So, welcome back to the wonderful world of independent music and the slobs that bring it to you. This week we got to sit down with a delightful young man who you're bound to see on the front of your Teen People or Ym-18 or whatever kids magazines are called these days. I am referring, of course, to Dave, the lead singer and songwriter for Oakland based Street to Nowhere.
Now, I'll be honest when I say there was a good amount of initial hesitancy when Dave agreed to do the interview. Though I had heard good things about his band I was also aware that he was a very different artist than any we had featured on SSR. I was also aware (after attending a Street to Nowhere show January 4 th at Bottom of the Hill) he had a fairly large female following. Now, I have nothing against women I'm just of the belief that bands with primarily female followings tend to suck (see: any boy band, Fallout Boy, My Chemical Romance, GG Allin, you get the idea).
So what made me get over my initial hesitations and go through with this interview? The sheer need to have content for this week. However, I am incredibly glad I took the time to talk with Dave. I feel this interview sheds light on him not only as an artist but also as a real person. Dave seems really grounded and honest. Beyond that he seems to be in music for the right reasons, gold phones and crystal ears (you have to listen to get that joke). And after really listening to Streets to Nowhere's Charmingly Awkward, I've learned women may not have exclusively shitty taste in music. So check out Dave in this exclusive interview and then be sure to go to his shows and buy his album, band shirts and STN ties (no joke).
So be sure that after you enjoy this interview you send us lots of loving e-mails at SoundSceneRevolution@gmail.com and on our comment board and on our Myspace page. Till next time, keep your ears tuned in and await the next truly awesome band we deliver to you.
-Rich
Transcript (auto-generated, may contain errors; songs left out)
This is Dave from Street to Nowhere and you're listening to Sound Scene Revolution.
♪ music ♪
for local and underground artists from the Bay Area and around the world. My name is Rich, I am your host. That'll be the second time I've introduced myself, I think, since week one. So, now you know in case you didn't. This week we have a real special interview for you guys. We've got to sit down with Dave from Street to Nowhere, Oakland-based band. And Dave is, of course, the singer-songwriter, head guy of the band. Sometimes he performs solo acoustic by himself, sometimes not. He likes to switch it up. But we talked with Dave from everything from how he got started to why he wants a gold phone and why he would like to high-five Nick Lachey. So, it's pretty awesome. We're also going to play a couple of tracks off of his self-released debut CD called Charmingly Awkward, which you can find on their website.
But we're going to try and switch it up, play some songs that you may not have heard on the regular, like MySpace or Pure Volume, whatever the hell else they have. So, we're going to start, before the interview, we're going to kick it off by playing track number six off of the album. It's called Dead Cliché. And then we're going to go into the interview. You should know how this routine goes. So, keep listening.
♪ song played ♪
We're sitting here today with Dave from Street to Nowhere If you could say hello Hello Alright, excellent So, we are at Do we know the name of this place? We're at a rec center in Saratoga Saratoga Rec Center Yeah, that works for me So, before Hold on, let me turn my phone off Sorry Alright Before we get started If, just real quick I mean, you have a Behind this whole musical experience I mean, band Whatever you want to call it It's a pretty interesting story Can you just like Recap it real quick? Um Okay, well I guess it started Somewhere in high school, maybe Where I had Crappy pop punk bands That we called Street to Nowhere And we played Gilman Street And stuff And had a good time And we all Went off to college And I went to UC Santa Cruz And I sort of Had the website still And I still had like The mp3.com site And so I'd always Kind of fuck with that And Can I cuss?
