Interview: Billy Kelly

Billy Kelly often signs his e-mails and newsletters, "Billy Kelly, Actual Person."  I think it's just a jibe at the tendency for impersonal and robotic e-mails, but if the robots' e-mails and newsletters were as amusing and perceptive as Kelly's, then I for one would welcome our new robot overlords.

Kelly's fourth album for kids, AGAIN!!!, is a deft blend of the sincere and absurd ("sinburd?" "abscere?"), a great kindie treat.  Kelly recently responded to some questions via e-mail.  Read on for his views on when something is too over the top, the purpose of cover songs, and the relative importance of kids music to wrapping the George Washington bridge in cellophane.

Also: you can stream an unreleased track from Kelly below.  One with a ROBOT MIX.  (Maybe I shouldn't actually believe him when Kelly says he's an actual person, hm?)

Zooglobble: What are your earliest musical memories?

Billy Kelly: I remember taking a wicked sax solo in the delivery room a few minutes after I was born, but for the life of me I cannot remember what song we were playing. Great groove; that much I recall!

Exactly how many different musical projects are you a part of?

It's hard to say exactly, but it's certainly at least 3 musical projects, and perhaps as many as 3.25. In addition to recording and performing for kids & families with "Billy Kelly & The Blahblahblahs", I play banjo and sing in an alt-country band called "Earl Pickens & Family". I also play guitar and sing in a roots-rock/Americana band called The Sweetbriars. I have reason to believe my left leg is in an all-leg band called "LëG" but as yet I cannot prove this. Anyway, that's where the .25 I alluded to comes from.

What made you decide to write (and record) music for families?

My brain.

When you're writing songs for families, how do you balance your sense of humor and earnestness in choosing what to record?  Do you ever write a song and think, "that's way too ironic [or earnest] for my audience?"

This is a constant debate for me. I like the spot I claimed for myself in the kindie universe with my first album Thank You For Joining The Happy Club — as kind of an absurdist musical Seinfeld for kids. The "Seinfeld for kids" thing was mentioned in one of the first reviews that came in for Happy Club, but I had already been alluding to Seinfeld while we were recording. I kept telling people in the studio that my album was going to be "Jerry Seinfeld, not Jerry Lewis." So I was glad to see that my intention came across to others that way when the reviews came in.

The drawback to the whole "I am completely absurd and I have no sincere sentiment to impart" thing, as I found out, is that unsuspecting audiences don't know what to make of you. People were bringing their kids out to hear a nice family show, but they often ended up scratching their heads wondering what was going on. Happy Club had some moments of sincerity on it, but I really started running with the absurdist football in my live shows. ("Absurdist Football" is a great name for a band btw.) 

I went in 100% on the absurd vibe for my second disc, but ultimately felt that it wasn't entirely me when I played the songs live. I had cut the sentimental stuff from the live set entirely I was performing AT people more than I was performing FOR them. It was an interesting experiment, but not personally rewarding — 10-minute-long live versions of "The Ballad of Johnny Box" notwithstanding.

My third album The Family Garden swung heavily towards sincerity, and since then I've been more comfortable allowing that side of me to show through in my songs. The new disc is the first one I've done where I feel that sincerity and absurdism are given their due in parts more or less proportionate to my personality. I enjoy relaying the odd thoughts that occur to me in song, but I really do want to connect with the kids & parents on a personal level.

Have you ever recorded something and thought, "no, that's too over the top, even for me?" -- after all you wrote a rockin' song in honor of bonsai, an ode to butter, and an epic song in honor of a box, so that bar, if it exists, seems somewhat high.

