John Brown has been pulling triple duty lately. He’s been providing guitar and vocals for Battle Born since relocating to Vegas in the mid aughts. Maybe you saw them on the Punk Rock Bowling mainstage a few months ago? He also brings his voice and ax to New Cold War, a band that has two Vegas shows this week with Russian punks Svetlanas, celebrating the release of their split 7″. Behind the scenes, he’s working with some of your favorite locals, including Unfair Fight, The Civilians, The Quitters and False Cause, at Camel Hump Studios. Despite all that’s on his plate, he still found time to answer our five questions.
Hi John! PIV readers know you from Battle Born and New Cold War but I’m interested, how did you get involved in music? When did you become interested in guitar and how did your first band come together?
Hey Emily! Music is somewhat of a tradition in my family. My dad played a Hammond B3 in a rock band with his brother in the 70s and it was always something we celebrated. My parents met through my mom’s brother, who also played guitar in the group. Extended family on both sides would get together for an annual music reunion down in So Cal where most of us grew up. So when I was about 14 and some neighborhood kids started trying to make music, I picked up my dad’s acoustic and tried to join in. After maybe half a year of hacking away, I hooked up with some middle school classmates and started butchering old Nirvana and Green Day tunes. Though we rarely see each other these days, my first band-mate/collaborator is probably my oldest friend.
For most of your music career, you’ve been playing guitar and singing for Battle Born, which you joined a few years into that band’s life. How did you get hooked up with that band? Were you in Vegas long before joining?
I bounced between Vegas and San Diego for a year or two in the mid-2000s. I grew disenchanted with life in So Cal, and the company I work for had opportunities in Vegas, then San Diego, then Vegas again. So I kinda drifted back and forth before ultimately settling in Vegas in (I think) 2006. It wasn’t necessarily an easy transition. Music had always been such a social endeavor, I knew no one in Vegas and my first experiences looking for people on Craigslist were not awesome. It was depressing. Looking at my Marshall amp made me sentimental/nostalgic and kind of sad so I sold it. I still had my 12-string, and would bang on it occasionally. But I was totally convinced I was done playing music for anyone but me.
After a couple years of doing nothing, something changed. It was likely a combination of many things – attitude, boredom, encouragement – but I felt like I was missing something and just wanted to play some loud music. So once again I committed myself to finding other folks to play with. I eventually found a rock cover band that was auditioning singers. I auditioned, but my voice was not quite what they were looking for. Just the same, they were good people – the first really nice and inclusive musicians I found in Vegas. So I kept showing up even though they didn’t really want me. Hanging out with good people a couple times a week helped me find more good people.
Eventually I was welcomed into a different cover group with whom I played for about a year. As that project fizzled I recruited a couple guys to start a punk 3-piece. We played a gig or two before the drummer decided it wasn’t for him. But by that point I was All-In again, completely re-addicted to playing music with people. I was actively reaching out to other local punk bands with the hope of booking some gigs. Battle Born was already on my radar as one of the more stylistically-appealing groups in town. I had been messaging Nick [Hagstrom, drums] on Myspace about picking up tickets to a Battle Born gig. A day or two later I replied to a Craigslist ad, local punk band looking for a guitar player, and again I found myself chatting with Nick. I think we were both amused by the coincidence of the moment. We set up an audition which went very well. At one point I started playing a Propagandhi tune out of the blue (“Stick the Fucking Flag”…), and it just so happened to be a song that BB covers. After a couple hours of jamming and hanging out the boys invited me to join the band. That was 2009, just before the release of Stick To Your Guns.
Battle Born has been together for almost ten years now, which is quite an accomplishment. You’ve been with the band for most of that time, so you’ve played many different venues in town. Do you have a favorite gig or venue? And do you prefer 21+ or all-ages gigs?
It is tough to nail down a favorite anything. I prefer all-age gigs. Younger people care more. We played St. George a couple years ago with Sector 7G and Reel Big Fish. It was an all age gig in some old movie theater. After the show kids were coming up wanting pictures and autographs. That kind of enthusiasm is infectious, and you are not going to find it in a bar.