Is this okay? Yeah Okay, I just Got myself No No problem So, yeah So I was just To mess with that And I'd always You know Play acoustic At all the open mics And stuff And when I got to college I started Finding That I really loved Songwriting And I was like Really sort of Became infatuated With a lot of A lot of really great Songwriters And found Found some great ones I was always I was always You know Big Kind of 90s alternative guy And I really Got like Very into Nirvana And very into The Smashing Pumpkins And Weezer And Radiohead And I really never Found Radiohead Until then And I started Doing college radio And got exposed To Elliot Smith And Bright Eyes And a lot of these guys Before Before they I mean They're still not I would say Exceedingly mainstream But they're pretty mainstream Yeah They're well known Yeah Before They kind of Broke out And so I don't know I started I I started playing Acoustic at shows A friend of mine Convinced me To just start Playing acoustic And I recorded This Three song demo With my friend Matt Who I went to High school with And he He had just Recorded the Matches Which is on Epitaph now And So We We just We did this Three song demo And I went back To school And I was bummed out I started playing Acoustic And I found that People actually Liked it And I was totally Totally shocked By that And I guess it was In 2004 In June I I Submitted the demo To the Live 105 Battle of the Bands And To play at BFD Their summer concert And I And I didn't really I kind of Was like We were getting Good responses From the demo But It wasn't like I was really Getting out there I was just playing Acoustic It was a full band Demo And It got chosen For their Contest And we played Up on the hill And I just Was like Fuck it And I showed up And I I played And It was Probably the best Reaction I'd ever Gotten from a crowd And I ended up Playing that show And So people Like That was the point Where my parents And all my friends Were like Hey this guy Might have something You know Maybe you should Do something now That everyone else Is acknowledged So instead of Instead of Quitting school Or You know Playing a lot of shows Then instead I spent the summer As a guitar tech For the matches And a friend of mine Went on Warped Tour And got kind of Addicted to that And I transferred to UCLA To try to record a record Down there with my friend Matt Radosevich And Just got totally depressed It wasn't It wasn't It wasn't too good Down there And just I wouldn't blame it on Necessarily on Los Angeles A lot of people Talk shit about Los Angeles I really Kind of enjoy Los Angeles But I Yeah It didn't do so well There I ended up Dropping out of school And coming out Back to the Bay Area And We didn't even begin recording Until I moved back Oh wow I'm spending a year Recording the record And We started out In our parents Our parents Basements In a cabin Recorded in A couple apartments Oh wow 10 or 11 different places And we ended up Getting into Barefoot Studios In Hollywood Which Is where Eric Valentine Records And Matt Was working As an engineer On I forget which project then But Eric's done Like Queens of the Stone Age And Third Eye Blind Smash Mouth Good Charlotte And He has this great studio He's an amazing producer We actually got him to play drums On one track On his album That's cool So We started recording We had people like James from Push to Talk Play drums And Anton from Audrey Sessions Played violin And viola And We just got as many people From around the Bay Area To play And At the same time I quit school A friend of mine Named Bryce Who we went to high school With Also quit school I was like I want to do music I want to find a way And so He talked me into Being my bassist So I'm like Sort of The band works Sort of the way That You know Bright Eyes Or Dashboard Confessional Or Broken Social Scene Or any of those bands work Where it's Sort of A scene of people That support One songwriter And his friend Who plays bass So And I know A lot of people Have asked about Like Getting permanent musicians We just haven't found The right people Yeah Well I mean I imagine it can be hard Especially when it's Like your vision And your idea To get someone who Gets that across As well as you'd like It to be done You know But Is it any different From You know I've seen you You played Bottom of the hill Show with a full band Is it any different When you play acoustically As opposed to a full band Do you Choose different songs Or anything like that I think I'm still More confident Acoustic And I definitely Choose different songs There's a few songs That I just won't play Acoustic But I think I think the shows Where it's just me And a guitar I think There's I'm able to connect With the audience A little better The shows Where I just have An off day Any Either way It just You know Sucks But But Yeah I feel like I can