10 Questions with Queen City Heist

Originally posted 8th August 2015 * Greg T. Miraglia

Their house was not as you would expect it, at least not as I did. Three images come to mind when I think Rock Band: One, an overrated video game. Two, a big luxurious house. Or three, a dump with music equipment in the garage. Their house was a normal house in a normal complex with kids, and dogs, only missing the white picket fences outside each one. The Mangrums had a cat not dogs, and children came with their premises as well. 

I entered the Mangrum pad through the garage, which led me to a Jam room with speakers, and instruments. From there I went upstairs to the living room and then to the kitchen. I was invited to what I was led to believe was a barbeque, however it wasn’t too far off. It was a take-out version of barbeque. I leaned on the fridge listening to the band talk as they ate, most of the band, there was only Sky Mangrum, her man Jason Mangrum, Jacob Morrison, and Matt Powers. Edison Vidro their drummer wasn’t able to make it. They talked about secondary jobs and dreams of a future home where they could record and play in. Their laughing and joking sent positive vibes through the house.   

We finally found a spot in Sky’s room to do the interview. Sky, the band, and I were mushed into her bedroom. My recording equipment broke on me, and the band was nice enough to let me use there’s. We had a lot of people in that room. More than just band members as well. Jason was glued to his computer, sitting on the bed with Jacob and a few others. Sky was sitting on the floor and to her side Matt was lying on the floor.  
Jason suddenly blurted out, “We’re number thirteen in Reverb from Nashville.”
The whole group, both the band and their groupies simultaneously either yelled, “Yes!” or “Nice!”

Jacob: Then we can go number one in Tennessee, and then number one in America.
Sky: There’s national and world charts that we’re also ranking on right now, so we can check where were at as far as rock charts nationally, and the world over.
Jacob: Fuck yeah.
Sky: Okay, I think it’s picking everybody up. 

Before we started Sky stepped out for a moment. The door of the bedroom was not held on by hinges, in fact it was not held on at all. The idea was to close it to muffle the sound of Sky and Jason’s children in the living room, but we decided not to worry about it. The door eventually made its way off the wall later on.  

Jacob: Just keep it open. So what are we, what are we looking at here.
Me: We’re gonna have to wait til the lead gets in, to cover everybody at once.

After a few minutes Sky entered back into the room. At this time the room was already laughing and everybody seemed to be in a good mood.

Jacob: I like how Matt’s just splayed out, like hello?
Matt: I’m doing my Jacob impression. This is forever known as the Jacob.
Sky: As long as you have a drink in your hand.
Jacob: No, you have to display your balls a little more.
Me: Okay, y’all ready?
Sky: yeah… sure.

Me: First question’s pretty vague, what brought Queen City Heist together?
Sky: Mission to save the world, and actually we all discovered at a young age that we had super powers. A.K.A Beer stealing.
Jacob: A.K.A talent
Matt: Badass rock n’ roll!
Jacob: I found Sky, Jason… through one of our previous drummer’s, Alex Mullens on Facebook. And that’s how I met them. 
Sky: So he found you? Did Alex reach out to you?
Jacob: Yeah. That’s how I met you.
Sky: And how did you know Alex? Where did you meet Alex?
Jacob: I think I got in touch with him over like, some Musicians of Clarksville thing. I never met him. Once.
Sky: Interesting.
Jacob: And for some reason I was just like I should probably go there, I don’t know why. I’d only gone to one thing before hand and it didn’t turn out well, but I said I’d give it a second shot.
Sky: Nice.
Matt: How’d the band come around? Badass rock n’ roll music.
Jacob: Well see the Gods decided there wasn’t enough Gods of Rock n’ Roll in the world so they just reached out and here we are.

We were still laughing and besides Jacob’s crack, Matt kept yelling almost random comments. Needless to say we had a few drinks, or I had a few, and they were continuing to have a few.