Often it goes the other way, where I decide a song isn't weird enough. I only recall rejecting a song for being TOO weird one time. There was a song I recorded for AGAIN!!! called "Might it Be Love?", but it took some strange turns in the studio that rendered it unusable. We recorded the backing tracks in a key that was too high for me to sing in my normal voice so I tried singing it an octave lower. My voice ended up sounding like the robot from "Lost In Space" so we started adding these totally incongruous outer space sounds to the track. Laser beams, explosions, "DESTROY THE HUMAN!" voiceovers and stuff like that. It made sense to me because I was watching the music video in my head — space commander and his brilliant female assistant, who is secretly in love with him, explore a hostile alien robot world — but I realized to people who lacked access to the TV screen in my brain it was just total weirdness. I ended up dropping the track from the album because it was too over the top, as you said.

Here's "Might It Be Love" — perfectly preserved at the exact moment when I abandoned it...

The falsetto voice was going to be sung by a female vocalist. There was also a wedding-march theme at the end, which you can sort of hear on the guitar in this mix. I had a narrated introduction planned — something along the lines of "When we last joined our heroes, Captain Strong-Good and his brilliant copilot, Lieutenant Dr. Smartz, they had safely landed on planet XPL-MNOJ-7. But DANGER loomed outside their spacecraft as they prepared to explore the hostile, alien world..." and so on. They escape on their spaceship at the end. Too much, even for me. Also: Why?

To be fair, while all of this was going on, my "Ode to Butter" song was called "Theme from Butter! The Musical" and I was considering recording it with the local high school musical theater department. So there was a lot of "idea down-sizing" going on at that point.

What's your criteria for picking cover songs ("Don't Worry 'Bout the Government," "Mr. Blue Sky")?  What song would you have given your right (or left) arm to have written?

I like well known "grown up" songs that blend in perfectly on a children's album. Not the obvious ones like "Yellow Submarine" or "Octopus's Garden" but the songs that people don't realize are kids music in disguise. "Our House" by Madness, "Rock Lobster" by B52's, "Mr. Blue Sky" by ELO etc. I enjoy the shift in perception that takes place when you present these songs to an audience of kids and adults. Adults hear this song that they know so well, and suddenly find it cast in a different light while the kids, who have probably never even heard the song before, are accepting it at face value... He DOES see the clouds that move across the sky! He DOES see the wind that moves the clouds away! Of course he does.

In turn, I like how placing these songs in a new context alongside my original songs challenges the listener to think of what I do as more than generic "kids music." If that Talking Heads song blends in well, then all the other songs benefit by association. 

Like most musical artists, I find cover songs useful but I have a strict rule about only playing covers that are very well known. I don't do obscure B-sides or unreleased tracks. The cover songs are there to re-capture people's attention and to prop up my own songs by showing them hanging out in good company. Plus I like to put my own spin on cover songs — changing them in a way that makes them mine.

Are you an artist who also makes music, a musician who also makes art?  Or just a Renaissance man generally?

"Renaissance Man" is too often substituted for "jack of all trades, master of none", but in this case the substitution is apropos. Life is short and I want to try as many different things as I can, so "Jack of all trades etc." is fine with me. I'm always turning my attention to some new project but this, and coffee, is what keeps me going. This is why I have a manager — I need someone to remind me of things I've started in earnest that deserve to be completed. Otherwise I'd be on a new project every week.

As to the whole artist/musician thing, I went to art school (Cooper Union, NYC) and I thought of myself as a visual artist for the first 25 years or so of my life. My 'visual arts' brain was rewired to serve as a musical brain at some point, but I still consider what I do to be Art, capital A. I believe that if you create something with the goal of making the world a better or even simply a more interesting place then it qualifies as Art. I'm proud to be creating art for family-consumption and I think it's as valid and important as painting a portrait or choreographing a ballet or wrapping the George Washington bridge in cellophane.

What's next for Billy Kelly, Actual Person?

I have a bunch of music videos I want to make and I've been writing a collection of songs about trees for an album to be called, you guessed it, Trees. "Bonsai" (from my new CD) was yanked from Trees because I just couldn't wait to get that particular song out into the world. My plan is to keep writing the Trees album, rehearse the heck out of it with my band and maybe head up to Dean Jones' "No Parking Studio" for a few days and record it there.

