10 questions with Jason Kutchma of Red Collar
By Scotty “I need a watch that tells West Coast time” Sandwich
There have only been a handful of bands who completely changed the way I thought about music the first time I saw them play live. AVAIL, Hot Water Music, Jawbreaker, and now Red Collar. They are a band who make you think, who make you dance, who make you hope, and who make you scream along. I recently sent singer Jason Kutchma some questions in the midst of them recording their follow up to 2009′s “Pilgrim”.
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In 2009 Red Collar took North Carolina by storm, releasing your “Pilgrim” Album. Since then you’ve toured all over the East Coast, South and the Midwest, got voted best band in the Triangle music scene, continued to destroy stages, leave crowds awe inspired and destroyed a few microphone stands in the process. What is Red Collar up to these days?
2009 was one hell of a year for us. We experienced the semi-usual growing pains that people go through when they take the organic approach with having a rock band. 2010 is a year in which we’re all settling a bit, collecting ourselves and screwing our heads back on. We’ve spent most of the year writing a new album. It takes me a while to figure out what I want to talk about lyrically and everyone likes to try the songs out live as much as possible to see how they feel. In the past couple of months we’ve started recording. It’s been a good process so far. Everyone’s really excited about it.
There’s other non-band things going on. Mike became a father recently. Beth is working on a documentary about a non-profit called Carolina for Kibera based in Africa. Jon is getting married. I’ve been doing a lot of solo shows. It’s been good. We are all dealing with personal or family things that remind you that there’s a whole other vastly important side of life outside of what happens in a touring van or on a stage.
Recently there have been talks of putting up “Pilgrim” for donation based download. How do you perceive the future of music distribution for up and coming bands?
Was it Mike Watt that said the album is the best flyer for a show? If that’s the case then download away. I’d rather someone get the album for free and then come to see us live than dicker over a few bucks for a CD. I’d like to point out that for all the shows we’ve played, I don’t think anyone ever said to me “I came to see you guys because I downloaded ‘Pilgrim’ for free”. I guess at this point, we make music for hearing not for earning. I’d rather have our music in someone’s ears than not. If you hate it and never listen to it again. No problem. No harm. No foul. If you like a song from a band then it’d be great if you paid a band what you paid for that Snickers bar you just bought. Or what you pay for half a day for Cable TV or cell phone service. Or the cost of 1/3 a gallon of gasoline. Or a bean burrito. Or a can of PBR. If you really connect with a song, one song, it’s worth at least the cost of these things. Try not to forget that. If you love it, buy the vinyl. Or even better; come see a show. Regarding the future of music labels, I think they will still be around. People like labels because most (not all) people don’t want to dig and discover. They want to be told. They trust other people’s opinions. They trust blogs. They trust labels. They trust people that have sorted through all the crap out there and put a stamp of approval on something. I think that’s the true value of labels.
You are going to be making your first appearance at FEST this year, how did that come about?
We have been playing Wilmington, NC for a few years. Chason Huggins, the person who usually brought punk bands through Wilmington, curated and implemented his own version of The Fest (dubbed Radfest) in Wilmington in April of 2010 and invited us to play. Chason is one of the finest folks I’ve ever had the chance to work with. We were lucky, because Tony from No Idea records was in the audience for the show and later invited us to come down to Gainesville. We’re really thrilled about it. None of us have ever gone but we know a ton of people who have and they rave about it.
The lyrics on “Pilgrim” has really spoke to a lot of people. What authors and song-writers do you get inspiration from? 
I like lyricists and poets that tell a story…whether or not there’s an ‘issue’ at the heart of it is not required but it’s sometimes nice. I’m also a fan of short stories. I like Flannery O’Connor. I also like Cormac McCarthy. I think Tom Waits writes good lyrics. I’ve heard little that equal the song-writing craft on some of John Frusciante’s solo albums. Inspiration is a strange thing. I guess I think of this question in terms of influence rather than inspiration but it’s an important distinction for me to make to you and probably to myself. This may change as I get older but one thing that is very important to me is that I try not draw a lot of direct inspiration from other art. Once you do that, then it can tend to be a snake eating its own tail. I try and get inspired for lyrics from witness/experience (my own, a friend, a newspaper story). Other people’s art helps me to act upon the inspiration and also influences what I do with an inspired moment. But the first stop is always trying to keep my eyes and ears (and though it sounds corny…my heart) open to stories that I find interesting and may hit me in a particular emotional way rather than reading a bunch of books or watching a bunch of movies or listening to a bunch of music. In fact, I’m particularly bad at doing all that stuff. I don’t want to appear as if I think this uncommon, like I’m some ‘special’ instance. I don’t think I am. Let me try and explain this a little better. I think at this point in my life, it’s healthy for me to use other’s art as an indirect inspiration: a style, a scene, maybe a ‘feel’, a phrase. Indirect inspiration is very, very important but it’s not the spark, it’s the fuse. I don’t finish reading a Jack Kerouac story and start writing a song about it. The spark tends to be the ten-year old kid with the bandaged knee I see squirming at the counter at the Waffle House with holes in the bottom of his book bag and left shoe. The years of listening to Dylan songs and Dischord bands, watching Sydney Lumet films, and reading Raymond Carver stories dictate how quickly and brightly the fuse burns, whether it smells and whether it smokes and whether it sizzles. Every lyricist and artist burns their dynamite differently for these reasons.