Me: This is great. How did, I’m elaborating on the first question, how did Sky and Matt and [Jason] get together?
Sky: Well, we started a band, and it was on my to-do list to be in a band with my brother, who I love dearly. He’s made terrible life choices but I love him, and I miss him… He was part of the original band. It was the Blue Sky Alert for several years. We just played a shit ton of covers, we just played the songs we wanted to play, and then everybody was like ‘Why aren’t you writing music?’ and we were like well fuck it, we should be writing music. So we started writing music and we ended up working with a lot of really cool people. And doing some awesome shit, and getting a killer analogue album recorded, and discovered crowd funding, and really started figuring out what we were doing. And shaping the sound, and that was completely different sound then what we started with. But [her brother] decided to move on, and get married, do shit with his life, like most people do. And then some people decide they want to play rock n’ roll instead. Because music is fucking amazing. So we replaced a couple of band members, but you know, you always got like weird drug problems, and they got crazy relationships problems and issues. And shit just blows up and falls apart and as long as you continue processing through it you start pulling in the right people, and the more people you add each person brings with them like a really killer individual sound, and a tone, and a musical identity, and that contributes to overall, just massive compositions that are badass when everybody comes and is a specialist in that area. You know, yeah, so we started putting together the band as it is now, and last year played some really killer shows, and now we’re working on the first full-length album.

Sky’s cat roamed in the room and started rubbing on Matt, excessively.

Jacob: That one goes on the record. We’ve had to do that in bars too. Some girl will just be crawling all over Matt. We’ll have to block her.
Sky: Alright, next Question.

Me: For Question number two, do you think it is difficult being a band with a female lead?  Or do you think in the music world it doesn’t matter as much?
Jacob: There’s strengths and weaknesses. You can tell we’ve made it a lot farther because Sky does a whole fuck ton of work, and let’s be honest she’s just, guys are more likely to come hit on her than me.
Sky: You can just say I’m hot. That would be cool. Type it out real slow.
Jason: and humble.
Sky: Totally humble… modest… and conservative… Jason, what do you think about that?
Jason: About what?
Sky: What do you think about being in a band with a girl, as opposed to being in a band with a dude?
Me: Is it harder in the music industry?
Jason: Ahh. Okay, it does not matter how much experience that one person has, it doesn’t matter how long they’ve gone to school, or how much they’ve educated themselves, they could be at a Ph.D level, and connect with someone and there only going to get so far, than a hot girl would get with that same person. And she’s going to get so much further. Because of thee… it’s the hot girl method that’s what it is. You just have a hot girl and it doesn’t really matter how… [Sky’s] hung out with the Foo Fighters just to hang out with them. If she wasn’t extremely attractive that probably wouldn’t have happened regardless of her talent. The fact that she’s multi-talented is really takes it to a whole other level, because she’s got the looks and she can back it up with the talent. And she’s a creative writing genius and she writes songs extremely well. It’s something very unique that Sky brings to the table.  

Me: And for the third one, how have you developed your sound? Has it changed since you first came together?
Sky: Oh yeah, it’s massively changed. Even with the latest addition of Edison too, songs have changed too and new songs have come along. It’s like every time someone’s added to the band it totally invigorates the sound.
Jacob: We’re on drummer three. That’s three separate people. That first drummer we had no idea how much better we would sound once we had a drummer that was on time… You know what else is interesting, Matt wasn’t here before. When I started it was this guy name, James. And one thing I saw…
Sky: He was the racist bassist.
Jacob: Yeah, he was the racist bassist. He was a weirdo. I love him to death though. I went to school with that kid. But he was racist.
Sky: Yeah, he was a cool guy.
Matt: Good Save.  
Jacob: One thing I noticed was that the chemistry changed. ‘Cause me and Matt get along, musically, better than James and I ever could have or would have. So the moment Matt came into the band, like we tried out, what was the guy’s name that was there for like two practices? Weatman?
Matt: Dave
Sky: Oh, Dave Weatman.
Jacob: From my perspective [Matt] is number three as well. And Weatman was cool, but he was not talkative. He wouldn’t bring much energy.
Sky: He was kinda shy.
Jacob: Sometimes it’s how well you get along with someone that lets you create.
Matt: I agree. Our chemistry in this band is great. Interpersonally as well as musically.
Jacob: Absolutely.
Matt: It’s vital. If we all hated each other’s guts the band wouldn’t be fun, then we wouldn’t play.
Jason: You have to do it because you love it.
Jacob: But with the whole, the idea of the sound, I don’t know, we’ll get stuck on a flavor, because that’s how I like to look at music with flavors, and that what happened with Will You Let Me Love You I was stuck on an R&B flavor and that’s where I created that guitar line and then [Sky] created all the lyrics… She wrote Tangerine Dream. I remember [Sky] came up with the riff for that. It’s just I don’t know. It’s weird how it works, but it seems your ability to play off from what someone else gives you as the core of the song really makes the band and the sound.
Sky: What was the question?
Jacob: How we developed our sound?
Me: And has it changed since you first started?
Sky: So one, yes, totally changed since we started. We’ve all become way better musicians. And the more we play and the more we write the better everything gets. And then yeah every time we bring another musician to the mix they bring a whole new flavor and it reinvigorates everything else and they put their own spin on everything that’s come before them, and we move forward writing new songs.