Lots of shows on the road are being planned as well. Really the best part of the job — visiting new places, seeing new sights, meeting new people and trying to make them smile, dance and laugh.

I also have plans to type a period at the end of this sentence and send these interview answers to you.

Photo credit: BK with guitar, Johnny Box photos by Amy Hsu Lin.

Interview: Aaron Nigel Smith

Aaron Nigel Smith features a lot of guest stars on his album Welcome to the Village -- Dan Zanes, Laurie Berkner, Secret Agent 23 Skidoo, Lucky Diaz -- but the guest artists featured most prominently are the kids of his One World Chorus, a multi-national choral group.

Smith chatted with us earlier this month about his experiences growing up at a choral boarding school, his long route back to kids' choral groups, and the benefits of singing in groups, not to mention his future plans (hint: Bob Marley has something to do with it.)

Zooglobble:What was your first musical memory?

Aaron Nigel Smith: I think it was my elementary school music class with Mrs. Gibson.  We played the xylophones; she was using the Orff/Kodaly method.  I really enjoyed that above and beyond the rest of school.  It opened me up.

And at age 11, you went to study music away from home?

Yes, at the American Boychoir School.  I was at Camp Albermarle, a summer camp, and while there they picked a few kids to audition.  I passed the audition, and soon I was at the school.

It was an incredibly life-changing experience.  From day one, people knew that you wanted to be a musician.  There was choir practice several hours a day on top of class.  We toured every state, we went to Europe, we sang with people like Jessye Norman -- it was incredibly high-quality.

What did you want to do as a musician?

I wanted to be a singer, specifically a classical singer doing light opera, oratorio, choral music, that was my main thought, anyway.

And so what was the path from that career to children's musician?

I went to Interlochen, the music camp, which is where I met my wife.  I attended the Manhattan School of Music and performed with the Albert McNeil Choral Singers.  I toured internationally, I was touring rigorously.  But with with kids, it was a little rough -- literally the day after the birth of our first son Zion, I had to fly to Japan for two weeks.  I did it, because that's what I had to do to earn money for our family, but it was heart-wrenching.

The first hour I spent teaching music was another life-defining moment for me.  I went into the class and immediately threw out the plan I had -- I spent time with the kids with honesty and integrity, I improvised.

That was ten or eleven years ago now.  It's great to see families engaged together.

What was the inspiration for the One World Children's Chorus?

That's really coming full circle for me.  I had been exploring ideas for working with a non-profit.  And I'd been touring and working with my children's music program FUNdamentals.

The choir started in California as the Palisades Choir, but if you're familiar with that area, you know that there's not much need for outreach in that area.  When we decided to move from Los Angeles to Oregon, we expanded that vision to Oregon, then to New York City with some kids I'd been working with there for a few years, and then to Nairobi, Kenya.

We started working with the Cura Orphanage there.  We were able to send proceeds to the orphanage.  And I wanted to have these groups of children singing together.

Do you have particular memories from the sessions?

With Los Angeles, it's the memory of the inception of the recording in my home studio, with my sons, goofing around.  In New York, it was the opportunity to collaborate with Antonio Dangerfield, who was my high school roommate and now works with the Achievement First Academy.

As for Kenya, I'd never been there before.  I'd see the state the kids were existing in, then see them sing with such joy -- they had joy in their eyes as they sang together, even though they had no shoes and were singing in a mud hut.

And in Portland, I finally feel at home.  There's been such openness and kindness -- help with with recording, appearances on TV, and parents jumping with enthusiasm.  We had auditions yesterday and the day before and had 50 kids.

What do you see as the benefits of choral singing for kids?

