Blog Assignment 3 - Interview Log

Interview with Jason Calderia of The Helicopters

Can you give me a brief history of your band?

Here's an excerpt from our bio:


When Helicopters formed in 2005, the goal was clear: to write, fall in love with, break up with, destroy, build anew, polish, apologize to, and ultimately put to bed enough songs to compose their first full-length recording. In 2006 that goal was realized with the release of How to Fake Fall Asleep.

Having toured and recorded together in various band incarnations, How to Fake Fall Asleep signaled a clear departure from the band's four piece rock roots, delving headlong into electro-pop territories. Although electronic expermentation was always an integral part of live shows, it has now become a defining element of Helicopters' high energy, danceable pop sound.

While fans and critics spent 2006 enjoying the band's debut, filling shows, and trying to successfully learn just how to fake fall asleep, a new EP has taken form. Enter Walking to Be Looked At, the 2007 release from Helicopters: a series of succinct, melodic, vocal-driven arrangements that live somewhere in the middle of precise, deliberate, programmed blips and organic warmth of guitars and harmonies.

Attempts at genre-fication often place Helicopters somewhere between The Postal Service and Beck, with left field comparisons to Aluminum Group, Tahiti 80, New Order and other artists that embrace the digital side of songwriting.

2008 promises to be an exciting year for Helicopters, with a Lollapalooza performance under their belts, a new album already in the works, a busy schedule of shows, and a sense of optimism that only three regular guys from the Midwest can exude


- - -


As for our "history"...


Dave Moran (lead vocals, guitar) and I (guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, vocals) have been performing together in various band incarnations since 1998. Initially an acoustic duo dabbling in collaborative writing for the first time, we eventually brought a bass player on board (Gregory McClendon) to help round out the sound. Then we rifled through, oh, too many drummers to count, before deciding to stop what we were doing, regroup, and find our "sound." In 2003 we stopped performing live altogether and dove head first into writing and recording, playing around with the digital side of things (largely to replace a drummer we never really found.) The album How to Fake Fall Asleep came out of all this experimentation, and since the sound was so radically different than anything we had done up to that point, we released the album under the brand new band name "Helicopters" (named for the title of the photo that was on the cover of our first 100 limited-edition cds).


In 2007 Gregory moved to Ireland and was replaced by a long-time friend of mine Brian Fifield (keyboards, drum programming, vocals), and we've been writing, recording and performing as a trio ever since.


Our 3rd album in as many years comes out in June.


What did the Last Band Standing experience entail and how did you get into the competition?

We were aware of last years' Last Band Standing contest simply because of the press behind it. This year we entered sort of on a whim, not really expecting to make it very far. (I think there were something like 2000+ entries.) When we checked out their site and saw we made it into the initial batch of bands, that was pretty cool. Then suddenly we were in the top 100, qualifying us for round 2... and that's where things got the most exciting for us. The next 20 were selected by Perry Farrell and members of The Recording Academy, not by online voting. That's the part that gave us the most validation. Online voting isn't really the best judge of a band's musical abilities - it's a judge of a band's marketing/begging abilities. Which is fine, I guess - it's an important part of the music game. But being selected for the top 20 based on our music was the biggest thrill of the entire process.

Were there any stipulations that went along with your spot on the bill (i.e. restrictions on playing in the Chicago area beforehand)?

There may have been technical stipulations - I actually don't remember. But we didn't have shows set up immediately after Lollapalooza, so restrictions never came into play.

What did Lollapalooza do for you guys in the long run?

The biggest thing Lollapalooza did for us was put us on people's radars. In a city like Chicago where everyone and their brother is in a band, simply writing interesting music isn't always enough. It's extremely difficult to get noticed, and a lot of really amazing bands never do, which is a shame. Chicago no longer supports the local music scene like it did in the "High Fidelity" era, unfortunately. But having a Lollapalooza show on your resume gets people to listen, and that's really the whole point, isn't it?