The Copyrights

What is there in Illinois besides Chicago and the surrounding suburbs? I don’t know, corn maybe, aren’t there some colleges, didn’t Abraham Lincoln come from there…oh, the Simpsons live in Springfield too, right? Illinois is not accredited for much down South, let alone a thriving music scene. The Copyrights from the small college town of Carbondale, IL are the exception and have been killing it with their catchy punk rock tunes; let’s not call it pop-punk…it’s more like buzzpop.

The Copyrights have made a name for themselves without the assistance of big city living and have a lot in-store for this year with relentless touring, including playing fests all around the United States. Earlier this month, The Copyrights released their latest blend of catchy sing-along choruses, hooks, and witty lyrics with North Sentinel Island. Singer and bassist, Adam Fletcher met up with ThePunkSite.com at their record release show to talk about making it as a band from Southern Illinois, the new album, and what the Copyrights and Dear Landlord (2/4 of The Copyrights play in that band too) are up to this year. 

All photos by Ryan Holloway.

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Amy: Who in the band still resides in Carbondale?

Adam: Three out of four of us do. I recently, well recently as of a year ago, moved back from Chicago. My girlfriend and I moved back to Carbondale and bought a house and stuff. Our drummer Luke lives in Springfield, which is three hours North of Carbondale, so that makes things still a little bit complicated, but it’s less complicated than having us all in different places.

Amy: So there was a span of time when you were all living in different places?

Adam: Yeah, I was in Chicago for three years, Luke was in Springfield, and the other two guys were in Carbondale, so that’s about a 350 mile stretch between all of us.

Amy: Did you all grow-up in Carbondale, how did you all meet?

Adam: Luke and I are actually from a really small town a few miles away from Carbondale. Luke is one year older than me, so he was in the class above me, but we started playing together when I was 14 and he was 15. We were in bands in high school and then out of high school we played music together. Ironically enough, Jeff and Brett moved to Carbondale to go to college from Lincoln, IL, which is North of Springfield. They were in a local band too when Luke and I were in a band and when our bands broke-up, we got Brett in the band and eventually got Jeff a few years later.

Amy: That’s what I kind of wondered, because I know a lot of people go down to Carbondale to go to college at Southern Illinois University.

Adam: I guess we met Brett and Jeff by way of them moving there for college, but Luke and I were from there. Jeff and Brett have lived there forever, Brett literally did two weeks of college and quit, so Carbondale is their home as much as it is ours.

Amy: When I read one of press release it said, watch out Champaign, IL (another college town in Illinois).

Adam: It did? Why would it say that? What are we going to do, put Champaign under? I don’t know what the means!

Amy: I think they meant it like people, when they don’t cite Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, they think of Champaign-Urbana as a thriving music scene.

Adam: That town is weird. The college is huge, and I could be completely wrong because I never lived there, but it does seem weird that there never seemed to be a huge music scene with how big the college is. Carbondale is a much smaller college, but it has a really great, thriving local music scene; it is crazy good. When it comes to college stuff, some things kind of suffer because some people are just in bands because they are there for college; people come and go a lot. Bands don’t really get to spend time developing their sound and they don’t get to work out the kinks; bands come and break-up on a monthly basis.

Amy: Do you think its hard being a band from Southern Illinois? Typically, when people think of music in Illinois, they immediately think of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs.

Adam: Yeah, it’s totally different. If I grew up in Chicago, I would have a totally different mindset; I think all of us would about being in a band because you actually have an opportunity to become famous because people in your town have actually become famous. There is no famous band from Carbondale. The only famous punk rock band from Carbondale is the Blue Meanies, who moved to Chicago to make it and that’s it. Just like the Dwarves were from Champaign. We never had any high hopes of making it, so I think that helped us be down to earth with just playing music for fun.

Amy: Why did you decide to call the new album North Sentinel Island?

Adam: That’s Luke’s deal. We were tossing around ideas for the name of the record and he said that one. I was not really into it as much at first because I did not really get it. He has kind of been on the North Sentinel Island kick for a while. I don’t want to speak for him, but he’s interested in the subject matter of the islands. Once I looked into it and started reading about it, it worked with the theme and tying in the artwork and everything. Once it started coming together I was like oh, this actually makes sense.

