Music, Style & Culture

Free Energy: A Ton Of Fun

The band tell us about moving to Philly, and opening for Weezer.

Due to technical idiocy half of this interview was lost. Not our greatest hour; the boys of Free Energy were funny, interesting and told many good stories. Working with James Murphy, the appearance of a certain DeLorean on the Highway - it's probably already a new urban dictionary definition of fail.

Luckily, we do have them talking about opening for Weezer’s 'Memories' tour for four shows. Suffice to say, they had a great time.

First, let's ask the most obvious question of all: does your name have anything to do with the Physics concepts?
Paul: Me and Geoff have answered this question before but it was deleted...

Deleted?
Scott: Censored.
Paul: Yeah. We all are proponents of Free Energy, it wasn’t the reason for the name, but you know, we are all pretty New Agey guys. We like Free Energy, we like the idea of it. It was the name of a song first, but I think we all hope that seeing those words out in the world; it will stick in people’s brains or something. It's good just to have that out there.
Nick: Something positive.

Did the move from Minnesota to Philadelphia influence the way you guys make music at all?
Geoff: Yes.
Paul: Definitely the economics of Philadelphia contribute to how we make music.
Nick: When we were living there full time before we started touring a ton last year, four of us lived in a house together and that definitely did, going off what Paul was saying about the economics of it. We were sharing a house that was pretty cheap, probably cheaper than Minnesota standards as far as what you got because we had four bedrooms. Living in Philly, it was potentially unique to where we were because we filled our apartment with free stuff on garbage night.
Scott: That was the other name of the band, Free Stuff.
Nick: Free Stuff, Garbage Night…
Scott: Really inspiring names.
Nick: Garbage Night would probably pack, there would be sold out shows for Garbage Night.
Scott: It also let us practice every day if we wanted to, and we had a dedicated practice space. Whereas if you were a New York band, you know we have friends who have bands in New York who don’t even have practice spaces, or only get to practice once or twice a week. So…
Paul: But there’s no really Philly sound in our music.
Geoff: Yeah, we could have done that situation in any number of towns, like St. Paul, where we’re from. But we like Philly a lot; it’s a good town.
Paul: We lived on a street with a lot of feral cats so I think that really affected our attitude.

Strutting around?
Paul: Uh huh, sauntering.

You've talked about Juicy Fruit ads and television jingles being influences, saying that short songs have a cinematic feel to them. The question is, what do you think is important about the length of a song, and it having a cinematic feel?
Scott: There is an economy in those intro songs in sitcoms or ads, where they have to squeeze it into thirty seconds. Like Hill Street Blues, it leads you through the moods of the entire series in that minute. That’s what we mean when we're are saying that it’s a reference, I don’t think it's absolutely necessary with music but if you can pull it off, it's pretty awesome. Also, something that doesn’t do anything different for three minutes is acceptable too. But yeah, I like to have a song with a story line, ups and downs.
Nick: The imagery, the lyrics, everything tries to evoke feelings and images in a cinematic way.

Any other influences you'd like to share with us?
Geoff: Pretty women are a pretty big influence.
Scott: Dangerous influence. Definitely.
Geoff: Beers, the ocean, California.
Scott: Yeah, there are those things that are more of a feeling or a look that you can try to evoke in music, and then there are the literal musical influences. We pretty much listen to every kind of music that is recorded, not so much Death Metal but… yeah.
Paul: Usually stuff that we have a strong reaction to that we don’t like, we end up liking. Like The Eagles.

You originally hated them, but now…
Paul: Yeah, I finally just accepted it. And there is so much good stuff. We just listened to them in the van, we listened to 'Hotel California'. I think that was the first time that I have listened to it start to finish and felt good about myself. I felt stronger.
Nick: That particular song used to be depressing.
Paul: It’s so long.
Nick: I kind of feel like I’m 45 years old.
Scott: I’m still not sold on their lyrics most of the time, but I really am getting into the music, the instruments part.
Paul: Apparently there is all this live footage though, from like ’78 that is incredible. They were the best live band at that point. Amazing musicians.
Scott: It’s just the lyrics that really get under my skin. Which is what I think made me not even able to listen to them.
Paul: We’ll walk you through it.
Scott: Ok, thanks. I just don’t understand...

OK, so I have to ask. Weezer. What was it like playing with them?
Paul: We did four shows with them.
Geoff: We did the entire East Coast tour.
Scott: Yeah… we did the entire Weezer tour.
Nick: Yeah, we are Weezer’s favorite band. It was one of the best shows I had seen. Ever. Best rock show. They just put on such a good show, and the energy was really good.
Geoff: The first set both nights was actually my favorite.
Nick: Yeah.
Geoff: The countdown.
Scott: I forgot that I remembered… very few bands I know all the lyrics to all the songs, and I found myself singing along pretty much the entire night. Jumping around.

So it was fun.
Scott: So much fun.
Nick: A ton of fun.
Paul: Yeah. Some people describe our shows as fun and I wonder if that is too cute or something, but Weezer is really fun in an awesome way.
Geoff: I went into it worried that it was going to feel ironic or schticky but even with it being this conceptual tour of memories, it just felt good.
Scott: Yeah, it was awesome.