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Chasing Paper
Interview and photos by Dasha Matsuura.I had the chance to talk with David Silverman, Tim Graves, and Josh Cass of Chasing Paper at their downtown apartment about their upcoming show and recent progress. Would you like to introduce yourselves? Josh: I’m Josh and I play guitar and sing. What is the Chasing Paper general statement? Tim: Like our motto? |
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Josh: Also to own many elephants. That is our unique vision. We had to throw something weird in there.
What have you guys been up to in the last six months?
Tim: Well we changed out a band member, our drummer. Now we have a new one, Matt Ibarra. Who is a phenomenal drummer? He was in a band known as Cursor.
Dave: And Paradise Hills.
Tim: He has been very well known in the San Diego scene. It just didn’t work out with our old drummer. There were conflicting views on how to do business et cetera, et cetera. We have been working on new music, finally. Writing together as a band rather than Josh and I coming together with songs. We just signed to a label as well, Groove 33 Records. A guy named Jeff Sers is great and has been helping us develop and get a little bit better. We are hoping to do really good things with him.
On the note of development, where would you guys like to be in a year?
Dave: On the road.
Tim: We would like to have a full length out and we are working on that right now and we would also like to be on the road. We would like to be touring in support of the full length. Hopefully regionally and crossing our fingers for nationally, but we still have a lot of dues to pay.
Dave: [massive burp] Put that on there.
Do you have any commentary on the San Diego scene?
[all laugh]
Josh: What scene?
Tim: There is no scene. It is a dying or dead scene. It is very hard to be a band out here. Some people would say that the fans are apathetic because there is so much shit to do. Others would say that there aren’t enough all ages venues to play at to really develop a band. I think it is a combination of both. There is no camaraderie among bands or musicians coming together and wanting to work together. It is just a lot of competition and a lot of people trying to be hometown heroes. It is pretty lame.
Josh: With the exception of Dehra Dun.
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Of local San Diego bands who do you guys enjoy working and playing with? All: Dehra Dun. |
Tim: Get Back Loretta. You can’t go wrong with Get Back Loretta.
Musically, what do you guys listen to?
Tim: I’ve been listening to a lot of Martin Sexton and Death Cab for Cutie. I really enjoy me some Death Cab.
Dave: I’ve been listening to a lot of Ryan Adams. Probably too much Ryan Adams to the point where you just want to slit your wrists and Death from Above 1979.
Josh: I’ve been doing a good steady diet of Radiohead. Every now and then I just revert back to Radiohead. That’s kind of all I have really been wanting to listen to. Everything from Pablo Honey up to Hail the Thief. My band has really good taste in music so a lot of the Martin Sexton and Ryan Adams.
Tim: Panic! At the disco.
[all laugh]
Josh: And Motion City Soundtrack. We all listen to Motion City Soundtrack.
Dave: I love them.
Where do you draw songs from, lyrically?
Tim: A lot of it is from personal experience, but I’m trying to get more into the abstract and writing about things that aren’t going on in my life. And it is really hard to do because the subject matter that I really talk about usually touches me very deeply. I’m really trying to stay away from writing about girls because there are too many bands that do it and there are many bands out there that do it better than myself. But those are normally the songs that everybody likes.
Would you describe the lyrical process behind “Perfect”?
Tim: There was a girl that was twelve years old that did after school programs. She was one of the little girls that I use to work with. I use to work with kids. She wrote these amazing stories and she would always put her friends inside the stories and they were just beautiful stories; the way she would but the wording and dialogue, it would just flow and she has a lot of potential. But she got into these fashion magazines and she was kind of heavy set so she started trying to watch her weight and fix her hair. In my mind I flashed forward to where she would be in high school and the kind of torture she would be going through in that and all that bull shit that she has to go through. It hurt me so I kind of wrote it for her, even though she has probably never heard the song. I looked at it and thought about how much harder girls have than we do as far as trying to fit in.
Could you explain the alternate lyrics with the poems and such on the album version of the song? Tim: That was a beautiful time. Dave cried. |
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Tim: They are actually crying. That wasn’t like I have to hit you with needles or kick them a few times. They came in there with full emotion. I could not stay in that room it was so thick.
