AfterTouch - The Official Publication Of The Yamaha Users Group

Last month, we featured a behind-the-scenes look at Soundcheck, the national rock competition sponsored by Yamaha. The winner of the Soundcheck ‘88 contest was Giraffe, a five-member band that hails from San Jose, California. They have a techno-pop style that is original and challenging without being out of sync with today’s music scene. They are charismatic and powerful while performing. I liked them, my 15 year-old daughter and her friend liked them, the hard-rock crowd at the Soundcheck concert liked them, and obviously the judges liked them. The band’s musical personality reaches a wide range of listeners.

Though they are young and innovative, they are also wise and realistic enough to know that these energies need to be channeled correctly. Prior to Soundcheck, they had already produced their own CD, Power Of Suggestion. The fact that they (rather than a record company) produced the CD kept them within the eligibility requirements of the contest.

After their victorious performance, I talked with the band’s leader, Kevin Gilbert. He shared his thoughts about being a musician in today’s competitive music industry, and how Soundcheck has helped his band. Giraffe is definitely a group that we will be hearing from in the future.

SD: How did you find out about Soundcheck?
KG: There’s a DJ up here in San Jose, Greg Stone, who does a show for KOME, a large Bay Area rock station. He had picked up on our CD, and started playing different cuts from it. When I got in touch with him, he proved to be very helpful. He told me that our band should try to enter all kinds of contests - both for the experience and the exposure. He was the one who told me about the Soundcheck competition. I picked up the entry form and, because we already had our music recorded on CD, it was easy to transfer it to cassette, which is the required medium for entries. This all happened about two days before the Soundcheck deadline. We sent our entry via express mail, just to be sure we’d make the deadline. I’m fairly sure that our entry was one of the last, but we managed to get it there.

SD: Had you entered any other contests before that?
KG: Well, not really. What other contests are there? Soundcheck is the largest contest there is.

SD: How about MTV basement tapes?
KG: We did enter that, and actually we were on it just a couple of weeks before we entered Soundcheck. They showed a video, “This Warm Night,” that we produced ourselves. We also looked into a couple of other contests, but we felt that the prizes offered wouldn’t compensate for the effort and expense we had already put into our band as a project.

SD: How long has Giraffe been together?
KG: Some of us had played together at various times, and got along well. When I decided to get serious, I contacted three of the current members, based on these previous experiences. The last guy to join was Chris Beveridge, the bass player. A friend had recommended him to us. He fit in right away. The first time the five of us played together as Giraffe was in January of ‘88. So, we’re coming up on our first anniversary next month.

SD: What will you be doing?
KG: We’re working on a second CD, independently, and we’re preparing for the Budokan festival. These two projects, and the post-Soundcheck activities, have kept us pretty busy.

SD: When will you be going to Budokan for the international finals?
KG: That’s happening February 12th, 1989.

SD: Does this competition have the same format as the Soundcheck finals, with each band performing two songs?
KG: We’re only allowed to do one song at Budokan. We haven’t decided which one to perform yet; there are reasons to do either song from the Soundcheck finals. A lot of people have told us that the drum thing in the first song, “This Warm Night,” kind of clinched it - they heard the drums and said, “Yeah, that’s the band.” However, other people have said that “Because Of You” is the song you remember. So, “This Warm Night,” the drum song, is flashier, but “Because Of You” has more lasting quality. I really don’t know which song we’ll perform.

SD: Do you know how many bands will be competing in the finals at Budokan?
KG: I’ve heard that it’s around eighteen; at least there are eighteen different countries, and some countries may have more than one band.

SD: Well, I’m sure you will do well at the Finals; you seemed very comfortable performing in front of the large audience at the Universal Amphitheatre during Soundcheck. Have you played in front of large crowds before?
KG: Well, not a lot of people know about this, and I don’t like to talk about it much because it’s not that big of a deal, but I played keyboards behind Eddie Money for one tour. We played some large halls; and that’s when I was nervous. But, having done that for a year with him, yeah, I’m a lot more comfortable on a large stage. At Soundcheck, we were nervous while walking out on stage, but once we started playing, it was, “Okay, we’re doing what we do; they’re either going to like it or hate it, but we’re here to play our music.”

SD: Did you have a different setup, or a modified setup, for the Soundcheck finals?
KG: It was a little frightening. We have a very technical kind of thing - everybody’s equipment is talking to everybody else’s equipment. We’ve got MIDI, sequencers, click tracks, and so on. At Soundcheck, we were given only a few minutes to set all of that stuff up and check to make sure that everything was talking to everything else. So when we went on stage for the first song, “This Warm Night,” I had my back to the audience, I was looking at Scott, the drummer, wondering, “Is it going to work? Is it going to work?” We weren’t sure, because, at all of the rehearsals and at the soundcheck for Soundcheck in the afternoon, it had not worked. We had to stop and say, “Wait a minute, this is not working. Plug that back in.” So yeah, we were kind of frightened.

SD: Couldn’t you ask the roadies from Soundcheck to “Fix it” or “Check it” before you went on-stage?
KG: Well, they didn’t know our gear. Some of us were using their gear - our bass player and drummer were using their bass and drum setup - so they were up and working. But, as far as the keyboards, sequencers, and MIDI connections, that was all unique to our band; none of the roadies knew what got plugged into what. So, if something wasn’t right...and, since we were the last band, there were seven opportunities for someone else to trip over one of our pieces of gear and unplug something. We were kind of scared.

SD: Well, you looked very calm and collected.
KG: That’s just it; as soon as I heard the sequencer go - start working properly - I turned toward the audience, and I thought, “Okay, this is going to be fine.”