Well, the voice is a pure instrument, it's inside us.  Beyond that, we all come out of preschool together, but by the time you hit fourth or fifth grade people can be tool cool for someone.  Choir has you standing next to someone, blending your voices together.  Those values of cooperation are useful.  Not even 20% of these kids will become musicians, but they'll learn you can accomplish a lot if you sing together.

There aren't many opportunities to have kids sing together, particularly outside of a church setting -- what advice do you have for getting a group together?

Well, to start off with, just sing with your kids -- it's OK!  We spend so much time telling then not to sing, right?  It doesn't have to be from a hymnal, of course -- sing Bob Marley, the Beatles, general sing-along.

Once kids start singing, they want to sing together, to write music.  And there are so many audiences if you want to perform in front of audiences -- schools, nursing homes.

Singing is coming back into vogue now with Glee and American Idol and the rest (not that I'd push Idol and those shows).  That shows cool high school singing.

What's next for you?

I'm excited about the next season with One World.  We've picked out our next location -- in February we're going to Jamaica.  We're going to be working at Bob Marley's elementary school.  There's also a possibility of working in Haiti in 2013.  That's a little more unstable, and we're trying to find the right partner.

Our next CD is going to be a holiday CD, and we're also doing a holiday concert.

Finally, we're going to put on a children's music festival here in Lake Oswego in the Portland area -- we have a year to pull it off.

Photo credits: Dove Rudman (ANS), Melissa Heinonin (OWC Portland), Michael Kilmurray (Cura school)

Interview: Greg Attonito & Shanti Wintergate (Play Date)

It was only last year that one-time Skankin' Pickle member Mike Park released his foray into kids music, the album SMILE.

And now he's got a whole kids music label, Fun Fun Records.  One of the two debut releases from the label is Imagination from the band Play Date.  The band consists of husband-and-wife team Greg Attonito (of punk band The Bouncing Souls) and Shanti Wintergate.  They dipped their toes in creating art for kids with the publication some years back of the book I Went for a Walk.  They took some time last month from their summer touring schedule to talk about laying down under pianos, positive energy, and Imagination's inspiration.

Zooglobble: What are your first musical memories?

 

Greg Attonito: Listening to my Mom playing piano at our house. I would lay down on the floor under the piano keyboard at my Mom's feet and feel the sounds of the piano. I really loved that... and sometimes singing along when my Grandmother would play piano and sing at her house. 

Shanti Wintergate: I've been surrounded by music since I was in the womb.  My musician parents have always been performing and playing music throughout my life, so it's hard to pinpoint a specific moment...it was just always there.  Our whole family was always singing and harmonizing together as long as I can remember.  My brother and I used to lay down by the side of our pool and sing the same note into the water. We would watch the water move and listen to the reverberations and echoes of our voices. We would sometimes do this for hours. 

 

When did you decide you wanted to be a professional musician?

 

I thought it might be possible when I was in high school learning our favorite punk rock songs with friends.  We played shows in our hometown and talked about rock 'n' roll dreams.  Miraculously we made them come true.  It has been an amazing adventure. I have learned so much through the experience of making music with those same high school friends over the course of 23 years.  I'm excited to be bringing all I've learned from being in a rock band into making music for kids.

 

The idea first occurred to me, when I started learning how to play guitar to accompany lyrics and melodies I had always written.  There was a freedom in being a self-contained musical creator.  I was asked to perform one of my songs in a local summer music festival, which I did and I've been hooked ever since.

 

When did you first start thinking about recording an album of family music?  Was it around the time of publication of I Went For a Walk or was it later than that?

 

We had talked about it a bit before that. I think the first time might have been when we played for our nephew's 2nd grade class.. That was the initial spark. We continued talking about it during and after the "I Went For A Walk" tours but we were so busy with pre-existing projects there wasn't time for it. 

 

What was your guiding philosophy in writing the songs for the album?