Me: Next Question, I noticed Tangerine Dream stood out from your other songs, I was glad to see it on the music video. What inspired that particular song to exist?
Sky: Sooooo… I just wanted that one to be kind of like the cool homage for the band kinda like Eye of the Tiger kind of thing, but with redheaded sluts in it. So, yeah, well no, I was cruising around and I was listening and there was a Beatle’s song that came on, they were like ‘marmalade skies’ and I was like if they could have some shit with some really cool, just specific coloring, and if you can match that with a tone. Wrap it all together in a cool song, and throw in redhead sluts, then it’s gonna be awesome… Well, a Deer Hunter Road wrote stories about prostitutes. If you write songs about rock n’ roll you have to write songs about drugs and prostitutes.
Jacob: I thought it worked out very well, because one of our sponsors, Caviar Gold. Tangerine Dreams sounds like the brand of the weed, really. Same with one of our songs, OG. So it seems like the more song titles we can entangle with weed strains we can, then let’s do that shit.
Sky: Yeah, we do have large marijuana companies as sponsors on the West Coast.
Matt: We don’t partake in Tennessee, only on the West Coast.
Sky: It’s a different legal world over there. Catch up Tennessee.

Me: Question number five, who are some of your favorite bands or musicians you played with or opened up for?
Sky: We opened for Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, and I thought that was really awesome.
Jason: Triple 6 Mafia

At this point the Mic had been knocked over and we to set it back up.

Matt: Three 6 Mafia was cool.
Sky: It was Three 6, Tech 9, and Twista.
Jacob: See the hilarity of it is, was I didn’t actually know anything about these bands until after we played that show. I was like Tech 9’s an amazing underground rapper I wonder when I, wait a minute? I sort of hit my head. I should have totally watched that show.
Sky: Three 6 Mafia was one of Jason’s favorite groups, and it was around his birthday, and I saw they were going to be coming through and playing, so I contacted my friend, Ghouls Face Killer, Ghoulsby with the warehouse in town, and was like we totally have to jump on this ticket.  
Jacob: I don’t know. I thought the coolest I played with was… I didn’t listen to any of the bands before, but some of the bands we went to Hemp Fest with the first time around, I had a lot of respect for them, because-
Jason: the drummer.
Jacob: We wouldn’t of had a drum set if it wasn’t for that drummer. He was the coolest dude in the world.
Sky: That was Ryan. He was really cool.
Jacob: I have him on Facebook but I don’t remember what his last name is.
Sky: Seacrest?
Jason: Totally not.
Jacob: Was he the drummer for Everybody Panic? That was cool.
Sky: Yes, and then he was playing with Straight Line Sitch when they came through.
Jacob: A lot of those guys were really interesting.
Matt: They were cool.
Sky: Provo was cool too… He looks like a pirate.
Jacob: He does look like a pirate… There was that girl from Nashville. You liked. Bree?
Jason: Bree. She was cool.
Sky: We played with Chimera at Hemp Fest.
Jacob: Yeah, we did. That guy was intimidating on the guitar.
Sky: Who else did we play with that was awesome? As far as local bands: Hydra Mama’s was kickass, Whiskey Angels is pretty kickass, I like My Day At The Races there pretty kickass. There great.
Jason: Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.

