On February 28, DJ Lazer and I got Single Frame in the studio before their big show at Club 770 w/ Life at Sea and Up Up Down Down. Man, these guys were cool. What follows is the (mostly) uncensored transcript.


Nicole: What’s up guys!
Adreon: Not too much, hi Nicole!

Nicole: Why don’t you each say your name and what instrument you play for all those listening.
Brendan: I’m Brendan, and I play guitar.
Adreon: I’m Adreon and I play the drums.
Jason: I’m Jason and I play the keyboards and sing.
Adreon: Yeah, we all do some vocal action.

Nicole: Alright, so my first question is, you guys used to be called “Single Frame Ashtray.” Where’d the “Ashtray” go?
Brendan: We have no idea. It was just one of those things where everybody already called us “Single Frame” anyway. We had talked about changing the name to just “Single Frame” like, for years and years. I guess the right week came along where we had just the right people who suggested it.
Adreon: When you make flyers, it’s really hard to write “Single Frame Ashtray” all the time, so it’s just, you know, you can be bolder with just “Single Frame.” It’s really just a marketing thing.

Nicole: Why were you called Single Frame Ashtray in the first place? Where did that name come from?
Brendan: Adreon’s cracked head. Yeah, I don’t know where that came from. A sketchbook?
Adreon: It was there. We used it.

Nicole: Now you’ve just signed to a new record label, Volcom Entertainment. How did that come about?
Jason: We just sent them our record and they just happened to like it.
Brendan: We sent it out to a few different places, and . . .
Jason: I think they were just the first ones to respond.
Brendan: No, we didn’t want to go pounding doors down finding someone to put it out, so we just sent it out and figured that whoever contacted us about it was the ones that would be the best to work with.
Adreon: Actually, they’re the coolest ones and they’re actually working, like they’re gonna help us go to the west coast and do all these different things, and they’re really cool about it. Also, the other bands on their roster don’t sound anything like us.

Nicole: Yeah, I noticed they were a lot more punk.
Adreon: Exactly, we don’t want to get lost in a roster, you know? So, they’re all about it. It’s like a different record for them, they have to find different places for it, and they’re excited about it, so there are definite pluses for us.

Nicole: You’re also playing the Warped Tour this summer, which I think is a different type of scene than you guys would typically be found in.
Adreon: Yeah, we’re hoping the mohawks will cover that.
Brendan: Yeah, we don’t really know what to expect from that.

Nicole: How did you get on the tour?
Adreon: Volcom actually has a stage there.
Brendan: Yeah, we asked the same question- how are we going to do on the Warped Tour? I mean are we gonna fit in that? Basically, they told us that they think we’ll do great on it because we’ll be unlike anything else on there.

Nicole: I actually went to the Warped Tour in my younger days, and there was always that one rap person that everyone was like, “oh, that’s weird,” but people saw them because it was something different. And you also get the little kids walking around in their t-shirts with a picture of Bush on them that say “Not My President,” but you know they aren’t old enough to vote yet. It’s funny stuff.
Brendan: As long as they bring ten dollars for a disc, they can wear whatever t-shirt they want.

Rockey: Do you guys have any t-shirt ideas to sell at Warped Tour?
Brendan: How about, “I hate Clear Channel,” would that be a good one?

Nicole: I think Bright Eyes already took that one. So I know you are just in the process of re-releasing your album Wetheads Come Running, but do you have plans for a new album in the works?
Brendan: Yeah, we definitely do. I mean, like you said, we’re re-releasing this one and we’re just really, really ready to put out another album. We’ve been working on stuff all the time. We’re still at a point where we’re playing our shows, and we have to play all that old stuff, but we’re ready to just play completely new stuff. So we’re kind of at the point where we’d like to get going on the new album.

Nicole: Have you still been playing a lot of new songs in your shows anyways?
Brendan: Yeah, sort of.

Nicole: Has it been getting a good reaction?
Brendan: Yeah, I think they’ve been doing great.

Nicole: Is it different from what we hear on Wetheads Come Running? Has your sound evolved in some way?
Adreon: I think it’s just all over the place, still.
Brendan: I agree. I don’t think we’re going for any specific, well, anything.

Nicole: You’re not going to suddenly veer punk now that you’re going to be surrounded by it?
Brendan: Yeah, right. I was like, oh great, now Adreon’s gonna want some skate-thrash going on for the Volcom stage at the Warped Tour. No, I think it’s our goal to just continue to just be all over the place. Everyone’s just a finger-click away from something else, so we might as well just put it all on one album for them. That’s kind of the way I look at it.

