If you're following The Bare Hambones this closely, we'd like to key you in on some insights as to how practice goes. Here are the rules to practice:
1. We almost always have a setlist for an upcoming show that we're getting ready for so it's written on a white board on the wall in Tim's basement and we follow it during practice so hopefully when we play them live, the band has a flow in our heads between songs that comes across to the crowd that night.
2. At any given time in between songs on the setlist, someone tends to make a reference to a song that has nothing to do with The Bare Hambones and we immediately start to play that song-no matter how ridiculous-until we either can't come up with a chord change, or lyrics, or all burst into laughter (tonight's was 'Another One Bites the Dust' from Queen). The point man for this activity is Tony Kubicek. You give a song title, and he will generally start playing it within 10 seconds and then we all just follow along. He's that good.
3. Sports come up a lot and derail practice for at least 15 minutes, usually at the beginning of practice.
4. Nerdy movies like Star Wars or The Lord of Rings come up a lot and derail practice for 10 to 15 minutes at a time...it bothers Mike Marshall every time, but he doesn't say anything about it. He just sits quietly and waits for it to go away.
5. Without fail, while writing a new song, we run into a spot where we have a great feel for how the song is coming along but something is holding us up. Either, Tim can't quite get a handle on how to sing over one part, or we're missing a line, or even we can't come up with a name for the song. You can tell it's close but not finished, and the fact that you can't seem to bring it in starts to drive you a little crazy. Mike Brown ('Ladies and Gentlemen, Michael Brown') has been the hero several times, and this is how it works. The band finishes playing what we have so far...we stop and talk about what it needs...Mike goes upstairs to pee....the rest of the band, ignoring the fact that he's gone, plays the part again trying to come up with something...Mike comes back downstairs with the solution. Every. Time. We all know it's weird, but the creative process is what it is.
6. Not one practice has gone by without Brad mentioning KISS, Waylon Jennings, Guided by Voices, or Johnny Cash. And we love him for it.
7. SPOILER ALERT. We're in the process of writing at least 5 new songs for 2015, and we have some pretty kick ass new covers we will be unveiling as we play these shows through winter and into the Spring. Every show we play will feature something new. Come along for the ride.
8. There's talk about the debut album this year as well.