Big stages are the most fun. I like to move around when I’m not singing, kind of a lot. The giant stages are the most fun for that reason. The Joint & PRB are great ’cause I can run 25 feet in pretty much any direction I want. But that doesn’t necessarily make for my favorite shows. The Artistic Armory is/was a strong contender for my all time favorite venue. An awesome blend of organized and DIY, beautiful and dirty. Playing that room for sub-20 year olds really took me back to my own early days chasing the mid-90s Fat Wreck scene in So Cal.
Battle Born had issues with Vegas bands The Killers and Five Finger Death Punch, resulting in you guys releasing songs named after them. Can you explain what happened there? Did you write those songs specifically in regards to those incidents or were they songs that had previous titles that you changed when the incidents happened? Did you have any interesting run ins with those band’s fans online after releasing those songs?
Really the only “issue” was that the aforementioned acts released songs and/or albums called “Battle Born.” It’s a minor annoyance, but provides a great opportunity for us to act affronted and lash out. We’re not big Five Finger fans, but The Killers are just unlistenable. The opportunity to ride the publicity wave of their album release and simultaneously to troll their fans was very appealing to all of us. So when we learned the release date of their Battle Born album, we wrote and released “The Killers” as a single with satirical and strikingly similar artwork within days of their album dropping. The song was already written and the title wasn’t totally out of step with the content.
To our pleasant surprise (and hopefully the dismay of Killers fans everywhere), the single sold/streamed really well! The sales figures suggest our troll was successful. So when Five Finger dropped their own “Battle Born” song, around the time we needed to produce a single for Desert Rats II, we titled another already-written song “Five Finger Death Punch” and used it on the comp. If I’m not mistaken, the tune represents something like 90%+ of the stream revenue generated by that release.
We used to use Tunecore for our digital distribution. At some point they contacted me because a rep from The Killers’ label contacted them about potential copyright infringements on our Killers single. They pulled the tune from iTunes. I sent a strongly worded reply and an independent distributor we use at the studio had the tune back in the store within hours.
Really, it’s as much a promotional gimmick as anything, and it’s been surprisingly effective. A few Killers fans discovered our subterfuge and re-posted us on Killers fan sites. That was probably the most hilarious/satisfying result of our little scheme. If a Killers or Five Finger fan actually confronted me/us in person it would be difficult to stop laughing. It’s a troll job that moves a couple extra units and brings small doses of free publicity.
Astute PIV readers also know you from your work with Camel Hump. I feel like you’re recording 90% of the bands in town, or at least, 90% of bands that we cover. How did Camel Hump get its start and how did you get involved with recording? How do you choose what bands to work with?
There’s probably a little bit of hyperbole in that figure, but it is a happy privilege to work closely with a lot of great local artists. There are several excellent facilities and great engineers in town and Camel Hump is just one piece of the puzzle. The history of the business is a little bit convoluted. I first stumbled in several years ago when I was filling in on guitar with The Originators (who have since moved their ska act back to DC). I kinda fell in love with the facility almost instantly.
Over the course of a couple rehearsals I developed a relationship with the business owners. They were literally just bringing in the bare-bones pieces of a recording studio. They had a little bit of hardware, a mixing board, and a Pro Tools rig. I don’t think the original business strategy was completely sound. Their plan was to offer a facility. They expected engineers & producers would spend good money to bring in artists and utilize the facility. If you build million dollar rooms and fill them with million dollar gear, like say The Palms, you can (maybe) count on a steady stream of engineers knocking on your door.
But in a town that already has very legit studios, a couple small rooms and a Mackie mixer are not going to turn any heads. The original ownership lacked the audio background to even properly hook up the gear they brought in. I saw an opportunity to make myself valuable. I had been fucking around with basic audio engineering since I was in high school. So I plugged everything in and got Pro Tools up and running. I started recording anyone that would let me. I mic’d up Battle Born rehearsals, worked for free, did pretty much anything I could to figure out what the fuck I was doing. It blows my mind to think about how far we have come in the last several years.
These days I do very little “choosing” of bands. We are graced by the bands that choose to work with us. It is a great honor that some of the most talented players in town trust us to not ruin their music.
Thanks, John! If you want to catch New Cold War live, you’re in luck! They’re playing Joe Tocci’s 2nd annual back to school drive tonight (8/10) at Hellpop Comics and The Dive tomorrow (8/11). Both shows are with Svetlanas. And if you can’t make the show? You can still order the band’s split with Svetlanas via SquidHat Records.
Want more info on Camel Hump Studios? http://camelhumpmusic.com/
No Comments