Our main focus was creating music that parents would enjoy as much as the kids and to infuse some positivity and fun into the world.  We were also really careful about the energy we put into the entire creative process.  We wanted it to feel effortless, and naturally uplifting so we committed to only working on this project when we were in the right frame of mind.  We found that usually just working on this music in and of itself put us in a great mood so it wasn't really a problem.  I know this might sound silly but, our hope is that anyone listening to the record will feel like they had a blast hanging out with us singing songs and getting silly for forty-five minutes or so..... and maybe even feel a little more loved and cared about through the experience.  :)

What has surprised you (positively or negatively) as you wrote/recorded/started to promote and tour the album?

 

I was surprised at how much fun we had recording the record.  I knew it would be fun but it was way more fun than I expected!

I can't think of anything negative, but there have been lots of positives.  I also had a feeling we were going to have fun creating this music, but I hadn't expected the fun to be so contagious.   It seems everyone who has been around or part of the recording process has been influenced positively by the experience.... it's just too fun to resist!  Writing and recording this record, I allowed myself to explore musical boundaries that I didn't even know I had.  We also played all the instruments on this record except drums, so there has been a great satisfaction in that.

 

What's your impression of other music being recorded for kids -- any favorites, or have you tended to stay away?  Has that impression changed at all over time or as you've been recording/finishing the album?

I have just recently had my ears open to the world of kids music so I don't know many of the artists.  I like They Might Be Giants.  Their kids music is really good.  Our friend Kepi's new kids record is great, too. It's called Kepi For Kids and it will also be coming out on Fun Fun Records.

In the past I think it was a little more challenging to find music for kids that wasn't too "dumbed down" and obviously "children's music"... but it seems like today it's becoming easier to find good music for kids. MORE musicians are putting MORE effort into making quality music for kids.  It's so important!!  The music that kids are exposed to early on influence their musical tastes as they grow and there's plenty of evidence of music influencing emotional and mental states.  The importance of music in child development is finally gaining some well deserved ground.  Kids need a wholesome diet for their EARS as well as their BODIES!  

How much touring do you plan to do as Play Date? What have your experiences been playing for kids thus far as compared to playing in the Bouncing Souls or as a duo?

We just did a show last week in Montreal that was a blast! It was the first year the PouzzaFest hosted a kids stage at their big rock festival.  They did a great job and a lot of families came out and had a great time. 

We may do some dates this fall in Southern California. We intend to submit for more festivals with kids stages for next year and we are exchanging ideas right now about setting up a package tour with all of the artists releasing kids music on Fun Fun Records... so that is what is in the works at the moment. 

I have really enjoyed the new experience of playing for the kids in a more family friendly environment. The shows are earlier in the day..HAHA! It's broadening my musical horizons and challenging me to be more free with music in writing and performing.

 

What's next for you (kid-wise or otherwise)?

The Bouncing Souls released a new record on June 12th so I will be on tour in the U.S. all summer supporting that.  Play Date's record is coming out on October 9th.  We are really looking forward to getting the new Play Date record out in the world and supporting its release.  It's going to be really fun to see how it impacts the world.

 

Photo credit: Mike McLaughlin

Interview: Rick Garcia & William V. Malpede ("Quiet Is...")

Rick Garcia (left) / William V. Malpede (right)You may think of Disney's TV channels as filled with brightly-colored sets and sounds, and of course there are plenty of shows that feature those, but there are some quieter moments on the channel.

Some of the loveliest quieter moments come courtesy of the new Disney Junior interstitial series "Quiet Is...", a ten-episode series created by illustrator Sara Pinto and photographer/filmmaker Luciana Frigerio and produced by Scotland-based animation studio Ko Lik Films.  It's a series of two-minute shorts designed more for quiet time, for getting kids in the getting-ready-for-bed mood.