Do you want to explain to the world about the “Mustaine”?
Not yet. People will think I’m a lush.
You have posted some of my favorite blogs about being in a touring band, do you plan on continuing the story at anytime?
Thank you for the compliment. I’ve tried several times to continue the story. It’s been over a year since my last one. One reason that I don’t think I’ve written one is because last year was the toughest year in the life of this band. I think everyone in Red Collar would agree. Can I possibly describe last year? Can I do it justice? I don’t know. What is the need? Is it just entertainment? Some people have told me that it was important for them to read my blogs because they felt ‘Well at least I’m not the only person having a tough time at this rock and roll shit’. Subsequently I found that when I wrote those stories, I didn’t have anything to talk about with my friends when I’d see them: ‘Hey J! Good to see you! I’ve been reading your blogs! Wow…pretty crazy. So anything else going on? No? Okay well take it easy. Nice talking with you’. Pretty soon, people start defining you by these very particular instances that you choose to write about. You become this kind of character. It’s strange.
We had an incident…several incidents really…occur last year that were really tragic. Scary. Stupid. Horrible. Frustrating. It was a very confusing time for everyone in the band and it wasn’t appropriate for me to write about it at the time and I’ve questioned whether it ever will be. But if I can’t tell those incidents (ones that other bands surely experience), then why tell anything? I don’t know. I wish I did. I think about this: don’t we as musicians already give enough of ourselves on a stage, on a record, in a song and now I feel like I should give more in a blog? I don’t know. I just don’t know. These are things I’ve thought about. Am I writing just to write? To make me feel better? It seems that what happened to us last year was so devastating and personal that maybe I shouldn’t write about it for the world to read. Then again we had some triumphs too and again there are touring bands who have told me just how much those stories meant to them and maybe the journey of Red Collar would’ve been easier if I was reading someone else’s blog. Then again maybe I would’ve been happy reading about being in a band rather than starting one. Then again, I think too much about this shit. I’m looking for the desire within me to do it. I just don’t want to write them for the hell of it. And of course everyone in the band has to be comfortable with this story being told. We’ll see.
if you could ever do a split 7″ with another band where you would cover each other songs, what band would it be and why?
Titus Andronicus. I like that they’ve taken the same general kinda of roots that we have and have made it much more grand. That’s a guy that can tell a good story. Mike saw them years ago when they came through town and told everyone in the band about them. He was really blown away. That must’ve been four years ago. I’d have to take artistic liberty and change ‘Mahwah’ to ‘Durham’ or ‘Hayti’ I guess.
“Pilgrim” ended up on a bunch of end of year lists in 2009, was that something you guys expected at all?
No, we didn’t. We’re really flattered that it connected with so many folks. We tried to approach the band as organically as possible and not force too much…well, except when it came to touring like hell to promote it. What can I say? We really believed in it, enough that Jon and I quit our pretty nice, cushy jobs at UNC when the economy was taking a dive and unemployment was starting to go up. We had no idea if and how people would receive the album but in all honesty, we’re just thankful it got heard to any extent at all. I tried writing about working in America and what that means. I don’t know how many teenagers connected to it. It’d be great if they did. One of our problems with that album is that the people who I’m writing about or for (and surely without Red Collar I would be one of them) aren’t exactly listening to punk or rock anymore. They’re mid-30′s. Cubicle Job. Married. Maybe with a kid. Pretty much quit listening to music when Kurt Cubain decided to stop breathing. They buy albums at the counter at Starbucks. They like wine and cheese parties where the wine and cheese aren’t even that great…it’s only what they can afford. They should stop. If your older brother or sister fits this description, provide them with an intervention. Take away the wine and cheese. No more Starbucks. Tell your younger brother or sister never to be like this. Tell both of them all to download the album for free. If they don’t like it, I’ll personally give them a refund.
Durham seems to have one of the most supportive music scene’s in any city I have ever lived in, where do you see the Durham scene over the next few years?
It would be great if there’s all ages venue that kids connect to. We have a great skate park that just opened and I would hope that there’s a music place for them to go. A lot of people were into the college indie rock of the Superchunk/Archers/Polvo era or Ben Folds or Whiskeytown. It would be nice to have another wave of that around here to encourage more people to come out. Those caliber bands are currently playing out here, it’s just…it seems silly to say this but people have to be told by a national magazine that the local scene is great. I don’t get it. It doesn’t matter how much your local or regional rag says something is great, it’s not legit until The New York Fucking Times says it is. Currently, the ratio of bands to fans is way, way out of whack and the wonderful fans that do come out for the locals have lots to choose from on any given night so it’s really spread out. The best thing about this area is there’s no one sound. People kinda sound like one another and they kinda fit but I wouldn’t say that there is a ‘sound’. There’s been so many splinters of genres that have come from Superchunk, Polvo, Whiskeytown and hell Corrosion of Conformity that there’s no one sound. I think it’s extraordinarily healthy. It’s a good place for touring. It’s a great place to move to if you want to make it out…does that make sense? The Northeast isn’t far away and neither is the Deep South or the Heartland. A lot of bands from the area are touring by the seat of their pants and I think it’s going well for them. Well, as ‘well’ as one can expect.
Any final thoughts/comments/plugs?
Fuck man, good questions.
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