I caught up with the guys at Red Bulls Studios where they were recording two new songs. The guys bum rushed the break room fridge and stocked up on Red Bulls, I slammed an energy shot, and then it was officially Rock The Route story time.

10am interview. That’s not really rock ‘n roll, right? Did you guys pull an all- nighter or something?
John: Yes [Laughs] No.

So tell me about the Red Bull tour that you just completed.
John: It’s been sort of a whirlwind for us. We didn’t see it coming at all. We just got really lucky that we were chosen and that we played a good audition and that they liked us. The tour itself was absolutely amazing.

Cody: Yeah all the people that were part of it, the crew and the other bands — all great people and really helped us out. I mean four months ago we would have probably never seen ourselves where we are here.

Shawn: Yeah with lineup changes and moving on with what we had to do. You know, go to school and find jobs and stuff.

John: It’s completely surreal to think that we’re here right now. We were pretty close to being done four or five months ago.  So this was a Godsend – not to use too much religious imagery [Laughs].

Was it difficult to get fans to text in to vote for you?
Peter: That’s actually what kind of screwed us over because we didn’t actually win the tour. Brighton MA won but because the text voting awarded like five extra points at the end of the night and a lot of the nights we just got destroyed in the text voting. That ended up being the main reason why they won the tour. But we got the recording out of it anyways so none of that really matters.

John: The thing about our band is we are just some kids from Chicago in a midlevel band so we don’t have that many fans. When we say please text for us it’s like we’re getting our good friends. I sent Facebook messages to friends that were in fraternities and sororities and told them to text too.

Yeah it’s like that with American Idol. It’s always the people that watch every episode and the teenyboppers that are the ones voting.
Peter: We tried out for American Idol collectively.

John: Cody won but the rest of us weren’t good enough.

Was that before the J-Lo Steven Tyler ordeal?
John: Yes season 1.

I wonder how long they are going to keep that running.
John: Hopefully forever.

Maybe you guys will be guest judges one day.
John: I guarantee it, actually.

So you guys are in town recording here today and you just released a new EP…
John: Yes we’re super excited about that.

Peter: It’s available for download on our website right now which is whoisyoungjesus.com

John: Actually everything that we have recorded that we like is available for free on our website. The EP in conjunction with the Red Bull tour really kept us together so they really go hand in hand.

Shawn: It really made us want to turn it into a career full time.

You named it Young, Innocent, and Hairy. Where did the hairy come from?
Cody: Talk to this guy. [Points to John]

John: I was at the Pitchfork music festival in Chicago and I was talking to some German forty-year old guy and he was wasted. I wear a lot of V-necks especially in the summer and I’m pretty hairy. He comes up to me and he talks to me for a while very condescending and very weird and off the wall and at the end of the conversation he goes, “Just so you know when I grow up I want to be just like you. Young innocent and hairy.”

Speaking of body hair, is it true that the Young Jesus name came from one of you having long hair and being referred to as Jesus?
John: Shawn and I –  when we started the band it was originally just us two and we were just hanging out in one of our friends backyards and he had a beard and long hair at the time. I was like, “You look like Jesus – actually you look like young Jesus.” It kind of stuck from there.

Any crazy stories from the tour? I read things about steak eating contests and John in hot pants?
John: We had tons of crazy stories. That tour was just a ball of insanity. Yeah Cody ate that huge steak.

Cody: 54 ounces.

Wow! Did you get a T-shirt?

Cody: Yes, I did get a T-shirt.

So did you compete with someone and whoever ate the most won?

Cody: Yeah, it was Sam, who is the drummer from Brighton MA. Him and I went up against it and it was funny because we ate lunch a few hours right before it and I ate an entire chicken fried steak and that’s when we determined which one of us was going to do it. I just kind of volunteered myself. I wasn’t confident going into it but it worked out.

Have you eaten steak since?
Cody: I think so but it’s really not the same. It never will be the same.

Is it true that last time you guys went to the Viper Room your tires exploded on the way?
Shawn: Yeah, that was pretty crazy.

John: Shawn was driving.

