“A raging animal lives in my chest
Pounding the time, holding me hostage
Just want everyone to understand
I’m trying hard, doing what I can
The under achieving everyman”

From Poison Soul by Adam Watts

“My goal as a singer and songwriter is to express what’s going on inside me as honestly as possible. As a band, we feel that music is more than just entertainment, it can also be a meaningful way to connect with people. On top of that, there’s nothing better than playing music with your best friends. I lucked out and found all my favorite musicians in one family!” So says Adam Watts, one of Orange County’s native sons and Renaissance man in the realm of music. The Adam Watts Band is composed of Adam, and the three brothers Rodriguez: Nic, Matt, and Jules.

With partner Andy Dodd, Adam has produced material for all three High School Musicals, Miley Cyrus and Switchfoot.  He also co-wrote/produced 2008’s Jonas Bros. and Demi Lovatos #1 itunes hit which was also used for the Jonas Bros recent 3D Movie.  He’s a songwriter and a recording producer, but what revs Adam’s engine is live performance with his own alternative rock band. And the music they make has gained the rapt attention of one of the hottest people in culture right now: Stephanie Meyer, author of the Twilight series of vampire novels. Just before they headed out to Arizona for their appearance at Meyer’s Breast Cancer benefit, we caught up with the ever-busy Adam Watts for a brief interview for Orange County Arts & Culture.

William Dean: Adam, you’re the original “do it all” guy, recording, producing, composing. What is the driving force behind you still getting out on stage to perform live with the band?

Adam Watts: Performing is like the last piece of the creative process for me. Everything starts out as this feeling that sort of morphs into a song. Then I take it to the band and we take it to the next place it needs to go and record it. Or sometimes I start recording as part of the writing process, which is something I’ve always loved doing. After all that, the song is hopefully all dressed up and ready to go out and meet people. Like most singer-songwriters, for me it’s all about expressing and connecting. First with myself and then with anyone else willing to listen. My dog’s often the first one to hear it, she’s a great audience. Performing is so immediate, it’s the opposite of the rest of the process in some ways, in terms of the connection that happens, you sing something and it’s just out there, you can’t control it anymore and it just does what it does, it falls flat or it connects. So there’s this sort of ‘now or never’ feeling of just wanting to give it all you have in that moment. Writing and recording is my way of putting something out there that says ‘hey look, I exist!’. Like carving your name in a tree, or when people painted the walls of the cave, you know? But, one of my favorite things about performance, and the biggest challenge, is trying to completely dive into the edge of each passing moment. To turn off that little jerk in my brain that judges and just be committed to what can happen right now.

WD: I know you’ve got a significant gig coming up on April 4th for a benefit connected with Twilight author, Stephanie Meyer. How did that come about and did you personally have any connection to Meyer? Are you looking forward to meeting her?

AW: Stephanie and I have a mutual friend. It will be great to meet the woman that wrote these books that made my wife disappear into lala-land for almost a full week! I’ve heard so much about how powerfully transporting these books are for people. I’m just starting to read Twilight, so maybe I’ll be taking a mental vacation too, who knows. Stephanie and I are fans of the same kind of music, so it ended up being sort of a natural thing in that sense. I was stoked to hear that she likes our music and wanted us to come perform at this benefit. The best thing about it though is that we get to go play music for a cause that’s close to my heart, which is fighting breast cancer. My mom is a breast cancer survivor so I love that we can contribute in this small way to help someone with their fight. The Project Save The Book Babe event will help relieve some of the burden of Stephanie’s good friend’s medical bills.

WD: The lyrics to your new song “Poison Soul” really reflect the Dark Side vs. your strong Christian commitment. Do you think a lot of people will connect with that struggle and what inspired you to write about it?

AW: I hope people will connect to it. That dark side is what needs the most light shed on it. My theory is, that stuff grows if it’s not acknowledged. For me this song lays out why I lean so hard on my beliefs. It’s about the central struggle we all have against those parts of ourselves that aren’t that pretty. The parts we’d rather keep hidden. We all have them. Sometimes, it’s impossible to hide that stuff, it just spills out and effects other people. I wrote this song when I was kind of owning up to the fact that I wasn’t proud of how I was acting. I was recognizing that I needed to kind of apologize and get by myself to work it out. The bridge says “this isn’t how the story ends, it’s dark in the middle but the light comes in”, so the song isn’t stuck in the mud, there’s some hope in there.

WD: I know you travel a fair amount but you live here. What are the things you consider special about Orange County that are important to you and your music?

AW: Orange County is home. I was born in Laguna Beach hospital and grew up in one house in Mission Viejo until I moved out on my own. I’m thankful for the safety I felt growing up. I have a great family and OC had this warmth to it, and yet an hour north you have this huge, wild, sprawling city of L.A. and a couple hours south you have another country entirely. Musically though I’ve always been focused on expressing the world inside. Stuff that is universally human. I feel like the music I create, or the feeling behind it, would be pretty much the same regardless of where I was born. I suppose is if I was born somewhere in the Amazon jungle I’d be using bamboo flutes instead of electric guitars, but I’d be trying to express the same stuff at the core.

WD: The band has just completed an EPK (electronic press kit) and you’ve stated in your blog that AWB is moving into another phase. What are the things you’re foreseeing that might change, improve, just “be different” for you and the band?

