We caught up with Brian from Weatherbox for a quick follow-up interview to the band's recent CD review.
(Interview via e-mail, April 2007, Matt Fradkin)

San Diego Punk: How do you feel about the way "American Art" came out?  What do you see as the highlights and is there anything you might like to go back and tweak?

Brian (Weatherbox): I love it, but it's very tied into the people who I was playing with, most of whom ditched my ass, so I kind of wish the new members had recorded it.  But the sound is perfect to me, even though it was kind of rushed.  The highlights are “Tripping the Life Fantastic” and “The Clearing,”
for completely different reasons that are pretty much unexplainable!

Why did you call this album "American Art"?  Do you think this type of music is truly American, like Jazz sort of is?

I named this album American Art to further my ideology which is called Native American Communism, it involves every one in the United States being shipped in a box back to their home country and then the Native Americans will rule our former nation with an iron, communist grip, all thirteen of them.

How would you describe the album, and what type of music fans do you think it appeals best to?

I think it is an exploration in the most over-the-top sense of the word; I was literally exploring my own consciousness during the writing of these songs, finding things I liked and hated in my own brain.  I think it will appeal to music fans who are very wrapped up in the lyrics they read, that's who I wrote it for I suppose, but I also think it is a pop album so hopefully it’s not too dense for the average music listener.

What was the recording process like?

Very strange, we recorded the first six songs in spring 2005, which was two years ago and the rest in twelve days in summer 2006 at Love Juice Labs, which isn't exactly the raddest studio in the world for a band like us.  But it was probably the cheapest album ever to be released on a record label, I think it cost Doghouse a little less than $2000 which left a large amount of money to be used on the video we just finished production on, which is for “Armed to the Teeth!”

The structure of this album is different from some of your earlier tracks.  Kind of like how all the other Doghouse records bands; they all seem to make sudden drastic changes before releasing their first Doghouse album and just emerge amazing songwriters.  Is this due to being around the Doghouse crew, or did you have most of these tracks written before you were signed and went into the studio?

The demo tracks of our first six songs are the same tracks that appear on the record, except for a few extra vocals and complete remixing, do they seem drastically different?  The first six songs were pretty straightforward and we switched to a five piece and the song-writing process became a lot more free, which I guess leads to these drastic changes,  all the songs were written before we signed to Doghouse.

Being from San Diego, it seems that you guys rose to the top rather quickly, and before the rest of us knew it you were signed to one of the best indie labels on the planet.  What do you attribute your rapid success to?

The amazing people at Doghouse, which is a shining bastion of hope in the darkest of pitch-black times

How did Doghouse approach you about signing?

Doghouse was the first label to ever approach us which must have been about two years ago. We were involved with Crush Management out of New York, who were trying to get us some kind of huge deal that never existed. So Doghouse has always been a part of Weatherbox in a way because I've always talked to Dave Conway who is our A&R dude. As far as their influence on our music, they signed Say Anything and without that band, I wouldn't be writing the music that I write.

More info on Weatherbox:
www.theamericanartalbum.com
www.myspace.com/weatherbox

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