While the visuals themselves are striking, they're accompanied by tender, often (but not solely) mellow songs that don't so much explain the visuals as much as give the visuals an extra dimension.  The series' songs were composed by Rick Garcia and William V. Malpede.  The songwriting team have worked together on a number of other projects, including the movie Rango, but this project was considerably different.  They chatted with me by phone yesterday in advance of Sunday's Father's Day premiere of the tenth episode in the "Quiet Is..." series, an episode titled "Dad Reading."  You can see the nine previous episodes at Disney Junior's videos page, and even though the rest of the world won't see the latest video 'til Sunday, you can watch it here today.  Read on to find out about the series' origins, the challenges of writing for this particular project, and whose voice they're blown away by.

Zooglobble: What are your first musical memories?

Rick Garcia (RG): My first memory is from age 4 -- my mother was a singer and a big fan of Nat King Cole.  She put on a record of his, and I was blown away by his voice.

William V. Malpede (WVM): Yeah, he had a fantastic voice... I have two memories.  First, touching piano keys -- I was in 1st grade, maybe, and there was this magical connection between the body and the music.  I also remember hearing opera, my mother playing opera, and my sister playing classic rock albums from the late '60s and early '70s.

How did you get involved in the project?

WVM: I had worked with Rick for about five years or so, working on films.  We were both friends with Lori Mozilo [Development Executive, Disney Junior], and she approached us about working on this.  I was thrilled.  I'm a big fan of music in animated films, and this was tied to that.  She brought mostly-completed videos to us, and they were lovely.

I was going to ask you next how the songs were created -- whether they came first, or simultaneously -- but it sounds like they came last?

RG: Yes, we met first with Lori and Nancy Kanter [Senior Vice President, Original Programming and General Manager, Disney Junior Worldwide].  They brought us a video and asked us to write a song for it.  They loved the song we wrote and asked us to work on the project.

You know, the videos are beautiful in their own form.  We were after an emotion, not as much the lyrics.  The songs are truly unique unto themselves; even if you heard the song separately, you'd still be hit the same way.

WVM: The songs are supposed to be timeless.  One of the directives we received was the songs weren't supposed to narrate the visuals, but instead tell a companion story -- they didn't want it to be spot-on.

You also wrote songs for Rango -- how was the experience of writing these songs different from writing songs designed to move the plot along in the movie?

RG: The Rango songs were written very differently -- they were the first pieces of music written for the film.  We had a lot of free rein.  The lyrical content in the songs was musical narration, so there were a lot of rewrites lyrically (and musically) for that.  Here, we knew we were able to write different styles of musical.  In Rango, there was a specific musical style (mariachi owls).

WVM: For "Quiet Is...", we'd often talk about instrumentation -- the choice of instruments sets the emotional landscape.  It gives us musical colors or a palette to help out... One piece we did have to treat a little differently, there's a piece with some sheep getting a bit rambunctious ["Counting Sheep"] -- in that case we needed to be a little more literal.

What have you enjoyed most about the project, or what were you surprised by at the end?

WVM: There are many ways to go about scoring to pictures -- there needs to be a balance between the song form (a verse, chorus, so on) and the pictures.  In theory, those two approaches conflict.  But there were times when we'd write a song on piano or guitar and sometimes those things would go great with the pictures.

At times, some songs had too many lyrics and we had to get rid of some, but I expected that.  Overall, it was really good.

RG: It was effortless working Lori and Nancy -- they have a lot of expertise, and their feedback was helpful throughout.  In terms of concerns, you're always nervous when you have timelines to meet but people to be 1,000% satisfied.  There was a certain amount of rewriting necessary, but it was a great experience, a great creative time.

It sounds like you had a lot of creative freedom, but I also know from talking with musicians that getting used to writing songs that are 2 minutes long -- not 2 minutes and 10 seconds, not 1 minute 50 seconds, but exactly 2 minutes long -- can take a little getting used to.

RG: We are used to writing to a certain time length and those constraints.  But those deadlines, you start sweating bullets.

WM: When you write for media [pictures], it's just part of the experience.  Not really a concern.

What's next for you, either with "Quiet Is..." or other projects?