connect better And I I can Sort of It's easier for me To get across The things I need To get across As a performer And with a full band It's difficult Because you have All this Noise around you All these people Moving around you And I'm struggling To hear my Vocals You know Over the monitor I mean I'm still I'm still a young Front man of a band I haven't done that Too long So I'm still sort of Working that out Have you ever thought of Like taking it all One way Or just Taking it all the other Like stripping it all down And going all acoustic Or Going like full band The whole time Most of my friends Were telling me Not to record A full band record To record an acoustic record But All of my All of the songs I wrote With the intention of You know Drum parts And And And Matt Radosevich When he was producing it You know He was always like I hear the drum part Just the way you're strumming it And so We We I think I think It was It was always the intention There's a couple songs On the record That are That are Just acoustic And I always want to have That element Because it just There's something about Just a person And And just The little bit of Instrumentation That I always just I don't know It gets me That's cool Was it all weird Like I mean I imagine Winning the whole BFD type Concert thing I totally skipped over this Earlier so But It was probably pretty weird Was it all Was it like a jump All of a sudden Like all of a sudden More people wanted to hear from you Or You know It It sort of was I think all it did Was give me some credibility It was It was It really feels like A long time ago now And Really when my A couple months ago When my record came out And it was called Charmingly Awkward And we self-released it And Get it on our website And stuff But when that came out That's when I mean That's when I started getting A bit more attention I think I think as much as Like Musicians seem to have Like two jobs To record And to perform Yeah And It seems like Having The People really respond To recording More Just because it gets Out there more Yeah Now You self-released Charmingly Awkward Did you have any Like Did you feel like You should look for a label Or was it just kind of Right off the bat You were just like Yeah Just self-release that Well I think I've always Part of why I played Acoustic And part of probably Why I have so much Trouble finding The right person Is I'm sort of a Control freak And And Really You know You know If you want it done right You gotta do it yourself Yeah And Definitely I've added More people to my team Recently And And I'm working on Being less of a Freak But But Yeah I think Our thought has been That If we If we can do it Ourselves The farther we can Take it ourselves The The You know The more we know We can do The The more I think It's like It's like with girls When you're not looking That's when they come to you You know So The more we can do it Ourselves And have our shit Together ourselves Then You know The right label might come And And I really try to Not think about it As like Success is being signed I think success is You know I don't know When I've seen like I've seen Bob Dylan play Or I work at the Fillmore And I see these guys Like You know Like Phil Lesh And The Grateful Dead And And Just like Even like Billy Corrigan People who have Been doing it a while And People still come to their shows And care about their crappy new songs And And And they're You know And they've been doing it a long time And that would be That would be amazing I'd love to have a career out of it So I don't I'm not sure that Like I think A label Is Is definitely gonna come into play At some point I really hope Yeah I do I think that I think that It's important to see how You know That we can It's important to be Able to take it On our own And handle ourselves That makes sense With Like The singer songwriter type Music I wouldn't Like we said earlier Not getting Like huge But definitely A lot more notoriety And stuff with like Bands like Bride Eyes And Late Elliot Smith And stuff Is it harder Like Do you feel there are more people Just doing that Because they think That's what people Will listen to Or Yeah I think so I think Anytime anything's Popular There's gonna be A lot of people doing it Yeah I don't know Like I really like I think I think guitarists Really focus on Playing guitar And singers Really focus on Singing And I really focus On songs And I'm Sort of a Music nerd And I'll You know I can have Conversations for an hour About the arrangement Of a Beatles song Or You know And just Simple songs That like Like Green Day songs And stuff That'll be like Oh this is amazing It's put together So well And so I really Obsessed about that And I think My goal is to just Whether it's Singer songwriter type Whether it's You know Fucking grunge Or I don't You know Whatever type of Music it is I