Dave: Walking out of that studio, I know none of those lyrics were about me, or to me or having to do with me or for me, and even knowing that it struck such a cord that I had to leave. I came outside and Tim and I kind of met eyes and we didn’t really have to say anything. We both knew what the other one did and I just kind of went over for a hug and I just started crying. It was so emotional
Tim: That song, I felt I could take it as far as a guy could go and that’s why we really wanted those girls to have their part in it and they nailed it, exactly what I wanted to feel. They brought it to life.
Nicknames amongst band members?
Tim: Josh is “let me tell you something about this guy.” He, uh, has huge feet and I think you can take that further. We don’t really have any names for Dave or myself.
Dave: When you start living with someone you just kind of forgo the whole nickname stage. Because you know when you don’t see someone for a long time and you do the, “Hey buckaroo?” I see these guys every single day, because we all live together. It’s always just kind of, “Well that’s Josh and that’s Tim.”
Tim: We call Dave Stach-atory behind his back.
Josh: But we do have a nickname for our apartment though, The Chasing Paper Treehouse. Sometimes we are called the Paper Boys.
Dave: A lot of people, when they are putting us into their phones they put in “Dave Paper.”
Seeing as you all live together, are there any notable stories after living with one another?
Tim: A lot of spooning. A lot of homosexual roughage.
Dave: I have the bleeding scabs to prove that Tim is pretty rough. I’m not joking.
Tim: Dave tried to spoon with me the other night.
Dave: I tried to spoon him, but he was already asleep and I wouldn’t let it up and he finally realized what I was doing so he punched me in the chest and it really was not a fun ordeal.
Tim: I was right in front of my sexuality and I was like I don’t think I could really do this so I reacted like any heterosexual man would in that situation and I punched him, but deep down inside it really touched me.
Josh: Sammy Jenkis, our manager.
Tim: It’s a rabbit, or well it use to be a rabbit.
Dave: He is a very frightening porcelain rabbit.
Tim: He is a medieval wooden rabbit. Where the hell did we get that?
Josh: Get Back Loretta.
Tim: Get Back Loretta had it for a while and we took it or they gave it to us, or something. He became our manager. In a tragic accident he lost his ears and eyes.
Dave: Because you knocked it off the weight bench.
Tim: After you put it there.
Dave: Regardless, he is wearing this really freaky, 18th century, velour, smoking jacket and he looks very dignified because he is standing upright like a person and has its hands articulating in this very Shakespearean fashion, but because of it’s face and the fact that it is a rabbit make it really scary.
Tim: We hide him all over the apartment and try to scare the shit out of each other.
Dave: It’s been in the shower, or you’ll find it in a bed sometimes.
Tim: Josh likes to turn off all the lights and put it right in front of the door so it is eye level when you open it.
Dave: That scared the crap out of me.
Tim: That scared the Jesus out of me. Jesus literally left me.
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Any stories playing together, living together, knowing each other. Dave: It has been great. |
Dave: Which shall remain nameless.
Shiner Like Diamonds. Don’t deny David.
Dave: Those were dark days.
Tim: He was amazing and when he first tried out, he could dance and that was all we really cared about at the time. We would like him to play bass more often but uh, you know. Danny, I met him at Domino’s Pizza, of all places. He is just a great guy and he can be funny when he needs to be and serious when it is time to be. Also there is Matt Ibarra. He is Catholic and Philippine, you can’t go wrong with that. And he plays drums. Matt is our newest addition and we are still trying to be friends with him, but he never calls us back. We sit by the phone a lot.
[Dave and Josh laughing]
Tim: What we can gather from him, he is an all right guy.
Dave: He is very laid back and it seems like it would take a lot to make him angry. He is very open to the music writing process. He always wants to contribute and bring different aspects into the band. He is very funny.
Memorable moments or shows on stage?
Tim: We only play once a month so every time it is thirty minutes where I realize why I’m working a bad job and making it from pay check to pay check and living out here in the first place. The thirty minutes where we get to play in front of our fans and watch them sing and watch them connect. We have not had a lot of 'holy crap that’s a horrible show.' Our fans show up and we connect. Soma, when we were main support for Pistolita, that was a fun show.
Dave: It was our CD release show.
Tim: There was just so much work going into that and just to see the kind of crowd. It was a wonderful night.
