SeepeopleS: The Lights Fandango

By Amanda Brumfield
Pop- Rock Candy Mountain

From Seepeoples official bio: “With an intensive focus on the memorable songwriting of bandleader and multi-instrumentalist Will Bradford, coupled with the band’s trademark psychedelic touches and expert musicianship, SeepeopleS’ timeless songs are polished, tightly-composed offerings that blend intimate emotion and wide-open, politically minded themes. At times lush and candid, at others minimal and disquieting, SeepeopleS’ critically-acclaimed music chronicles with dexterity the story of a band coming of age in a world that often seems built on nonsense.

SeepeopleS has built their empire of live music fans and headphone recluses on strong independent record sales and over 600,000 miles of touring the US, including opening spots with premier acts such as Death Cab for Cutie and Presidents of the USA, and plays at top notch festivals such as Wakarusa, CMJ Music Marathon and Bele Chere. The band’s intense and accomplished multimedia touring act includes a twenty-piece light and video show, complete with a full time lighting designer and sound engineer. SeepeopleS’ recording credits include three previous albums sprinkled with eclectic guest artists such as Dave Matthews collaborator Tim Reynolds, Spearhead’s Dave Shul, ex-Morphine saxophonist Dana Colley and the late Ray Davis of Parliament Funkadelic.”

One of my first experiences here at PRCM was a wholly pleasant one, involving a request that was very important to me and a young man named William Bradford. That’s a story for another day, suffice it to say that Will and I became buddies and proceeded to talk a great deal about my interviewing him and running a feature on his band SeepeopleS. After a lot of talking and emailing and playing phone tag, we’ve finally done it!

I’m not going to say a lot more. SeepeopleS doesn’t need me to blow any horns for them. This is an amazing band, with an unforgettable live show and their most recent release, Apocalypse Cow Vol. 1 is a record that speaks for itself.

Ok, I’ll say one more word: Awesomeness.

Pop- Rock Candy Mountain: Apocalypse Cow Vol 1. has been out for a little over a year now, should we be expecting a Vol. 2?

William Bradford of SeepeopleS: Yeah, actually the band is about 3/4 of the way done with Vol. 2, but we usually take our time when we are recording, we are so spread out and with touring, we end up recording whenever we can. So I don’t have a release date just yet.

PRCM: Apocalypse Cow Vol. 1 is an amazing record. Tell me about the sound you guys went for on the album.

WB: Well, I’ve played in just about every band you can think of, I used to be a D.J. and then everyone else in the band comes from completely musically different walks of life. The bass player is a big Zeppelin guy, the drummer is like a big Zappa head, the keyboard player was in P-Funk for a while. So there’s a lot of diversity there.

PRCM: If you had the chance to sign to a major label would you sign?

WB: Well, yeah I’m sure we would, we’ve had a lot of labels come check out our shows. I think our music maybe crosses too many genres and they don’t know what to do with us.

PRCM: Apocalypse Cow is coherent though, it definitely follows through till the end.

WB: Yeah, I think it’s more of an album to album problem. Each of our albums has sounded completely different.

PRCM: You’re lyrics are unobtrusively political- in that you certainly have an opinion about different issues, but you aren’t cramming it down the listeners throat. Is that intentional?

WB: Yeah, sometimes it’s intentional. I think there’s something about having a mic in your hand and having your voice heard- it’s hard if not impossible to not talk about things that are important to you. I think when the times when a message is delivered so violently, like I love Rage Against the Machine, but my grandmother isn’t going to listen to them. I think a lot of people get stuck in a “preaching to the choir” situation.

I think if you can convey a message in a way that reaches a lot of people, like my grandmother is a hard core conservative and she likes my band. She may have voted against the messages in my songs, but she’s singing along to them. She’s listening to them. I think it’s a little bit more universal in spirit when you are trying to cross those types of boundaries. To reach people while retaining your message.

PRCM: You are also doing some solo touring right? What else is going on with you?

WB: Yes and I’m also working with another band called Free Peoples Frequency. I’m also producing an album with a band called Green Lemon and I’m working on another album with Will Holland and Brooke Binion.

I don’t sleep much.

SeepeopleS on MySpace

Purchase Apocalypse Cow Vol. 1