by Kenneth Morton

One of the youngest bands to be signed on to the Sumerian label, I See Stars from Detroit is probably touring around seeing the country as you read this. We caught up with a few of the guys prior to their show at the world famous Whisky in Hollywood, opening up for Our Last Night and The Number Twelve Looks Like You. Their debut CD 3D was just on the verge of being released when we had this conversation on a side street just off of Sunset Blvd…

Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in I See Stars, and tell me what’s the most embarrassing song you have on your IPOD…
Brent: My name is Brent and I play guitar and the most embarrassing song on our IPOD – we actually just played it the other day. We played a couple of Backstreet Boys songs. That’s pretty embarrassing I think.
Jimmy: My name is Jimmy and I also play guitar in I See Stars – it’s pretty much either really bad music or really Backstreet Boys embarrassing kind of old stuff when we were kids.

Where are you guys from and what is your music scene like there?
Brent: We are from the Metro Detroit area. Most of us are from Warren, Michigan; which is maybe 20 minutes North of Detroit. The music scene – obviously it’s changed a ton over the years. When we first started, it was fairly small and we hopped into it a little bit late – but it’s not too bad. The kids are good fans – we come from a great area – so it works out – I think it’s a good scene overall.
Jimmy: One thing I’d like to say about it – what you see a lot on the East Coast is that a lot of promoters are asking to sell tickets – and our scene is pretty good; so we can pretty much put on a show and have them come to the door and it does pretty well. Our home shows do 700-800 kids. We have a good scene.

Did you guys think you’d ever be playing The Whisky like you are tonight?
Brent: Absolutely not! It’s crazy to see going from playing in tiny coffee shops and then you go into venues where artists that have full time careers and are full-blown off the wall artists have been – and we do not deserve to step foot on that stage. And it’s really a blessing to say that we’re able to do that.
Jimmy: For me, the whole way on this tour, I’ve been reading an autobiography about Mötley Crüe, and they mention this place in that book several times. So I’m really excited to play here tonight.

How did you wind up signing to Sumerian Records?
Brent: Back in February, someone told me to email Ash and to introduce myself. I emailed Ash – he didn’t get back to me right away. In May, Ash replied to the email that I sent back in February, and from there we went back and forth. We just kicked it off and signed the papers a few weeks later. It was pretty simple – there was nothing too crazy to the story. The only thing that made it complex was the parents. Obviously we’re all so young – the parents had a very large say. They had to do some legal things for us – so that was the only complication in signing. It went pretty smoothly overall, other than that.

How old are you guys?
Brent: Brent, which is me, 17.
Jimmy: I’m actually the oldest – I’m 19. Old!
Brent: Everyone is relatively young – the average age is 17.

Are your parents pretty supportive?
Brent: Yeah! At first obviously it was a lot harder because we were still in school and what not. Nowadays it’s like tour after tour and they’re all about it, because they’re starting to see really where this is headed.

What is the story behind your CD title 3D?
Brent: 3D is really a metaphor – from 2D to 3D – we relate it to the world. Most people see the world a certain way, and when you’ve learned things about what’s really going on behind the scenes – with things that the TV and the radio don’t tell you – it turns into this whole new picture. And I guess we just related that as now we see the world in 3D. We see 3D normally – but just in the views of the media and things like that – we did our homework and now we have a pretty good understanding of some of things that have been going on – with society and government and that sort of thing. We use 3D as a metaphor to say that once you’ve learned that, you can no longer look at it from the eyes you had before. It’s a brand new pair of eyes, because you learned so much about what’s going on.

I See Stars, is there any story behind the name – have you seen any stars here in Hollywood?
Brent: Yeah, actually we’ve seen Katie Price – she’s some model from the UK. She was doing a reality TV show with paparazzi all in front our van at some surf shop. But the story of our name is too deep. Basically we needed a name a couple of years ago, because the name we had we knew wasn’t the one we wanted to keep. We were sitting up at a park and someone said, “I See Stars,” and everybody just bounced it around and it was, “Alright, that sounds cool!” And from there – it was the birth of I See Stars. This story doesn’t go too deep.

Do you guys have any unusual Myspace stories you’d like to share?
Jimmy: I’ve had girls start talking to me on Myspace and tell me they’re going to bring me food and stuff. We don’t actually play where they live for months – then all of a sudden they bring me food and I was just like, “Whoa! I didn’t expect you to actually remember that and actually come to the show and do it.” That’s pretty much it.

What advice would you give a new band about to go on tour for the first time? You guys have pretty much been there already and done that…
Brent: Be prepared to grind it out, to say the least.
Jimmy: There’s a lot of sleeping in your van. I guess the best advice I could give is be careful at how you spend your money. You have to really manage it well to be successful. We’ve seen bands – they get paid and then they go and spend their money on drugs and can’t figure out how to get to the next show the next day. You really got to be smart on how you spend your money and what you spend it on. Another thing is – in order to earn respect, being on time is an important thing. That’s one thing that we struggle with is being on time. So I guess if I were to give advice to another band – be on time, take a lot of vitamins, and manage your money correctly. Those are the three essentials.

Do you have any messages for people who are reading this right now, who might be into checking you out?
Brent: Check out the record. There is a track with Bizzy Bone from Bone Thugs-n-Harmony on there – so that’s a pretty cool thing on there that we’re very blessed to have. The only thing I could say to people is check out the record and give us a chance.
Jimmy: For me, the only thing that really I think is important for us to get across – a lot of our songs don’t sound the same. I think it’s important for people to understand that we make music because we like it. We’re not trying to be the next Devil Wears Prada or Breathe Carolina or whatever. We’re just making music because it’s what we love – and we’re trying to put our message across – and that’s pretty much it.
Brent: And there it is…

I SEE STARS links

I SEE STARS on Myspace: The Official Myspace Page for I See Stars!
The Highwire Daze Home Page: Return to the Main Page!

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