DUMB QUESTIONS/SMART ANSWERS: BRING BACK THE GUNS

Usually on Thursdays we subject you, our readers to the responses to ho hum journalism 101-style questions that we have emailed to a band. This week, however, we are pleased to have had the LOL opportunity to convince Verizon Wireless Theater that we were deserving of a press pass.

Tight and together, the strings and skins punched out their final peak and valley, giving the cue to the audience that it was their time to respond. "TOA-DIES! TOA-DIES! TOA-DIES!” came the retort from a small but vocal segment of the sold-out venue. Try to imagine, being in a band that hasn’t put out an album in over a decade, how great would it be to hear that.

Unfortunately, it was not the Toadies on the stage at this point. It was Bring Back the Guns.

The scene could not be more different from that just five days earlier. Instead of a shout-along crowd 60 that, in many cases, had seen them several if not dozens of time before, they were on the dwarfing stage playing to an audience of 3,200 indifferents and hostiles, with a sprinkling of enthusiasts.


Rewind the tape an hour or so, back to the their dressing room while we’re talking with Guns Matt, Eric and Shaggy (drummer Thomas was out getting food) and our casual REAL TALK is briefly interrupted by way way thunderous applause for openers The Feds.

"hear that, do you hear that? Cause we're not gonna hear that when we play", Shaggy interjects.

You’ve played with the Toadies several times before, Including Monday in Austin, what is it like to play to a crowd that big?
S: it's not the size of the crowd, it's the people that make up the crowd. Austin, for example, shows appreciation through vibe. [changes to a semi hippie voice} How much is this cd? $12?! Boo man! I got your songs in my heart.

M: We were talking about this earlier, we saw some really young kids in a Pixies shirt or a Shins shirt. Those kids I think will like it. Also the age of the crowd, it’s still really young, but there's definitely a lot more 25-30 year olds.

So Austin was younger?
M: Yeah – Austin was super young

Who has a nicer dressing room, Verizon or Stubbs BBQ?
S: At Stubbs we had our own port-a-potty

Did you get a wicked bbq spread at Stubbs?
S: Yeah, oh hey [Eric], I meant to apologize, I left my bbq in your van.
E: Dude I ate that stuff at like 2 in the morning.

So, in that sense, Austin is better than Houston?
S&B in unison: No – never say that

Not even the fact you got free bbq?
S: You can give us the freest bbq in Austin, and I would still pay for Thelmas before I said Austin was better than Houston.


Do you get nervous before shows?
M: I get excited

Is this different?
M: Lil bit - Not even that there are so many people, its just such a weird show. Like, a weird show in front of 30 people its all 'Hey guys, weird show' but then with 3,200 people its like 'hey –we're gonna be weird for a while'

And Matt is right, it is a weird show. BBTG, though a perennial winner of Houston Press music awards, have an appeal that is distinct, unconventional and nearly jarring when sandwiched between a set of Dr. Rockso-esque hootenanny and the familiar jams of a band that still gets radio airplay every day in every city in the nation. So why are they on this bill?

E: It's just bro time. They could have put whoever the hell they wanted on these bills. I was talking to [Toadies member] Clark the other night and he was like 'yeah man, when we decided to play these shows, we thought 'who are our friends?' They brought us here to hang out with us and drink and play a show. They are willing to help out their pals that way. They’ve always done that.”


Whats the worst part about being a band?
S: Waiting for the opening band to finish.

Whats the worst opening band you've even played after?
S: There have been a few. There was a band called The Foilies.
M: No – The Foilies are the BEST band that has ever opened for us –

What makes them the worst and the best?
M: There is seriously no way to tell this story before we go on.


But tell they do, in the last final minutes before leaving their cramped ski lodge vs middle school locker room waiting area, they tell stories of faux-gutter punkers playing terribly and getting literally thrown head-first out the front door by an unforgiving old-schooler. And they take the stage. And they play well. The audience sometimes politely applauds, sometimes genuinely cheers, and sometimes is drowned out by the bro-hams who view BBTG as an obstacle rather than entertainment. The band is authentic. There is no difference between who they are and how they act when they play to those 30 friends or 3,200 strangers. And that’s refreshing. They get it. And so does the crew and the other bands on the side of the stage – their heads nod from appreciation rather than pre-knowledge.

To their largest applause of the night, Matt announces that the Toadies are next and they exit the stage. Reassurances all around: “You can’t mind the cattle man,” “Toadies audiences can be tough”, “Ouch, and this is your home crowd too.” But they don’t really seem to need them. It was fun. It was bro-time. They got a free 12 pack of beer and an excuse to bring family and friends into town. In that sense, from that perspective, was playing Verizon really any different than Noise and Smoke the week before?


We try to engage them in a conversation about The Arcade Fire’s latest record debuting at #2 on the Billboard charts, and if that means something; if worthwhile music is coming back into vogue; if tolerable and un-nascent rock will creep back into the public consciousness as it did back in the era when the Toadies first hit the airwaves. It’s not really an interesting prompt, and not surprisingly, there are better things to talk about: plans for getting to Austin to discuss, Jamison to drink, merch sales to joke about and friends to go see. It was the biggest show on their resume, and it wasn’t really anything. ACES.