MUSIC INTERVIEW: JEREMY HENSHAW
With No Safetysuit; A Discussion Of Recording, Touring, And Possible Formula For Success
Harris Decker: I was hoping we could get started with you talking a little bit about where the band’s name came from, how you guys got started as a group and the beginnings of Safetysuit…
Jeremy Henshaw: The band started in Oklahoma. We were all friends, we were all going to college together, and there was a battle of the bands on the campus of the college that we went to. As a joke, just because it would have been something fun to do on that weekend, we decided to play in it. At a great shock to all of us, we ended up winning the thing, and when you won the battle of the bands, you got to play another show the next weekend for homecoming after-parties. So we played that, and then at that show, someone asked us to play a Valentine’s Day party a few weeks later, so we played that, and for about the next year, every show we played was our last show because we weren’t really a band and people just kept asking us to play. Eventually, it came to all of us getting together and saying, “Hey, should we really try and do this for real?” It was around that point we all moved to Nashville together in the summer of 2004 and started playing around some clubs in Nashville, and working on building up what we could there. Then, in February 2007, Bruce Carbone, the executive vice president from Universal Music, came down and saw a show, and we decided that night that we should all be working together. That’s the short version.
HD: You knew the guys you played with for awhile — way before you started. How does that play into your writing now that you have been together for so long?
JH: Doug [Brown] is the main songwriter. The two songs we played, at the very first battle of the bands, were songs he wrote in high school. Doug will have a melody and an idea for a song and puts the structure of the thing together, and then brings it into a rehearsal. Basically, me and Dave [Garofolo] will put our spin into it and start writing the different parts to it and have different ideas, and at that point, the song starts to get molded together. So it’s a very cool thing, to be able to create music with people that are truly your closest friends. We were all friends before the band started, for a good solid year, and then a couple of us even go further back than that. It’s a cool opportunity to be doing what we’re doing
HD: Do you think, because you go so far back together, you share musical influences? I know it says on your MySpace that you channel U2 a lot, but do you have different influences, or are you all about the same?
JH: I would say mainly The Spice Girls probably, for me. Not necessarily their older stuff but their newer stuff — really their last CD really hit home with me. [Laughs] No seriously, we listen to everything. The Spice Girls was totally a joke, by the way, although I can’t hold anything against Posh Spice ever. No but seriously, we listen to anything as long as it’s good. We range from everything, especially songwriting guys like Dylan and Springsteen and Johnny Cash — stuff like that. The latest U2 album that came out Tuesday is incredible, and everything in between. I heard somebody say one time that Safetysuit is somewhere in the middle of Bon Jovi and Slayer.
HD: I don’t know if I can see Slayer, but definitely Bon Jovi.
JH: No, I can’t either, but it’s a kind of mix of everything. I know specifically, for Tate [Cunningham], our drummer, Taylor Hawkins of The Foo Fighters is a huge influence, and he played with Alanis Morissette before that. Sting and The Police were a huge influence for Tate. I know for Doug, in songwriting, Rob Thomas — the way he wraps melodies and lyrics around the music is such a cool thing, and that really influenced Doug in the way that he writes his lyrics. And Victor Wooten — I don’t know if you know who that is, but — for me, as a bass player, I saw Victor play a bass — I think it was “Haste the Day” in ‘98…I saw it on YouTube just starting off, and that performance inspired me to really start playing the bass. I was a piano player and a drummer before. That bass isn’t just a background instrument that you can look over, but it really has a very, very cool thing with it that you can be very melodic and really add a lot to the song or the music as a whole, so that was a huge inspiration for me. I actually got to meet him in an LA airport a few months ago when we were shooting our first music video last summer, totally by chance, and I don’t ever get star-struck by anybody. People are just people, and celebrities don’t really like… I don’t get crazy with it, and I couldn’t move for a second when I saw him. [Laughs] Before I walked over to talk to him, I had to calm myself down, take a couple deep breaths, because he’s the reason I’m doing what I’m doing today, so that was a very cool moment for me. I know Dave listened to a lot of Slash and a lot of Guns ‘n’ Roses and really got inspired by that, and that inspired him to start playing the guitar more than just recreationally but really start practicing and wondering “if I could get to the point where I could do something like that.”
HD: I know this is totally your expertise. I checked your MySpace and I saw you have a lot of social networking going on — you all have Twitters. Can you talk about how this plays into connecting with your fans ?