SD: How long have you been playing keyboards?
KG: I started playing piano when I was four. By the time I was fourteen, I had frustrated my piano teacher enough that she finally said, “I quit.” One thing about my musical abilities is that I have a good ear, but I’m terrible at sight-reading - or reading music, period. Since I had this well-developed ear, I would cheat when it came to practicing the music the teacher had given me. Instead of reading, I would go buy the record, listen to it a couple of times, and from that input I would recite my lessons. It worked for a while; she thought I was reading the stuff. After a while, I felt that I was wasting creative energy just playing other people’s music. I know it’s a cocky, 14-year-old thing to think, but that was my attitude at the time. I wanted to spend time writing stuff on my own.

SD: Do you take advantage of today’s technology to get around having to compose music on paper?
KG: I can write on paper. I’ve done horn and string charts for people - big band arrangements. I can write, but it’s very slow work for me. The music I write for Giraffe is constructed on tape. I work as an engineer sometimes, so I have access to and am familiar with different recording machines and techniques that makes this form of songwriting the most realistic and productive for me. It’s a type of writing that artists are utilizing today. Peter Gabriel and Joni Mitchell have worked this way, I believe. The artist has the instruments and the medium - the tape - right in front of him. They create based on what they’re able to get from these recording machines, from their knowledge of the medium.

SD: When composing a song, do you have a standard or set order that you lay in the tracks?
KG: First, I come up with the chord change and the melody that I like. Then, I orchestrate off that. The type of project I’m working for at the time determines the approach or style of a particular piece. Obviously, I take a distinctive approach when working on a song for our band; I want it to be Giraffe-like. I feel that my personal musical experience allows me to communicate a musical expression that, ultimately, delivers the same feelings whether it developed from written musical ideas, or recorded musical ideas. Most of the guys in the band have a pretty well developed ear, so they listen to the tape I have and pick their parts out from what I’ve laid down. They take off on their own parts from that.

SD: Do the lyrics or music come first when you’re writing a song?
KG: They lyrics generally come last for me. They are a reflection of the mood of the piece. The lyrics for a couple of the songs from Power Of Suggestion would have been hard, if not impossible, to write without having the mood of the structure of the music as a starting point. I wish I was literate enough to just write lyrics; but I need the foundation to put lyrics into.

SD: Getting back to Soundcheck, what other progress has been made since the finals?
KG: We’ve been checking out a few different possibilities. We’ve played a couple of shows, performed for a couple of benefits around here. Frankly, the local media hasn’t been as attentive to what Giraffe achieved by winning the Soundcheck competition as we’d hoped they might be. No one has called with an offer to open any of the major acts coming up in the area. It’s disappointing and unfortunate. It seems Bill Graham runs the concert scene in the Bay Area, and he’s not real helpful or supportive toward the local bands. The scene is more relegated to the local clubs.

SD: What about the new CD; will you be sending it to various record companies?
KG: Well, now that we have those contacts, we have a kind of direct access that we’re going to use. We don’t have to go through the usual “unsolicited tape” thing. So, yes; we’ll probably send songs along as we finish them. I also want to press them onto a CD. About four years ago, I made a deal with myself; I said, “Well, regardless of whether a record company is going to be behind us or not, I’m going to make one record a year, just to get into the habit that this is what I’m doing.”

SD: Very smart!
KG: That’s where that’s at. And, since we did a CD last year, I feel like we have to present our music at least as well as we did last time.

SD: I’m amazed at the lack of local support or interest towards your band. How about performing elsewhere? Are there any upcoming performances that the public can look forward to?
KG: The people at Soundcheck are setting up some showcases for us. There are also a few different record companies that are interested in picking us up. That’s our goal, at this point, to get an album out nationally. That would allow us to tour. Even if we were playing small clubs, there would be a real purpose. We’d be offering a product, as opposed to just trying to garner a small following. We’d like to garner a large following!

SD: Which, if any, record companies have you been connected to as a result of winning the Soundcheck competition?
KG: We’ve been in to talk to Warner Bros., and CBS/Columbia has also talked about doing something. But, at this point, it really is still just talk. I think they’re all waiting for that big song that is a real sure-fire hit. We’re in the studio right now trying to come up with ten more gems, and we hope that one of them is something that someone feels is worth promoting.

SD: I’m surprised there isn’t an interest in that direction for the songs you presented at Soundcheck, particularly “Because Of You.”
KG: That seems to be the hit, at least in San Jose. A lot of people seem to grab on to that song. However, the consensus from the people in the record companies seems to be that, while it’s a good song, it falls between the cracks. It’s not college radio music; it’s not exactly [Contemporary Hit Radio]; and AOR radio doesn’t really exist anymore.

SD: Not to put Giraffe’s music in a slot other than it’s own, I felt that your music had a Howard Jones-ish feel to it.
KG: Yeah, that’s what we’d hoped - that our music would fit into the CHR category. Basically, the feedback we’ve been getting from a lot of people is that “Because Of You” is a great second single, but it isn’t going to break enough ice to be the record that could break things open.

SD: How does this new input affect Giraffe’s considerations regarding the business side of the music profession?
KG: I feel that it’s their opinion, and that they are in a position where you want to listen to these opinions. I think it’s a good song - I wrote the song, so I’m biased - and I think people could turn on to it; but, I know that they know the business, and so I have to bow to their judgment.

SD: Are you getting a feeling for what they - the record companies - are looking for?
KG: Well, it’s a tightrope walk between two extremes; either compromising myself in such a way that I’m uncomfortable, or turning in something to them that they can’t work with. Those are the impossible extremes. We’re trying to find the tightrope that connects the two, so that the music is something that they can market, but is still work that I’m comfortable with artistically.