RC: 5,4,3,2,1... And Rock Circus has come down to
Metropol to hang out with the lead vocalist of the
band Medication, new band to an English record
label.
Whit: Spanish.
RC: Oh, Spanish, my bad. Now how does that happen? How
does an LA based band hook up with a Spanish based
record label?
Whit: As far as the Spanish label goes, there's this cat
named Goyo and this dude named Hulgar, a German guy
who used to work for a different label that wanted
to sign us early on. Then Hulgar got a job with
Locomotive in Spain, and you know we did the dance
with the majors and the majors were in such
disarray, that we saw eye to eye with those guys.
Like they're prepared to help us have a career, if
that makes sense.
RC: Yeah, record labels can tend to be there for just
the short bursts and the big money, and once you're
spent up that's it.
Whit: Exactly, absolutely.
RC: Ten years I know a little bit man, but this man was
in a cool band before Medication. He was in Life of
Agony, which I saw up in Cleveland once, you guys
opened up for Monster Magnet.
Whit: I was only in LOA for a year, January of 1999 I
was out of LOA. We decided to give it a shot,
starting this band Medication. We started in January
1999 and have been working really hard and we're
finally on tour.
RC: Good thing because it's paid off. You guys could
almost say you're like a hard-core super group with
all the members from different bands, kind of...
Whit: (laughing)You can say that if you want.
RC: I'll say that damnit, you got guys from Soulfly,
Machinehead, and LOA. Did you guys go to Spain when
you were intermixing with people at the label?
Whit: We flew to Spain for a press tour, but as far as
the business... we did an English tour, which is
really wierd. We actually went all through England
with no record. We just flew there and booked like
fifteen shows and the president of the label and
the A&R guy came up to a show in London. We did the
show in London, we had a long talk with him and saw
eye to eye, and that's really where we realized we
wanted to work with them. Then the interesting, as
far as the Spanish label thing goes, they created
an entire LA American label, but LA based, around
us but for America, because originally it was just
Europe.
RC: So you guys are kind of the nucleus of this thing,
which is really unique.
Whit: Well it's great in the sense that, I've been on a
major label before, which is cool if you're making
records it's cool no matter what, but as far as
being a priority goes... If you've got U2 on you're
label, which is a great band, if you're a brand
new band you're not gonna get that much love. So as
far as the situation that we're in, we're a
priority, and as far as making records and getting
records in stores and touring, you're biggest dream
would be to be a priority. So things are cool.
RC: You feel like you're being taken care of. Now you
kind of said you were in it for the long term, now
when you listen to Prince Valium it has a classic
tinge to it. I could see your sound surficing over
the here it comes, here it goes, kind of stuff.
Whit: My thing is, I think there's space for every
music. You've got such an amalgam of musical styles
going on right now. You got rap hitting heavy
metal, you could merge any style, stylistically
right now. So I think there's space for every
music, there always has been and there's always an
audience for everything. But as far as what will
happen with us, I don't know. My thing is just to
be honest and be grateful you get to do it. Keep
doing it and do the work and play the shows and
whatever happens, I don't know. That's totally nice
of you to say, but I don't know, who knows.
RC: Well I hope, now I want to ask you about the video,
you went and did the bonus track off the CD?
Whit: Actually pertaining to that, on the Prince Valium
album there's a bonus track, which is basically the
edited version of "Inside." That's actually a song
off the EP. So we shot a video for that, which you
know, it's a video. The thing about that song, in
a sense, it's one of our favorite songs from the
EP. We boosted it on to the record. It's the edited
version though, if you want to hear the bridge,
which I love so much, it lives on the EP.
RC: Here's a man that knows bridges. A lot of these
bands today don't even know what a bridge is.
Whit: There's a lot of bands playing 7 strings and they
don't know how to play 6.
RC: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more on that. Now
you did the EP when you guys first hooked up, and
you went straight to Europe, did you not?
Whit: Yes, we did.
RC: How did that opportunity award itself?
Whit: There's alot of Mr. Magoo qualities to this band.
Like why did we go to Europe without a record, I
don't know... because we booked a tour. We really
didn't think about it, when we got there it was
great, we packed some shows out.
RC: Where you getting airplay over there?
Whit: No, we just showed up and played shows, punk rock
style. As far as my journey, as far as playing
music, as far as what I've been able to do for the
last ten years, the stuff that you really hard core
try to manifest by force or by organizing always
seems to fall by the wayside. But if you just kind
of let a natural flow, and just do what you do,
that's when things work for me. Everything that's
worked, for real worked, seemed to have a life of
it's own. Anything that was anally forced seems to
die a cruel death.
RC: I understand exactly what you're saying. You can
kind of compare that to what you went through with
your bass player situation. What was the cat you
had come in?
Whit: Robert was never in the band. He was just a real
good friend. We wanted to play shows out in LA.
RC: What did you call him, the manic hispanic or
something?
Whit: The satanic hispanic. So we played some shows
around LA and Roy was still playing with them at
the time. Then we got Chris Hamilton from Phillie,
he's amazing. But if anything, the Spinal Tapesque
part of this journey has been the drummer
situation. You know we've gone through like 5
drummers, all great drummers. We played with Roy,
Shannon Larkin, Josh Freeze tracked a record. Now
we got Chris Hamilton hitting the kit, so we've had
no shortage.
RC: So it's working out with your new man?
Whit: My thing is as long as we're out here playing that
would equate to me that everything is working, for
me. I can't speak for everyone, but I think I do.
When you work real hard and you write songs and
hopefully you evolve, on all levels, writing and
lyrical content, and rifs, and whatever. That's the
mission to move on, but it all leads up to the
stage. So pertaining to everything's cool, yeah,
right now we're playing a show tonight, so
everything's cool with me. It's when I find myself
sitting at home watching sports for more than 2 or
3 days that I start to lose it. So we've been on
tour here with Cold Chamber, American Headcharge,
Lollipop Buzzkill, 5.0, and it's been amazing.
American Headcharge actually dropped off about 2
weeks ago in their hometown. They've been out for
15 months and they are gonna make a new batch of
cookies for us all to hear. They were the best,
if there's anything I can say to your show, it's
go support American Headcharge. But as far as us,
this tour ends August 3. Then we have a little
time, and then we'll go to Europe for anywhere from
6 to 8 weeks.
RC: Are you a little leary about going to Europe right
now?
Whit: No.
RC: You like living dangerously?
Whit: I don't think it's that dangerous. I mean you can
go and get a donut and get hit by a car.
RC: I wouldn't sweat it either.
Whit: No, I'm good to go. And in fact it's
international, you're talking about flying right?
RC: Anything in Europe.
Whit: You talking about flying or being there?
RC: Being there.
Whit: Well Indie would be more narly to be in right now.
RC: Well you could get down around the lower edges.
Whit: I don't see us going there. As far as flying and
all the 9/11 stuff, the scary part is to fly, as
far as security, is in the US. The flights that go
in between the states, that's a little sketchier
than an international flight. An international
flight they got locked down, they always have,
you're pretty safe. But as far as just going and
playing music and this and that, I'm good to go.
I'm always traveling anyway. And I have nothing to
do with politics, I'm not political.
RC: No, that's cool, you don't need to be. You just
need to take what you see from the world and keep
turning it in to some d*** good lyrics, and some
good vocals, and all that stuff. The name of the CD
is Prince Valium, this is Medication. You
guys gonna sign one of these for me, hook me up?
Whit: Absolutely, this was released June 18th, so if you
dig it that would make me happy.
RC: Mr. Whit Crane, thank you very much sir.
Whit: I say thank you brother.
For More Info Go To medication2.com
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