just Want to Write songs That mean something To people And I think That there's not A whole lot of reason To be writing a song If it's not saying something Yeah I just get bummed out When I Turn on the radio And it's like I like Like even pop songs That are like You know We're gonna party Like that's saying something It's songs about a party And people like to party And shit But if it's like Just crappy Teenage poetry That isn't saying anything And it's like That just bums me out Because it's so half-assed And so I really I really strive To be able to Just I I would love to write A classic song That would be I would die Pretty stoked 30 years from now People are still You know Still Yeah I mean that's That's my goal I guess That's cool This is where we play The next song On the CD
♪ song played ♪
Questioning I swear to god I'll just go with The obvious question That I was just Going to ask I almost always see you Wearing the same sweater But now tonight You're not wearing it Is there a reason for that Or do you just Really like that sweater I just I just don't have That many Articles of clothing You have like Four shirts Yeah And this one I don't think I've ever worn At a show before So I'm trying it out To see how it goes But I'll probably End up playing The next like Five shows You know I don't know It's like I'm sort of I mean My album's called Charmingly Awkward I'm kind of An anxious guy And if I'm like I like to be comfortable People are always aware Of their own appearance So if there's something I know I'm like I think I can Talk to people Wearing this sweater I feel comfortable In this sweater It doesn't show My pit stains And shit Like I don't know Yeah I'll end up Wearing it a bunch So we're not Going to probably See you in Tight designer jeans And black t-shirts Anytime I don't know Who knows It's a possibility I have no idea I mean Cobain had Cobain only seemed Like he had Like four articles Yeah So I think That makes it Okay As a close But you know That's not too bad Well talking about Being comfortable I'm going to move that Parlay that To the next question Has there ever been Like a show Or like A grouping of bands That you've ended up Playing with Because your style Is kind of unique Has it ever been Really awkward To play with Another band Or you just felt It didn't mesh This one time I opened for this girl Katie Malua Who's sort of like The Nora Jones Of the UK And she's not big In the US at all But apparently She's multi-platinum In the UK And so I got this show Opening for About a year ago And It was It was at The Independent In San Francisco Which is This great sounding Venue And I was really excited And the reason I got the show Is because I was Just bugging their booker I was like Let me play there You know I'll open any show He's like He's like Sure Open this one And so And this was before I didn't even Have that many Like I was Most of my stuff Was a little more I think even harsher At that time And this is like Total jazzy Adult contemporary Stuff It's a seated show Candles on the tables I'm assuming It's probably Like a 40 or 50 dollar Ticket probably I mean maybe Not that much But you know 20 bucks at least More than 10 There's maybe Someone brought Their like daughter Who's in her 20s But everybody Everybody's pretty much 40, 50 You know And It was just The most uncomfortable Show ever They were so Damn respectful And they were So quiet Gave me the golf clap After every song And I just And To top it off She was like Totally Cute And I was Freaked out About that And I was like Trying to talk to her And she was very nice But I don't know It was just It was just like The most uncomfortable show Like it was There's like There's some shows Where you just lock in And you don't think about Anything at all And those are the best ones And this one I was like Oh my god That guy's reading the paper Over there He doesn't care about me At all I have to pee Oh my god You know It was like And so I mean That was That was definitely An uncomfortable show It sounds like It was pretty uncomfortable Alright On the opposite Has there ever been a show That just really Like worked well Or just You were Really excited to play And it just managed To all fall into place A lot of shows There's just Right now The barrier Has so many good bands And so My favorite shows Are usually Shows with Push to Talk Audrey Sessions Dessa The Matches Just mini pop There's a lot of great bands And so Shows where our friends Are there And bring them up on stage Our CD release Was us Audrey Sessions Dessa And Push to Talk And that was probably One of the greatest nights Of my life Because Bomb the Hill Sold out in advance And You know Everybody was Celebrating me So that was cool And It was just I don't know They're great bands And just I don't I don't have to worry About impressing anyone Yeah Because You know