Me: Q6, has it been hard to be heard outside of Tennessee?     
Sky: No. We got the internet. We’ve got a lot of friends all over the place.
Jacob: It seems like Sky and Jason are pretty god damn good at networking and it seems to get rid of that problem really quickly. Networking extends farther than…
Me: Then borders?
Jacob: then borders, yes.
Sky: Yeah, the internet totally… But working with other bands, and with other people, and with other companies has also helped us grow… as far as people and listenership and fans and exposer and the more you can work with other companies and do stuff with them and the more sponsors you can find to be involved and share all your stuff, the bigger your web and network is for getting all your content out there, and as long as you’re a band and you can stay on top of content, number one and making friends number two, you’re moving forward… Getting other people to pay for shit.
Jacob: That’s always good. Yes, that’s the story behind our first music video really. The only reason we got to do that in an MMC cage, ah, we had an event at the Electric Cowboy. Mike Marriman was throwing it, a sponsor of ours. Yeah that was fun.
Sky: Yeah, we got the State Line MMA we worked with, a Damage Control DNA Fight Signs out of Hollywood as a sub-company that does Damage Control Skin Effects, which is like a whole line of skin products, they also make a whole line of products for woman too, but… you know companies are looking for creative ways to brand their image using entertainment and the media, and so it’s better than a commercial, its better than a shout-out, it’s better than anything, if they can dig their way into something that’s really, really cool, and just get product placement. So they payed for product placement in the video, but it covered all the expenses and costs for the video, the director, and the camera man… Then the MMA helped out, they wanted to be connected with the MMA and the SSF and connected to that image. So connecting them to that image of cage fighting which is really climbing in popularity in the United States, because boxing is such a sham. Didn’t have to say that, but maybe boxing is a sham.
Jacob: Let’s be honest, we all want to see Ronda Rousey take out Floyd Mayweather.
Sky: That would be great.
Jacob: She’s my girl. I’m just shouting out to her, because she’s…
Sky: Why don’t you go on and include your phone number. Come on, what’s your phone number.
Jacob: She would probably kick my ass to be honest.
Sky: What’s your phone number?
Jacob: I don’t have a phone number.
Sky: We’ll contact you on facebook, because he doesn’t want to get personal just yet.
Jacob: We’re going to stop right there and you’re going to cue frown face. :( So that you know Jacob was like…
Sky: Frown face at 22:12 and go.

Before the next question Sky offered to get everybody another drink and came back with bottles tingling.

Sky: Yeah okay, next question.

Me: Q7, Queen City is the nickname for Clarksville, and Queen City Heist is the name of the band, this next question is abstract and crazy, and I like light question here or there. If you guys were on a heist who would be your getaway driver?
Sky: Me
Jacob: This one right here. She’s the fastest, most aggressive.
Sky: [Matt’s] a driver too.
Matt: Yeah, but [Sky] saved my, well she saved all of our lives in a car one time.
Jacob: She’s primary driver. UPS guy is navigator/ secondary drive if she’s incapacitated. 
Jason: Let Powers tell the story of how she saved our lives.
Matt: Yeah, we were cruising to a studio in Nashville, and it was like torrential rain on the interstate, like 70, we didn’t have a bunch of beer in the car or anything, we’re just cruising.
Sky: Flying.
Matt: You can’t see like ten feet in front of you, it just down poured, and all of a sudden the rain just stopped and there was a wall of traffic, and she just Mario Andretti’s this car, dude. It was amazing. We shouldn’t be alive. We are, she drove.
Sky: There was a massive deadly pile up on the road that day.
Matt: There was a wreck… and she save our lives that day.
Jacob: That’s a great segway into a story when we were driving back from Seattle and Matt wasn’t there for that one, but that’s my story were she was driving through complete darkness.
Sky: The ignition switch was going out on the jeep. Yellow Stone National Park Mountains.
Jacob: Raining on a mountain the fucking headlights go out. And were not dead and I don’t know how, you seem to know where the road was. I’ve never been so scared in my life.
Sky: Lost headlights, lost all power, it’s raining, it’s dark and we were in the Yellow Stone Mountains.
Jason: The electrical systems were acting like they were possessed.
Sky: It was like Crazy Women’s Pass or something?
Jason: Crazy Woman Creek.
Sky: It was just like right there. Bridges, and breaks, and mountain passes.
Jacob: I’ve never been so scared in my life.
Sky: Yeah, you peed all over the backseat.
Jason: Yeah, we cleaned it.      
Jacob: I slept in there.

At this point the laughing was contagious and the Yellow Stone Mountain story didn’t help us become any more serious. The relaxed atmosphere supported both a first time interviewer and his interviewees.  

Jacob: Yeah, she would be the driver. I think me and Jason would be weaponry. Yeah, he could be a shot gunner…
Jason: Ninja.
Jacob: Shot gunner/ ninja.                                                                                               
Sky: I’ve seen you play a first person shooter. I don’t know if I want you with a weapon defending my ass.
Jason: Did I say gun?
Jacob: No I said gun.
Sky: What are you going to do use a ninja sword from a moving vehicle?
Jacob: That would be cool, though.
Sky: Ninja star, ninja star, ninja star.
Jacob: Give me a rifle or a bow and arrow. We got this!
Matt: What’s Edison going to do?
Me: That’s like the first time he’s been mentioned this whole interview.
Jason: We love Edison.
Matt: You better write this like he’s an integral part of it. We challenge you at minute 26:34. Yeah, we challenge you to write this like he’s an integral part.
Sky: He gave all the answers actually.

