The wait is over and Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life is right around the corner! November 25th is 2 days away and we couldn’t be more excited about it.
But today we want to talk about a very special guy: Scott Patterson, our dear Luke Danes.
He gave an exclusive interview to Apaixonados por Séries talking about everything about his band, SMITHRADIO, and the possible tour in Brazil! His first single HAHA SONG was released today on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon and all major digital platforms. So, it’s a double-dose of Scott on the 23rd for his debut single and then again two days later on the 25th, when Netflix releases the Gilmore Girls revival. Who’s excited?
Check out how our interview went:
1 – How long have you been playing and wanting to get into the music business?
I formed my first band in 3rd grade with my best friend Tommy Poitras (drummer) from his basement. I sang. We did two songs – Back In The USSR and I’m Not Your Stepping Stone. We added a bass and a guitar and gave ourselves perhaps the dumbest name imaginable… The Unknowns. I’m serious. We were good, too. I wore a suede jacket with fringe on the sleeves and thought I was super cool. I wasn’t.
Now, when I was 5 I remember standing on top on the phonograph console and using a hairbrush as a microphone I would belt out Beatles songs to my parents every chance I got. My favorite song was Help and I sang it at the top of my lungs as often as I could. There were times my father was not amused and effectively shut down my concerts by taking away the hairbrush. I was a very busy singer at 5. So, the answer is I was dreaming of performing at 5 years old and nothing excited me more than singing.
2 – How do you define SMITHRADIO? And when have you decided this was the right time to release your music?
I would define SMITHRADIO as a rock band with strands of DNA coming from blues, punk, soul, rhythm and blues, all intertwined. It’s a BIG sound. It is a WALL OF SOUND that goes up high in the sky.
I had tried over the years to get my music off the ground with various people, done recordings that didn’t pan out well, put together bands that fell apart – ya know, the usual stuff. But I was always writing songs. I have over 530 songs in my library so I never stopped dreaming or writing. It’s my thing. If I had any free time at all I’d sit down and write. Amazing how quickly a day or night can fly by when you are writing music.
So, in June of this year I decided to put another band together and we ended up doing some gigs in West Virginia for Flood Relief and in Ocean City, New Jersey my old summer stomping grounds. The shows were a big success and I had so much fun doing them that I decided to make it really happen by going into the studio and recording an album. What happened was this guy in the music biz heard HAHA SONG from a quickie recording we did when I first formed the band. Based on THAT he called me and said “I want to get you in the studio because there is something here.” I tried to play it cool but inside was ecstatic. It just felt so good. Someone in the business finally heard a song I wrote and wanted more. One of the better days of my life. Anyway, I went into the studio and we knocked it out. Just kept grinding away and got it done. When I heard HAHA SONG mix and mastered I literally had to sit down. It was a big moment. This big wave of emotion washed over me and I felt the producer looking at me for my reaction and I just started crying, man. It was like the dream was becoming real and I could hear it and feel it and taste it. God, what a moment. Now, all I want to do is share that song with the world. It is a fun, raucous, intense, fast-paced rock anthem that will tear your face off and to me that is what rock is all about – hit me with your best shot and try and knock me down. Well, HAHA SONG does just that. Very excited to share it.
3 – What are your musical influences? Can you tell us what inspired the first single HAHA and the whole album for that matter?
My influences run deep and wide. Here goes… Beatles, Stones, Joplin, Dylan, all those great AM radio hits from the 60’s (Along Came Mary), CSNY, Mamas and the Papas, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Hendrix, Keith Jarrett the pianist, Pete Jolly the pianist, Chopin, BEETHOVEN the god of all song writers, Rachmananov, Springsteen, Patti Smith (I almost got her to audition me when I was 15), The Who, Led Zeppelin, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Yes, Steppenwolf, Herbie Hancock, Jeff Beck… I could go on for days. Lol. Let’s just say I tend to get lost in this music.
4 – About your career as an actor – what are your plans from now on? Do you want to combine acting and music?
If an acting job is offered to me that feeds my creative engine and sparks my imagination then I will do it.
5 – What do you expect after the single and album is released?
I try not to have expectations but of course I want people to like the song. I’m a very tough critic of my own work and it takes a lot for me to get impressed and I will tell you I am very proud of this song HAHA and all the tracks on the album. I was originally going with another track to debut the band but we got some radio play on the east coast and that changed the game for me. HAHA is right at 4 minutes so it’s perfect for radio. I think it comes in now at 3:30 for radio so it’s a natural fit. The other song is 5:21 and we could probably get it down to 4:45 without ripping it’s guts out but that’s still a bit long for radio. Gave me the prefect excuse to push HAHA as debut.
We are really looking forward to touring and we are getting a lot of great feedback from São Paulo and really all over Brazil and Latin America so it feels like we will be touring Brazil in 2017 if all goes well. We are really excited about that, by the way.
6 – How is your writing process? What inspires you?
