“I seem to remember a time when looking out the window at the future was not a crime…”

 

What’s more mind-blowing? That such a gently poetic line eventually leads to the not-so-poetic proclamation “your shit still makes me sick”? That the song’s hard rock riffs give way to a lengthy scat workout from the lead singer? That the song’s title is merely the word “The”? Or that a crime motif is the basis for a song by a band whose name sounds like…a crime? Whatever your answer, one thing is certain: if you’re looking for the next standard-issue modern rock band, don’t look at Stillicide.

 

Sure, Philadelphia-based quintet sounds like a radio-friendly mainstream rock outfit at first listen, but listen again and you’ll notice an unusual level of diversity within that radio-friendly context, from the funky “Chamomile” to the jazzy “Three Little Words” and the Latin/Caribbean-drenched “Play On.” And while the band’s sound is thoroughly contemporary, the pairing of Clint Davis’ unapologetically theatrical vocals with the twin guitar attack of Chris Lee and Eric Schraedley calls to mind some of the most thrilling moments of ‘70s rock. In addition, there’s a subtle sense of mystery to Stillicide’s lyrics and song titles. What exactly is “unfortunality” (from “Golden Discipline”) or “smoked conversation” (from “Three Little Words”)? And while the “don’t dress like a whore and expect me not to get aroused” storyline of “HF” is familiar, what does the title mean? I don’t want to know; in my mind it means “Holy fuck!” and I don’t wish to have that illusion shattered.

 

The guys host local rock showcases in conjunction with WMMR deejay Jaxon [sic!], whose own local rock showcases alternate with Stillicide’s. These rock-‘til-you-drop extravaganzas bring all sorts of music lovers, party animals, and industry types to Philly’s ascendant Dr. Watson’s Pub every Tuesday night. On July 22^nd, I caught up with Clint, C Lee, and (when we could find him) Eric at Doc’s. In what turned out to be the least formal interview I’ve ever conducted, Stillicide’s core members shared some stories, humor, and strong opinions, the most intriguing of which are reproduced below.

 

 

SJ: Now, something I’ve noticed about you guys is that your music encompasses a lot of different styles, a lot of different influences. Is that something you guys deliberately set out to do or does it just happen that way?

 

Clint: Absolutely. We love the fact that we’re influenced by so many different types of music. We try to incorporate that as much as we can, and we used to incorporate it too much to the point when we tried to just incorporate so many different styles and then mix ‘em all together, sort of, and then screw with people’s minds. [SJ laughs] And not make it catchy. And then we went to Hawaii, and when we went to Hawaii, it kinda taught us to dumb everything down, sort of. And try to make everything more melodic-

 

C Lee: Poppy.

 

Clint: -and poppy. And more ear-friendly, if you will.

 

SJ: Why did Hawaii teach you that, of all places?

 

Clint: Well, we went to Hawaii for three months, we were able to live there, thank God, for free. It was the best experience ever, and there we kinda just took it as, “We’re gonna learn simple music.”

 

C Lee: We thought we were the shit. And then we had a CD release [that] took us out there, our first full-length album called A Throwaway Work of Art, which is what it ended up being. [SJ laughs heartily] And we got the CD sent out to us, we thought it was the shit, we handed it out to everyone and everyone just kinda spat at it, and told us that they didn’t get it, [it was] confusing, they liked some parts, they didn’t like others. We were like, “Well, what do you listen to?” And they were like [sings and beats on the table with Clint], “Uh doo doo doo ba doo ba doo ba boom ba bah bah ooh ooh bah bah ooh ooh bah bah.” And we were like, “Oh. Alright, we could fuckin’ do that!”

 

[everyone laughs]

 

Clint: So we started to try to, I don’t know, incorporate simpler stuff.

 

C Lee: Best of both worlds.

 

Clint: Yeah, yeah, basically.

 

C Lee: But we like a lot of music, so we still like to play everything.

 

SJ: Alright. I’m just gonna quote a few lyrics from a few songs-

 

Clint: Alright. [laughs]

 

C Lee: Here we go…

 

SJ: -and just get some insight into what went into these lines. So, from “HF” [Clint laughs], the line “Asphyxiation [Clint laughs] would make all of this real.” Now, where is THAT comin’ from?

 

Clint: Ummm…

 

C Lee: Can I take this one?

 

Clint: Yeah! [laughs] You can take this one! [sees Eric] Eric! Eric!!!

 

C Lee: A quick preface, I guess…it was kind of inspired by [Stone Temple Pilots’ “Sex Type Thing”]. We just wanted to write a really dark song, and that’s what we did. I don’t think there’s much literal meaning behind any of the lyrics.