I would have very much liked to accept that challenge, but sadly I have a duty to stay in the reality of the interview. They seemed appreciative of Edison as much as it might have seemed otherwise.

Jacob: He’d be the Tech guy, let’s be honest. He’d be the Tech guy, cuz the Tech Guy’s always like…
Jason: He’d be the dude in the back of the van watching the monitors like doot, dadoot

Doot, dadoot was the closest I could come to his computer emulation noises. I would type, ‘laughing’ every other line if it wasn’t so unnecessary.

Sky: He’d be the Cracker.
Jacob: I thought I was the Cracker.
Sky: Like safe cracker, that’s where it comes from. Cracker is based on Safe Cracker it means one that is very intelligent and solves puzzles. Is a cracker. It’s not a very hurtful racial slur. It’s not to me, you can call me a cracker all day.

Me: Question eight? I know you guys have at least as far as I’ve seen three available tracks online for download and purchase, and there’s an album in the making… Can you tell me anything about the making of this album?
Sky: ah, oooooh!
Jacob: Yeah, that noise times four.
Me: That noise times four.
Sky: There’s a lot going on.
Jacob: There is a lot going on. So it’s been a little bit of a challenge because Edison is the recording engineer that recorded those first three tracks, after Bill decided to exit the band.
Sky: He didn’t have enough time.
Jacob: He really didn’t.
Jason: He nodded out gracefully.
Jacob: Nobody was buggered about it. You could tell he didn’t have enough time.
Sky: He just can’t travel and all that.
Jacob: So he was a good short term fix for the drummer problem.
Sky: Great drummer.
Jacob: But then we had to go and relearn all of these three songs and the next seven with him, we didn’t have them all written yet, and I don’t know… You probably want to ask me in a month or two which process was harder writing it or recording it, but I do know it is definitely the best opportunity for us to cross examine ourselves as musicians ‘cause as soon as you go into the recording study you can’t mess up at all. That’s what it is. That one version. It makes you look at your performance under a microscope… Matt was one of the first to finish.

There was a short rambling conversation that was on and between laughs and chuckles that led to a shout out to the Dave Matthews Band.

Jacob: Shout out to Dave.
Matt: Shout out to the whole band.
Sky: We’ll play with you.
Matt: The recording process has been amazing. We’re blessed to have a great band member that has a great studio at his home. It’s been a pleasure. We’ve got to take our time, a little longer than we normally would and make sure it’s been pin point perfect. When we listen to it, it’s something we’re happy with. Edison!
Jacob: It’s been a challenge experience just to learn how to play your own song, because once we get there, we’re like, you improvise a lot on stage, once you get there you have to find one set thing you’re going to do over and over again.
Sky: You have to lock it in.
Jacob: Yeah, you have to lock it in.
Sky: Or at least that’s how everybody’s going to remember it for the rest of its existence.
Jacob: So every single thing that you do at that point to that song will be compared to that one version.
Sky: Yeah you’re going to hear it in your head the way that you recorded it, even when you’re playing it differently.
Jacob: And that’s what’s crazy I’ve got seven songs that I haven’t really recorded, listened to, recorded, and played afterwards, and three songs that I have, so I get to experience that difference. Those three songs that I have, every solo every time is the same notes locked in.
Sky: Which is badass.
Jacob: It is badass. It starts to, it makes the difference between an amateur and a professional. Really… Digital recording, definitely a whole lot more labor intensive. Sky’s yet to do her vocal but I’m excited about that… I’m two solos away from being done with the album.
Sky: We haven’t done the vocals yet.
Jacob: Vocals and keyboard is all we have left. We’re almost done people.
Sky: How much keyboard did he make it through?
Jacob: Uhm man, when you guys hear Otherside. I wasn’t able to lay down Otherside that way I used to just because the piano filled in so much… For real though have you guys heard the other version of Otherside. It’s become a piano song.
Jason: Yeah, it has.
Sky: Otherside? It’s about to go down.
Jacob: It’s about to go down. It’s an awesome solo. Wahwah solo anybody?
Sky: No, no one loves you.
Matt: Yes!
Jacob: It’s the only Wahwah solo on the album because I decided not to use a Wahwah on OG… But you guys will have to make sure to listen to these solos and tell me whether or not you think I should do them again… It’s [Jason’s] turn to answer the question.
Me: The question was, I know you have three tracks for purchase and download, and there’s an album in the making, can you tell me a little about the making of the album?
Jason: The making of the album, well each of us have been going into the studio, and we’ll put down a basic foundation and then we’ll listen to it over and over again and then we’ll add some more layers or will get an idea, ‘like maybe this will be cool.’ And what’s very interesting is that the live shows thus far sound quite a bit different then what the album is turning into, so listeners, if they’ve been to the live shows will get something different on the album.
Jacob: These songs have never been these songs.
Sky: Plus we’re working on all kinds of awesome sponsorships and lights for the live shows.
Jason: It’s something new.
Sky: It’s going to make sweet love to your ear holes.

