Limbeck is definitely one of KSDT's favorite bands. They are the nicest guys you'll ever meet, and more than willing to do anything for our station, including KSDT sponsered che shows, in-station live performances, and this interview. Lee Meredith went to their show at Chain Reaction on September 12th to take some pictures of this hot band and talk after their set about touring misadventures, breaking federal laws, getting high on artwork, and other crazy stuff.

KSDT: First of all, who are the members, where did you meet, when did you meet and first form?
Robb MacLean: The members are Matt Stephens...
Matt Stephens (enters): I got totally dissed, I didn't even know the interview was going on.
Robb: Matt Stephens, who just came. Alright, let's start over. The members are Matt Stephens... What do I have to say about each member?
Patrick Carrie: Where we met. Me and Robb went to high school together. I'm Patrick; I play guitar. And Justin's over there. Me and Robb went to high school together, and then Justin and Matt went to high school together.
Robb: Two different towns, mind you.
Patrick: Yeah, two different towns.
Matt: And Matt worked with Robb.
Patrick: Then, Matt and Robb met.
Robb: Cause we worked at the same job, no comment about the job. And so the two groups were connected. And that's how we came together. It's been a long hall, but we're pulling our rig into this nice little truck stop, you know, where they have labels that you can talk to. We're gonna get like the super big gulp of labels.
Matt: Robb went off on a tangent and lost me.

KSDT: How long ago was this when you first started playing together?
Robb: Almost three years.
Patrick: A little bit over three years.
Robb: Over three years? Are you serious? It was in October, so does that mean it was four years? Or almost three years?
Patrick: I don't know dude.
Robb: Let's go with three.
Patrick: Let's go with three.
Matt: Let's go with three.

KSDT: It seems like you guys tour a lot, how many US tours have you been on, and what were your favorite places to play in?
Robb: Well, we've done like three US tours, but we do a lot of weekend and week-long stuff. We always seem to love Utah. Utah's really good to us. The people there are nice.
Matt: We had a very nice experience in Las Vegas this summer.
Robb: Yeah, Las Vegas was cool last time.
Patrick: I think probably one of the coolest shows we've ever had, I thought, was we played a place called Emo's in Austin, Texas with Ultimate Fakebook and this band called Shatzi...
Robb: No relation to emo the genre of music, it's just been named that for years.
Patrick: It's a really good venue. But, it was Friday the 13th...
Matt: And a guy got murdered out front. We were stuck in the venue, and they wouldn't let us out cause it was a crime scene.
Patrick: This is our two year anniversary of playing with them on Friday the 13th, tomorrow.
Robb: In Los Gatos, California. Hopefully none of those things happen again.
Matt: We might be alright, considering it's Los Gatos...
Robb: The kitties. The nicest place on earth, for shows, nice kids.
Matt: Good times, good friends.

KSDT: What's the hardest part about touring?
Patrick: Money.
Robb: Money, coming back to pay the rent when you get back. Paying rent and bills when you get back is the hardest thing.
Patrick: Everything else is cool, cause we don't care...
Matt: Justin snores sometimes in the van, but that's it.
Patrick: Everything else is cool. Even the hard parts of touring are fun. Like long drives. Fun.
Matt: Fun. Good times.
Robb: Driving over night. Fun. Not having a place to stay. Not as fun.
Patrick: Not as fun. Sleeping on someone's really hardwood floor. Fun.
Robb: Fun. Great Fun. Meeting people.
Patrick: Eating twenty snow cones a day in a girl's house in Florida. Fun.
Matt: Swimming in the ocean when it's ninety degrees out, the water is ninety degrees. Fun.
Robb: The Gulf Of Mexico. Fuuun. Meeting cats at hotels. Fuuun.
Patrick: Fuuun.
Matt: Very cool cats.
Robb: And not just like cats as in cool people.
Patrick: Actually, literally cats.
Robb: Letting cats come in to our hotel room and like meow. Fuuun.
Patrick and Matt: Fuuun.
Justin (enters): Dopey, right?