 

Clint: Basically, the “asphyxiation” line I kinda took from a little bit of personal experience, shall I say…we’ll leave it at that.

 

C Lee: Ironyyyyyy!

 

SJ: Ooooo-kay!

 

[Clint laughs]

 

C Lee: But that question just came up—

 

Clint: I know! [laughs]

 

C Lee: And then…

 

Eric: Clint’s wanted for second-degree murder, I’m pretty sure.

 

[Clint laughs]

 

SJ: Alright, moving right along! Alright, from “Golden Discipline”-

 

C Lee: But she was 18.

 

[Clint and SJ laugh]

 

Clint: I swear!

 

C Lee: Totally.

 

SJ: From “Golden Discipline,” and actually, we’ve talked about this line before where you say, “With my hands raised to the heavens, I let your God bleed all over me.” [the guys laugh]

 

Clint: Well, that was about one of my ex-girlfriends, that song. And I made a mistake by—well, first I was with her, everything was good. I decided that she was not the one, then came back to her. And I always end up making the same mistakes over and over again, and it’s basically me just being like, “Why, God, do I do this all the time?” Raising my fists in the air like, “WHY?” as, I guess your God, whosever God you wanna think about is raining his, his…divine power over me, his…

 

Eric: His manly seed.

 

Clint: His manly seed—no, not manly seed!

 

[Eric laughs]

 

C Lee: I thought that song was about puppies! [everyone else laughs]

 

Clint: It’s definitely NOT about puppies!

 

C Lee: I’m learning a lot about this band! [everyone else laughs]

 

SJ: You guys have been through some personnel changes, and you guys remain the core of you three, but how has the band adapted to these personnel changes?

 

Eric: Well, I think we got a little bit groovier. I mean, we still have a lot of rock influence, and we still have a lot of parts in every song where we rock ‘n’ roll, but I think with these changes, we’ve tried to bring it back to the basics a little bit. We’ve tried to bring it back to less of progressive rock, more of: you wanna get people dancin’. So, little bit of grooviness, and the changes kinda have helped that. The drummer [Matt Orlando] is a hard-hitter, but he stays in the pocket, and the bass player [Brad Stanton], he just plays the right notes, he plays the notes that you wanna hear and he plays nice.

 

Clint: He plays what’s appropriate. And it’s perfect.

 

SJ: Alright. Now, you guys are of course hosting these rock bazaars, and you’ve been doing that since you did it at Grape Street, and then of course the Grape Street closed, and now Doc’s has taken you guys in. I wonder if you guys could just talk a little bit about these rock bazaars, what they mean to you guys, and how it all came about.

 

Clint: Wanna take that one there, C Lee?

 

C Lee: Yeah. I mean we came into Philly, we just kind of realized that we weren’t gonna make a name for ourselves just showin’ up to shows and then leavin’ right after our set was done. We wanted to hang out and meet and network, and we started meetin’ a lot of cool bands. One of the bands we met was Fat City Reprise, and they were doin’ the Tuesday nights at Grape Street at the time, and it was just a really awesome scene. And it really opened our eyes, like, “Wow, a band can do this every week, have a cool place to go, and it’s a cool hangout.” And they ended up havin’ to go on tour and spread out, as we plan to do soon, and this is kinda the way of things, they asked us if we would be willing to step in and take over, and we were kinda honored. You know, it’s nice to keep a night alive like on Tuesday night […] to help other bands, network and meet with other bands and give other bands a chance to just show off to a different crowd maybe they wouldn’t usually get on Tuesday night. And then we were homeless for a while when Grape Street shut down, and then Doc’s was gracious enough to offer us third floor for the ‘MMR night, which was kind of a perfect situation—

 

Clint: Yeah, thank you, ‘MMR and Jaxon and Double V Bookings and Doc Watson’s.

 

C Lee: A big thanks to all of our fans for coming out every week, really.

 

SJ: Alright! What are you guys’ perspectives on the Philly music scene?

 

Clint: Hmmm, good question…

 

Eric: It’s versatile. The Philly music scene is really, really versatile, and it’s gonna take one or two bands to blow up and make people recognize what Philly music’s all about. As soon as that happens, I expect big things. I expect big things. I meet bands every day that impress me. Every day! Every day, I meet bands that impress me. And it’s really nice to just play so many styles of music, there’s a lot of people that are really into a lot of styles of music and they all listen. And it’s a great thing.

 

C Lee: It would be nice if there were more venues that stuck behind the—

 

Clint: Yeah, venues close, open, close, open all the time.

