Can you tell us a little about the bands backstory? I know you are all music students at UofL- How did everyone meet and how did the band officially form?
QC: Emma and Will met their freshman year at UofL and both had a big interest in the same music and writing music and would meet up to jam and play music in their dorm rooms, but it wasn’t until sophomore year when they chose that it was time to get serious and try to get a group together for a band.
Emma’s boyfriend at the time was a classical bassist, who was good friends with a bass player in his studio named Veronica, and to save some money, he chose to rent out a room in her house that she lived in with her sister (Fiona!). With forming a band on the mind, while over at the house, Emma noticed Fiona was a jazz drummer and saw her perform before, and sent her some demos and asked her to join, and soon the three of us where in her (very small) practice room as a band!
All we needed now was a bass player. Emma and Will were in a board game club that had a jazz bassist (Sam, former member) and threw him into the group as well. After about a year being a band, we had a big album release coming up and we wanted to have a second guitarist because we were writing our music with all those parts, plus, our keyboard player was also going to leave to study in Poland for a semester right after the gig and we needed someone to fill in for him, so Emma asked a friend from her classical guitar studio, who was in a band called SPAG, that they played with Quality Cable at Citrus fest. We originally just asked Andrew to record the EP with us and only play the album release, but he added a lot to the group creatively, so we asked him to stay forever!
Tell us about your 2018 EP “Static”- Can you give us any insight to your writing/recording process?
QC: Static was our first EP, which was full of tunes that we have played on our set for months and finally put down the money to record it. A lot of this EP was songs that Emma had written with just guitar and vocals and brought into the band to develop and create something new. The best example is “Smile Back” It was a slower ballad, but once brought into the band, Fiona played a disco beat to it, which inspired the disco bassline, and changed the song to become something completely different. Emma usually will bring in the skeleton (Chord Progression, melody, and sometimes a bass line or counter melody.)
Sometimes not much is changed from that skeleton, but sometimes it’s completely torn apart and formed into something very very different. Our latest EP “Paper View”, the group slowly became more and more comfortable bringing their ideas to the table. Like our song “Cavalcade” Emma had an unfinished song idea and Will also had a song idea that was unfinished and we took both of those and smashed them together into one tune! As time passes the band members become more comfortable sharing compositional ideas and in the future, you will see more and more songs predominately written by other members!
How was your summer tour? Any memorable venues or towns?
QC: We wanted our first ever tour to be a big one, so we set a goal of 15 shows! (Emma was originally planning 20, but you win some you lose some) Emma booked the tour by simply walking to the library after class everyday for about 3 months and just sending HUNDREDS of email and messages, researching good local bands and venues to play at. The way the tour was routed was we wanted to hit all of our home towns so our friends and family could see us, as well as us each having a little bit of insight on the city we have been in before. Emma is from Michigan, Fiona is from Mississippi, and Sam from Bowling Green (Andrew from Louisville) so we went North then South and stopped at a lot of cities in between. I think favorite cities would depend on each members experience. There were certain cities where we only had time to wake up, drive, arrive, play, then drive to the next place and didn’t have much time to explore. But some cities we had days off after a gig and made it really fun. St.Louis was a really fun city for us, Emma and Andrew have classical guitarist in their studio that let us stay in his house and when we went to get coffee and breakfast Jon Hamm was THERE. Emma texted the band “$50 to whoever invites Jon Hamm to our show tonight” and no one took the offer. Mississippi was also amazing because Fiona’s mom got us the cutest airBnB in a house that was over 100 years old and the owners left us tons of snacks (such as banana moon pies) and it had a really cute southern charm to it. As well as the farmers market in Mississippi having REALLY good blueberry lemonade.
How did you adjust to life on the road?
QC: Tour life was really fun because we all get along really well and are really laid back light hearted people, and because we routed the tour the way we did, hitting cities where we knew someone who lived there, we always had a bed, or a couch to sleep on. The hardest night was probably Chicago. The people and bands we played with were so amazing and one of our favorite shows but, not only were we all pretty sick with bad colds and weak bodies at that point, but we got robbed at the end of the night. We loaded the car and left to say goodbye and get paid and in the span of 5 minutes, someone smashed the back window to Andrews car and took the guitar pedals. It was 2am and we couldn’t find a place that had duct tape and a bag to put over the window, and we still had an hour to drive to the place we were going to sleep so we said, screw it and drove so we could sleep. So with a broken window and glass everywhere, and of course, it began to rain and thunderstorm while we were on the freeway. After losing some money on that epidemic, we also had to borrow pedals at every show we played and we really didn’t know how we were going to sound that night till the time came. Which was very scary.
What advice would you give to a band planning their first tour?
QC: Advice we would give a new band before tour, Try to pick cities you know someone in to avoid sleeping in the car, try not to route the tour with drives over 4 hours, make sure you plan some days off in between shows, eat fruits and vegetables as much as you can, and just have fun, because even the worst of times are all apart of the story.
Tell us about your recent line up changes- I saw you toured without keyboardist will, who was in Poland, but added Andrew on guitar. Did this affect your sound/vibe? What will the lineup look like going forward?
QC: Will was gone for a semester in Poland so we just had to adapt the set until he got back. Keyboard is a huge color instrument and not having that can completely change up the sound and the texture of the band, but with some adjustments and guitar pedal work, we got a sound we were good with for the time being. When we were on tour though we did make sure to bring a picture frame of Will, which was passed around in Cincinnati and kissed as well as humped by a drunk woman in Memphis, so you could say Will had a good time on tour as well. Also we had to occasionally explain to the audience that this person was not dead, just in Poland (and you could hear the sighs of relief)
Can you tell us about Paper View? What else can we expect from Quality Cable in the future?
QC: Paper View was recorded at La La Land with Ann Guithier! Ann is amazing and really helped us get our vibe across in this album! We are actually playing a show at La La Land on September 12th for the launch of all the new vintage gear they just got. Quality Cable has been taking a lot of time these past few weeks, writing and playing behind the scenes to really focus on finding who they are and their sound and we can’t wait to begin to hit the studio and show everyone who Quality Cable really is and what we have to offer the world!