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It sounds like a recipe for disaster -- or at least the plot for one of those movies that airs late at night on Cinemax: Take
four young rock musicians who've just formed a band and send them to Maui for two months. Amazingly, the guys in American
Hi-Fi were focused enough to record an album without falling prey to surf addiction, drunk-in-public citations or paternity
suits.
Perhaps their professionalism comes from experience. Singer/guitarist Stacy Jones played drums for Letters to Cleo, Aimee
Mann and Veruca Salt; bassist Drew Parsons has played with Tracy Bonham; and drummer Brian Nolan was a member of Chicago rockers
Figdish. Along with guitarist Jamie Arentzen, the band hit the studio armed with cheap leis, pineapple cocktails and producer
Bob Rock.
After settling on 13 tracks -- and perfecting their tans -- the guys released American Hi-Fi on, appropriately enough,
Island Records, and the album's first single, "Flavor of the Weak" is at #12 on the Radio & Records Alternative
radio airplay chart. Jeff Cornell sat down with American Hi-Fi recently to discuss their grueling recording session, the video
spoof of "Heavy Metal Parking Lot," the fine art of generating working titles and their love of journalists.
Sonicnet and MTV: How does it feel to have your debut record out?
Stacy Jones: We've been working on this thing so long, this sort of buildup for this record coming out, it's almost like
it's not real.
Sonicnet and MTV: What makes your album different from what's already out there?
Jones: I think we're a little more melodic than anybody else out right now, but not as angry... but we don't rap, at least
not yet. Brian's going to start rapping on the next album. [Laughs] That's actually true.
Sonicnet and MTV: You recorded the album with Bob Rock (Metallica, Veruca Salt)...
Jones: Bob is a great dude, and he was really good about sort of being hands-on but letting us sort of fuck things up.
Jamie Arentzen: Really pushing us to bring the best out of what we do, which was really cool.
Jones: And he's got a bitchin' pool.
Arentzen: Yeah, great pool, great view, and it was one of the reasons it's so huge-sounding. There was never enough stuff
on there. [He'd say] "OK, let's double that, let's put more, more, more," and it was totally cool...
Jones: We knew that we wanted to work with Bob before we even had songs. He's rad.
Sonicnet and MTV: You guys went to his place in Maui, right? Wasn't it difficult to concentrate in that atmosphere?
Arentzen: We were there a couple of months before we started the record. Stacy was recording drums for [ex-Veruca Salt
singer] Nina Gordon's record, so we had the whole band out there rehearsing. We had gotten two months of Maui out of our system
when it was time to record, so it wasn't like we were dying to golf and surf every day anymore but...
Jones: We still did.
Sonicnet and MTV: But the band formed in a much harsher climate, didn't it?
Jones: Actually, the band was kinda born on the ski lift in Killington, [Vermont]. I always forget about that. The three
of us were snowboarding once, and I don't know what inspired me to decide that we should be in a band but...
Brian Nolan: I think we just realized that we couldn't be in a band because we were both drummers.
Jones: Right. We thought about having two drummers in the band, and then that just seemed kinda stupid. I went out and
bought a guitar chord book out on the road, and I just sat in the back of the bus on the Veruca Salt tour learning chords
and screwing around. I used to play guitar -- I had the two-finger guitar method. You know, I could play like two strings
at a time.
Arentzen: Then he learned how to go to drop D so he only had to use one finger. And he said, "This is so much easier."
Jones: Now I can use three fingers, actually. So we just started getting drunk and rockin' out, and next thing you know
we're making a record.
Sonicnet and MTV: How was the transition from being behind the kit to being a frontman?
Jones: It was warm and fuzzy.
Sonicnet and MTV: Did you have any experience singing before that?
Jones: No, I never, never sang, sung, never sung... sang? I never played guitar, I never even though about it. People
always ask me, "So were you just sitting back there all those years thinking, 'Aw fuck, I gotta get up there?'"
It wasn't like that, I never thought about it, but it's been a blast. This band is sort of fantasy band camp. It's like, we're
all great friends, and it still doesn't feel real -- I still feel like we're just screwing around in our basement.
Jones: It feels like our high school band. We talk about what kind of and what color Porsche we're gonna buy when we sell,
like, 10 gazillion records and shit like that. So it's not real.
Sonicnet and MTV: Reality will probably set in soon, given the success of "Flavor of the Weak." What's the story
behind that song?
Jones: Jamie and I were at a bar, and we were talking about him not having any ladies in his life at the time. So we came
up with this brilliant idea to have a band.
Arentzen: Yeah, I've always wanted to be a drummer in an indie-rock band.
Jones: We thought we'd put this band together. Jamie plays drums, get two or three chicks in the band with him, and we'd
call it Astronomy Club. It would be a cool indie-rock band, and I'd be the dude who writes the songs for the Backstreet Boys
and 'NSYNC, and lives in a castle in Switzerland. I'd be that guy, except on an indie-rock label.
Arentzen: All hits for an indie-rock band.
