This week cMusicMail gets some cool stuff before cMusicWeb.com... an
interview with Owen Thomas from The Elms! Here we have part of the
interview, so be sure to check out the rest of it which will be online this
weekend. Plus, there's a bunch of new releases, from new bands like Jonah33
and Everman, to remixes of tobyMac and the latest mixtape from DJ Maj.

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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH OWEN THOMAS OF THE ELMS
by Melissa Miles

cMW: You’ve been in front of such critical people as Peter Frampton and Jars
of Clay, and playing crazy concerts like that. What has that been like?

OWEN: It’s been great. I think one of the shocking things about going out
with someone like Peter Frampton is, this is a guy who has sold 20 or 30
million records, and has become kind of legend in rock & roll. He heard our
record, and just dug it enough to try to track us down, and get us to go
tour with him. That’s a really exciting thing. We are going to do some more
touring with him this summer. Some really, really big shows in Chicago and
Atlanta with him, which should be really great rock & roll shows. And we
went out with Jars in the fall, and that was also a great experience. I
think we found some real, genuine common ground with those guys. We share a
lot of the same sentiments regarding music, regarding vision. So it was
great to get to know those guys, and I’m sure that we will end up being back
out on the road with them sometime soon.

cMW: You just wrapped up a club tour. What was that like, and why did you
choose to play some clubs?

OWEN: Well, we are actually in the midst of that still. We’ve got about
another three weeks worth of that to do. We are home for a week now, and
then we will do a few more clubs, then we’ll do GMA [Dove Awards], and then
we will go back out for a couple weeks. The whole premise for doing our own
shows this spring, was simply… I don’t know. We spent the better half of
last year opening for bands like Jars, and Peter Frampton, and so we hadn’t
had a chance to go out and play the full hour and a half, and legitimately
take our audience on the ride with us for the length of the full show, or
get to play a lot of the songs off the new album. We just really wanted to
get back in front of our crowd, get back in front of people, where we could
make a night of it. We didn’t get to do that all last fall, so we thought it
would be fun to do in the spring before we hit the festival season. During
the festival season, obviously the sets are shorter, and like I said we are
going to be going out with Peter Frampton, so again, we will be playing
shorter sets for most of the summer. So that is our premise for this thing,
to go out and play some smaller shows, play clubs, take out a couple other
bands and just have a laugh.

cMW: So have any seen any fruit from playing clubs? Any new people who haven
’t heard your music saying, “Hey, this is really great stuff. How do I hear
more of you guys?”

OWEN: We find that there are a lot of people who are coming to clubs just
because they are obviously, just our fans, but there are always, at a lot of
places that we’ve played there are always regulars. People who know that
there is music on stage, so they come to hang out and see what’s going on.
We’ve definitely spent the last couple of years on the road. That’s the way
we grow our fan base. I think that is one thing we do OK at. I mean, I don’t
pretend to know anything about imaging, I don’t pretend to know anything
about marketing, I don’t know anything about radio or all that stuff, but I
know what I love to do, and what I love to do is play on a stage in front of
people, in front of an audience, and I feel like that is where we pick up a
lot of new fans, new supporters. It’s always important to be out there. But
yeah, we run into those folks who have never heard a stitch of our music and
leave with the record, so it’s great.

cMW: You had the opportunity to really expand your fan base by working on a
soundtrack for a movie with Mandy Moore called “Saved” and you turned it
down because you didn’t agree with the script.

OWEN: Yeah.

cMW: Was the script really that bad, that you said “this is something that
we really want to distance ourselves from?” Why did you choose to say no?

OWEN: First of all, I have no qualms with participating with the mainstream
culture. It’s where our band operates most of the time. We spend a lot of
time doing things that are not solely ‘Christian’ in nature, so that wasn’t
ever an issue with us. We were really excited about the opportunity to be in
a movie. We heard that Michael Stipe was involved. We are big R.E.M. fans,
so that was kind of a cool thing, and then it was supposed to be this vibe-y
indie picture, and we all love independent films, so we thought that it was
going to be a great thing… Some of the bands that we’ve really grown to love
in the past have done appearances like this, so we thought it would be a
great idea. But upon reading the script, there were just some things that
we… It wasn’t a matter of not agreeing with, or feeling like it was
something that we would be uncomfortable existing around. We know we live
and operate in a world largely contrary to a lot of the things that we
believe in. But we felt like there were a lot of things in the movie that
weren’t just contrary to our beliefs, but they were actually…Not even so
much making a mockery of the Church, as they were almost making a mockery of
God. Things in the script were just inherent differences in philosophy from
where our band stands, and where the people making the movie stood, so for
us to have been involved, would have required us to turn away from a
lifetime of cultivating certain beliefs and walk into something that we
really didn’t support, but we would have done it anyway for the sake of a
lot of exposure or whatever. It has turned into a really great thing. A lot
of folks have been very supportive of the fact that we chose not to do it.
It was never intended to be that sort of publicity stunt. We just didn’t
feel like… I guess the bottom line is, there are certain fundamental beliefs
that we all share, the four guys of The Elms. I guess we are just not ready
to forfeit our loyalty to those things for the sake of that exposure.

