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June 2002 - Driven by a desire to create honest and influential music, Midtown formed in the fall of '98 while freshmen at Rutgers University, and has since enjoyed an unexpected and exceptionally fast ascent. January '99: Midtown plays its first show in a New Brunswick, NJ basement in front of 40 people. Summer '01: Midtown is on tour with Blink 182 playing for 15,000 people a night. This whirlwind rise may have sent a weaker band off course, but Midtown's strong foundation in DIY ethics helped keep them grounded every step of the way. Their eclectic musical style, political consciousness, and ahead-of-the curve aesthetic sensibility has put them at the forefront of the underground rock movement and earned them a worldwide fanbase. With a highly-regarded indie album behind them, Midtown is more than ready to take the next step with the release of their new Drive-Thru/MCA album, "Living Well is the Best Revenge."

Guitar Center caught up with Gabe Saporta (bass, vocals) and Heath Saraceno (guitar, vocals) to talk about gear, writing, and their new album, "Living Well is the Best Revenge."

See Midtown live this summer on the Warped Tour.

Interviews:
• Gabe
• Heath

Midtown Links:
• www.midtownrock.com
• www.mcarecords.com
• www.warpedtour.com
GC: Tell me about the guitars that you used in the studio to record "Living Well is the Best Revenge."

Heath: We brought in all of our own guitars. We had four Les Pauls. Three were Standards: a '79, a 1980, and a '91. One was a '93 Studio Light, which was one of the limited edition models they made with the black hardware, which is really, really hard to find. How I had that guitar is another story in itself. We also had a Gibson Epiphone Explorer and we had two Fender P-Basses: an '86 Japanese P-Bass and a 2001 Standard P-Bass. We also rented a ton of other guitars. We used mostly a '72 Gibson Les Paul Standard Goldtop on almost all of the rhythm tracks and most of the lead tracks. We also brought in a 1974 Fender Telecaster, and two Gretschs. I think we also used a Stratocaster on some things, too.

GC: What is it about the Les Pauls that you like so much?

Heath: I've always been a Les Paul guy. They're the most comfortable and the easiest guitars to play. In my opinion, nothing really sounds better than a Les Paul. It's just an all around great guitar.

GC: What do you use amp wise?

Heath: We have the Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifiers, the three-channel ones. We use that for a lot of stuff. We also mixed a Soldano head through a Mesa cabinet and we mixed that with a Supro head through a Marshall cabinet. The Supro is like some mid '60s Sears model amp or something really cheap like that, but it sounded real thick. They mixed so well together. It gave us most of our rhythm and lead tones. We also used a Top Hat amp for some of the lighter songs. They make all different models and they kind of reproduce the sound of older amps. We used a Top Hat amplexador, which is like the Marshall plexy model.

GC: Did one end up being your favorite as opposed to another?

Heath: We used the Soldano and the Supro for mostly everything.

GC: Besides your amps and your guitars, did you use any pedals or effects to get the sound on the album?

Heath: We used a lot of different stuff. We used a Small Stone phase shifter. We used a Boss BF-2 Flanger. We used a Big Muff. We used this reverse Wah pedal, I don't even know what brand it was, but it was always on whichever way you wanted it to go. We used that for some of the bluesy solo stuff. We used those Line 6 pedals a lot, the stomp box modelers. Those are amazing. They sound so great! We used those for a lot of stuff. That's pretty much it for pedals. We also used an Ebow on some stuff, which is really cool to mess around with.

Certain things that are really important to the songwriter are sung by the songwriter. And basically whoever writes the guitar parts plays them.

GC: What do you think a good producer does? What do they bring to the project?

Heath: A good producer should be like an extra member of the band. He should work on the songs with the band and make them, like in our case, 20% better than what it was. The producer should polish up everything and make sure all the arrangements are solid. And make sure all the overlapping parts mix with each other as well as make sure all the harmonies sound good. We have a lot of layers in our songs and it was just good to have someone like Mark Trombino to help us.

For example, the second song on our album, "Still Trying," has a mid section that almost sounds like a video game. In pre-production we played it in a different way. Mark was like, "I like this a lot, but when we go into the studio, I'm going to make all these weird sounds and we're going to make this part really stand out." So what we did on that part was Mark and I stayed in the room for like two hours and we tried all these different layers of guitars. There are like six guitar parts going on in there and two bass lines. There's a part that sounds like a slap bass and there's a part that sounds like a funk moving bass line, like a Sans-amp distortion on it.