Shawn: We were driving in from Arizona and we’re on the highway and there’s no gas stations or anything for a long time and we’re trying to keep up with the bus. The van we were in was kind of crappy.

John: It had 400,000 miles on it.

Shawn: It just started shaking. I slowed it back a little bit I took my foot off the gas and the tire blew and it felt all wobbly. I looked back and there were pieces of tire flying off the road. I somehow managed to slow down, coast it, and pull over to the side. I have pictures of the tire on my phone. It’s completely torn up.

John: I saved a piece of the tire. I still have it. Shawn is the calmest driver. He drove 95% of the trip but if Pete and I were driving, we definitely would have died.

What was the hot pants story?
John: That was in Tulsa. It was Halloween. None of us brought costumes so my idea was to dress up as my dad in his workout clothes. He wears short shorts and high socks and our host Sarah Mitchell saw what I was wearing and she’s like “Oh my God I have these glitter hot pants that you should wear.” So I just wore those. That was my costume wearing glitter hot pants.

Peter: And our own T-shirt

Shawn: Yeah, our own band T-shirt.

Pete: We played a really bad show and the celebrity judges were the Shiny Toy Guns and they like really didn’t like us. John didn’t really want to wear the shorts but they were the only thing that they liked. They were like, “Dude but we really fucking love the shorts. You gotta always wear the shorts but yeah tighten everything else up.”

John: Yeah like that one question, “Do you ever warm up before you sing?” I was like, “No I don’t.” They said, “Well you probably should [Laughs] but the shorts are great.”

Well you can hopefully channel that into something positive.
John: All our new songs are about hating the Shiny Toy Guns.

Do you guys ever have any crazy Christians after you because of your name?
Cody: We hope to get to that point where we are successful enough where that actually happens. The only time we’ve ever run into that was when we started to get into bubble fuck areas of Oklahoma.

Peter: It’s just a name for us. We’re not trying to make fun of anyone.

John: But we get that question all the time. “Oh your name is Young Jesus. Are you a Christian rock band?”

That would be a pretty lame name for a Christian rock band.
John: When I dropped out of school two and a half years ago, my dad picked me up from Ohio to drive me home. My parents are both very religious Episcopalians and he was so pissed off. He was like, “OK so what are you going to do now John?” I said, “I’m joining a band with Shawn and Cody.” He’s like, “Oh really, what’s the name” and I said, “Young Jesus.” He just looked at me and was like, “ahh John.”

Thanks guys. I will leave you with this: If you were stranded on a dessert island and had to have three CDs to listen to on repeat for the remainder of your days, what would they be?

John and Peter: Let’s join up and select The National – High Violet

Shawn: Alkaline Trio – Goddamnit

Cody: Wilco – Sky Blue Sky

Words by Nicole Pajer. Photos by Dustin Downing.

The Shiny Toy Guns have always been a band hell-bent on trailblazing. STG pioneered the fusion of dance and rock music with their first two albums We Are Pilots (2006) and Season of Poison (2008). The band was also a trailblazer in the intense musical conversation know as Red Bull Soundclash. Well, the boys (and girl) are back at it with a new album and a second showing at Red Bull Soundclash. ChinaShop sat down with the band to discuss tales of pioneering past as well as to explore which envelopes they will be pushing in 2011 and beyond.

Since you’ve already participated in a Red Bull Soundclash before, what are you looking forward to out of the Atlanta experience?

The stages now are sort of rammed together with only 35 feet or so in between them, which brings both artists – both acts – the ability to sort of vibe out in the aspect of friendly eye contact and the spiritual collab that you get. A lot of time these stages are 100 to 200 feet away from each other and it’s like… one guy does one thing and one guy does the other and this time it’s going to be that back and forth “boom boom” thing in Atlanta.

How does an event like Red Bull Soundclash challenge your band as artists to create new outlooks on your existing music and work with a genre of sound you normally wouldn’t?