Dave: A memorable show for me was also a Soma show, for a benefit show. A benefit called Stand Up for Kids. Which is a great program for homeless children in San Diego County and the night before, and I completely blame this on my shoes and that the night before I ripped the pair of shoes that I’ve been playing in for the last five years. Every single show I had ever played was in those shoes. My stage shoes. They finally passed on the night before the show, so I had to play the show in a different pair of shoes. Despite the fact that I was playing with a wireless, which was brought up many times. I um, fell down. I fell down, on stage and it was very embarrassing. I think the worst part was when my mom called me the next day saying, “Sweetheart, I want to make sure you’re okay because sometimes you don’t feel those things until the next day.” It was very depressing. But it was a fun show.
Josh: Mine would have to be the first show we ever played as a full band. It was on my birthday last year, August 26th. It was our first show as a full band at Lestat’s. We packed the place, it was ridiculous.
Dave: Standing room only.
Josh: It was pretty amazing. We broke Jason Marz’s record that night which is really cool because we put a lot of work into that show. Me and Tim were acoustic for almost a year and we finally got a band together and it was kind of the sum of everything we had done before.
Tim: It was good to finally see all of that hard work come to that show.
Outside of the band, how long have you guys known each other?
Tim: I’ve known Josh since 2000. Six years now, and I use to be in a band called Silent Screams with him. Then I moved to Texas and we kept in touch and he was debating to move down to Texas to be in a band with me and I told him the weather here is bad, you don’t want to be here so we moved here. I’ve known Dave for two or three years now.
Dave: It’s been about a year and a half, two years. We’ve been a band for a year and before that when we rehearsed and rearranged the songs to be full band, that probably took a couple of months and I had known them for a couple of months before that. It’s been a while. Tim met Danny before we all knew Danny.
Josh: Danny for two years, Dave for a year and a half and I’ve known Matt since 2002. I’ve known him for a few years, since he was drumming for Happy Hour.
Dave: I’ve really only known Matt for a couple of months.
What do you want your fans to take away from every show?
Tim: I think the biggest mistake you can say is honest because I would hope that they just take away an experience. If somebody pays us eight bucks, ten bucks, however much to see us play then we had better give them an experience and give them the best that we’ve got. I think that is more important than any other image we could have. We really want them walking away thinking that it was worth their money.
Dave: I think one thing that Chasing Paper does that a lot of other bands don’t do is that other bands, especially new bands, and we’ve only been around for a year so I think we can kind of consider ourselves to be a new band, a lot of bands will bring their friends and expect to get fans leaving. Where as we will bring fans to the show and we want them leaving as friends. We try and get to know all of them and know their names and make friends out of fans.
Tim: It is easier to play in front of friends rather than fans.
Josh: We play dodge ball after shows.
Tim: We try to do an after show dodge ball game and we do finger paints and arts and crafts. Mainly noodles.
Dave: Elbow macaroni and glue.
Who is normally the one on the band Myspace?
Dave: That would be Tim.
Tim: That is actually just my Myspace and it just so happens that the rest of the band is on there. I love Myspace, I hate it and I love it at the same time. It is a horrible love affair.
Dave: We don’t have internet at the apartment so the rest of us can’t really go on.
Tim: My job permits me to be on Myspace for six to eight hours a day talking about my band and my bosses don’t care. Myspace can be as impersonal as a handshake or a “thanks for the add” or you can get really personal and try to connect with the people that are trying to connect with your music and who knows they might come out to a show, they might come see you play, they might buy a CD, who knows but at least you have some kind of connection and friendship there. I’ve been talking to people who haven’t been to a show ever and it has been two years since I’ve been on Myspace and they still keep saying they’ll make it out next time, but I don’t care it is just really great that our name gets out there and hopefully they will talk about us some more. It is great to be able to interact with our fan base.
Are there any particularly memorable fans for you?
Tim: There are plenty of them out there.
Josh: All the members of Dehra Dun.
Tim: Dehra Dun and their fans really connected with us well. There are people from Geoff or Patty McSlapnuts as we like to call him and Twan. There are people that started off as fans and became really close friends. The tag force, Danny and Jaime, who are really good friends of ours that really like our music and started connecting with the music. There are just so many.
Dave: I think that is a hard question because we try to get to know and be friends with so many of our fans.
Tim: I’m afraid to list off too many people and then somebody reading this and going, “What the hell, why wasn’t I in there?”
Any shows that turned into war stories?
