We’ve got Manchester Orchestra’s Jeremiah Edmond’s working the Hot Seat. We chatted about some of the band’s musical influences, and heard about a touring experience that affected him deeply. The rocker shared some seriously personal things, not the least of which included his soft spot for Gossip Girl (which may or may not cause his band mates to kill him…). Find out more about Jeremiah and the band you already love. Right here, inside this week’s Hot Seat.
Q: Tell us about your craziest touring experience.
Jeremiah: This isn’t quite the crazy party experience people might be hoping for, but we played a show in Minneapolis, MN the day that the I-35W bridge collapsed. We passed over it in traffic just an hour or two before it collapsed into the Mississippi River. Someone at the venue caught the news of it on the internet while trying to figure out what all the sirens we heard were for. We were actually just two blocks from the bridge and walked to the site. Cars and people were stuck on the bridge in the water. It was pretty insane and surreal. Everyone around us was desperately trying to reach their friends and family to make sure they hadn’t been on the bridge, but the cell phone towers were all jammed. You can see some footage of it in episode #50 of our podcast.
Q: What type of college class would you most want to take and why?
Jeremiah: I went to college for Audio Engineering, but if I went back and took some classes now, I might take some software programming classes or maybe a cooking class. Robert would probably take Audio Engineering classes. I think he actually took some finance classes online over one of our breaks. Chris has talked about wanting to take art classes before. He is really talented; especially in drawing. I don’t know what J or Andy would probably take. I can see J taking some philosophy or economics classes. Andy would probably do something with film or screenwriting.
Q: What city in America is the most fun to visit and why?
Jeremiah: We all really love Chicago. It is an amazing city. It is a big city but has so many great smaller sections, and it being on the water is great. It is brutal in the winter but the summers there make it worth it. I really love Los Angeles but most of the rest of the band don’t like it much. We all enjoy Portland, Seattle, Norfolk, Austin. Your opinion of places is a lot different when you visit them on tour than they may be if you visited them on a normal vacation.
Q: What’s some of the best advice you were ever given?
Jeremiah: Man, that is a tough one. I am sure I have gotten such great advice from so many people, but there really isn’t any one specific thing I can think of at the moment. I think as a band the best advise we ever got was from a management team we were considering working with; who told us not to make I’m Like A Virgin Losing A Child, and to release an album that had been made before that with a different lineup. That advice is what made us decide not to work with them, and that decision is what led us to do the record ourselves, start Favorite Gentlemen Recordings and what eventually led us to where we are now.
Q: What’s in heavy rotation in your MP3/CD player right now?
Jeremiah:
My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges
Lupe Fiasco’s - The Cool
The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely
Q: What’s the last good book you read or TV show you’re addicted to?
Jeremiah: We all are addicted to LOST. I recently got sucked into Gossip Girl. The rest of the guys have been watching Battlestar Galactica and swear by it. They say it is right up there with LOST. I just finished the last season of The Sopranos and am very sad that it is over. The last book I read fully was Killing Yourself To Live. Recently, I have been browsing through a bunch of random music business books, trying to learn as I go with all the Favorite Gentlemen stuff. J is constantly reading numerous books at once. He had been talking a lot about Wikinomics during our last tour.
Q: What’s the first concert you ever saw and how was it?
Jeremiah: I went to a ton of concerts when I was little with my parents. Mostly Christian music. Carmen, and stuff like that. My first real concert that I wanted to go to was a either a Dakota Motor Co. concert or Jonny Q. Public with Hoi Polloi. I think Andy’s first show might have actually been a Death Cab For Cutie or The Strokes.
Q: What are three items you can’t live without on tour?
Jeremiah: My computer. My phone. Headphones. Or maybe wet wipes… I hate dirty hands.
Q: Who are your major musical influences?
Jeremiah: I think we all draw a lot of influences in our person playing from a lot of different random places, but there are a few that seem to overlap in all of us, if not in direct stylistic ways, then in feel or dynamics. Pedro The Lion, Weezer, Death Cab For Cutie and Jimmy Eat World are all bands I think we grew up drawing from. More recently, as a band we have all been influenced in ways by My Morning Jacket, Wilco, Kings Of Leon. Again, not necessarily in songwriting or direct playing influence, but the way they play as a band, the way they perform live, the way they approach certain things.
Q: Any random messages or tips you’d like to give to mtvU watchers?
Jeremiah: Search out new music and go see live music. There are so many amazing bands and artists out there that you will not hear about just by waiting for them to be featured on a TV show or your favorite website. Places like mtvU are a great start, but continue to search deeper and then go see the artists live. Show up early for the opening bands. You may stumble upon your next favorite.
