How does it feel to finally have your own cover of ‘Brown Eyed Girl,’ instead of a mislabeled bootleg on the Internet?
Aaron: We’ve been hearing about ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ for about 10 years now. Everyday somebody will say, ‘Are you going to play ‘Brown Eyed Girl?’ We didn’t play ‘Brown Eyed Girl.’ That doesn’t even sound like us.
Now just to confuse people that did know that we didn’t do ‘Brown Eyed Girl,’ we did ‘Brown Eyed Girl.’ It’s pretty confusing.
Can you tell me about how the recording/rehearsal process was different with this album as compared with your others?
Aaron: It was pretty much the same. It was a little bit easier since the songs were already written. Usually when we make an album, I have the songs written and everyone will come in.
Scott: I recorded in a day. It didn’t take very long. We didn’t do anything really super crazy on it. We just tried to stick to our simple format. It was just kind of fun.
Aaron: It was really fun to do. We practiced for a couple of days and then we recorded it in like a week or two.
Sounds like it was a more fun, laid back way of recording an album.
Aaron: Definitely. Our last album [Monkeys For Nothin’, Chimps For Free] was the same way. We had some fun. It’s way more fun, more laid back than when we were on a major label where there was so much pressure, working with a producer, and so much money! It’s a lot cheaper now.
Are you guys experiencing a lot more creative freedom now that you’re off of Jive Records?
Aaron: I’d say its just because we don’t have to wait for them to okay a budget or say, ‘Okay. Now you can record.’ We don’t have to have them insist on us using a certain studio that costs a lot of money. It’s like, ‘Ah! Let’s make a covers album. Alright!’ We just go in any time of day, whenever we want to with no pressure to get it done—or not get it done.
Scott: We get to do whatever we want now. Well, we never really did what the label wanted us to do anyway. We get to do what we want to do without the fucking hassle. We’re not the kind of people who do what people want us to do. It’s kind of the way we are.