 

C Lee: It’s hard to build a scene because you really build a scene around the personnel of the venue and the bands involved, and the scene of where it is […] It’s hard for a band to bounce around all over the place and keep the flow going.

 

SJ: I mean, I think you guys are at the forefront of helping to build up and unite the scene with your rock bazaars.

 

Clint: We try to.

 

SJ: And I think that Jaxon’s doing a lot as well, of course.

 

Clint: He is.

 

SJ: There are certain people who are doing that, and it’s nice to see.

 

C Lee: You give what you get. You get what you give.

 

Clint: Yeah, pretty much. You really gotta work your ass off to get noticed ‘cause there are so many bands in the scene. And so many GOOD bands, too, that are in the scene, you gotta really make yourself known, go out all the time to all these different venues. That’s how we started, we were just some band that just ended up coming into the scene, and we just started trying to meet as many people as possible, be friendly with as many people as possible, and then from there it’s all about connections, it’s all about who you know at that point. And then you start playing bigger shows by knowing these people, getting your name out there by knowing these people—pretty much, you just gotta go out and support, if you’re a band that’s trying to make it, go out and support and just meet more people, and just be friendly, that’s the number one right there.

 

Eric: This scene and this industry is based on friends, and it’s not based on enemies. It’s based on friends.

 

SJ: No doubt about that, yeah. Alright, so what’s next for you guys?

 

Clint: Well, we’re recording a—well, we actually just finished recording a three-song demo, I guess that’s what’s next. I think we’re looking for a record release in September, I believe?

 

C Lee: October, probably. September, October.

 

Clint: Maybe October, something like that. […] Pretty much we’re trying to get that out there and then take ourselves to the next level ‘cause we’ve been at this level now, which isn’t bad. We’re kinda just on a plateau, we need to step it up again—

 

C Lee: Expanding, different cities.

 

Clint: Expand [to] different cities, get our name out there more. I guess what I wanna do with it is what we’ve always wanted to do with every single one of our other albums, which is: give it to as many people as possible, put it in press kits, and blah blah blah, but this time we REALLY have to do it [laughs] and really strap down and actually send it to mad people.

 

SJ: Do you guys wanna remain independent or are you thinking about singing to a label?

 

C Lee: I don’t know that labels really honestly genuinely sign bands anymore? I think they sign songs, I think they produce songs, I think they put bands together and produce bands, but I don’t think there’s—there’s not that 1980’s, 1990’s rockstar-

 

Clint: Not anymore!

 

C Lee: -that if you get a major label deal, you’re set for life, you know, the music industry’s changed so much. It’s more about, uh, getting-

 

Clint: Getting it on, like, a video game-

 

C Lee: Video game, movie, television show. You get royalties that way.

 

Clint: It’s all about one song now. It’s doesn’t matter, like the art of the album is leaving. The art of the album is going downhill with the whole, like, selling on the internet and on mp3s and everything. So the whole album thing is kind of a dying art. So what I feel like the next step is getting that one song out there that just gets the name out there and everybody loves; that’s why we say video games and shows, movies, compilations, what have you. Whatever you can get that one song on is the way to get known nowadays.

 

C Lee: McDonald’s commercials—

 

Clint: McDonald’s commercials, yeah yeah yeah!

 

SJ: It’s kind of going back to the way things were before the late ‘60s, you know, when the singles really dominated the market.

 

C Lee: Yeah.

 

Clint: You’re absolutely right!

 

SJ: And the albums were just a way to capitalize on hit singles.

 

Clint: You’re right. I’m not even sure if you can capitalize on [singles] anymore, though.

 

C Lee: Yeah. You do not need to buy the cow anymore if you can just get the milk.

 

Clint: That’s right!

 

Eric: It’s a digital distribution age at this point. I feel like a lot of people are going to download the one or two songs they like off your album on mp3 and that’s the way it is. But as long as, you know, six million people like that song, I think you’re okay! [everyone else laughs] We’re just lookin’ for that song, you know, we’re writin’, we’re doin’ our thing, and this new three-song, hopefully one of those songs is the song that’ll bring Stillicide to the top.

 

C Lee: Or at least to a financier!

 

[everyone laughs and agrees]

 

SJ: Any other comments you guys wanna make before we end this thing?

 

Eric: Big ups to Jaxon and WMMR. That’s all I got.

 

Clint: And big ups to anybody who supports local music. That’s pretty much all it’s about is people who support the music. There’s nobody else to really thank other than that.

 

“Big ups” to Clint, C Lee, and Eric for the interview, and special thanks to the Doc Watson’s waitress who didn’t realize we were doing an interview and unwittingly interrupted us. We all had a good laugh at that.

For music and more info: http://www.myspace.com/stillicide