The Spinto Band

A conversation with Jon Eaton & Jeff Hobson

(November 2008)

Interview by Amber Henson

The night of The Spinto Band’s concert at the Echoplex in Echo Park, California - the night before the election - I got to interview guitarist Jon Eaton and drummer Jeff Hobson.  We sat in tiny booths in a crowded room back stage, alongside Jeff’s girlfriend and a tub of beer and ice.

Do you guys have backup kazoos?  Do you have a lifetime supply?

JON EATON: I keep losing my kazoos.  I used to have a lot, but now I’m down to, like, my last kazoo.  I keep losing them on tour.  We had some that had "The Spinto Band" on them, but, yeah, they disappear.

Are you happy to be on the West Coast as things get cold over in Pennsylvania, or do you feel bad about missing the fall colors?

JEFF HOBSON: They’re pretty much over by now.  We saw the beginning of them.  We were just in San Francisco, and it was cold there.  We’re going down to San Diego on Wednesday, so we’re looking forward to all the sunshine.  But yeah, it’s freezing in Pennsylvania, so we’re happy to not be there right now.

In an interview with Walrus Comix, you guys said making music was originally just a hobby, along with making movies.  Are those movies at all available to the general public?

JEFF: Ha.  I think a friend has those.  And I think a lot of them have probably gotten lost in all the shuffle of moving.  But yeah, there are a lot of old tapes...maybe our parents have some.  Jon, you remember that one of my new house getting built?

JON: Oh, yeah.  Yeah, we’ll see if those ever get on the web.

In that same interview, you guys were talking about all the crazy instruments you had as kids.

JON: Yeah, Christmas in my house was interesting.  I would get steel drums, bongos.  One year I got a jaw harp.

JEFF: Jon gave me a keytair one year.

JON: Another year I got a loop sampler.  I was really excited.  It recorded sound and then repeated it back.  I did this weird thing taping TV.  Tom Brokaw was on.

So your first major album, Nice and Nicely Done, came out first in the US, and then again?

JON: It was released in the US and the UK at the same time, then released a year later in Europe, which kind of rejuvenated the album, and then there was a US campaign.”

How do you feel about "Oh, Mandy" being dated by the fact that the WB doesn’t exist anymore?

JON: The WB should be honored like that.  It should never be forgotten.

Do you guys have a Theremin, or just synths that get the job done?

JON: We had a Theremin, though I don’t think that’s what you hear on the album.  Tom got one a few years ago.

***At this point Sam, the keyboardist and Tom’s younger brother, wanders in to ask about food.  We get distracted for a bit, then get back on track, talking about how their tour with The Arctic Monkeys in 2006 came about.

JON: They heard our song "Did I Tell You" and they’d heard of us before, so we were able to work it out to come on tour with them when they came to the US.

And how did you come to tour now with Frightened Rabbit?

JON: We had played with them in New York before, and we have a mutual friend.  When we were trying to decide who to tour with, they reminded us of them.  They’re playing with us through Austin.

Before I totally lose my mind, which specific part of the Mario Bros games is the music on your website from?

JON: I think it’s from Super Mario Brothers 3?

JEFF: Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s from the Star Land, in Super Mario World.

Once " Later On" was recorded, did you know right away that it would be the first song on your new album?

JON: We actually sequenced the album a bunch of times, and tried to find which way we wanted to start the album.  But it’s definitely an inspiring song, and it being the first was brought up while we were recording it.  When we did figure out the order, it caused an issue because of the record.  We put ‘Black Flag’ at the end of the album, and it became an issue with the audio quality.  There are all these, well, bells and whistles on the song, and because it was getting played at the core of the record, which is weak the sound was being compromised.  By the time that we discovered what a huge issue this was, the CD was already getting printed in the UK, so we couldn’t change the sequencing.  Not that we’d want to anyway.  So we messed with it a lot, and now we’re happy with it.

JEFF: Live and learn.

That’s you guys getting hit with the water balloons in your video for "Summer Grof," right?  How was that?  Any paintball-like bruises?

JON: Actually, the worst part was with those ketchup and mustard bottles.  I took several showers after that, but, like, a week later I could still find ketchup in my ear with a Q-Tip.

JEFF: Yeah, and all that Pepsi made everything so sticky.

JON: The second worst part was when the water balloons would hit but not explode.  We were throwing them at each other, and I didn’t want to be a jerk, so I wouldn’t throw them very hard, and then they would just bounce off.

JEFF: Plus it was cold that day.

What’s the most awkward thing you’ve had to do for the band?

JON: Uh, hmm.  Well, there was this really awkward dude we had doing the choreography for one of our videos.

JEFF: Oh yeah!

JON: There were all of these dancers, and he was making it into this big deal, and it started to interfere with the concept of the video.  But the video producers were in the UK, and there was this issue with location scouting . . .

JEFF: And there were already sets being built . . .

JON: I bet we’re still paying for that.

Lastly, some of the songs from this new album are originally from your high school days, right?  Would you recommend this type of process for second albums, to keep bands from getting in their heads too much? 

JON: There’s a really, well, long time of The Spinto Band where we didn’t tour, we were just making tapes and tapes of material, and there’s lots of experimenting.

JEFF: And lots of Coca-Cola.

JON: Yeah.  A lot of pitch bending, and weird vocals, with guitar and drums doing whatever.  It worked well, for us, yeah, having that to fall back on.  I would recommend it.

After that, I wandered out to the main area, and they eventually showed up on the stage.  Now, bands with two singers are extra interesting.  And if they are total opposites, like Nick Krill and Thomas Hughes, then all the better. Nick, a skeleton, was wearing a long sleeved shirt, with a collared shirt underneath (while setting up he’d been wearing a sweater with an Obama button).  Thomas, not a skeleton, was wearing an almost too small indie shirt (which he was complimented on halfway through the show, though he ignored that).  Nick would sway slightly while singing, and really only seemed to enjoy himself while singing "Oh, Mandy" and right at the end (he broke his guitar strap).  Thomas, on the other hand, well, I can only describe his behavior with the words: short circuiting robot.  Is it possible to rock so hard that you give yourself a concussion?  He was jerking around so hard on stage I figured his brain must be hitting his skull.

They started off the set with "Summer Grof"’.  The song contains a lot of spasmodic clapping, which the band indulged the audience in, especially Thomas.  This was followed by the kazoo-heavy song "Brown Boxes".  Then "Needlepoint", a song Thomas sang while Nick did the classic arm spinning round circularly on his guitar.  Standard awkward onstage banter followed, and the band played a healthy mix of songs from both albums, though never really getting the crowd worked up to any sort of pogo-ing frenzy (that’s LA for you.  I’m sure it happens elsewhere).  They finished up with "Direct to Helmet", during which I witnessed Thomas slap himself.  As mentioned before, Nick’s guitar strap snapped, and when they were finally done rocking out, he grabbed his mic and left the stage, with his five other bandmates.