We are challenged artistically by Red Bull Soundclash mainly because Shiny Toy Guns is sort of a hybrid  type of band, part machine, part rock. We’re half electric, half organic and the way Soundclash work is completely hyper organic… we use a lot of drum machines and samplers and new technology instruments that aren’t the best things to use for immediate on-the-fly organic performing. So we’re really having to stay on our toes to create the texture, sounds capes, and rhythms and arpeggiations to own it with the sound of Shiny Toy Guns in real time, where as a band like The Roots can just go “1-2-3-4” and eight dudes with timbales,  guitars, basses, tubas, and keyboards start playing… We have to program our computers in addition to playing our synthesizers, guitars, basses, and vocals and you can’t really program a computer as quickly as you can play a timbale which is the biggest challenge for us.

How did you guys choose the cover and how do you plan to make it your own?

The way we went about choosing the cover for Red Bull Soundclash is we had been messing around in the studio previously on a track that actually Chad started in his studio and then the track eventually began to take the form of Jimmy Hendrix’s “Fire.” We went ahead and recorded it, actually his wife did the vocals on it which is funny with just dummy vocals right there on-the-fly. And we just put it down. Shiny Toy Guns has done a lot of covers in its career and we sat down this idea and when this formulated into a show and it was like, “Hey we could do … oh, wait a minute! Jimmy Hendrix’s ‘Fire.’” We already had sort of practiced it and had a head start on it and we checked it out with Quest and The Roots were down to do it. It’s a great song and you can’t go wrong with a Hendrix tune so I think that’s how that was born.

What have you learned from working with The Roots the last few days?

I think a lot of what we’ve learned from playing with The Roots, we’re entirely different bands technique wise, but the way we do things and the way they do things are both necessary in their own worlds but with The Roots it sort of motivates me to keep chops up.  I mean like, go to a bar with a hammond b 3 and play and for my drummer to go home and do rudimentary stuff and for Chad to practice guitar… It’s just, they play with the TV show that they’re involved with and all the various things that The Roots do that are so dynamically organic and live, these guys are just getting better and better as players. And with Shiny Toy Guns, we sort of have a block of tunes that we know and we don’t spend enough time just playing our horn or playing our guitar just for the sake of being an artist and a musician. And I think that’s something that motivated me by watching these guys – they’re very serious players.

Traveling on the road as much as you do, are there any band rituals you can share with us?

We have a lot of different tiny rituals because we’re definitely road dogs. We play 300 shows a year when we’re active during the record cycle. I would say the most prominent thing we do is an activity called “prep time.” And it’s exactly to the dot, iPhones go off, one-hour and thirty minutes before show starts. The band marches into the green room or bus and we create an area and this area is going to have a certain array of drinks and eats.  And It’s simple stuff like pastrami or something dumb like a tooth brush and tooth paste for Mikey our drummer… Everyone has their own certain tick that must be there. And If it’s not there, it throws the whole psyche of the band off.  When you’re in a different zip code, continent, time zone everyday and you have one normal thing that’s always the same like there’s always kettle chips and there’s always sea salt. It’s like, “Oh, there’s my kettle chips! I see it, it’s mine, I’m in Prague and I don’t care.” Just for that hour and a half, please give us the peace to goof off, listen to music, and eat chips.

The Shiny Toy Guns will go head to head with The Roots at the Atlanta Red Bull Soundclash November 14, 2010.  Click here for more information and be sure to check out the STG’s new album Girls Le Disko out now.

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Erykah Badu and the Cannabinoids vs. Shiny Toy Guns

Saturday was the first day of Sunset Junction and I couldn’t have been more excited to get there.  After a near impossible search for parking, it was decided that I’d park at Sidney’s and we’d make the half-mile hoof down the hill to the junction.  On the way, we ran into some excited hipsters who clothed us in glow bracelets and geared us up for the evening ahead.  When we finally arrived, we ran right to the Sanborn Stage to catch Fishbone.  We walked up during the “All Together Free” chant that they had engaged the crowd in.  It was a fun show and really feel-good music…well at least until the “Let Dem Ho’s Fight” song which seemed to be a favorite of the ornery members of the audience.  Shortly after, the mood was back to jolly as the guys covered “Date Rape” by Sublime, which definitely went over well with the crowd. Fishbone poked fun at the parking situation in Silver Lake and complained of parking tickets before continuing on with the set.

