the studio with 3/4 of New Year’s Day and see what we
come up with but I’m still going to bring in songwriters
and just experiment and if a great song comes out of it,
that’s awesome and if not, we didn’t click. I’ve probably
worked with three songwriters where it worked and
twenty-five others where it didn’t work.
Touring life is not for everybody. You have to give it 100%
every moment of your life; otherwise you’re just playing
local shows and that’s where you’re going to be. If you
don’t sacrifice everything, you’re not going to tour the
world. What I’ve found is that people want to be in a
band until they are in the band, broke, tired, and dirty.
Jim Louvau: It seems like in the future, New Year’s Day
could just transition from being a band to just focusing
on Ash Costello.
Ash Costello: Hasn’t it already? I’ve always fought that
and only recently have I accepted it. The band that I have
right now fucking loves that idea. All they want to do is
play music and be onstage and tour. If they could go
on without ever doing a photoshoot or ever getting any
attention they would be so happy.
Jim Louvau: Would you ever consider ditching the New
Year’s Day band name and just be Ash Costello, the solo
artist?
Ash Costello: No, never. That would be weird and I’d
rather just give up music altogether before I’d do that.
Maybe I’d start another band.
Jim Louvau: Much of the way you describe how your
band operates is like a solo artist right now.
Ash Costello: That’s not by choice, that’s because people
quit on me and I’m left alone to fend for myself and I’m
constantly bringing in new people. It’s not because I
want things a certain way and that’s how it has to be. It’s
because people bail constantly and I’m constantly trying
to find new people. You can’t just have someone join your
band and then write a record. You have to get to know
somebody and it’s taken almost a year of having Jeremy
in the band to figure out that we have the same goals
musically. He sat in the studio with us everyday and
never spoke up but he said he wanted to observe and
learn and I think that was very smart of him. You can’t
just join a band and write, not at this level. I would never
want to be a solo artist ever but was it my choice to carry
the torch? No. Did I have to man up and pull myself up
by the fucking boot straps? Yeah. I don’t like to get too far
ahead of myself because with every line, I think this is it
and it’s not going to change and sure enough, after every
tour, someone’s like, “I don’t like this.”
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