Copeland

Interview with Aaron Marsh of Copeland

CONFRONT: Hey Aaron.

AARON: Hey!

CONFRONT: Let’s talk about ‘Eat Sleep Repeat’.  Can you tell me about your creative process when writing an album?

AARON: Usually I write the song and bring it to the rest of the band and they kind of throw out the parts and we kind of arrange it together but it kind of starts with me writing the song on the piano or guitar.

CONFRONT: Do you write all the music?

AARON: I pretty much write all the music; sometimes Brian will contribute, he’s our guitarist.  But I usually write all the music.

CONFRONT: You guys have done some cover songs.  Can you tell you a little bit about why you chose to do that?

AARON: Well I think a good song is a good song.  It can be done in many ways by many different people and still be a good song.  So I like the idea of taking a song and making it our own.  In a lot of ways it helped define our sound because you can tell what direction we were going in by taking a song that had been done by someone else and the way we treated it.  I think it’s good to help a band find who they are.

CONFRONT: Is their a cover in particular that you really enjoyed doing?

AARON: We did an EP that was all songs that we remember from our childhood; some of the first pop music that we’ve heard or that our parents would sing.  Like Carly Simon or Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, that kind of thing.  It was kind of study in early influence for us.  We did a Police cover of “Every Breathe You Take” that was one of my favorite ones; it was one of the first ones we did and it was kind of exciting.

CONFRONT: Do you play them live at all?

AARON: When the EP first came out we played them but we haven’t played any in a long time.

CONFRONT: I went and did a little research on your message board and I saw that there was a section where your fans can ask you some questions.  And one of the questions took me a little off guard because someone was asking you what your beliefs are and your fans were answering the question for you guys and to me it’s such a personal subject.

AARON: Yeah I mean to some extent there are some things that have to be kept private.  I guess people were answering for us and answering the way they thought we would answer.  There are some things that we should keep to ourselves.  As our band gets bigger there’s not a whole lot of our lives that remain ours.  That’s why I decided not to answer it because it’s not anyone’s business.

CONFRONT: How much to do you think is important to share though?  ‘Cause I mean myself personally I can be a pretty obsessive person.  I tend to crave knowledge of all kinds.  So when I like a band I can be pretty obsessive and I end up knowing all these little details about them; which can be a little weird even for me.  Because I take as an example the beliefs issue, I would know that about someone but if someone were to ask me to share that info I’d be insulted you know what I mean?  So where do you think the line should be drawn with regard to the issue of personal info vs. sharing with your fans?

AARON: I don’t know.  I think it’s all… I think that when it gets to far enough removed from the music; when it gets to personal inner thoughts and inner feelings and beliefs and even to some extent relationships with others… like I don’t really want the world knowing where I take my girlfriend for Valentine’s day, I mean it no ones business.  I guess you can use the music as a tether; when it has absolutely nothing to do with the music then that’s when I feel like I have the opportunity to not answer.

CONFRONT: Well you write the lyrics and they are pretty personal right?  Like for example, ‘Beneath Medicine Tree’ is an album that discusses a lot of personal issues and so on.

AARON: I guess when you make a record that personal you open yourself up and put yourself out there, that’s kind of the price you pay; you have people poking their nose into your business.  But again once the subject gets far enough away from the music I feel like I have the option of blowing the whistle and not answer any further.

CONFRONT: You guys have worked on many different projects before starting Copeland.  Why do you think Copeland is succeeding maybe better than the other projects or what do you think it attracting the success Copeland is getting vs. the other projects?

AARON: Hm!  Maybe one of the biggest problems is that the people on our other projects maybe didn’t have the work ethic that Copeland has.  Since we started almost 6 years ago none of us have held another job or been home to have a family or a social life at all.  So I think the biggest thing is just the work ethic.  Copeland is just a band that started working hard and that’s when things starts happening for us.

CONFRONT: What are some of your influences musically?

AARON: Let’s see.  The typical, Beatles, Radiohead; I like Coldplay a lot; The Cardigans who are my favorite.  Anything pop, like kind of  90’s pop I gravitate towards like Oasis and Third Eye Blind, you know that kind of big power pop type stuff.

CONFRONT: How do you think that these influences have transpired in Copeland’s music or through you personally as a musician?

AARON: I think you can totally hear our influences but I guess the best artists know how to hide their influences.  I think at some points in our music you can hear our influences but its not just one, it’s kind of a collective.  I mean sometimes you can hear some Radiohead but you might also hear some Sunny Day Real Estate or whatever else.  Influence is a weird thing.  It’s something that brews slowly.  Something I listened to when I was 17 years old might creep up in my music when I’m 26.