My process is I sit in my home studio and strum my guitar until I hit a chord or a progression that pleases me and feel I can build on and it goes from there. Sometimes I wake up at night and run downstairs with an idea playing in my head and turn on the recorder and play before it vanishes. It’s always the music first, then the lyrics. The progression evokes a feeling inside and I go after that story. It’s an atmosphere, a world that is created. Then you write about that reality within that world. It’s like a film that plays in my head. I can see the story of the song. Sometimes an entire song comes to me by hitting one chord. Fully formed. It’s like a wormhole in space opens up and this fully formed song just gets downloaded into my brain.
Those songs happen very quickly. Ten minutes, five minutes, fast. HAHA SONG was like that. Like a gift from above – or below lol! HAHA came from a progression I started playing and boom, it just came in its entirety. It was really late and I was exhausted and I walked into my studio to turn off a light and for some reason I sat down, grabbed an acoustic – my oldest, tried and true pawn shop acoustic that I love so much – and started noodling around with a few chords and something happened. This progression came and then this melody came and I started humming it and it just started building and building and building. Ten minutes later I had it recorded on my system and the lyrics done, and the best part is I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night because I was so excited about the song. It was always HAHA SONG. That was the first thing I wrote down on my sheet: “HAHA SONG”.
Rock songs are hard because you want to keep it simple. I use to write these elaborate fucking songs in five parts and some of them are actually pretty good but a lot are just pretentious crap that will never see the light of day. HAHA is that simple, classic, hard driving cool rock song that once it’s in your head will never leave.
7 – Brazil is super excited about the Gilmore Girls revival and your band. The fans have been showing incredible support. Were you expecting this love from Brazilian fans? Did you know you were that famous in South America?
I did NOT know I was this famous in Brazil and I am taking your word for it because you seem like a really nice person. It’s funny, I walk around LA and everyone is so jaded here – and for the most part respectful – but once you get out of LA suddenly you become this celebrity with fans coming into a restaurant to get your autograph because they passed by and caught a glimpse from the street. It’s wild. Always takes me by surprise. I don’t walk around thinking about it or feeling any particular way about it. I’m always in my creative head, working on the music, writing, playing, rehearsing, meetings. There’s a lot to do. I’m a really busy guy and that’s the way I like it. Sometimes I don’t have time to eat. It’s crazy. But that’s how I do it. I know what it takes to make something a success and it takes 100% effort, focus, drive, 24/7. That’s how I’ve always done it. Why? Because I want it not only to be great but better than anything you’ve ever heard. I want it to represent me. I want to hear it ten years from now and say “at that time that was the best I could do.” I want to be proud of the work I create and in that way I can have fun sharing it. I crave playing live now because I get to see the audience reaction right away and it’s thrilling to see a room full of people going nuts and smiling and dancing and pumping their fists. Few things can top that. The world needs it. The world needs SMITHRADIO. The world needs HAHA SONG because all this evil shit going on round the clock people just need to let off some steam and de-stress and let the day go and rock the fuck out! Best therapy in the world for me when I was a kid? Go in my room, shut the door and blast Zeppelin, blast Hendrix. When I got older it was getting in the car and, yup, blasting Zeppelin, blasting Hendrix, and I’d feel good again. I’d feel right. The chiropractic of the heart and soul. The thought that some kid somewhere in the world is gonna go in his room or get in his car and blast HAHA SONG brings a tear to my eye truth be told. Passing down the great tradition to another generation of kids and I feel honored to be a part of that. Music connects me to the world, to feeling, to real love of people, to my true and best self. It’s everything and I love it so.
My best memories growing up were going to concerts at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. I saw everyone – The Who, Zeppelin, Springsteen, and those moments before they came onstage right up to when the lights went down and that roar of twenty thousand came rising up… Man, that is just beautiful. All those people feeling that good, feeling that excited and positive and happy. SMITHRADIO is about connecting to this awesome force, this awesome potential that people have to come together in one place and feel nothing but joy for 3-4 hours. This is gonna be a wild ride and we are going to have a lot of fun in Brazil playing shows I can already feel it.
8 – And final question: when are you coming to play for us and when can we expect your album released here?
HAHA SONG is being released NOVEMBER 23 on iTunes, Amazon, Google and all major download platforms. NOVEMBER 23 is our coming out party and I am inviting the entire planet. Let’s celebrate life at a very high decibel level because, baby, that’s the only way to do it.
SMITHRADIO’s new single is called HAHA and will be released on November 23rd, in all digital platforms. Let’s all celebrate his music and hope for a tour in Brazil soon!
And don’t forget to follow his social media so you can catch up on all the news about SMITHRADIO!
SMITHRADIO Facebook page: https://m.facebook.com/SMITHRADIO111/
SMITHRADIO WEBSITE – https://scott-patterson-lbhj.squarespace.com/
Scott Patterson’s Twitter – @ScottGPatterson
Scott Patterson’s Instagram – @scottgordonpatterson
Para ler a entrevista em português, clique aqui.
