Interviews (219)

• March 2, 2017
• Colleen Johnson
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• 1149
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2017 has already been super impressive touring wise and we’re only in March. It feels like every night there are three or four spectacular shows going down every night. In a not so brutal Boston winter, we had no excuse not to be out at something every free night of the week. A band that was one of our stand outs was the NYC boys in Public Access T.V.

As we talked about below in my interview with lead singer John Eatherley, the band had played the same venue, Great Scott, in Boston six times before so clearly being road dogs it only makes sense the band hit the road so early this year. With a still relatively new album, “Never Enough”, dropping in September of last year, the band plans on a lot more touring this year as well as working on their second full length which they’ve already made serious progress on. Read our interview below and I better see you at the sure to be plenty shows Public Access T.V will be playing in Boston soon!

Obviously the tour kicked off in Boston last night, how do you think Boston went and then maybe hopes or goals for the rest of this tour?
Boston was sick. It was the first show and it was amazing. We played the Great Scott, we had played there six times before. It’s kind of like our second home because we’ve played it so much. Our guitar player, Xan, his brother lives around the corner. We had a nice home cooked meal, spaghetti bolognese and chicken tenders, waiting for us when we arrived. So Splashh who were touring with, we’re all in one van and we rolled up, ate a delicious meal and we had a nice day at his brother’s house. And then, we went to play the rock and roll show at the Great Scott.

Perfect! Then you talked about how you’ve played that venue six times and the band has steadily toured. I know The Brittanys, also New Yorkers, are doing their first tour as this tour. Maybe something you would have told yourself on that first run? Maybe something you would have avoided or something that you wish you had done?
Well this is our first tour that we’ve ever done where we’re the last band playing. So every other time that we toured as a band, we’ve been opening for bands. If I could give myself advice? Looking back if I could give myself advice on my first tour? Well I guess my advice to the Brittanys’ would be to show up on time. I think they’ve toured a little bit but this is like their first tour. It was the first night and I think the biggest thing about this tour is that everybody kind of knew each other. We knew some of those guys from New York. We’re really good friends with Splashh who we’re touring with, driving with. So you could say it’s like summer camp this tour. But you know, advice to the Brittany’s, I think they’ll figure it out soon enough. They got to wake up early enough to get to the next city and they got to be nice to us. And they got to be okay with a little bit of hazing. Every new band needs to be a little hazed. They can’t take it to personally because they have to know that it’s coming from a place of love.

Then the band released the debut album in September, “Never Enough” . Now that it’s been a few months, maybe is there a song that you think is really going over well with the crowd, maybe a reaction that surprises you for this record?
Well there’s a slower song on the record called “Careful” and we haven’t really playing it at all live but we played it last night. It’s nice, now that we’re doing our own headlining tour, to find a little more dynamic in the set. It’s a slower song and we usually just power through everything, we just play all the fast ones. Or the big tempo ones or whatever you call it. So I think the audience kind of gets into it where there’s a nice kind of solo break in the set and you pop right into a faster one after it. So we’re doing things a little bit differently now that we’re not opening and I think people respond well to that. That kind of dynamic.

And going into this tour, is it something where you’re mostly playing the new record, do you still play a little bit of the EP. How did you go about the planning for this set?
Well, pretty much we’re playing every single song on the record. Yeah we’re just playing every song on the record and then we had this EP that came out before and one of the songs from this EP, we kind of rewrote a different version of and put it on the record. So we’re playing that and that was on the EP but we’re not playing any of the other songs. We’re just playing all the songs on the record and it’s cool because now that the record is out, any song that wasn’t a single, it’s really nice to be playing a random song on the record and seeing people knowing the lyrics and singing along. It’s a really, really great feeling.

For sure and even though the album is still so new, it’s only been out in public for like five months now. Is it something where you’re still working on new music or is it something where that’s kind of a ways away for the band. Kind of ride the wave.
We’re always working on new music. Like we already have the bones for the second record.
You already have the bones, do you feel the songwriting process is still changing or do you think it’s kind of fallen into a pretty steady rhythm for Public Access T.V.?
Well, we don’t really have one particular writing process. There’s a few different writing processes. Sometimes, you sit down and write a song and it’s over in a minute and everything is done really quickly. Or sometimes, you have the words for a song or part of a chorus for a song from a couple years ago. It’s always different and I think directionally, for the second record, we’re just going to step it up. We don’t want to make the same record again.

Then maybe a soft one to kind of end it off, do you remember the first CD or first cassette you ever bought and the first concert you went to?
First concert I ever went to? The first concert I ever went to was a music festival in Tennessee called River Stages and the headlining band was The Cure which was really cool to see. I think I was like fourteen and I remember it was pretty epic. The first CD that I bought I believe was Dr. Dre’s “2001”. The first record I bought was a “Best of” of the Doors and the second record I bought was “Combat Rock” by The Clash.

Then like I keep saying, you only started the tour last night and the record is still so new, kind of what’s the game plan for 2017 for Public Access T.V.?
The game plan for 2017 is playing as many shows as we can and touring as much as we can. And then, simultaneously writing and recording as much as we can for a second record. We really want to keep momentum. We don’t want to take forever to put out a second record but I think we’ll probably put out some singles even that are new that aren’t even on the record hopefully in the summer. Leading off for a record to come out in probably like January 2018 or if we’re really working on it, fall of 2017. Basically, just working, working, working. That’s what you’ve got to do.