Bantam Foxes Have a Gold Record Coming
My Spilt Milk is pleased to premiere "Sleep," a track from the upcoming EP.
Many bands still seem addicted to the major label-dictated album cycle that once prompted Prince to declare himself a slave. Although the technology that gets music from the bands to the fans has given the musicians more control, many still want to put out an album once a year at best, maybe longer, even though the ADD-afflicted marketplace has a hard time remembering a band three months after a release.
Local rock band Bantam Foxes aren’t bound by those limits. They regularly release EPs, and have another one—Gold Record—due out June 17, and My Spilt Milk is pleased to debut a song from it, “Sleep.” We asked Foxes Collin McCabe and Jared Marcell about it, recording, and releasing music.
Am I correct in assuming that there a measure of irony in titling the new EP Gold Record?
McCabe: Let’s be honest - we’re not going to sell 500,000 copies of anything. It’s hopeful self-deprecation, a bit of wishful thinking. But I think we went with Gold Record also because we think we’ve really hit our stride as a band with this year’s EPs—there’ll be another one in November. There’s some gold here.
Marcell: It’s not a record and it won’t sell a bunch. It could still be gold, though, as in “really good” or covered in that foil Honeybaked Ham packages their goods in.
What’s the story behind “Sleep”?
McCabe: Sam [McCabe, the third member of the band] wrote this one. He says he was feeling kind of stuck physically, musically, emotionally. The lyrics in each verse work in circles, like an endless loop. The chorus of "I can predict where you go when you sleep / when you don't want to think about anything" comes from feeling like you can't even escape your monotony in your dreams. Short version: this song is about being really bored with who you are, but not having the drive to push and change the things with which you're unhappy.
You record and release music on a four-month to six-month cycle, right? Why put music out so regularly?
McCabe: Two EPs a year. We release so regularly because we want people to have new things to hold onto, new things to jam in their earholes as often as they can. It keeps things exciting for the listener and it keeps things exciting for us, allowing us to play with different styles, different productions, different emphases in songs. Gold Record is darker than our more recent EPs and our future ones, too.
Marcell: You know how your relatives at Thanksgiving are always asking, "So, how's the job going? Staying busy?" The people we visit in other markets are like that, too, but they want the conversation to continue past “Yeah Uncle Joe. I clock in, pick my nose every 45 minutes, and clock out."
Will any of the songs become a physical album, or will they remain digital-only?
McCabe: We’ll have a physical CD of the EP when it comes out June 17. We print all of our EPs individually but in short runs. Again, it’s more content for people to have. Keeping things digital can be great, but we like to have things for people to hold, too. I think there’s more of a connection to be made that way. Plus, you get a sort of “collect ‘em all” vibe when you’ve got a bunch of EPs.
Marcell: The best follow up to a gold record that isn't a record and won't sell 500,000 copies is a greatest hits record—one that has all new songs and also won't be record-length. We like to dream big, silly, stupid rock ’n’ roll dreams.
Bantam Foxes will play an EP release show when they perform at Gasa Gasa June 18 with Rotary Downs and A Living Soundtrack.