CONFRONT: I noticed that the artwork on your album is really interesting and there seems to be a trend lately that artists are getting more and more involved in the visual aspect of their band.  Is that something that you guys are trying to work more and more towards?

AARON: Oh totally.  Since day one our bass player has done all of our artwork.  Just about everything, you know.  Stickers, T-shirt, website.  So he’s been kind of the one in charge of the visual representation for the band.  I think it’s super important.  A lot of people don’t understand the connection between visual art and music and film.  I mean visual art is connected to dance in a way and dance is connected to music and so on.  The things that are great about music, the basic elements are the same that are great about visual arts and I think it’s important that artists are aware and can get into both.

CONFRONT: I’ve never seen you guys live so I don’t know but do you guys try to incorporate the visual arts into your stage performances as well?

AARON: We try to dress up… well not dress up, dress up; but we try to look like a visual representation of the music.

CONFRONT: We are an online venture for many different reasons but the main one being that kids today all gravitate to the internet to get their entertainment media.  And I think it kind of opened up people to help them start to understand the difference between what they assume mainstream to be and what it truly is.  We are trying to show that mainstream is not a genre but rather any music that can reach a lot of people.  What artists do you think are currently working at changing the misconceptions of what mainstream is?

AARON: I don’t feel that with the exception of the internet coming around, it’s changed all that much.  Anyone who thinks that just teeny bopper pop music is what is mainstream is a little off in their thinking.  I mean Radiohead has been a mainstream band their entire career.  They’ve been on a major label, their first record had probably what was their biggest hit and every album has been backed by multi million dollar marketing campaigns.  So to say that Britney Spears is what is mainstream is kind of ridiculous because there’s lots of good intelligent art that is mainstream.

CONFRONT: Do you think that the Top 40 charts are skewing what mainstream truly is?

AARON: I’m gonna go on a complete assumption but I don’t think that Coldplay sells singles.  They sell records and people’s favorite cuts are the deep ones like the “Fix you”‘s; and people like stuff that they can call their own and most of the time people don’t consider the song “Yellow” their own.  They don’t want to feel like their favorite song is everybody’s favorite song.  They want to feel like individuals.  So what is on the Top 40 isn’t all that is mainstream.  People like to be different and feel like they have a little ownership over what they like and that their taste is a little bit obscure.  Coldplay might have sold millions of copies but Joe Schmo doesn’t know that their neighbor likes “Fix You” as well.

CONFRONT: What role do you think the internet has played in Copeland’s career?

AARON: Well Copeland was on MP3.com which was the biggest independent music website before MySpace came around.  I mean we’ve always had an internet presence but we’ve always busted our tails touring and playing for as many people as we could.

CONFRONT: Yeah you guys tour insanely.

AARON: Yeah we do.  We pretty much have no social life anymore ‘cause the last five years we’ve been on tour.  That’s been our main focus.  We just play shows and liked building from the ground up.

CONFRONT: What was your first and last album purchased?

AARON: First tape was… I’m gonna be perfectly honest; It was Boys II Men.  And my 2nd purchase was Nirvana.  I was kind of all over the board back then.  But then my third purchase was probably MC Hammer so I was really all over the place.  Last CD was Kent imports.  They’re a Swedish band.  [It was] three import records that I didn’t even know existed.

CONFRONT: First and last concert attended?

AARON: You know what, my first concert ever was for a band called the Von Childs and actually the drummer of that band ended up joining Copeland.  I think he was three years older than me, I was 13 and he was 16 or something like that.  Last concert I went too it was probably some local bands in my town.  I don’t really get out that much.  It was a band called the Dark Romantics and a band called Wooddale who a both from my town.

CONFRONT: Are there any bands that you have never seen but really want to see?

AARON: Oh yeah.  Let see; who haven’t I seen?  I’d love to see Radiohead.  I never got the chance to see Sunny Day Real Estate before they broke up which really bummed me out so if they could get back together for one more performance so I could see them that would be great.  I really want to see Shade.  I’m ready for her to make a new album.

CONFRONT: Last two questions.  We have a section on the website called the Daily Urges and it’s a place where people can submit bands they think other people should discover.  What are a few of your Daily Urges?

AARON: Sure!  I’ll say the two bands that I just went and saw.  The Dark Romantics and Wooddale.

CONFRONT: And finally what would you want your legacy to be?

AARON: I’d like to be known and a music maker and a music lover.

CONFRONT: Alright I’m done!

AARON: Cool thanks a lot.

CONFRONT: thank you!