KSDT: Do you have any good tour stories?
Patrick: Oh, have we got good tour stories?
Robb: OK, which one do we want to go with?
Patrick: Justin winning a hundred bucks is pretty crazy.
Robb: But that's not like a big story. All there is to it is like he won, big time, in Vegas. We usually lose. We have a new song that says Justin's always losing in the chorus, we've gotta change it. I was gonna say, maybe we should give her the option. What do you want to hear? The one about breaking into a post office; the one about breaking into a hotel to swim in their pool at night, instead of taking showers; seeing a store get robbed...
Patrick: and kids get hit with bats, and then guys get hit with bats...
Robb: and a guy come out with a gun, and he looks like the crow.
Matt: That's a good story.
Patrick: I think we pretty much said the whole thing.
Robb: Yeah, that is the whole thing. What else is there? So many good stories.
Justin: The ambulance getting hit...
Robb: Oh, we saw an ambulance get hit in Washington DC. That's kind of ironic.
Justin: Our trailer, our trailer fell off.
Patrick: We almost got killed by our trailer.
Robb: We almost died. Cause the chain was still on, so it was bouncing all around. I guess we're not giving you options anymore, we're just telling you stories.
Matt: There's a snow cone shop in the middle of a parking lot in Utah.
Robb: A lot of em, a lot of snow cone places in Utah.
Patrick: Utah is famous for their snow cones.
Justin: But I guess if you're in Utah that's pretty crazy. They're pretty conservative.
Matt: Pat went hang gliding with his guitar once, and landed on the stage and started playing.
Justin: No he didn't.
Patrick: Yeah, OK, that's good.
Robb: That's good, we said enough.
KSDT: You could go further into the post office one.
Partick: OK, post office one. Well, we were in Texas, and we were staying with this girl cause she was going to school there, and we had this really cool game of baseball. And she pulled up, and we're like, "Cool, you're here. We need to go get our merch," cause we were having it mailed to her at her school. It was a regular day of the week, it was like a Friday.
Robb: And it was a big order. It was before our full length record came out, so we were having all these promotional tapes mailed out, like a lot of em, that we really needed, cause we were going on a big US tour. And we wanted to bring all these promotional tapes around the country, so people could hear what it sounds like, and hopefully buy the record. OK, pick it up.
Patrick: So then we're like, "Hey, we need to go get our stuff that got mailed to you, let's go to the post office," and she's like, "cool." So we go to the post office, go in the building, it's closed. And we had to go somewhere far the next day, like Houston.
Robb: It was a school post office, and it was like a school holiday. So it wasn't a regular holiday, it was a school holiday. It was a Catholic school, and a Catholic holiday.
Patrick: So there was like a big, metal door, so we pried it open enough so we could slide through.
Robb: Like a lunch counter sort of door.
Patrick: Yeah, and we slid through, opened the door, went back, and we found that our tapes weren't there, only a box of buttons. So we were totally foiled.
Robb: But we did get the buttons.
Matt: So we broke into a post office for buttons.
Robb: But imagine trying to break out of the post office with eight huge boxes filled with tapes. We wouldn't have gotten away.
Justin: The security guard heard that somebody was breaking into the post office too, and we had the buttons stuck behind our shirts. And he was like, "Did you guys break into the post office?" We're like, "no, it was some other guys."
Robb: And then we started chatting with him, getting all chummy. And we didn't really break into a post office, it was like a school post office.
Justin: It was a freakin post office.
Robb: But still, they got mail there.
Matt: So it's still a federal crime.
Robb: No, here's what happened. We were pondering the idea of getting in there somehow by means of not being allowed to get in, and then we saw a mailman driving down the street. So we chased after him, and like got to him before he got in, and we're asking him, "So, can you like get us some stuff out of there," and he's like, "No, I can't do that. But, but, if someone were to break into the post office, and I'm not suggesting that you do this, but if someone were to break into the post office, it's not a real branch, so it wouldn't be a federal offense."
Justin: Did you make that up?
Robb: No no, that's real, he said that, you don't remember that?
Matt: I remember you dreamed that.
Robb: But that's why we went and tried a little harder to get in. And we got in.
Justin: That's crazy huh?
Matt: We should have just went along that it was a federal offense, cause that sounds better.
Robb: But then someone might get on to us. That's that story.

KSDT: I read you guys did a commercial for Apple Computers. How did that come about?
Patrick: Luck.
Matt: We were so damn sexy, they wanted our looks, and they heard a song that kind of went with it.
Robb: Right place, right time. We just got really lucky. And now we have a van.
KSDT: What song was in it?
Robb: An old song. It's called "Stop Internet Romance". It gets misconstrued so much, like what the words are. And in retrospect I'm like, man, how could I have not realized that everyone would think I'm talking about something else? That's all I have to say about that song.