Rockey: You’re definitely all over the place, and that brings me to the question of, what inspires you? Do you have a lot of different inspirations? Is it song to song?
Adreon: Totally song to song. For me, sometimes you can be inspired by hearing things that you don’t want to sound like, you know? Like, ‘oh, that Britney, yeah, don’t want to do that.’ Also, little snippets of things you find in the trash, new photos you find laying around, just anything can be inspiration.

Nicole: One of your songs is called “Comm. Jet (Creepykid Remix).” Who is Creepykid? Is that a real person?
Brendan: Well, he’s a creepy kid. He is a real person. He’s actually just done some more stuff for us and it’s really, really good. He’s just this, freaky little computer geek guy.
Adreon: Who is totally influenced by David Lynch.
Brendan: Yeah, he likes some David Lynch for sure.

Listener IM: I love all the incidental sounds on the album before and after songs. How much time was spent on those and where did the sounds come from?
Rockey: That’s from “Nick GUA 1.”
Adreon: Hey Nick. Thanks for IMing us here.
Brendan: Yeah, and thanks for not being hate mail either, we appreciate it.
Adreon: I think, all of those, the little bleeps, they came from all different types of tapes we found in thrift stores, and little things we all did on the four-track . . .
Brendan: Adreon’s cracked head.
Adreon: The four-track is fun.

Nicole: What have you guys been listening to lately? What bands are in your CD players?
Brendan: We’ve been listening to a lot of bands the last couple of days.
Adreon: Let’s see, Gang of Four, Wire, Magazine, Love as Laughter, the Silver Jews, the Silver Apples, the Warlocks, the Unicorns.

Nicole: I love the Unicorns. Have you ever seen them?
Jason: Well we will at South by Southwest, for three dates.

Nicole: I’ve seen them and they were hysterical. They wear pink outfits . . .
Jason: That’s what I’ve heard.

Nicole: Yeah, they’re these little, skinny, tiny boys wearing pink suspenders, and pink suits, and it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
Brendan: We keep trying to get Jason to do that.

Nicole: Yeah, where’s your pink suits?
Adreon: Well, just hold on a second . . .

Nicole: The best thing about that show was they had a t-shirt, and it had pink all over it and said “the Unicorns” on it with all these clouds, and I was like, ‘oh, you must only sell those to girls, right?’ and the merch guy was like, ‘no, we’re all sold out of men’s sizes, we only have girls’ ones left.’ And I’m just picturing all these guys walking around with pink shirts that say “the Unicorns” on them with clouds.
Rockey: Speaking of the color pink, two weeks ago we had an anti-Valentine’s Day show. What did you guys do on Valentine’s Day?
Brendan: I went to a show.

Rockey: Nice, that’s what we did too.
Jason: I don’t remember.
Brendan: I think Jason watched the OC.

Nicole: So, you guys are from Austin, Texas, which is supposed to be the big live music capital of the country. Do you think that it helps you being in a scene that is that big, or do you think maybe you can get lost in the shuffle or that there is just too much going on?
Brendan: Its really a little bit of both. I kind of look at is as, there’s so many good bands there that you really have to bust ass to stand out. It really raises the bar for everybody, so if you’re just screwing around, you’re not gonna get anywhere. In some ways, it really raises the bar and makes you work harder. But in some ways, that place is just like a big old high school clique. You really want to kill people some times.
Adreon: Have you guys seen Willard, by chance? The Crispin Glover movie with the rats?

Nicole and Rockey: Uh, no.
Adreon: There’s this one scene where the elevator is full of rats, and there’s this one little piece of cheese, and they’re climbing all over each other trying to get that piece of cheese. That’s what the Austin music scene reminds me of.

Nicole: We interviewed the All Girl Summer Fun Band awhile ago, who are from Portland, and they said pretty much the same thing about the Portland music scene. There are so many bands that are trying to get in there now and there are so many shows that it’s kind of hard to stand out sometimes with so much going on.
Brendan: I think it really helps us outside of Austin. Just saying you’re from Austin, I guess, for some reason people think that’s important.

Rockey: Well, you’re a pretty unique band. Does having a scene that’s so filled with other bands inspire you to be that unique?
Brendan: I don’t think so. I think that’s always been our main thing to try to not do what’s already been done.
Jason: We don’t want to play like, once a week.
Brendan: Yeah, not playing derivative stuff every week.

Rockey: Does that make it more difficult? What I mean is, your music has a real do-it-yourself approach to it, or at least that’s the feeling, kind of that punk feel. Does that make it easier to write music or more difficult?
Adreon: I think it makes it more interesting. I don’t know about more difficult, but it makes it more interesting and ends up being more fun because you don’t really have any perimeters set up to say, well okay, this has to be screamy, or you know, we can all sing in falsetto on this one if we want to, or let’s bring the tambourines in, or just whatever. It just kind of keeps it open.
Brendan: Yeah, so it probably makes it easier because it keeps it fun.

