(Answers by Steven Eric Wilson)

I would like to apologize in advance to you readers if I am too verbose.  I have a tendency to be long-winded and ramble on.  Hopefully, if you have found your way here to Power of Pop, some of what I have to say might be interesting.  If not, scroll back to November where you will find a great review of Lloyd Cole performing in Singapore.  Lloyd is always cool to read about.

1. Why play music?

It’s the only thing I’ve wanted to do since I was a child.  I have five older brothers and sisters who exposed me to all sorts of great music growing up – The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks, David Bowie, Kiss, Alice Cooper, Cheap Trick, Led Zeppelin, Queen, etc.  My siblings were like a rock and roll masters class.  While some kids pretended to be Batman or Spiderman, I was running around our house with my guitar (a yardstick) pretending to be Ace Frehley and Brian May.  I’m the type of person who tends to bottle things up inside – so music has been a great way for me to express feelings and emotions that would otherwise might fester internally.  And, of course, it’s fun!

2. Who are your influences?

Everyone that I mentioned in my answer to the previous question.  More modern influences would be: The Jazz Butcher, Elvis Costello, The Posies, Julian Cope, Aimee Mann, Michael Penn, Echo & the Bunnymen, Crowded House, Nick Heyward, The Pretenders, Elliott Smith, Aztec Camera, The Go-Betweens, Sam Phillips – as well as a lot of my indie peers like Brandon Schott (who also plays in Plasticsoul), John Hoskinson, Brady Harris, the breakups, Tommi Zender, and Matt Hopper – to name a few.

3. What is success?

When we finally finished Peacock Swagger and I held a copy in my hands.  Every time I have to visit the post office to ship off copies of our CDs to people who wanted our music enough to part with their hard earned cash.  When I read a review of our music by somebody who truly understands what we are all about.  When I finish a song.  When we are approached after a show, by one person or ten people, by those who were moved enough to want to introduce themselves and say “hi”.  Every time I have a tabla lesson and learn a new kaida.

I try to have a little bit of success every day.

4. Why should people buy your music?

I will quote the great philosophers known as DEVO who said don’t look at buying our album as spending money, but rather an investment in the future in a blow against the empire.

We are a truly independent band.  We fund our own recordings, press our own CDs, and fund our own tours.  If you invest money in us we will take that money and reinvest it in our studio, our next CD, or tour.  If you buy music from some corporate rock giant, the artist will see very little or NONE of your money and some corporate lawyer will spend it on his golf game or a new Mercedes.

And finally – if you enjoy the artists that we name as influences, you will most likely enjoy what we are doing.  Our goal is to make music that has a shelf life of more than six months.  We want our records to sound just a good in 30 years as they do now.  Like DEVO says, it really is an investment in the future!

5. Who do you love?

I love my wife, Shazia.  I love our cats, Monkey, Butch, and Hannah Belle.  I love my family and friends.  I love Buddy Holly, John, Paul, George, Ringo, Kurt Vonnegut, Jim Garrison, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Patton Oswalt, and Alex Jones.  Anybody who gives their all to tell me the truth, cause me to laugh hysterically, or make me rock, have my eternal love and respect.

6. What do you hope to achieve with your music?

An end to war and poverty, align the planets and bring them into universal harmony allowing meaningful contact with all forms of life, from extraterrestrial beings to common household pets, and of course we would like it to be excellent for dancing.

Hey, if Wyld Stallyns can do it…

7. Who comes to your gigs?

We try to book our shows with other bands that play music in the same genre as us, so most of the people that come out to see us are into alternative pop rock.  It’s more of an adult crowd.  We don’t typically play for a bunch of screaming teenage girls – though I wouldn’t complain if we did.

8. What is your favorite album?

This is an impossible question for me to answer.  As soon as I write something down I will want to change it.  I will give you a few from the top of my list.

The Beatles – The White Album.  The Jazz Butcher – Cult of the Basement.  Michael Penn – Resigned.  Queen – A Day at the Races.  Nick Heyward – Tangled.  Hunters & Collectors – Human Frailty.  Crowded House – Temple of Low Men.  David Bowie – Diamond Dogs.  Aimee Mann – Whatever.  Cheap Trick – Heaven Tonight.  Elliott Smith – Figure 8.  The Posies – Frosting on the Beater.  The Minus 5 – Let The War On Music Begin. Echo & The Bunnymen – Ocean Rain and Reverberation.  If I don’t stop this list will go on and on and on…

9. What is your favorite song?

This is just as hard as naming albums…I have to give you a list and will try to make it short

Crippled Inside – John Lennon.  Throwaway – The Posies.  Sister Death – The Jazz Butcher.  Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey – Paul McCartney.  Brainwashed – George Harrison.  I Should Have Known – Aimee Mann.  Waterloo Sunset – The Kinks.  Jealous Dogs – The Pretenders.  One More Song The Radio Won’t Like – Kathleen Edwards.  Auf Wiedersehen – Cheap Trick.  Fall At Your Feet – Crowded House

This is another list that can get way out of control, so I will stop.

10. How did you get here?

If you mean here as in Power of Pop – then the answer is my friend, the amazingly talented John Hoskinson referred me.  If you are referring to the proverbial “here” then I don’t know.  I think the Buddhists have it correct when they say “the idea is that you and I know nothing, or rather, by pretending to know something, we are hiding from the truth that nothing is everything and that everything is nothing … or something like that. Thus…I know-nothing.

See, I told you I was long-winded.

Plasticsoul’s excellent Peacock Swagger is out now.