Amplified Heat Interview: SXSW 2010

Sometimes being brothers isn't the best way to keep a band happy together (see the brothers Gallagher, Oasis) but for Amplified Heat, it has been working for over a decade. The Ortiz brothers, Jim, Chris and Gian, have been jamming together since they were kids with pretend guitars and stuck it through with real guitars in their hands, perfecting their sound and look with classic rock worksmanship. Based in Austin, Amplified Heat has lived through several SXSWs, so we caught up with bassist and baby of the family Gian to talk classic rock names, the importance of the right gear and why vinyl is really the only way to go.

How did your band form?

It just kind of happened naturally, we all kind of grew up in to music, sharing it amongst ourselves, listening to rock and roll. Ever since we were kids, we always liked pretending we were playing instruments and I think it was the natural progression as we got older we got real instruments, making up songs and hey, this is what we want to do. We all started around the same time. As far as music lessons go, the closest we came to that was that Jim was in drum line in junior high and high school. Chris and I never took any lessons but at some point Jim and Chris switched because Chris started on guitar and Jim started as the drummer and then somehow it just switched. I wanted to play for the longest time and they wouldn't let me and they had these bass players that would work out and then they wouldn't work out. One day one of the bass players left his equipment over at the house and my brothers were jamming and I was watching them like I always do, and Jim was like, "Alright, pick up that bass and jam with us, let's see what you can do." The entire time I was already learning how to play guitar on my own and I had been listening to their songs so I already knew their songs and all that stuff. I think I was twelve years old and we jammed and they were like, "You're hired."

What are your musical influences?

We were in California until I was eight and the radio there very good in the early 80s about playing a lot of CCR [Creedence Clearwater Revival], a lot of Hendrix, a lot of Cream, Beatles, Sabbath, Stones. They'd play some blues here and there and what not, but it was the basic classic rock.Describe your sound in your own words.

There's so much stuff. Texas boogie blues-based rock and roll, that and just the hard driven rock and roll, rock and roll from jazz and blues and country. We all like country. Jim is more blues oriented and Chris is more jazz oriented as a drummer and I am more rock oriented, as far the stuff we like to hone in on our own. Those things together kind of create a Texas boogie blues-based rock and roll, but I really hate saying that because it's so cliche. Essentially when anyone asks who we sound like, I say Amplified Heat, if you're curious come check it out.

How did you come up with your band name?

Well, the original name was Blues Condition, when we all moved here to Austin from Houston we were mainly a blues band. And Blues Condition we got from a Cream song off Disraeli Gears. As we progressed we got away from the traditional blues and got more rock and roll so Blues Condition didn't work and so we put our heads together and it stems from another Cream song off Wheels of Fire, "Pressed Rat and Warthog", and there's a lyric that goes "amplified heat" and we thought it was appropriate because by that time we were already using the two Fender stacks, the two Fender cabinets each and playing really loud, so it just kind of works.

You guys are really particular about your gear, why is that important to you?

When I moved to Austin I had a little money saved up and I went to Workhorse Guitars off of Burnet and I saw this big Fender cabinet and I was like, "Man that looks great." Jim already had one of his 212 Fender cabinets [and the] 215 is really good for bass. I love the sound of it so then we decided to multiply it, let's get two Fender cabinets in there each. We all like to use old gear original gear, mainly for the sound but also for the look, too, we really like the look of the look of the big speaker cabinets with the silver sparkle grille cloths and it sounds really good, it gives us a distinctive sound.

Living in Austin, do you have any SXSW survival tips?

Relax. [Laughs] That's one thing I've learned, I've stressed out every year and at first it's fun, you want to play as many times as you want and everywhere that you want and it's a good thing to still do that, but make sure you don't stretch yourself out with overbooking yourself. Relax, play a few shows and if nobody's there, still do your thing, rock out.

With your classic sound, vinyl seems like a natural fit for you. Do you have any plans for vinyl releases?

[For our next record] we're just going to do vinyl only, with the free download code. I have always loved vinyl. On the last tour, some of the cities we went to people didn't want CDs, they were going to wait til we had it on vinyl. There's something I hear in vinyl that I don't hear in digital sound. The great thing is that they have those USB record players now so you can burn your record collection on to your computer with all the crackling and those sounds and it's really nice.



Carl Atiya Swanson is a contributor from Seed.com. Learn how you can contribute here.