Nicole: Do you all write the songs collectively, or do you each develop your own concept and then bring it to the band?
Brendan: All different things. A lot of the stuff is done collectively, or at least partially, but usually someone will have some idea. There’s been songs where we just show up for practice one day and just play it. Then there’s been other songs where we agonize over it for about three months then we decide that it’s just absolute garbage and throw it in the trash. There’s really no formula for how we do it. Some of it was, one person did it all on a four-track, some of it’s collective I guess.

Nicole: So how did you guys get started as a band?
Adreon: Well, Jason and I were in this really, really, really pop band, it was ridiculously poppy. Then Brendan was in a really really really ridiculously mathy band. They all just kind of dismantled all at the same time, and we were bored, and I wanted to play the drums, and pretty much everybody wanted to play.
Brendan: There was also a show we wanted to play . . .
Adreon: Yeah, there was a show we wanted to play, but we didn’t know who “we” were.
Brendan: Basically, there was this show coming to town, and they [Adreon and Jason] wanted to play it and not have to pay a cover charge I guess. So they said, ‘let’s write some songs.’ So we got together for like, a week, and wrote like five songs, and then played the show.

Nicole: So you were all at Austin at that point? Are you all pretty much from Austin, or did you just move there for the music scene?
Brendan: We’re from all over Texas.
Adreon: Let’s just say ‘Texas.’

Nicole: I was born in College Station, Texas.
Adreon: Were you really? That’s extremely ironic. That’s where we each started.
Brendan: Since you said that, we’ll tell you. But we don’t go bragging about it.

Nicole: Yeah, I moved here when I was pretty young, but my parents always had fun stories about being in Texas. I’ve seen pictures.
Adreon: Yeah, bottlecap alley! There’s this alley that’s nothing but bottlecaps. People just love that for some reason.
Brendan: There’s basically nothing to do there but drink.
Adreon: And breakdance.

Rockey: DJ Lazer’s got another question. A while ago you guys said you had bands that you didn’t want to sound like. Does that mean you don’t want to be popular, you don’t want to be like Britney Spears and have your stuff played on MTV? Or do you just want to do it in your own way?
Adreon: Own way, I guess. The thing with that is there’s just certain aspects you hear where you’re like, oh, I don’t like the way that bass sounds, even though other parts of the song might be totally cool. But some parts might just be off-kilter, at least for me personally or for us personally.
Brendan: I, for one, don’t want to be popular. Because then we’d actually start making money and we’d have to start eating restaurant food instead of sandwiches and things like that. And that would just suck.

Nicole: Are you guys doing music and the band full-time then, or do you still have day jobs?
Brendan: I have a day job.
Jason: Yeah, he supports us.
Brendan: But that’s probably going to be ending pretty soon. There just isn’t enough time for touring.

Nicole: Especially this summer when you start touring hardcore.
Rockey: Are you guys excited about the Warped Tour this summer?
Adreon: Hey, I think it’s a free trip, so let’s do it.

Nicole: Plus it’s like, thousands of people every day.
Brendan: Yeah, I’ve never been to one. I really don’t know much about it. If it’s thousands of people then, whatever. Why wouldn’t we?

Rockey: Do you know more details behind it? I heard you were touring in the Midwest.
Brendan: I think it’s just going to be the Midwest, and all the Texas dates of course. Not that we ever play there. I think it’s just like a week, with Chicago, Milwaukee, and Minnesota.

Nicole: Ooh, I’ll be living in Chicago then. Should I go to the Warped Tour, just to see you guys? Will it be worth it?
Adreon: Hey, we’ll hook you up.

Nicole: I’ll be one of the only people there actually able to buy the five dollar beer. Do you know what other bands are playing those dates with you?
Adreon: The International Noise Conspiracy will be playing, so that will actually be cool. And Atmosphere.
Jason: And Good Charlotte. (mass laughter)

Nicole: A guy at the station just went on a mad rampage and threw out all our Good Charlotte, because he thinks they’re so bad.
Brendan: Well I’ll tell you, my 13-year old niece is gonna be really stoked to get to see them for free.

Rockey: Well, you got a great lineup for the summer going, but what can we expect from you tonight?
Brendan: This is your question, isn’t it Jason?
Jason: Uh…
Adreon: Are you gonna be burning brooms again? Jason’s got this weird thing about burning brooms. So if he burns a broom . . . is this show outside?

Nicole: Uh, no.
Adreon: Oh, I guess not then.

Nicole: Any last words?
Adreon: Thanks both Nicole and DJ Lazer for having us this evening, and hopefully we’ll see everyone tonight at the show.