 GC: How does the band write material? What's the typical process for one song from beginning to end?

Heath: A lot of the bare-bone structure and parts of the songs are usually written by one person. Gabe wrote the majority of the record. I wrote two songs and Tyler wrote two songs, but we wrote the skeletons of them separately and then we brought them in all together and we rearranged them. We added all our parts and all our harmonies and turned the bare-bone structures into songs. That was done over a few different sessions. We had some time before the Warped Tour so we got about 22 songs together, just rough layouts of everything with nothing played on top. We listened to that all summer and then when we got to California to record, we had like a month before we went in to record, so we were in the studio everyday working on those, rearranging them and putting them back together. When Mark came in it went like a whole step further because he also had some ideas that he wanted to rearrange.

GC: How do you choose which songs end up on the album?

Heath: There were a few that we knew weren't strong right off the bat. We also knew we had about 15 or 16 songs that were really strong, so we basically just worked on those. Those 16 got moved down to 14 and then they got moved down to 13. We actually went in and recorded 13 songs. Of the 2 songs that didn't make it on the album, one of them didn't come out right. We kind of messed around with the structure, not really the structure, but the beats of the songs. We decided to play the verses faster and it really wasn't such a great idea. So we kept that off because we knew it was a really good song and we didn't want to waste it if we weren't in love with it so we put that one off. We were kind of stuck between 2 songs because we had to leave one song off for the Japanese release of the album. So we pulled straws and took votes on the one that would stay off. We had two songs that we recorded that didn't make the U.S. release. There's one that's going to be on the Japanese album and the other one is not going to be released. We're going to work on that again for the next album.

GC: Since you guys switch off singing and guitar parts, how do you guys decide who sings what and how do you decide who plays what guitar part?

Heath: Who sings what is basically determined by the songwriter. In the beginning, we did a lot more switching off between verses, which we still kind of do, that's kind of our thing--it sets us apart a little bit. But, a lot of the lyrics are really personal, so you don't really want someone else singing the part that you wrote and that you feel. Certain things that are really important to the songwriter are sung by the songwriter. And basically whoever writes the guitar parts plays them.

GC: What are the pros and cons of making and releasing a record independently verses on a major label?

Heath: Being on MCA is the best thing that has ever happened to us. We're finally on a label that cares about our band and that cares about us as people. They really care about us and they just want to see us succeed. They also help us out any way we need. Not only that, they really know what they're doing. They know how to work a band and they know how to pay attention to every detail that the band is involved in.

I get all of my gear from Guitar Center.

GC: How did the success of your previous work affect how you guys approached this album in regard to both music and lyrics? Did you feel an unspoken pressure, now that you're on a major label, to come up with bigger, catchier songs?

Heath: Yeah, I guess, but we knew that going into it. We were ready for the challenge. On our last record, it was all over the place. We had two really fast punk rock songs that were like less than a minute; we had some slow songs; we had some emo-ish songs; and we had just total rock songs. We wanted to make this record more of one theme, but still kind of diverse. We didn't want it so spread out and all over the place that there were people that hated certain songs.

GC: What words of wisdom can you pass on to young musicians who want to start their own bands and do what you are doing?

Heath: I remember when that was me. It's just so weird what you can do if you really put your mind to it--I know that sounds really stupid and cheesy and stuff. But, I remember when I was in high school playing Face to Face songs at talent shows and now we're on tour with them. It blows my mind what we've accomplished so far and everyday we just see things changing. Well, not everyday, but every few weeks, every few months, we notice that we're making a dramatic leap and bound. I know what it's like to be pissed off about not going anywhere and being worried about ever getting your music out to anyone. Things definitely will happen if you really try and put your mind into it. The most important thing you have to do is just write great songs. That's all you have to pay attention to. If you write great songs, great things will happen for you.

GC: What have your experiences been like with Guitar Center?

Heath: I get all of my gear from Guitar Center. I wouldn't keep going back if they had a lot of crap. I've noticed that the Guitar Centers by me have a lot of old guitars, like used Les Pauls and used Explorers and stuff. Every time I go in there, I'm always tempted to buy all these guitars. The only thing holding me back is that I really don't have any money to buy them. I've never had a bad experience at Guitar Center.

GC: Have you checked out the vintage room at the Hollywood store?

Heath: Yes. I was there for like two hours. They had a white on white Explorer. I think it was an '82 or an '85 or something. It was the most amazing guitar and I wanted it so bad. Hopefully one day.

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