RG: I don't know what's next with "Quiet Is...".  There's a possibility of another project with Disney, but that's still in the works.  Beyond that, want to dive back into the film world.  I'm always writing, always singing.  And it's such a joy to work with William -- it was mostly effortless.

WVM: Echoing Rick... I would love to see "Quiet Is..." get some buzz, but it's fairly early in the process.  I'd like to write more with Rick, not just kids music but also other music.   I also write choral music, so I'm always looking to do more with that.

Photos courtesy Disney Junior

Interview: Dave Poche (Imagination Movers)

Ever since the Louisiana band Imagination Movers has had their own show on Disney (the favorite show of the Official Nephew of Zooglobble, I might add), the visibility of the high-energy jumpsuited band has grown exponentially. While up to now they've been producing the series in Louisiana, this fall they're embarking on their first national tour, helping to solve idea emergencies in a city near you.

We had the chance to catch up with red-hatted bassist Dave Poche as he was getting breakfast while on tour in Paducah, Kentucky. We talked about his musical influences, the genesis of the band, the status of lunches with his wife during filming of the TV show, and the one bad thing about being on tour.

Zooglobble: What were your early musical memories growing up?
Dave Poche: When I was very young, I had a Credence Clearwater Revival cassette, and of course a Beatles tape -- that was the first of my own music. I also liked Schoolhouse Rock. And I was really part of the early MTV generation.

As for when I was older... Rich had been involved in music for a long time and Scott sang in college. But I only had picked up the bass when I was 20 or 21. And when we formed the band, we needed somebody to play bass, so I started again.

This project sparked a lot of creativity. My father was in the LSU marching band, so I guess it just took thirty years to tap into [that creativity].

What was the spark for starting the Movers?
Having kids. We went to a lot of birthday parties and saw a lot of kids entertainment. Lots of cartoons, but there were not a lot of live action males. We thought that maybe we could create something that we didn't see at the time.

We knew folks that did fundraising work for the local public TV station and pitched a show. They were enthusiastic, but had no money.

So the original idea for the Movers was always a TV show?
Yeah. We got together at nights, from 9 PM to midnight to work. A few songs on our albums were written as the basis for the show, but we wrote songs inspired by the kids' milestones and lives. We tried to use some of existing songs for the [new] show, but it didn't work out so well. I definitely miss somewhat writing about what's there in front of us rather than being defined by the boundaries of a particular narrative.

What have been the biggest blows to your preconceived notions of doing a TV show?
The schedule -- there is so much going on at all times. Fourteen hours a day, five days a week -- it takes four days of work to put together one 22-minute show. On top of that, we have to review script notes, write songs, spend time in wardrobe. Yeah, the time commitment is something I regretfully underestimated -- I thought, hey, I'll have lunch with my wife every day. Instead, once we're there, it's like we're locked down and the warden has the key.

But the camradarie is great. The crew is 90% local, and the community support is great.

Tell me about what you've done for this, your first national tour.
When we were on our own, shows might just be the four of us, with a trash can drum set. Now, I think people will be surprised by the quality of the production. We did twelve dates outside of Disney earlier this year and the response was great. We did everything on our own -- the friends who we hired got experience and they're back with us on tour. We wrote everything -- the narrative and so on.

Of course, there's also the tour bus that we quote-unquote slept on, so it's not perfect.

Have you noticed a difference in the crowd response?
Oh, yeah, they know the words, so that when we say, "It's not just a problem, it's an..." they'll all shout back "idea emergency!" The fact that they know us makes it that much more fun.

What's next for the band?
We're going to keep on doing what we're dong. We're hoping to get a Season Three of the show picked up. We'll keep touring. You know, we're like the #1 kids show in Australia and the UK - maybe we'll be able to tour there.

A lot of what didn't seem accessible, even a year ago, now seems possible. We just want to keep having fun -- it's still fun.