Augustana
Tour of Duty
2008-01-21
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Listening to San Diego, CA four-piece Augustana’s debut full-length, the Brendan O’ Brien-produced All the Stars and Boulevards, one gets the distinct mental image of a band who has logged countless miles crisscrossing America in a dilapidated tour van, plying their wares in crummy bars and shitty clubs from here to Timbuktu. However, before recording All the Stars... the band had never before experienced the joys, and subsequent pains, of life as touring musicians. Don’t worry, though. Augustana—which includes Dan Layus (vocals, piano, guitar), Josiah Rosen (lead guitar, vocals), Jared Palomar (bass, keyboards, vocals) abd Justin South (drums)—are more than making up for lost time. As they explained, immediately following a sold-out show at San Francisco hotspot The Independent with British rockers Embrace, they plan on living out of a suitcase for the next few years of their life, which is more than fine by them.
How would you describe Augustana, in terms of influences? Who do you guys listen to?
Dan Layus: We listen to a lot of British bands like Travis, Coldplay, a lot of Oasis, stuff with great choruses. Mix that with a lot of American bands like Tom Petty or the Counting Crows and other bands like Jimmy Eat World.
Was it tough for you guys, initially, to find a scene with that sound? I mean punk bands play the punk scene, and emo bands can do the emo scene, but there’s not usually a local scene for Brit-pop.
Josiah Rosen: We didn’t really do the local scene, to be honest. We didn’t play local shows for years. We just had a major label sound, and we knew that’s what we wanted; we didn’t want to do the uprooting, grassroots thing.
DL: It’s not so much that we didn’t want to do it, it’s just that it just didn’t work; it’s hard to build up a fanbase sometimes with a sound where there’s no community that supports it.
So then how did you get from being just a local band, doing your thing, to being signed and on tour?
Jared South: We all met in San Diego, and from a previous band, I had a couple managers who had been trying to get us signed, but the band fell through. From there, I met these guys, recorded some demos and it just kind of grew. We started showing stuff to people at labels, showcasing and people started getting interested and it kind of just happened. We got signed to Epic and started writing and rehearsing. We recorded our album in November and December of ’04 and we’ve been on tour ever since.
So is this a dream come true?
Jared Palomar: We get to do what we love every night, man.
And get paid for it too.
DL: But you don’t even think about that. It’s just all about what happens onstage.
JP: And being able to play music with your best friends.
How would you describe Augustana, in terms of influences? Who do you guys listen to?
Dan Layus: We listen to a lot of British bands like Travis, Coldplay, a lot of Oasis, stuff with great choruses. Mix that with a lot of American bands like Tom Petty or the Counting Crows and other bands like Jimmy Eat World.
Was it tough for you guys, initially, to find a scene with that sound? I mean punk bands play the punk scene, and emo bands can do the emo scene, but there’s not usually a local scene for Brit-pop.
Josiah Rosen: We didn’t really do the local scene, to be honest. We didn’t play local shows for years. We just had a major label sound, and we knew that’s what we wanted; we didn’t want to do the uprooting, grassroots thing.
DL: It’s not so much that we didn’t want to do it, it’s just that it just didn’t work; it’s hard to build up a fanbase sometimes with a sound where there’s no community that supports it.
So then how did you get from being just a local band, doing your thing, to being signed and on tour?
Jared South: We all met in San Diego, and from a previous band, I had a couple managers who had been trying to get us signed, but the band fell through. From there, I met these guys, recorded some demos and it just kind of grew. We started showing stuff to people at labels, showcasing and people started getting interested and it kind of just happened. We got signed to Epic and started writing and rehearsing. We recorded our album in November and December of ’04 and we’ve been on tour ever since.
So is this a dream come true?
Jared Palomar: We get to do what we love every night, man.
And get paid for it too.
DL: But you don’t even think about that. It’s just all about what happens onstage.
JP: And being able to play music with your best friends.
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