JH: All of it is huge, especially for us. The only reason we’re doing what we’re doing is for the people who are listening — for fans, so for us to be able to stay connected with people that are wanting to listen to the music, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flicker…all the “er’s” — anything that’s online and gives us the ability to connect with fans in a way that’s more than them popping the album into their CD player, we’re going to try to be a part of it. MySpace played a huge role in helping us get signed with Universal and building a fan-base in Nashville — to the point where we were able to sell out places, and when Universal came down, the place was packed and jumping, and the energy was through the roof, and they got to see what Nashville is really like — why it’s really a music city. That’s all huge for us, and we’ll keep doing all of it as much as we possibly can and as long as we can.
HD: Can you talk about the current tour you’re on?
JH: Yeah, well, we just wrapped up a tour with 3 Doors Down, and Hinder was out there for awhile, Seether was out there for most of it, Hoobastank was out there for the back half of it…so that was amazing. It was our first arena tour ever, so that was an incredible experience for us.
HD: Did you guys work with the bands at all — Seether or the other guys on the tour — in any sense? Did they give you pointers or any tips? Did you get to play with them at all?
JH: Yeah, we didn’t play with them, but it was huge, especially with guys like 3 Doors Down who have been not just doing music but have been ridiculously successful doing music now for how many years now? Ten, 11, 12 years…so they’re doing something right. It was incredible, especially from one side of being able to be on tour with bands that we were fans of in high school. When “Kryptonite” came out, I think I was maybe a junior in high school.
HD: Were you all fans of them before the tour?
JH: Absolutely, all of them — Seether, Hoobastank, everybody. I remember “Reason” being the first song we ever covered. It was one of our first concerts and we weren’t even a band. We didn’t have enough material to play our own stuff for 30 minutes, so we covered “Hero” by The Foo Fighters and we covered “Reason” by Hoobastank. So that was cool, being able to sit back there in the greenroom sitting with the guy that’s like… “Man, I’ve been a huge fan of yours for a decade and now I’m sitting here talking to you about getting advice on the music industry and how to be successful from this guy I used to listen to in my car…” It’s really a surreal experience. Brad [Arnold], from 3 Doors Down, had a lot of really cool advice about songwriting. That guy is a hit-machine, and at the same time, you get to go out after our set is over and listen to really great music that you enjoy listening to, being played to perfection every single night. So we were out there every night for Hoobastank’s set and Seether’s set and 3 Doors’ set — it was awesome.
HD: Do you have a wish-list of bands you’d love to tour with?
JH: I think if I don’t say U2, the rest of the guys would beat me, but I think that would be ridiculous to go on tour with U2 — with guys idolized as gods not just by us, but the music industry… There’s a short list of people that have been able to do what they’ve done and be successful for the amount of time that they’ve been, and continually reinventing themselves and still putting out great record after great record — it’s just incredible what they’ve been able to accomplish. So U2 would definitely be at the top of that list. If The Beatles asked us to go out and they were still around, we’d say “Maybe.” Yeah, I wouldn’t turn it down.
HD: What other bands have you played with besides for 3 Doors Down and Seether? Have you played or opened up for anyone else notable?
JH: Yeah, we’ve been on tour since the end of March 2007, so it’s closing in on a year now. We started out with Theory of a Deadman and we’ve gone on a few tours with the band called Red — all really cool guys also, who all live down in Nashville with us. Seether we’ve been out with a few times. Puddle of Mud a few weeks with at the end of November, and then Hoobastank. That was the first time we had ever been out with them. And 3 Doors for the last few weeks the end of January to just a few days ago, and our next tour coming up we got tomorrow, actually, releases the top 40. Our second single comes out so we’re really excited about that, and then were shooting the music video for it in about a week and a half with the same guy we shot the first video with last summer — with Zach Merck out in LA — and 
then, as soon as we’re done with that, we go out for the first two weeks in April with the Jumpsuit Apparatus and Secondhand Serenade. We’re not going to stop. As long as people are going to listen to us, we’re going to keep playing.
HD: If another band was in the same position you guys were in a few years ago, do you have any advice for them?
JH: Yeah we get asked that question a lot and I think the best advice we could possibly give is don’t listen to anybody. It’s a little bit tongue-in-cheek because there’s, obviously, a lot of people out there with great experience and great wisdom for you, but at the same time, there’s no formula for success in the music industry because, if there was, everyone would be doing it and everyone would be successful. So at the end of the day, you’ve got to get as much advice as you can, work as hard as you can, and at the day’s end, you have to follow your heart and hopefully the music will be able to speak for itself, no matter what you know. Work hard and follow your heart.
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