cMW: Well that shows a lot of integrity on your part. That sets you apart
from most bands, which is probably why people are making such a big deal out
of it.

OWEN: Yeah. We take seriously what we do. I genuinely hope that we are still
doing this in 15 or 20 years. We want to develop a rapport with people that
they can count on us to put out great records, and ask the tough questions.
I felt like it would have been damaging to that rapport, had we been
involved in the movie.

Find out more about The Elms:
http://cMusicWeb.com/rock/theelms


OTHER NEW STUFF ON cMUSICWEB.COM
Views: From The Desk of a Seasoned Critic
http://cMusicWeb.com/views/archivemel/fromthedeskof.shtml


AVAILABLE TUESDAY, JUNE 24 (at cMusicWeb.com or your local music store)

COLLECTOR'S SERIES DVDS:
THE ART OF TRANSLATION - GRITS
CONTACT - THE BENJAMIN GATE
SOON TO BE IN YOUR COMMUNITY - JOHN REUBEN
STAND UP - EVERYDAY SUNDAY
THE SWIFT - THE SWIFT
THIS IS WHO WE ARE - PAX217
TRUTH, SOUL, ROCK & ROLL - THE ELMS
At only $6.99, these DVDs are a no-brainer for the die-hard fan. But if
you're just a casual fan, catch their music videos on their website and just
live with the fact that you will miss the twenty minutes or so of behind-the
scenes material, if any.

EVERMAN (self-titled)
Todd Collins, producer extraordinaire (KJ-52, John Reuben, tobyMac), found
Everman and produced their first acoustic-pop record. These four guys take
simple acoustic guitar and add great harmonies for a unique debut.

JONAH33 (self-titled)
The latest from Ardent Records is Jonah33, a straight-up rock band that
sounds like labelmates Skillet without the techno/dance influences. It's a
solid 45 minutes of nonstop rock.

L'IL iROCC WILLIAMS (self-titled)
Forefront's first jump into a hip-hop artist will sell a bit because of the
kids, but it will probably be DOA for all the real music lovers. 13-year-old
iROCC has the appearances (like GRITS and tobyMac) but fails to keep anyone
over 13 engaged.

RE:MIX MOMENTUM - TOBYMAC
For all those who are anxiously awaiting the second album from tobyMac, do
two things. First, plunk down less money than you spent on the original
album and get 14 tracks of Momentum remixed. Many artists take on the
challenge of remixing tMac's tracks, from Tony McAnany to Todd Collins to
Dan Muckala to guys from Earthsuit.

THE RINGLEADER.MIXTAPE V. III - DJ MAJ
The next in the line of mixtape-styled discs from DJ Maj, it features great
new tracks as well as new remixes and freestyles by the best of Christian
hip hop. While definitely the best hip hop sampler of the year, the PICK OF
THE WEEK doesn't match up to his last 70+ minute disc, Full Plates.

UNLOCKED - VERBS
Undoubtedly the best from the artist formerly known as Knowdaverbs, this one
features great tracks such as "What You Rock Now?" and "Live to the Music".

X2003 DVD - VARIOUS
If you want some rock music videos to play on your DVD because MTV is not
playing them, then X2003 on DVD is the answer. Fourteen music videos feature
Relient K, Bleach, MxPx, the Elms, and many more for a great collection.


Thanks for reading this week's cMusicMail, and we'll be back next week with
even more great content. If you have any comments or questions, please reply
to this e-mail or send them to webmaster@.... We'd love to hear
from you!

Dan Ficker
http://cMusicWeb.com/
a different approach to music
AOL IM - dMusicWeb