Jones: Yeah, all hits. I wrote "Flavor of the Weak" for Astronomy Club, it was from a girl's perspective: "My
boyfriend, he don't know anything blah, blah." So I keep saying that "blah blah." Where'd I pick that up?
Arentzen: I dunno.
Jones: But that's the worst thing you can say.
Arentzen: Blah, blah. Like, "What I'm saying really isn't that important anyway."
[They all laugh]
Jones: So, I wrote this song for Jamie's band, Astronomy Club, and uh, busted it out...
Arentzen: That night, it was awesome. We just went back to the apartment and busted it out -- it was hysterical.
Jones: [Laughing] Can I talk, please?
Arentzen: [Laughing] I'm sorry, I'm gonna keep on interrupting you.
Jones: So, you wanna finish?
Arentzen: No, I'm done.
Jones: I was playing this song in the studio one day, and Bob was like, "What the fuck is that? What song is that?"
Arentzen: And then he...
[They all laugh]
Jones: I said, "Oh, this is a song for Astronomy Club," and he said, "It's a hit. You guys have to record
that song. We're recording that.... Just change the perspective, blah, blah, blah." He basically insisted we record it
or he wouldn't finish our record. We were already into the record, and I'm really glad we did because it turned out great.
I was kinda skeptical at first, but I love it now.
Sonicnet and MTV: And the video is a parody of [Jeff Krulik's cult film] "Heavy Metal Parking Lot."
Jones: For those people who don't know what it is, you know the Judas Priest concert in '86 at [Maryland's] Cap Center?
A guy just took a handheld camera and filmed dudes partying in the parking lot beforehand, and so everyone's just like shirtless
fuckin' sick mullet dudes getting fucked up.
Nolan: They have their 13-year-old girlfriends.
Jones: 26-year-old men with 13-year-old girlfriends. It's incredible stuff.
Jones: The director sent us this treatment: we're gonna re-create "Heavy Metal Parking Lot." And we're just
like, "Fuck yeah." We stopped reading all other treatments...
Arentzen: Because we've been fans of it for years now. It just seemed too perfect.
Sonicnet and MTV: You guys just finished up a tour with Eve 6 and VAST, and now you're on the road with Our Lady Peace.
How has the crowd reception been?
Arentzen: It's great, everybody is so cool to us.
Jones: We're really lucky.
Sonicnet and MTV: What's your live show like?
Jones: We turn our guitars up and scream into the mic and jump up and down and fuck shit up.
Arentzen: We're just a rock band up there, playin' the tunes.
[They all laugh]
Sonicnet and MTV: Is there a favorite song off the record you guys like to play live?
Jones: Yeah, "Surround." I like "Blue Day" too.
Sonicnet and MTV: During your shows, are you only playing songs off this record?
Jones: We can do some new songs -- we just figure nobody knows who we are anyway, so we'll play whatever we want. No covers
yet. We know some covers -- we just don't do them.
Sonicnet and MTV: Do you have a lot of new stuff written?
Nolan: We got like two or three records ready to go, I think we have 40 songs right now.
Arentzen: It's so good to be able to choose from a large body of work when it's time to decide actually which tunes will
be on the record.
Jones: We do a song called "The Girl Gets Around," which is one of my favorites. I think, hopefully, that'll
be on the next record. There's a song called "Happy" which is pretty nice, pretty sweet.
Arentzen: We've got "Indie-Rock Song" and "New Song." A bunch that don't have titles yet.
Sonicnet and MTV: Those are great working titles.
Jones: Ours aren't very creative -- ours are like "New Song," "New Song #2."
Sonicnet and MTV: Better make sure those don't leak out. What's your opinion on Napster, anyway?
Jones: I was really freaked out about Napster originally, but now I think it's cool.... Our single is just now starting
to get played, and we go to these gigs and people know every word to every song on the record. They're sitting in the front,
singing along. I think that's pretty rad. Our record's on Napster, so they're all downloading it, and I think it's cool 'cause
it's just a new way to turn people on to your band. I think the complaints people have -- 'If those kids download it they're
not going to buy our record' -- is a problem if you're the band. You've got to make a living, and if you don't sell any records,
your label will drop you and you're back at Burger King. But I think the number of people you can turn on is going to balance
out the whole record-buying public where some kids might download it and not buy it.
Arentzen: It's a great promotional tool. You can go in and check what other people are doing, like Blink-182, Foo Fighters.
People can go in there and say, "Hey, check out American Hi-Fi." It's a great way to get people to know your music.
Sonicnet and MTV: From the bands you've been checking out lately, where do you think rock is headed?
Jones: I don't know where rock is right now. I feel like the bar is really low in terms of music right now, so maybe we're
contributing to that as well. [Laughs] I don't know. People always ask me, "What do you think? What's gonna happen?"
I have no fucking idea. You never know. We're just gonna keep doing what we do, and we love these songs, and this is my favorite
kind of music, what we're playing, so I think we're just gonna keep doing what we do and see what happens.
Sonicnet and MTV: Excellent. Any final words?
Jones and Arentzen: I love you. [They all laugh]
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