I know I'm surrounded by friends Yeah That's gotta be A pretty cool experience Now Do you feel like It's definitely gotta be Better for you to You know Just know everybody And all the like Bands And have all the friends And that you know Yeah I think I mean It's like I'm starting to realize That I don't think It's just in music Where people are like You know Connections are everything I think it's in life It's just Knowing people Gets you far I've heard a lot Of people's music That really is amazing And they're Not gonna do anything With it Because They don't know people Yeah And it It's really sad And At the same time I think It's really important To If you have a connection Use your connection Because Like even if You know If Ashley Simpson Is famous Because her Sisters got huge titties Like I'm sorry That was wrong But No no It's Is that okay Okay Okay yeah If she's famous Because of that If she was a great songwriter Then I think people would probably Respect her as a great songwriter If she's not You know I mean She doesn't write her own songs I don't think But But you know That was a horrible example Of anything I'm sorry I just really want to talk about Jessica Simpson I just want to talk about Jessica Simpson too She's single now Yeah From everything I read When I'm checking out Of Safeway Yeah She's apparently single So And Nick's juice Because of the prenup stuff Right That's what I heard I think so Yeah He's got all the money Yeah I'm interested to see how it goes But I'd like to give that guy A high five sometimes Get the opportunity Yeah Just A high five I'm not really much Hey man Why don't you just Stop being Stop the celebrity thing Just hang out You've done it It's gonna be downhill From here You've reached the top Of the mountain Yeah Congratulations That's really I think that's everyone's Goal in life Just find a rich Beautifully attractive Blonde And get a doer On everyone knows you did Yeah And then And then Divorce her And have all her money Or half of her money Then have most of the money That's really That's my goal in life That's why we do this Yeah I think we're going about it The entirely wrong way It's probably the worst way To do it Yeah Considering I think We've interviewed Ninety Everyone's been a man Huh We haven't interviewed A woman on this show yet Pretty much huge cock We had There were women In the room I think when we talked To Mike Park There was a chick In the other room So that's That's almost close There's a girl Through this This sliding glass Door over here Yeah She just moved away Oh Alright The minute she realized We were in here She was like Oh fuck Cockfest Story of my life That's why most people Become musicians Meet women Come on Yeah A little bit I mean I don't think There's anyone in a band Who hasn't used The band card before No yeah I think if you're in a band Like Even for a week That's your reason Yeah Easy way It's an icebreaker At least Well I respect the guys Who are in bands Who don't use the band card Yeah I don't know how They don't use it It's gotta be hard I mean Like I definitely Usually Probably Play a song for them Before I shake their hand I swear I'm in a band No really Check this out Here's our sticker Here's our website We've got our MySpace page That's me I don't know I think if you're in a band And you don't use it To pick up women You have to be Amazingly good looking Yeah Because 90% of the people Getting bands Are hideous And It's sad But it's true Yeah But But you can dress Whatever you want Yeah That's true I mean Not to bag on you But you definitely I mean Got your own style There Shut up God We'll have a full body shot You want to break it down Peace We'll describe each article Of clothing for you Okay But Capture the smell somehow We'll rank you Stink wise From 1 to 100 Is this all going In the interview Oh yeah Oh my goodness We just We don't need content We just We just fill it up As long as we have Bandwidth outgoing We feel we've succeeded It's all just It's all just Freestyle It's very Everything's relative It's all very post-modern Exactly Post-structuralist interviewing Yeah exactly By having a style We would totally Fuck it up Plus Then we'd be required To know what we were Talking about This way We just It's how the interview goes Cool But Is there Other than You mentioned earlier Writing like a really great song That 30, 40 years from now People who know Is there one thing That you would consider Like once you've done that Like tour a certain area Or sell so many albums That would really be like That's like your hallmark Or your goal Or something like that I don't know Just having Just having a career In music Just being able to Spend my early 20s Doing music Yeah Just doing what I love doing Would be enough I mean I decided When I was like 14 This is what I wanted to do So I don't know I wonder Sometimes I