KSDT: Is it true that you guys do all your own artwork?
Matt: I take most of the photography in the band. So anything you see on the website, or in our cds, or, I sell pictures at shows too, for ten dollars, if you'd like to purchase them from me. And Justin arranges the artwork, and does like the buttons and stuff, and flyers.
Patrick: We played a big part in our full length. There's a lot of Robb's photography, and a little bit of me and Justin's.
Robb: Just for a note on the record, that was Matt mocking me. Thanks Matt, I really appreciate it.
Matt: I wasn't mocking you Robb, I was talking as if I were you.
Patrick: Our friend Dan Askew from this split record label called Second Nature Records helped us with our first one. We did all the photography, and then he put it all together for us. So we're really happy with that.
Robb: We didn't do all the photography, there are a couple pictures by other people, so it's not exclusive.
Matt: Robb is a photography extraordinaire. He is an amazing photographer.
Robb: Thanks Matt, you redeemed yourself.
Matt: And basically we just use him in the band for his photography.
Patrick: Talk about our new tour support EP artwork.
Robb: We did these cool little tour support EPs. Cause this is the thing, we've got these new songs we recorded with Ed Rose, again, we recorded four songs, we intend to put them out, and we were using them to try to get some record labels to talk to, and it's working. And anyway, we wanted to put something out, cause we haven't put something out in so long, and we were going on tours, and we were just like in debt, big time, as a band. So we had to try to get out of debt, and basically be able to go on tour. So we made these new releases that have a couple of those new songs, a couple other new songs, a couple cover songs, etc. And we made these cool covers out of like packing paper, which we can get for free cause Patrick can steal it.
Patrick: Shh.
Robb: Yeah, shh. So it's brown packing paper, and we silk screened on them, so we're getting into the whole silk screening thing. It's actually a pretty toxic thing to do. Ask Matt.
Matt: We were getting really really high one day.
Robb: We were getting messed up. We weren't actually getting high, but it's just like you know it's bad for your nose.
Matt: We were kind of scared when we saw the stuff eating through the plastic spoon, and the spoon melting. That stuff was on our hands, but our hands weren't melting, but we were kind of wondering...
Robb: Yeah, I was using the screen wash to clean - the ink isn't water soluble, so you've gotta use a screen wash to get it off the screen - and I was using it, and it smells really bad, and it kind of hurts after awhile, your fingers get kind of stingy, and I thought that was kind of like a tip-off that maybe I shouldn't be using it. But when I really started to think maybe I should use some gloves is, I tried to clean off a plastic spoon, that I was using to get the paint out of the can, I was trying to clean it off so I could do a different color, and I used the screen wash to get the ink off the spoon, and it started melting the spoon cause the spoon's plastic.
Matt: And then when me and Robb got out of the basement, all of the colors were all very pastel. And we were like "whoa."
Patrick: Yeah, we like to do our own artwork. In a nutshell.
Robb: In a brief summary.

KSDT: How many releases have you put out?
Patrick: One full length. And that's about it.
Robb: Discography according to us. One full length.
Patrick: And a tour support.
Robb: But that's not gonna be included in the discography either, so if you're lucky enough to get it, congratulations.
Patrick: It's limited edition. There were only three hundred pressed. By ourselves. And then we're going to do a full length next summer.
KSDT: Yeah, that was my next question, what are your future plans?
Robb: We go to Kansas to record in January.
Matt: We hope.
Justin: January with the possibility of a little later.
Robb: Hopefully they don't have the studio booked up already.
Matt: Either way, we want to record in January, and hopefully we'll have something out by next spring. Early spring, no later than summer.
Patrick: Yeah, summertime. It's gonna be a hot record. It's gonna be rockin.
Matt: Full of hits.
Robb: Ask Pat how much he likes the summer.
Patrick: I love it. But I'm gonna love it even more when our record comes out.
Matt: Give it up for summer.
Robb: Let's hear it for summer, Patrick. I like winter more, personally.
Justin: Yeah, I'm with Robb.

KSDT: What advice would you give to bands who are just trying to break into the scene and get their names out there?
Patrick: Take your time. There's a lot of stuff that's really repetitive these days, it seems.
Robb: You've gotta do things persistently.
Patrick: And I'd say, find your own route. I mean, it's taken us three years to really find our way, but we're really proud of ourselves now. Not to sound ego-trip...
Robb: We're happy.
Patrick: We're happy where we are.
Robb: Take it slow.
Patrick: We feel like we worked pretty hard at it.
Matt: Yeah, just work really really hard and don't sell yourself short.
Patrick: Yeah, don't sell yourself short.
Robb: In my case, I would say to songwriters who write lyrics and stuff, and songs, etc, be careful about what, like, I don't know, it's easy to put out stuff...
Patrick: You don't want to be misconstrued.
Robb: You don't want to be misconstrued, like when you write a song. I don't know, a lot of people don't mind, don't think it's a big deal, but I like people to understand what I'm saying.
Matt: Basically, if you're writing a song, and you think you might regret it in a couple years, don't record it.
Patrick: Two words, be careful. Period.
Robb: Be careful. Don't put out stuff you're gonna regret later.
Patrick: Two words for beginning bands, be careful.
Robb: Yup, two words.
Patrick: About everything. About song writing, about recording.
Robb: About contracts.
Patrick: About contracts.
Robb: Yeah, don't jump on the first thing you see.
Justin: Yeah, contracts.
Robb: Be careful.
Patrick: Be careful.
Justin: Bee careful.
Matt: Yeah.

website: www.limbeck.net