Next, it was a mad dash to the Electro Stage to see what this Shiny Toy Guns – Hybrid Digital was all about.  Chad and Jeremy were on stage with a guitar, keyboard, pedal boards, and lots of synth playing remixed versions of popular Shiny Toy Guns tunes.  While the boys played, dancers entertained…and scared the audience.  There was a girl in point shoes and a guy dancing with a bare chest and leather straps, accented by a black and white mask.  Next, a guy came out wearing poofy pants and a cape like shirt with leather on his chest and an expressive white facemask.  He brought out the biggest white balloon I have ever seen, blew it and then put it over his face and jumped around with his face poking through as the music chanted, “go, go, go.”  After it popped, which was inevitable, he threw it into the crowd.  There were guys in G-stings, girls dancing with fire batons, and all kinds of entertainment.  Shortly after, the scariest person I have ever seen came out in a shiny skintight outfit with feathers coming out of his head and a mask with freaky make-up.  He crawled around stage and put a metal mask over his head and ran what looked like some sort of electric saw up against it creating sparks that flew and shot all over stage.  I definitely saw some of the crowd step back a bit when he made awkward eye contact with them.  The crowd was captivated by the STG antics and almost everyone in attendance was pointing a camera on stage.  Even the girl that had obviously drank too much and was beyond suffering slumped over the fence barricade and fought through her pain to watch the set – that’s a die hard fan!

We swung by Ghostland Observatory who definitely had the majority of the crowd captured by their attention but also wanted to check out Bad Brains, as we had heard such a rumbling buzz about the band from fans all day.  The crowd was nuts – throwing bottles, crowd surfing, aggressive fist pumping, and lots of moshing.  Oh do people like their Bad Brains.  The tunes were flowing and the band made sure people paid attention as they one time paused to say, “Listen.  Listen to the music.  Can you listen?”  If you walked by the stage, you at least stopped to stare at lead singers H.R. who was hard to miss with his beanie covering a towel on his head that often fell off during the set.

After a great day of music, running from stage-to-stage, fighting off unruly crowds of die hard music fans, getting our toes stepped on and shoulder checked too many times to count, it was time to hike back up the hill to our car and get some rest to tackle tomorrow.  I’d definitely call Saturday a success but when my head hit the pillow, I was so ready for some rest.

Words by Nicole Pajer.  Photos by Sidney Bensimon

Now hear this kiddos… I got a taste of its yummy goodness this weekend, and it makes me want to strip down to my knee socks and have sexual congress with the Kool-Aid Man.

INGREDIENTS

1 Unparalleled musical conversation performance.

4 rounds of audience-participated back-and-forth battle with the winner decided by audible vote.

10 parts Erykah Badu’s long-time secretive side project, The Cannabinoids.

4 parts Shiny Toy Guns, Grammy-nominated electronica/indie/rock band from Los Angeles.

1,000-ish screaming University of Texas fans.

1,000-ish University of Oklahoma rival fans.

100 cases of assorted Red Bull flavorings.

50 cases of assorted Boozery.

20 tons of lighting, cameras, and general concert accoutrement.

2 stages

Directions

Warm up the crowd numbering 2,000-ish of arguably the greatest collegiate rivals in town for one of the biggest games of the year, with a mini pep rally.

Now have each band come out onto their respective stages and perform 3 of their own songs.

Erykah Badu’s hip-hop, pop, funk, R&B and soul Cannabinoids, followed by Shiny Toy Guns’ rock, pop, synth, and vocal duo.

Step 1- The Cover

Each band is to do its own previously rehearsed version of the Jackson 5’s “Never Can Say Goodbye’. Badu dons sparkly glove and grabs crotch. Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

Step 2- The Takeover

Begin with each band starting one of its own respective songs and then stopping mid track and letting the other band finish said song.

Badu slides in to “Tyrone’ and mid-track stops and has STG power its way through the rest.

