INTERVIEW: Smiley With A Knife

This weekend is yet another DIY festival. This time for the instrumental kids. Friday is the start of the New Orleans Instrumental Fest. I decided to drop a few question towards one of the young up and coming bands in that group Smiley With A Knife.

Static - How much are you going to miss Deuce McAlister and do you think we should trade Reggie Bush?
JARED- I only pay attention to the Saints while their games are on. I wasn't aware that Deuce was leaving. I'm going to miss him.
PAT- I think we should trade Bush for Charlie of Fatter Than Albert. Seeing him on the field every Sunday playing running back would be the only thing more entertaining than Deuce.
JARED: Nah, I'd like to keep Reggie Bush around provided we can keep him injury-free. We should keep him wrapped in bubble wrap so that he doesn't break anymore. It'll provide some good material for Keeping Up with the Kardashians if Kim has to encase his joints in styrofoam before every game.

ST: How big of an issue is steroids in the New Orleans rock scene?
PAT - I don’t think it’s as big of an issue in the rock scene as it is in the ska scene. Those kids love to get juiced up and kick each other.
JARED – Yeah, we need to keep up to the ska kids. I'd actually like to see more steroids. My girlfriend thinks I'm fat now, and I scream a lot during SWAK shows. I’d say it's working out pretty well for me.

ST: Where does the name Smiley With A Knife come from? Makes me kind of want to keep my distance from you guys.
JUSTIN- Our name incorporates the whole spectrum of emotion. Mood can change at random, thus our music changes its polarity. When you come to our shows, bring a poncho. Smiley with a Knife is storm music, it starts out calm and then all hell breaks loose. You should keep your distance, we’re very dangerous.
PAT – You only need to keep your distance from Volpi, but SWAK is actually an Orson Welles reference. I was taking film studies in school and learned he was working on a movie that never was made called The Smiler with the Knife. I really dug how that sounded. We changed it to Smiley because of the image it made.
JARED - A drunk guy at one of our Alabama shows told me it meant "Have a nice day, but f*ck you instead" to him. Whatever that means, right? It's classic irony, and it sticks with people.

ST: How did the whole instrumental fest get started?
PAT- We planned out the instrumental fest last fall as a way to unite some of the instrumental bands we’ve worked with and to try to get instrumental music noticed.
JARED - Pat and Justin and I got Marshall Flaig from A Living Soundtrack and Rob Landry from Neckbeard on board, and this whole Instrumental Fest took on a life of its own.
JUSTIN - It started out more or less like a good old American block party. We just wanted to get our whole community together to celebrate the type of music we play. It’s basically a back scratch party so that fans of some bands can come and learn about other bands.
JARED – Yeah. While instrumental is part of the indie rock subculture, I feel like a whole new subculture within that is developing.

ST: How did you yourselves get into instrumental music? Or was it one of those things where you couldn’t find a good enough singer?
JARED – When I was in high school, I got a hold of a Pele CD from one of my friends and I was hooked immediately. I listened to a lot of Unwed Sailor right after Katrina - during my early years at Loyola. I just love instrumental. It's not that none of us can sing – trust me, we can all sing like angels.
PAT - I sing in Meadow Flow now and Volpi sings in Fatter Than Albert. Justin and I used to sing in SWAK when we first started.
JUSTIN - We never had success with a full time drummer, though. One day we went over to Loyola to record, and Jared was the sound engineer. I tried to convince him to be our drummer.
PAT - We chose to be instrumental when Jared joined. I enjoyed the idea of being instrumental because it’s a different way of looking at music. It was different from what I was doing, and I listened to tons of instrumental bands already anyway.
JARED - The instrumental attitude was something that came with me, I guess. I think our songs would mean so much less if they actually had lyrics, anyway. While we take ourselves seriously as musicians, we don't take ourselves seriously as human beings.

ST: I think people assume because there are no lyrics that certain emotions aren’t getting across. Do you find that it is harder to convey a message without words?
VOLPI - Not true. Vocal projection is just one of several different avenues of conveying emotion; playing catchy, engaging music speaks for itself.
JARED - Powerful classical music can really send chills up your spine without words. We're attempting to do the same thing in an indie rock format.
PAT - A part of a song could remind me of an old girlfriend or we might’ve been pissed off at something at the time that the music was conceived. But to the listener it might remind them of an awesome vacation they took or that time they took 12 hits of acid at a Boyz II Men concert and hung out with someone who they thought was Fred Savage. It’s up for interpretation, and that’s a beautiful thing.
JUSTIN - The message is “have fun” or “be scared”. I think our titles have a message, and the music backs it up. Sometimes its have fun other times it brings the angst.
JARED - Some might consider it bipolar-ish, but what would you expect from a band called Smiley with a Knife - it's right there in the name.

ST: I have felt since Katrina that a lot more people in the music world have come up and tried to organize especially in the rock world. In what ways do you feel that events like this weekend and the NOIR Fest are making a difference?
JARED - We're a much bigger, stronger indie rock scene than we ever were, and the instrumental movement is a huge part of that.
VOLPI – It helps to develop a family or a community network. No one band is totally in it for themselves. Such events help to foster and reflect a (con)fraternity of shared musical vision and purpose.
JUSTIN - People need to realize that Jazz isn’t the only music art form in New Orleans. There are so many talented musicians that I know personally from here that play the most unique wonderful music, and they may go unnoticed their whole lives because people are looking for this music everywhere but here.
JARED – We’re starting to get noticed, though. I think New Orleans and the whole southern part of Louisiana is gaining a reputation as a Mecca of instrumental indie rock.

ST: I am not too familiar with a lot of the bands this weekend. Who should we be most excited to catch this weekend?
PAT – It’s hard for me to say who you should be excited for since we hope you catch everyone, but the return of A Living Soundtrack playing live is pretty exciting for me. Also, Motion Turns It On from Houston is an awesome band that you’re not going to see here as often as the rest of us playing.
JARED - Motion Turns it On out of Houston is going to be amazing. They're the only out-of-state band. The other out of town bands - Magic Legs from Lafayette and Man Plus Building out of Baton Rouge - are really good friends of ours and are super super talented. Locally, I have much respect for Metronome the City and A Living Soundtrack. Really, I'm looking forward to everybody.

ST: Are there any question you have been dying to ask me?
VOLPI – Are these questions vegan?
ST: Not too sure what that means.
JUSTIN – Do you have a boyfriend?
ST: Single and looking for women
JARED - Boop boop boop? That's how you sing along to instrumental music, know what I mean?
ST: Actually seems like an electronic song to me
PAT - If you were walking in a park and saw a bucket of fried chicken, 2 side items, a biscuit - still hot - and a strawberry soda sitting on a bench and no one was around, would you eat it?
ST: Not going to lie, I would be tempted

Good stuff! Also be sure to check out our review of their new album How a Reign Comes to an End.