My Education Interview: SXSW 2010

Posted on Mar 3rd 2010 11:00PM by Tara Lacey
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Don't let the sophisticated strings of the emotive My Education intimidate you from catching them in action during their eighth appearance at SXSW. This eclectic group of music men don't take themselves too seriously as demonstrated in Spinner's interview. Describing their music in ways as different as they are from one another, they enlist adjectives spanning from "calamitous" to "cinematic," but one thing is common--they play towards an audio catharsis. After ten years of evolution and pulling talent from all corners of the nation, the intellectual kraut rock-inspired My Education, borrowing their name from William S Burroughs' final novel, will rock SXSW patrons with their own brand of orchestral delight--aged to perfection.

Your sound has been described as cinematic. What is the ideal movie scene that your music would underscore?

Scott Telles [bass]: Funny you should ask that because our new record is actually a movie score. It's excerpts from F.W. Murnau's 1927 silent film 'Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans,' so any scene from that movie.

James Alexander [viola]: Stephen Seagal battles a T-Rex. 'Jurassic Park' without the kids and with Stephen Seagal.

If you could magically play and/or add any instrumentation to My Education what would it be?

Brian Purington [guitar]: A hammered dulcimer.

[All with laughs] No!

James: Maybe an oboe or a clarinet, or a dozen french horns.

Chris Hackstie [guitar]: But I don't really like brass.

Scott: There's a track with french horn on our new record. Personally I think a synthesizer, keyboard.

How did you get the name My Education?

Brian: I was having a hard time coming up with a name for a band and I got to looking at my bookshelf and I saw the William S. Burroughs book and 'My Education: A Book of Dreams' is really what it means to be committed to playing in a band indefinitely so it stuck.

Outside of other music and other musicians what is a major influence on your sound? Obviously literature is one.

James: Imagery. Like if someone were to just describe some scene, like going to sleep, taking your pants off, and grabbing a blanket.

Brian: Taking your pants off influences a song?

James: Well yeah, it kinda influences the music.

Chris: My surrounding, energy around me, the weather is a huge influence on me. The ups and downs in Texas are really rough on me. I love the ups and downs in Texas.

Scott: Literature is for sure, most of us read pretty veraciously. Art is probably another. We enjoy movies and we enjoy various types of art.

What was the first concert you ever attended?

Scott: Emerson Lake and Palmer, the War Memorial Museum in Rochester, New York, 1977.

Chris: Mine was Cheap Trick at Walt Disney World in1984 at Cinderella's Castle.

Scott: [laughs] You saw Cheap Trick at Cinderella's Castle?!

Chris: I did.

James: Mine was the Rolling Stones in 1978.

Brian: Umm...I saw Ed Hall at Emo's in 1994.

James: That's your first concert in '94? Wow.

Brian: Yeah I didn't see many shows I wasn't playing in once I started playing in bands, and nobody comes to San Angelo [Texas]. It blew my mind.

Chris: Did they have the day glow?

Brian: Yeah it was great.

If you could trade places with any artist--past present or otherwise--who would it be?

James: Keith Richards.

Chris: Klause Schulze in Berlin 1972. He played drums for Ahra Temple. Why not?!

Scott: How about Randy Rhoads?

Brian: Oh I don't know, Ringo Starr?

Ringo Starr?

Scott: He is a very underrated talent. The Beatles may be overrated, Ringo was definitely underrated.

Brian: And he has the coolest name

What's your SXSW looking like?

Chris: Oh Jesus F.

Brian: Our showcase will be March 20 on Encore Patio at 9 I think. We had a crazy schedule to begin with but we slimmed it down a little because I'm working for the festival.

Scott: And I'm playing with another band.

All: We have several day parties.

Brian: Guerro's for one.

What was it like booking your first SXSW? [2010 is number eight for the band]

Brian: It was a lot more exciting.

James: Our first few years we were on standby.

Brian: Yeah so we didn't get to play unless somebody canceled, and we couldn't promote our shows. Being on the schedule is nice, but after a few it's routine. Today felt kind of like SXSW in that I was at La Zona Rosa hungover and seeing a band play in the daylight [laughs], with a drink in my hand.

Are you guys working on anything new aside from 'Sunrise'?

Brian: Yeah totally. We have most of the new record done. We are hoping to have it out this year.

Scott: We have a lot of stuff we're doing in April for the record release. We are appearing at the Alamo Drafthouse.

Chris: We have to play at 6:30 in the damn morning on the morning news and some radio...

James: ...For the commuter crowd and we're very happy about that!

What is the biggest obstacle you've overcome in touring My Education?

James: Old age.

Scott: No roadies and day jobs.

Brian: Especially no roadies. We did a load-in in Seattle one time and the freight elevator was broken so we had to haul our gear up four flights of stairs so I'd say our biggest obstacle was definitely four flights of stairs. Have you ever hauled multiple road cases up four flights of stairs?

Scott: Oh yeah we carry a lot of gear.

James: Old age, day jobs, lots of gear, and four flights of stairs.

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