Dave: When we drove out to Phoenix. We didn’t have a van and we thought it would be a fun idea to book a show in Phoenix, Arizona at a venue that has become but wasn’t then a reputable venue. It is called one place in Phoenix, Arizona. Like we said, we have a lot of friends that are fans of our music so we took four cars and convoyed into Phoenix, rolling deep, San Diego style. We pull up and we bring the most people to a show in Phoenix, with other Phoenix bands. We drove the most people out. It was still a little hard to take because it was only fifteen people or something like that. Since then the venue has become very reputable. It is a very intimate venue. It wouldn’t have been so bad if a lot of us didn’t have work the next day. We got in, played the show and packed up and came back. We were gone from San Diego for about 30 hours, of which we were not in a car for maybe two. It was hard. It was fun, but it was hard.
Any other places, other than San Diego that you like playing?
Dave: We played Fullerton.
Tim: Fullerton is really one of the only other places where we played and we did that acoustic. We haven’t been able to get out really, since gas prices have been kind of expensive. We don’t have a van yet. If anybody is willing to donate a van that would be sweet.
Dave: Jewish family services, all I have to do is go in there and say, “Yakhaaaaa, give me a van.”
Tim: He’s Jewish, give it to him.
Dave: We haven’t had a lot of experience outside of San Diego, but we are ready to leave. We are itching to leave.
What would you do if you knew the world was going to end?
Josh: Go to Bassam.
Dave: Go about my daily business, so um that would include going to Bassam. We’d like to do a plug for Bassam right now, maybe we’ll get free coffee for life. I don’t think it’ll work, we don’t have tits.
Josh: Speak for yourself.
Tim: Well played. I think I’m up to a B cup. I would probably try to screw anything that moves. You guys would probably have to try to sit as still as possible.
Dave: Oh man, so many phone calls to make. Call every single person I’ve had a beef with. Put out a bulletin that would be my formal apology to anyone who might not like me at that point.
Tim: I’d try to rob a bank.
Josh: I’ll be your driver. What would they do, send you to prison for a day.
Dave: Probably start a hardcore band. There is nothing more metal than starting a band on the Apocalypse. We’re the four horsemen and we are here to rock.
Josh: You would figure that band would last about that long anyways.
[Al laugh]
Tim: We’d do it acoustic.
Josh: Our final acousticore project.
Now that we are on the topic of acousticore, will you tell us a little about the song "Norma Jean?"
Dave: Tim named the song Norma Jean without knowing that it was a band and he threw a break down in there because the band is nothing but breakdowns.
Tim: There is a breakdown in the acoustic song Norma Jean. It is basically if I had a white trash lover who left me. It is half inspired by one of my brother’s wives.
Dave: Look up “fear of girls” on you tube and you will get half our jokes.
Outside of Bassam and the Chasing Paper Tree House, where is Chasing Paper normally?
Tim: Lestat’s or Rebecca’s.
Dave: Josh works at a reputable independent film chain. Tim works at a theatre. I’m at Crackatoa, which is within walking distance of our apartment.
Josh: Crackatoa, Gelato Vera, Lestat’s, Fight Club Denny’s and the Casbah.
Tim: A.K.A. the PB Denny’s.
Josh: Because there is punk rock Denny’s in east county and Baghdad Denny’s in Rancho San Diego and then Fight Club Denny’s in PB.
Josh, we can start with you, could you describe quirks and or embarrassing stories of your band mates?
Josh: Tim, well he sleeps on my couch. He has a sweet beard. There aren’t too many awkward things to say about Tim, that can be printed. Dave, with his molest-ache that is coming back with full force. Besides his insatiable desire to nail Heromione Granger, not the actual person but the fictitious character only written about in Harry Potter books. Danny really enjoys sweet titty action.
Dave: Tell that story!
Josh: Danny had never really had a girlfriend, and he was dating this girl and he came into practice one day with the biggest smile on his face that we had ever seen in our lives and we asked him what happened and quietly under his breath he said, “I got some sweet titty action.” So that is Danny.
Dave: Danny dumped her because she wouldn’t let him go to Phoenix for one day.
Tim: She went Yoko.
Josh: Then we got Matt, who is a delicious treat. He just makes really, really funny faces when he plays and I love them. You just have to see these faces for yourself.
Dave: I don’t really have a lot of bad stories, oh wait, yes I do. I’ve only made out with two men in my life, Isaac and my friend Dylon. This man Tim, I’ve done pretty much everything else with, with clothes on.
Tim: I’m working on that.