think like Something I always If I wanted to do it Before I was talented At doing it Like Is it really like An organic thing Or am I forcing it I don't know Like Should I have just been born Like able to sing Or Should I have worked at it For a while I don't know That's alright I've decided I'm just gonna do stuff Before I was ever talented At anything I'm still waiting To find what that talent is So It'll work out But I guess we'll give you A chance to Huey Lewis was 35 When he had his first Number 1 Really Yeah I swear I've heard that before Yeah Where How do you know that Behind the music I swear this was gonna be like Oh I studied Huey Lewis And his style No I did a thesis On On Huey Lewis In the news I don't know My favorite quote My favorite quote from that Is where he's like Man Guy could be a great player But if he's an asshole You don't want him On your tour bus I've used that one A lot of times When I'm trying people out Whenever you're working With someone you're like I'm gonna tell you something Huey Lewis told me Yeah You're an asshole I don't want you on my tour bus That's pretty much how it's getting I guess tour van At this point Yeah Tour car Yeah right now It's a car That's right It's the way a lot of good bands work Tour buses are expensive Yeah Don't worry about it But Give you a chance Upcoming shows You wanna talk about Your website Anything like that When's this gonna go up This is going up Tuesday Isn't it Okay Cool Well Friday The 20th At the Oakland Metro Which is that third And Broadway We're playing We're headlining With Dessa Broken Dolls Terra Melos And the Hot Totties Oh that's the Loud live And local one Or Something in that order Yeah It's something that matches Started a couple years ago And we're You know Every once in a while If we do a show And we headline We'll call it that So It stays alive And there's a group of kids That always come out That's cool To those shows And they're really Dedicated fans Excellent And then We're playing on The 27th At the Knitting Factory In Hollywood Oh wow And so that's our first L.A. show So I'm excited about that That's gotta be cool Going back down there And playing Excellent Our website Streettonore.com On MySpace Everyone's on Yeah We gotta Our records out And burn it From your friend Who has it Or You know Download it On IRC Or something Or Or buy it On our website No Buy it On our website Yeah You gotta throw That one out first And then be like If you don't have it Okay Yeah It's all a learning process Every day Well we'll push people To buy it on your website Don't worry Cool We understand We understand you're not Making a hell of a lot Of money at this yet So Yeah Once you sell 30 or 40 million albums We'll be like Just burn as shit That's 30 or 40 million Is like Self-released gold Right If you sell 30 or 40 million Gabby's You better believe I'm calling you up And I'll be like Remember Back Saratoga We interviewed you I can't hear you My gold phone Does not work very well It's solid gold I can't hear you Over the platinum Hummer With the diamond Rems Just Call my people I got these new Crystal ears They don't work well But they look so good Well now we know What you're gonna do If you ever make Millions of dollars Now you know My real gold That's your real ambition In life Crystal ears And gold phones Alright Well I want to thank you A lot So much Dave Yeah Thanks so much And uh Yeah Dave Street to nowhere Check him out And
Alright Well that's the Wrap up of the interview There Again we'd like to Thank Dave From street to nowhere For coming down Taking the time To talk with us And giving us A little insight Into the life Of a singer songwriter The track we played Right there in the middle Was leave the cameras on We decided to cut right To the chase Switch shit up A little bit That's how we roll At sound scene revolution No fucking around Uh Keep in Keep tuned in Next couple of weeks We've got some Really great artists Coming up People from Across the country We're Again bringing in People from out of state Because we roll like that It should be really good Bands that If you haven't heard yet You're really going to Want to know In the next couple of months And you're going to Be really pissed If you don't know Who they are And you have no one To blame But yourself So Taking us out today We're going to play Another track Off of street to nowhere Their self release CD Charmingly awkward Um I think we decided We're going to go With tipsy Just because it's And it was the one That Dave ended with At the bottom of the hill show So This is going to be Tipsy By street to nowhere Feel free to check them out They got a website They have a myspace They're all over the Fucking place And If you don't know Who they are by now You have no one to blame But yourself And the fact that God hates you Sound scene revolution Tune in next week