STG launch’s into “Ghost Town’ and Badu’s Cannabinoids soothe their way on down the street.

A wee bit confusing at first, but the aural mix was enveloping. I got lost and think there might have been another song in there (or two– alas, I forgot to take my meds this day). Badu takes the point?

Step 3 – The Clash

Each band is to take one of their hardest driven/upbeat tunes and transform it into different genres– a mellow ballad, a dub, and my personal favorite, country. This last genre proved to be the most interesting: Badu stepped out held her own Texas roots with a yeehaw-laden “Soldier” followed by Petree donning a black cowboy hat and an old school country drawl for his acoustic duo rendition of “Chemistry of a Car Crash.”

The Okies have it. (By the way: Half of STG is from Shawnee, OK)

Step 4-The Wild Card

This final round requires each band to bring a “surprise” guest on stage.  STG went with spinner warrior DJ Billy Sexcrime wearing Fall’s loveliest line of old school football regalia.  Badu on the other hand brought out ex-Tripping Daisies and current Polyphonic Spree front man Tim Delaughter, who melted our faces off with what appeared to be an Etch-a-Sketch on acid.

All hands praise the Queen of R&B.

Step 5 – Serve and Enjoy While HOT!

The bands ended the night by having all 16+ members join together on a single stage and “Phish-ing” the night away for an extended period of musical improv. I can’t exactly say what went down over the course of those 3 hours in front of the American Airlines Center in Dallas, TX for the rest of the screaming crowd. But for a concert-purging person such as I, it’s nice to know that I left intoxicated by more than mere booze.

Words and Photos by Dustin Downing

It was deep in the heart of Oklahoma where I obtained evidence that the Japanese electronics company TDK secretly carried out mind control experiments on children– to rewire their brains from just a “lil’ bit country” into a “lil’ bit rock n’ roll”.

What’s the evidence? What’s the conspiracy theory? I will testify that two magic bullets (bassist and keyboardist Jeremy Dawson and vocalist and guitarist Chad Petree) were fired directly from these Shiny Toy Guns.

Ok, that intro might have sounded a bit contrived, but it’s perhaps the best way to relate to the 2008 Grammy-nominated Indie rock/Electro pop group now based in L.A. Aided by drummer Mikey Martin and smoking hotpants Sisely Treasure on vocals, this now sans-country duo have fixed up quite the low-calorie, Killers-meets-New Order main dish (with a side order of The Sounds). Their new remix album, Girls le Disko, is going to drop this holiday shopping season, complete with hard-to-find mash ups by The Teenagers, Ferry Corsten, Classixx, High Def, and Boyz Noise to name drop a few.

I had the opportunity this weekend to have a lengthy sit down interview with Jeremy for a quick shot 240 seconds while they were rehearsing for a performance with Erykah Badu at Red Bull’s Soundclash, in  Dallas, TX.

So, how’d the transfer from OK to LA get down?

Jeremy Dawson: In a Uhaul. 10 years ago I was a DJ writing dance music and we (Chad Petree) were like, what the hell are we going to do in Oklahoma? Nothing wrong with OK, but there was no Internet at the time and LA is where you went if you wanted to do something big. So we pawned a car and slept in a closet out there. Knew literally one person.

So from a closet to playing with Badu?

Jeremy Dawson: Well, we’ll be gold by Christmas and we’ve had a Grammy nomination.

Oh, I got that. That’s Wikipedia fodder. Let’s have a real interview.

Jeremy Dawson: (cell phone rings) Oh hey man, I’m in an interview. What’s up? Yeah, yeah, out past the porta-potties.

(Fucking Rock stars). What’s the future hold? What do you want to do when you grow up?

Jeremy Dawson: Chase storms. Half of us are 15yr veterans in it. We’ll park our armored up chase van at the airport and fly to Berlin to play a show. Ready to go when we get back.

Well, you know the old saying– ‘You can take the boys out of the country, but you can only take the country out of the boys with the aid of a giant Japanese electronics manufacturing plant down the street from where they grew up doing mind control experiments.’

Interview and Photos by Dustin Downing