Dave: He’s a big guy and once he pins you down its pretty hard to get him off. Josh, I like to watch him sleep, because sometimes he passes gas and he snores. Danny and I got into a fight and hit each other over a jacket. That’s the end of the story, we love each other now but we got into a fight over a jacket. Matt, it was so embarrassing, it was at the scene with Copeland and the Early November were playing and I ran into Matt and I made an ass out of myself. I walked up to him and said, “I love My American Heart.”
[all laugh]
Dave: He just kind of looked at me and goes, “I’m not in that band.” I saw him play and I was kind of legitimized because he played with them for a show, but I felt like an ass because he was just filling in.
Josh: And by the way, see how much you snore when you smoke a pack a day for years, in my defense.
Tim: Well there is Dave, I actually saw him kill a drifter. Josh and I have had some great Brokeback Mountain experiences. One time when he wasn’t currently with his girlfriend and being the supportive friend that I am, I slept in the bed with him. And I’m not afraid to say that, I am comfortable enough with my own sexuality to say that I slept in bed with Josh. It’s a California king size bed, so there is enough space for both of our fat asses. I’m lying there getting ready to go to sleep and I feel this arm go over me and I think that’s cool, he’s just trying to keep me warm. Then he just snuggles up next to me and starts spooning me. This doesn’t happen once, it happens two or three times throughout the night. And every time it happens I’m like Josh and he wakes up all like, what, oh sorry dude. He had the balls to tell me he thought I was his girlfriend. I’m like twice the size of this girl. I think that was probably the most uncomfortable spot I’ve been in with Josh. Dave is starting to wear underwear and it is really starting to annoy me. He’s not wearing the like I’m a man boxers, he is wearing these…
Dave: Panties that men wear.
Tim: Briefs, but they aren’t white they are like lime green, hot pink, sea foam green and he comes out and he looks like Helen Hunt with a tan. He looks like a perky girl coming out of the bathroom. He’s got some junk, but still.
Dave: It is really hot in the apartment, that’s how I sleep.
Tim: And go out and eat breakfast and walk around the apartment. I’m not feeling it and it is going to reduce his sperm count. I’m very nervous about that.
Dave: Did you know you could make a few thousand dollars selling a testicle?
Tim: You keep wearing those pants and you won’t need them anymore. So yeah, that has probably been the newest awkward addition.
What do you guys have coming up soon?
Dave: We normally try to play a show a month. We don’t like to play too much, because in San Diego that kills your draw. You start playing more and your fans start thinking, well I can see them next time they play. It will kill your draw. All ages venues don’t like you playing too often because if your draw diminishes they don’t want you coming back. So we only try to play about a show a month. Because of our line up change, we have taken some time off to rearrange a lot of songs that our fans are familiar with to get our new drummer accustomed to them and to let him put his own spin on things. So we’ve taken some time off and it has been about six weeks since we last played and we still got another four to go, and we are really itching and going insane. We love to play, we love to be on the stage, it’s what we do. Honestly, it is probably some of the best times of my life, when I’m on stage or practicing. We are going insane. But we have a show on September 30th at Lestat’s. Which is in Normal Heights on Adam’s Avenue. We are playing with Radio Diary, The Make Believe and it is going to be a blast. It is our one year anniversary.
Tim: It’s our one year in retrospect.
Dave: Our first show ever was at Lestat’s so a year later it feels right that we go back to see what we can do with this place now. I think it’ll be a lot of fun. We are all itching to play. We are dying to be on stage and I think it’ll show.
What was the inspiration behind the name, Chasing Paper?
Tim: The short version of it is my dad told me to go to college and he always said, “It’s all about getting that piece of paper and that money will always chase after you.” So I did what any natural musician would do, quite college and moved out to California, which has never been done either. I don’t think anyone has ever quite college and moved to California, to make it in the music industry and I’m the first. So I met up with Josh and we were trying to think of something that would be tongue in check with corporations and we wanted to do “the Paper Chase,” but apparently some bastards in New York have that, and if they have a good draw we’re really sorry about calling them bastards. So we flipped it around, so we are Chasing Paper, we are in action. We are more of a verb than a noun.
Dave: Some people tell us that it is a Beatles reference, but that is not why we picked it.
mp3s: http://www.myspace.com/chasingpaper
Check out Chasing Paper with Radio Diary and the Make Believe on Saturday, September 30th at Lestat's in Normal Heights!
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