up duplicating them professionally
onto tapes. (that was when
cd’s were more expensive)
What
is your current CD’s title and release date:
Caffeine
& Gasoline –
Saturday
april 14th 2007
How
did you name the CD: we are all riding scooters on the artwork, the disk is energetic and what we
call “driving music” so we thought we would take one of the lyrics
from our song “happy go lucky” and title it that.
Tracks
on CD and brief description of each:
Peter
Pan:
A song inspired by the movie Finding
Neverland with Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet.
A funky swing tune with a big band sound…our most requested song
live.
Kites
At Night – I
revisited the ballad writing style with this song.
I suppose this is my attempt at an alt. country tune.
A nod to the old school southern writers like Roger miller and Don
Williams. I’ve made
references to the town I grew up in, childhood memories and lost love
Cover
tunes: The band and I have been playing a number of tunes written by other
folks for a few years at different venues.
Wwe thought this would be a good time to record the songs that
people enjoy at our live shows. One pays homage to Cindy Lauper, it’s
called Time After Time. The
other, I Can See Clearly Now,
it’s a great example of our Acoustifunk style where we throw in a
montage of songs everyone knows.
Save
Me from Myself – the most edgy/alternative song on the album sort of a
Jeremy camp/chris daughtry feel.
Horrible
– Russ Murphy, my college minister from
Indiana Ave.
, played
electric lead on this blues track. He lives in
Nashville
now and
is living as a songwriter in Tenessee.
Check out russmurphyministries.com for updates on he and Saralyn.
I was honored to borrow his talent.
Re-recordings
2.0 – Happy Go Lucky
(only this time with horns), What Am
I Gonna Do with Me? and Isn’t
It About Time? A revisit
to fans who have been around since the first album I did back in college.
Under
Cover – This is a deeply personal song that deals with the death of someone
very close to my family. LaDonna cries every time I play it.
Loops
– You could call it acoustic techno. It’s simply an acoustic guitar
running through effects petals and a loop station.
Keep an ear out this year for a completely
instrumental album from joel.
Without
my wings – Can we truly love someone without them first loving us? I love this
song. It has nice imagery and
I feel like it spoke a lot without having a lot of verbiage in it.
This song follows my songwriter roots.
You
don’t say – Have you ever experienced a breakdown in communication? This is the
first song on the cd. (I was
sitting in the studio listening to the final recordings of this song and
all of a sudden it dawned on me…… this sounds like the WKRP in
Cincinnati
theme song, how sad is that? I
child of the 80’s~)
Is
this your first CD? If so, describe how it came to be. If not, describe
previous CDs along with this one:
This
is my 7th album to date, this album is a culmination of all the
previous ones. There are some
songs that we felt like needed to be recorded.
Plus we have become much more eclectic over the years.
We did two “cover tunes” on this album; time
after time by cindy lauper, and I
can see clearly now by Johnny nash.
Describe
the choice to be in a band rather than a solo artist:
i
maintain both I believe. BUT
the band and I play together the majority of the time.
I believe that the other folks in the band are better musicians
than me so I get to learn a lot plus my mistakes get covered up easy.
Band is great because it provides even that much more energy on
stage. We still often break
down the set to a songwriter vibe in the middle to give everyone a break
and showcase solo as well.
How
has your music changed through the years:
Hopefully
more accessible, more eclectic, more intricate.
I believe my songwriting has matured.
Also I usually write as a solo artist and we add band to it.
This album was written with the band in mind.
An
artist(s) who inspires you and why:
David
Wilcox – great wordsmith, Monte Montgomery – great guitar chops, Ani
DiFranco – her funky style and business ethic, willie nelson – his
great style and longevity, patty griffin – lovely crooning and
chordiology.
What
is the genre of your music and how did you choose that niche:
It’s
not so much that I chose it as it evolved.
We call it:
Acoustic
progressive psychedelic folk rockabilly.
Are
there some of your songs currently airing? If so, which ones and what
stations:
You
can hear our sounds on myspace.com/joelsprayberryband or itunes
What
you most enjoy about this business/why:
Well,
I believe that music communicates clearer than any form of art.
It can make you laugh and cry in the same 2 minutes. It can make
you happy when you are sad, or calm you down when you are stressed.
I am pleased to have been able to do it for this long without
compromising.
Is
there one particular song that stands out in your mind and why:
Peter
Pan – I was touched by the movie finding
neverland and I wanted to write asong from Pan’s view.
It is a song to wendy, the reason he is lighter than air is because
of her. It’s not really
meant to be romantic, it is meant to be light-hearted.
(no pun intended) the
song has a “brian setzer” aka stray cats feel to it.
We love playing it!
Describe
your performance/touring history and future plans:
I
have been doing muic full time since 1998.
we played 258 shows last year and are in the process of making this
a full time position for the rest of the band.
I
don’t have plans to be a rockstar or famous.
I want to be able to start a family where my wife doesn’t need to
work if she doesn’t want to, and provide for the band members as well.
Describe
some of your own personal and professional challenges:
Being
a grassroots band is difficult because you have to be a one man biz.
I am running a small business – music performance.
The majority of my time is spent booking gigs, getting artwork
ready, promoting, managing merchandise etc.
I would much rather just write songs and be a meat-head musician.
Describe
some of your personal and professional successes:
We
have played very large venues to small intimate venues.
Both have their good points. I
have shared the stage with dove award winners mercy
me, country music’s Pat Green,
grammy award winners trout fishing
in America and this last year we played with taylor
hick’s band the little Memphis
blues orchestra.
I
would say the biggest accomplishment is having done all of this as an
independent artist.
Personal/professional
goals for the future:
We
are going to “shop” this CD. I
have never tried going to
Nashville
or
LA and handing over a project before.
I honestly have no idea how to do this…..but it needs to be done
so that we can continue to play and not just remain a small
dallas
band.
Outside
music, your other hobbies and interests:
Riding
scooters, playing speed scrabble, watching indy films and playing Frisbee
golf.
Anything
else you would like people to know about this CD? About yourself?
i
worked retail for 11 years…..this is way better.
Anyone
that has connections or contacts for future gigs or record companies, we
need all the help we can get.
Information
on other band members and their local ties (if any):
The
Folk-Funk Trio also consists of Justin Tabor and Layci Guyon. Tabor has
been playing bass with Joel for over two years and has a resume of
performing with both punk and country bands as well as being a studio
musician, including a recent Merle Haggard album. Guyon is a recent
graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music in
Boston
with a degree in
percussion. She has been playing with Sprayberry intermittently since 2002
and since returning to
Texas
has been subbing with
the local orchestras and teaching music.
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