By STEPHANIE VAUGHAN
Contributing Writer
After chatting with members Pete Weiland, Tucker Yaro, Matthew Fazzi, and Tyler Soucy for a short time, it became clear that they have a go with the flow outlook on life which seems to be working out pretty well for them. Drawing influences from Green Day’s “Dookie,” Weezer’s “The Blue Album,” along with bands like The Beatles and The Beach Boys, A Great Big Pile of Leaves’ melodic tunes have earned them spots on major tours, along with a strong and growing fan base. At the end of the day though, they really want you to give their band a chance to make you happy.
You’ve played tours with some big name artists like Motion City Soundtrack, Say Anything, and Hellogoodbye, yet you’ve also done plenty of smaller tours. What are some of the similarities and differences between larger and smaller scale shows that people might not realize?
Tucker: There’s a lot of down time in all cases.
Matt: Every show you get a different crowd. For example, [playing] college shows could be really hit or miss with the energy that you get back from people. Sometimes [there are] people that are already in the scene who go to shows and are excited to see live music. Sometimes you get a college crowd where it’s like, “oh there’s a band playing, I just showed up, I don’t really care and I’m just hanging out with my friends.”
Tucker: The smaller tours are more lenient.
Matt: It’s a difference, too, if we are the headliner for the show or if we are the opening band. Every situation is just a little bit different from the next. When you’re the opening band, you are trying to win over new people. When you’re the headliner, [you hope] there are some people who are already stoked about the band and then it’s a different kind of energy, you get a little extra pumped to play for those people.
Tucker: Our first tour was our biggest one, in terms of audience size. It was pretty interesting to me to see how rigid it was. If we weren’t there for our sound check, and it was early at 1:00pm, it was a big problem. It can be really serious depending on who is the tour manager.
Matt: [The tour with The Appleseed Cast] was the complete opposite. There were [only] two bands and they didn’t mind playing really late, they actually liked playing super late for some reason. We, as the only opening band, would play starting at nine or ten at night, then they’d get on at midnight. They were super relaxed.
How do you feel about online services such as Spotify and Pandora?
Matt: It’s a double edged sword. The royalty rate sucks on Spotify, it’s terrible, it’s not artist friendly. [However,] the idea that Spotify has all this really cool music that you maybe can’t even find other places is a really neat part of it.
Tyler: It’s give and take, you hopefully get some new fans out of it.
Tucker: You have to [look at it] as a growing opportunity.
Matt: It’s a necessary evil right now.
The record industry railed against LPs when they came out, then they railed against cassettes, then they railed against cds, as being horrible for the artist because they’re too expensive [since] you can’t get a good enough return. We were talking about it in the van that now cds are ninety cents to produce with the jewel cases. [Online streaming services] are a new market opportunity. It’s easy to say “oh it’s not fair to the artist,” but for me, I view it as money we would never see otherwise. It’s another vehicle for us to earn a little bit.
Matt: It’s either zero or twenty cents! [laughs]
Tucker: People are just cruising around [online]. If they stumble across us, it’s not an opportunity for them to get it free where they otherwise would have paid for it, but the percentage of people doing that is so small. I feel like the majority of people are just stumbling across our music, so we do benefit from that.
Matt: It’s part of that bigger conversation of devaluing music to me. Having a platform like that where you’re only paying ten bucks for a month and you get anything you want all the time. It’s a tough thing, finding a way to reestablish artists’ value.
Would you then encourage people to continue buying physical music or is there another platform you feel is more beneficial to you as the artist?
Matt: First and foremost to me, I think buy the music if you like the band.
Tucker: It all works for us, our biggest returns are always going to be direct digital sales, that’s going to be our highest profit margin.
Matt: You don’t have to press a digital mp3.
Tyler: I think bands make the most money from fans coming to shows. Money aside you want people to be listening to your band.
Matt: A general exchange of energy is good, whatever that might be. If they go steal the record, then so be it, it happens. Hopefully they’ll be pumped enough to come out to a show and buy a shirt or even come up and give us a high five and say “hey I stole your music and I like it and I paid to get in” or something.
Tucker: On the real numbers side, we were looking at last year’s finances and we didn’t tour a lot but our performance revenue was higher than our digital sales and merchandise [revenue]. Most touring acts would all agree that the majority of your income is going to come from performance revenue.
When people are on Spotify or in a record store and they come across your album, why should people choose to listen to your music over everything else out there?
Matt: Everyone has a different flavor and the hope is that they like our flavor. Our flavor happens to be happy rock music. We are a fun, nostalgic feeling happy rock band!
You seem to be pretty conscious of your merch designs and branding of your band. Do you design your merchandise or do you outsource it?
Tyler: We have friends who are artists that will help us out.
What elements do you try to tie into your merch that you feel the fans will connect with?
Tyler: I would say quality, even if we have to charge a little more, and [the fans] will have to pay a little more for it. We’d rather have a shirt that someone can wear for years rather than having someone spend twenty bucks on a shirt that is falling apart. [We want them to have] something that wear because they like it, rather than just because it was a band they like or used to like.
Do you notice any specific trends in merch lately? A few years ago there was a lot of neon and monster designs around, do feel that trend is still current or are things starting to change?
Matt: I think it’s true within that scene. I associate that all with the nu-metal/screamo scene [so within that] i think it’s still a thing and that scene is very strong. We exist in a weird realm, I don’t know where we fit.
Tyler: I think bands are starting to look at merch as more of a fashionable clothing line rather than super branded, it’s a little more subtle. [The trend now is] more high quality, comfortable, just clothes people will wear day to day.
Matt: [On the other hand] your shirt is your advertisement, so you’re going to throw your name as big as you can on a shirt. We’re still working it out, we’re not fashionable guys [laughs].
Pete, you write the lyrics, so where does the inspiration for the lyrics come from? Are they meant to be taken literally or more figuratively?
Pete: It’s a mix of everything, you get to decide.
Is there anything in particular that you draw inspiration from?
Pete: Definitely my life.
Matt: Speaking about your lyrics from an outsiders perspective, I’d say that Pete draws a lot from childhood experiences. Like I said earlier there’s a nostalgic quality to the band and in Pete’s lyrics. It takes me back to feeling like a kid again.
What’s one thing you never get asked in interviews that you think people should know about your band?
Tyler: Don’t try to break into our van.
Matt: It goes back to supporting music and with a band of our size, people have a tangible effect on the things that happen to us by buying our music or coming out to a show or saying something good about the music or that it moved them in some way. I hope people don’t subscribe to the idea that bands just make money doing whatever. The assumption is you’re out on the road, you’re making money, you’re all rich right? [mock laughs]. If you go buy our CD, it’s putting ten dollars in our pocket for gas. It’s not like we’re making money doing this, this is a labor of love that we’re trying to be smart and business savvy about so that we’re not burning ourselves out.
Tyler: The emotional exchange is [key] too. A lot of the satisfaction for a band is meeting people and hearing people sing their songs, talking to them after shows. Obviously everyone wants to make money off of it, but coming out to shows is really appreciated.
Tucker: It’s so easy to reach out to us, and it really means a lot [when fans do.]
Matt: We’re super accessible and in that same vein you really have a tangible effect on the band, and that’s what I think people lose sight of. They think if you’re in a band and you’re on a good tour, you’re making a lot of money. The real deal is we’re all working musicians, and if you like it support what we do!
