American Hi-Fi

In the music industry, success can often be both a blessing and a curse. Case in point: American Hi-Fi. This Boston-based quartet, which includes singer / guitarist / songwriter Stacy Jones (ex-Veruca Salt, Letters To Cleo), guitarist Jamie Arentzen, bassist Drew Parsons and drummer Brian Nolan (ex-Figdish), saw the first single off their self-titled debut album, "Flavor of the Weak," get heavy rotation both on pop radio and on MTV. Unfortunately, the humorous lyrical content, the melodic structure and the Heavy Metal Parking Lot-esque cock-rock video for "Flavor of the Weak," cemented American Hi-Fi in the minds of many as a one hit major-label pop act. American Hi-Fi was written off by most as a band who scored big with a gimmick song and gimmick video, never to be heard from again. This, however, is far from the truth. Their self-titled debut is a pop-rock masterpiece, with songs like "Safer On The Outside" and "Another Perfect Day," stirring fond memories of the early-'90s era of power-pop madness. As a band that doesn't fit in to any particular scene, American Hi-Fi is a rarity in an age where bands are packaged into tightly bundled categories on record store shelves and festival tours. American Hi-Fi is a pop band, yet it is also anything but. Sound complicated? See them live and you will understand.
The Synthesis recently caught up with American Hi-Fi guitarist Jamie Arentzen in Saratoga, CA as the band wrapped up a short tour with the legendary Elvis Costello and prepared for their own headlining tour, a spot on this year's Warped Tour, and the impending release of their sophomore album.

How stoked are you about playing some shows with Elvis Costello?
You don't even know. I can't even believe it, it's so weird. I've seen him a couple of times in my life; when Brutal Youth came out I went to a show and I was like right in front, and I couldn't believe I was even that close to him. And now I get to like talk to him, and just checking out his sound-checks and watching the shows, it doesn't even feel real to me. He's been a hero of mine for so long; I just can't believe that a guy like that actually likes a band I'm in enough to ask us to go on tour with him. It's insane.

How do you feel about the term "Power Pop?"
I think that's' fine, I mean I love lots of music that is considered that; the Buzzcocks were power pop, the Beatles, Superdrag, the Pixies, the Lemonheads. Our band likes so many different genres of music and has been influenced by so much. I don't know if people can hear Helmet in us at all, but we're into that kind of stuff too.

Do you feel like, as a band, that the success of "Flavor of the Weak" pigeon-holed you guys, in the sense that the song isn't really indicative of some of the other stuff on the album?
I think it's definitely part of us, you know; there are similar things in that song as there are on other songs on the record. But it definitely pigeon-holed us and I know that there are a lot of people out there that think of us as being just too poppy for them to like. But people who end up seeing us somehow, and they're always "I heard that song and I didn't really like it but I love your band, I didn't realize that you guys had that many aspects." To me and the guys, "Flavor of the Weak" was kind of like a Cheap Trick tune and we love that stuff and there are other songs on the record that are kind of like that. But it's unfortunate when you have a single like that, that it's all anybody really ever knows and it happens to so many bands. We hope that on the next record people will get to see a little bit more of what we are, and the more people that come see us play live, the more people will understand.

What kind of feel are you going for on the next record? Is it going to be a continuance of the first?
It is a continuance. When we made our first record, we were barely even a band; we had only been playing together for a handful of months. Then we toured for a year. So when we went and recorded this record it had a way more aggressive, a way more live, feel to it. It's still super melodic, but it's definitely a little edgier.

I read on your site that you guys were doing all the tracking live. How will that affect the sound?
There probably shouldn't be too much of an emphasis put on that, other than the fact that, when bands record, they usually all play together, but they just keep the drum track, and then keep building things on top of that, bit by bit. What we did on this was, we all played together, two guitars, bass and drums, and we kept all of the tracks. When you start layering things, when you work off of a drum track that's probably been Pro-Tooled and edited to perfection, everything lines up so perfectly that you start to lose any sort of real band feel. It's just too [quantified]. We don't have that; every track started with the four of us playing together and we didn't use Pro-Tools at all. We didn't move stuff around, we left it the way we played it. Of course we added some guitars and we added vocals, but the core is just the four of us playing together, and I think it had a really great energy because of that.

So what's on the horizon for you guys?
After this, starting next week we're doing a headlining tour with a band called Autopilot Off, a really cool band. After that we're doing a bunch of Warped Tour shows.

Are you stoked on that?
Yeah I'm psyched. I've got some friends in some of the bands. I love doing things like that, where you're surrounded by other bands, it's just a lot of fun. Plus, I think it's good for us to tap into that crowd who didn't like us because we were on pop-radio or whatever.

I wouldn't say that you're any more poppy that a lot of bands on Warped Tour.
They call them punk bands, but almost all of those bands are basically just power-pop bands.

Best case scenario, where do you see yourself a year from now?
If we can be as lucky as we were last year, travel around the world and play for people, that would be great. If we have a year as good as last year, that would be amazing. If we get to make one more record, I'm ecstatic. I also just hope that the people out there get to know a little bit more about what we are, and hopefully we can get a couple more singles out of this record, you know. That would be pretty amazing.

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