AW: I’ve never been so on fire about what’s going on with the music and the band. Nic, Jules and Matt are some of my best friends and my favorite musicians. We’ve been playing together for 5 years now and something has clicked in a new way for us recently. We’ve been recording and playing a lot. Also, Nic and Jules are twins and Matt is their younger brother so I guess I’m like the honorary brother. There’s this link we have musically and as friends that makes the whole process of being a band deeper. We have this goal to passionately share music that is honest about the human condition. I’ve heard it said that the personal is universal and I really believe that. We want to express the good, the bad and the ugly, but never without a sense of positivity. And now those goals are starting to be reflected not just in the music, but organically in all other ways, from things like our artwork to the new website (adamwattsband.com) to our videos and our live show. We’re all more focused and unified than ever, and it’s been a blast!

WD: What are your upcoming gigs and where can people come see the band in the near future?

AW: April 4th is the Stephanie Meyer event in Arizona. We’re playing Thursdays April 16th and 23rd at The Gypsy Lounge in Lake Forest, which is a great place to see live music. Our website will have our shows posted, there are a bunch of shows we’re working on right now, so you can check there for daily updates on shows, news and blogs, all that stuff. We’ve just finished recording a ton of music. So we’re releasing “Poison Soul” as a single to radio and to digital retail (Speakerheart.com and itunes.com). then following that, a full album, which is almost finished. Hopefully we’ll see some of the OC Arts and Culture readers out at our next show!

The Adam Watts Band website: www.adamwattsband.wordpress.com

Jennifer Vincent: Please tell us more about each member of the band and their backgrounds.

The Fallen Stars:
* I’m Bobbo. (vocals & guitar) Raised on am radio until I discovered the Replacements and U2. I have mostly an ice hockey background. I’m a very good goalie and have been knocked out 15 or 16 times. I’ve done too much hitchhiking due to reading too much Kerouac and I try really hard not to break things on stage.
* Tracy Byrnes. (vocals & bass) Is the calm to Bobbo’s storm on stage. She grew up on the east coast but came into her own on the west coast. Tracy reads the thick books and secretly wishes she was a librarian.
* Gregg Braught. (guitar & vocals) Mixes his love of Queen & The Beatles with the energy of a funny car on the quarter mile. He’s one of those guys that looks more like himself with a guitar in his hands. Biggest influence – his dad, who got him into the Beatles
* Geoff Geib. (B3 & mandolin) The “serious” Fallen Star. Geoff considers himself the conscience of the group and often (though not always) steers us in the right direction. Also an accomplished screenwriter and movie extra.
* Brian Matteson is a double threat, mastering both drumming and recording. Bobbo and Brian are producing the next Fallen Stars album from our rehearsal room.

JV: How long have you been together? How did you form?  Give us some background.

TFS: We’ve been together for about 9 years or so. Some band members are more recent but the Fallen Stars are about 9 years old.

JV: What are your dreams and goals?

TFS: Just to keep doing it! Keep putting out great music. We’re not waiting around for some label to come up to us. Right now most labels can’t offer us anything that we aren’t already doing ourselves. We’ve toured, we’re on iTunes, we’re getting into music libraries, we’re doing it.

JV: Who are your biggest influences (musical and non-musical)?

TFS: These are all over the place. U2, Springsteen – they certainly show you how to have a career on their own terms with longevity. I have athletic heroes – Bobby Orr, Ray Bourque, Patrick Roy – folks who never give up.

JV: Who writes the songs and what are they about?

TFS: Bobbo & Tracy co-write almost everything. Then we bring them into the band, they put it through the spin cycle and it comes out way better on the other side. There are no bad ideas in rehearsal – we’ll try anything. Most songs come out of regular life and living it, whether it’s us or someone we know. You can’t help what comes out sometimes. We tend to write about people and everyday struggles and how to keep on keeping on.

JV: How would you describe your music?

TFS: We describe our music as “Americana Rock”. It makes sense once you hear us. We have some traditional ideas and instruments mixed with the rock and roll. There’s mandolin, dobro, pedal steel, accordion and then there’s big drums and distorted guitar.

JV: Are you signed? How many albums do you have?

TFS: We have our own label that we release music on. We are currently working on our sixth cd.

JV: What inspires you to do what you do?

TFS: I’m inspired by the love of doing it. Yes, it’d be great for it to be a big source of income but I’d play no matter what. Who wouldn’t want to strap on a guitar and play loud music with their friends?

JV: What is the biggest piece of advice you would give to a band that’s just starting out?

TFS: Well, I’d say that you have to love it to the point of wanting to do it for free and then I’d say run it like a business. We’re still working on that part.

JV: Finally, what’s your most recent band news?  Where can we see you next?

TFS: We are up for 3 OCMAs this year (”Best Album”  for Where the Road Bends. “Best Song”  for St. George’s Bank, and “Best Country/Americana Band”). We’ll be featured this week on Time Warner News. We’ll be in this week’s OC Register. We’re playing Saturday night (March 7th) at the Marlin Bar in Huntington Beach. Other dates are March 13th at the Mint in L.A., March 14th at the Plum Room in Riverside, April 3rd at the Viper Room, April 10th we’ll be in Greenwich Village, NY. We’re about one third of the way done with our new cd. We’ll be playing all over the U.S. this year and trying to arrange for a European tour hopefully by fall. Oh, and we won “Best Live Acoustic Band” at last year’s OCMA’s. We were finalists in a couple of OCMA categories a couple years in a row. We’ve been featured on KDOC’s Daybreak OC. We’ll be opening up for Dave Alvin at the Coach House in June.

www.thefallenstars.com
On MySpace: www.myspace.com/thefallenstars
On Facebook: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=749653335
On Twitter: @bobbofallenstar

In the photo on the front/at the top- L to R:  Brian Matteson, Geoff Geib, Bobbo Byrnes, Tracy Byrnes, Gregg Braught.  Photo credits Mike Rotman.

Soundcheck is a new music version of Artist Spotlight.  Do you know a band or musician that we should interview?  Let us know, here.