PLAYGROUNDS Magazine

Columbus, GA - February 1998

"Remember when rock and roll was rock and roll" sums up Atlanta's The Brass pretty well. Ernie Boetz, vocals and guitar, took a phone call from us as they get ready to start on their next leg of a rock and roll journey. Having spent the last few months rehearsing a new member, the band is more than ready to get back out. Reas along as we talk about The Brass, recording, songwriting, and the current state of popular music."

PG: I thoroughly enjoyed the CD from The Brass, good old rock and roll, not the pop type being played now.

Ernie: The music now sure isn't based on blues anymore. You don't hear any of the roots rock underneath any of it. Everyone is sort of whining. The musicianship, the guitar playing, is just nonstop muddy strumming, no riffage to it.

PG: Today's music seems to have lost an edge.

Ernie: And it could be any song. A country song, or even a polka song, good songs are good songs. This hew rock stuff doesn't leave you humming it. They don't seem to write any decent melodies.

PG: There has been a member change since your last visit to Columbus.

Ernie: Well J.C. quit. We have a new bass player now... Tarmon Kelling. "The rest of the band is Lucky Forrester on guitar and vocals, and Chuck Rogers on drums.)

PG: That has had to effect going out and working.

Ernie: It is a very serious problem when you have to replace a member. It can't be done overnight. We had to stop playing because we had to devote all of our time rehearsing new guys.

PG: The rest of the band has been together how long?

Ernie: Over three years. But we sound better now than we have ever sounded so we are really excited about it. Our first gig out will in Atlanta January 20th with Tarmon at The Outer Edge.

PG: Do you miss being out on the road playing?

Ernie: That's all we want to do is get back out. Whether it's spot gigging or doing 3-4 nights in a row it doesn't matter. Hopefully we;ll get a good opening slot with a national and tour around. That is one of the best feelings in the world.

PG: And a good way to put yourself in front of people.

Ernie: Well it doesn't work like it used to where you could play in a club and hpe that a promoter sees you. Now you have to make your own cd, sell 40,000 units, register it with soundscan before even the independent guys will look at it.

PG: Tell us about the self titled cd "The Brass".

Ernie: Justin Senker plays bass on the record and he is the bass player for the Atlanta Rhythm Section. So he was with us during one of those periods that we didn't have a bass player. He would do a lot of shows with us and he knew we wanted to do the record, so he agreed to do the record with us. God bless him. The studio is called Holly Berry in Alpharetta, GA. I don't even think it is in the phone book. It's part of that good old boy southern Rock network which Justin is a part of. We would have never known anything about it if it weren't for him.

PG: They did a great job.

Ernie: We think so too. It's all 24 track analog and it's all pretty much live, no effects on it. People don't record natural sounds any more. Our cd is about as pure as it gets.

PG: It's getting some airplay too.

Ernie: We have been getting airplay here on 96 ROCK, in Alabama, Canada, and this is funny... Australia. I think we found most of these places scanning the Internet.

PG: It's good to have a supportive radio station.

Ernie: We hope to get some airplay in Columbus before the show and we are getting some cds down there. It will be a hell of a show. We play for about three hours and it's all original. We don't play a single cover. We really couldn't be happier with the way the band sounds and finally getting back out on the road. We enjoy playing out of town.

PG: It seems like local bands have to get out of town to make coming home special.

Ernie: Exactly. Frankly when you go out of town people treat you better. There is some sort of innate snobbery in each of us, to some degree, where what you have coming in from out of town for some reason is better that what you have in your own backyard. It's really great to take your music to places you have never been and to be well received.

PG: Your songs have some great hooks in them. 'Dance with the one who brought you to the party' from "Hard Rock".

Ernie: It couldn't be more true. That's what we have on the back of our t-shirts.

PG: Another is, 'I've asked you nice... now I'll ask you twice'.

Ernie: That one, I think, ripped off from Lemmie. (Lemmie, from Motorhead, and Ernie get together whenever their in town).

PG: Your music has that heavy flavor of the late 70s and early 80s. Do you have an influence short list?

Ernie: We get compared to, and frankly I don't hear it, old Aerosmith and old Bad Company. We hear Humble Pie and the occasional Black Sabbath reference.

PG: What's on your cd player now?

Ernie: Same thing. Humble Pie, Black Sabbath. No one in the band really cares for anything new. They all are whining in this Ethel Merman meets Leon Redbone thing. It's so contrived. After 1982 I haven't heard a thing I enjoy.

PG: So what do you think of all the bands coming out of Florida now?

Ernie: Geez, are they really? You know geography has nothing to do with talent. Seattle. Athens. Florida. Whatever. Go to Alaska and there is probably a band of Eskimos that can vlow us all off the map. But no one will go there because it's not a hip place to be.

PG: Another song reference, what did "Miss Hell" do?

Ernie: These songs are old. Every song we do I promise you is not some sort of female bashing theme. Any good rock and roll band is going to have some songs like that. It just so happened, that out of the 30 or so songs we had, those are the only 11 that Justin knw. Now Justin was going to record the album for free. We couldn't expect him to learn another five or six tunes. Let's see... "Agent Pain", "Miss Hell", and "Viper" are all about the same girl. Anyway, whe was a doozy man. We know when we put it all on paper and so many were from the same point we thought, "Oh man we're going to get..." In fact someone told me that I was going to make Axle Rose look like Alan Alda. We're actually not chauvinistic by any means.

PG: When The Brass comes to town in February you'll be at Victoria's. A great club that is really supportive of live music.

Ernie: Some places are a lot of fun to pack. If you jave a good crowd in a smaller place it is so much fun.

If real rock and roll is your thing, you know the kind, pounding drums, heavy bass lines and power guitar licks, then check out The Brass at Vic's on Friday the 13th. The Brass' self-titled CD is available at Riffs.