Me: Question nine, if someone was to visit Clarksville, what would Queen City Heist consider the most Rock n’ Roll places to visit?
Jacob: In Clarksville? That’s hard man… It’s really hard to think Rock n’ Roll and Clarksville at the same, because it’s such a really great blend of things like, like I listen to more hip-hop in Clarksville than I ever did Rock n’ Roll… but Rock n’ Roll places to go… uhm…
Matt: That’s a tough one.
Me: You can define Rock n’ Roll anyway you want.
Jacob: You get some kickass at burgers at Wicked Good Sandwiches
Jason: At One Two Five they have these Mac & Cheese bites that are like fried Mac & Cheese bites they’re delicious.
Jacob: Their egg rolls are the bomb. I don’t know how they fit on the menu, but I’m so glad they do.
Sky: I like to have a lot of fun and I like to do that at night time. It involves a lot of drinking and if you know the owner that’s better. So if you want to be Rock n’ Roll in Clarksville you make friends with the owners of shit, hang out and do extreme shit, ride your bike at night.
Jacob: That’s life.
Sky: Do a lot of drinking, if you want to jump off 50 foot cliffs do that. Like if you can think of shit you want to do there’s a lot of chances for debauchery in town.
Jacob: I left that out. There are a lot of great waterfalls and nature trails. That can be quite rock n’ roll.
Sky: It’s call being drunk and trashed and then doing really cool nature shit, because Rock n’ roll is not where you’re going, it’s how you do things. I think that’s better.
Jacob: Yeah, that is.
Sky: You can walk into Shoney’s with sun glasses and be trashed out of your mind and your pretty Rock n’ Roll, even though you’re at Shoney’s you’re pretty Rock n’ roll.
Jason: It’s a state of mind.
Jacob: Said the lady who got kicked out of the Waffle House.
Sky: Three time. All of us.
Matt: The three time reigning champion!
Sky: We got kicked out as a band. There’s nothing else open after shows.
Jacob: Have you been band from the Waffle House? Or just kicked out?
Sky: They have such a high turnover rate they don’t know who the fuck I am when I walk in there.
Jacob. Yeah… I think Jason’s right Rock n’ Rolls a state of mind, we just carry it with us.
Sky: Yeah, Jason you’re so right.
Jacob: But Sky’s right ‘cause getting trashed and knowing the owner.

Me: Number ten. I was going to ask you when your next concert was, but I know your live shows have been postponed during the making of the album.
Sky: Well we got… the next three shows are… they star in August, August 15th which is Possum Stock. That’s already been confirmed.
Jason: We got Summer’s End on August 29th
Sky: We’re playing Possum Stock that Friday night. Which is great because we’ll be in the middle of nowhere, and ah… its like some invite thing and pull over and there like a dirt road on the side of the road with a truck parked in from of it, so nobody can find it. We show up and say, ‘We’re with the band.’ They pull the truck out of the way. And you follow a four-wheeler down a dirt path… So we have those coming up. What’s the other one?
Jason: Summer’s End August 29th 8pm.
Sky: Oh, and Riverfest.
Jason: and Riverfest on 9/11.
Sky: And Riverfest is going to have thousands of people.
Jacob: Can we play the Star Spangled banner that day. Let me play the star spangled banner Jimmy Hendrix style.
Sky: Sure you can do sound check with that… What’s the next question?
Me: That’s it.
Sky: Were done. That was ten.

They graciously offered me another question, although I reminded them that this was Ten Questions. I’m also not as good at improv as I used to be. Sky browsed through her computer to show me photos I might want to use. She let me listen to some rough tracks, and she showed me some fascinating fan art. I agree with the fan artists, she would look nice in angel wings. Seemed to be the most common design. I left quicker than I would have liked to, but I had a twelve and a half hour drive 6am the next morning.  

Sky, and the band were very kind. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed being able to ask the questions.

For more information, and music look at their ReverbNation site, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and of course their website.