Amy:  How would you compare this album to past releases, any different approach?

Adam: Totally different approach, absolutely different approach. All of our other records, we went into the studio and knocked it out in a week or two and did it very quick and unrehearsed. We demoed and rehearsed for Make Sound, which was the record we did with Matt Allison. With Learn the Hard Way, we didn’t practice at all, went to the studio, learned the songs, and recorded it, and we did it in a week. This approach was with Matt Allison, we wanted time to not be an issue. We went to the studio and time was not important, we just wanted to focus on making the record the way we wanted to make it. We also demoed the songs for a year three separate times and went back and thought about things, what we wanted to do and everything that had to be there. It was a completely different than any other approach we’ve ever done.

Amy: Usually you have album after album come out, so there was a bigger span of time for this one.

Adam: We had some seven inches and Dear Landlord was busy touring at that time. I needed to take some time because I moved back to Carbondale and my girlfriend and I bought a house. I wanted to put out the record when I knew we could go on tour and get behind it. Before you know it a year slipped by, and it’s like oh fuck, we don’t even have the artwork.

Amy: What are you most excited about the album dropping?

Adam: I’m just excited for people to hear it because we have been sitting on it for about a year. Every emotion has been involved too; I love it, to Jesus fucking Christ, put this thing out already. I’m fucking sick and tired of thinking about it. Now that it’s out and done with, I’m interested to hear what people think about it and I hope people like it.

Amy: Since Dear Landlord is also still active, how do you balance being in both bands? It’s not like it’s just some side project.

Adam: It is and it isn’t. Zack lives in Florida now, Brad lives in Minneapolis, and Brett and I live in Carbondale; we’ve always been spread out. We toured with Off with Their Heads quite a bit for a few years because Zack was in OWTH full-time, so we would just get in the van and go with them. He’s not doing OWTH anymore, so we’re going to try and come-up with new songs. It’s just so hard because we are all so far away from each other. Juggling between the two, it’s not that hard because Brett and I have set ourselves up where that’s what we want to do is play music. Dear Landlord is not on tour, neither band is on tour eight months out of the year. We can split them both up and do six or five months a year of touring and it is okay. It is actually really awesome that we’re in a position where we can do both bands. Both bands are at a level where going on tour doesn’t completely empty our bank accounts anymore, so that is kind of neat.

Amy: Yeah, a lot of bands come back from tour like “man, I’m broke.”

Adam: That shit happens, it’s not like we’re making a lot of money. It’s also not like before where we did things when we first started that we would never do now because we had to do it.

Amy: The Copyrights ended up on a ton of big fests this year…Riot Fest, Gainsville Fest, CMJ, Awesome Fest, and Insubordination Fest.

Adam: Yeah, the year for festivals.

Amy: What are you looking forward to the most about playing for the huge crowds?

Adam: This has been a crazy year for festivals. Dear Landlord did the Groezrock Festival in Belgium, which is like the biggest punk rock festival over in Europe and it was fucking crazy. The thing I like the best about festivals is you get to see everybody that you have met around the world on tour all in one place.  I get to hangout and drink beer and randomly run into the guy that I met in whatever country or state. Plus, usually at a festival setting, you have fans of your band from all around. Usually they are a little bit more excited and take you less for granted. I’m looking forward to hanging out with my friends and drinking beer, we’re easily amused.

Amy: How did you get signed on to all of those fests?

Adam: They asked us.

Amy: You’re just so popular.

Adam: Yes, we are so popular. We’re not the headlining the band, well except Baltimore festival I suppose. (They play right before headlining Chixdiggit at Insubordination Fest in Baltimore this year).

Amy: Who writes the songs?

Adam: Luke, and he’s not here.

Amy: You don’t have to answer this for him then, but would you say the songs and lyrics reflect mostly his personal day-to-day life and everything going on around him?

Adam: Yeah, we don’t really write songs that are weird fantasy songs.

Amy: So you guys don’t fantasize about girls in glasses?

Adam: Oh, oh, you’re deliberately pointing to that reference. Well, okay, yeah we have a girl song, maybe two….a couple girl songs, I’m sorry. Hey, it’s about a glasses fetish, that’s an interesting take at least. It’s not about going to prom or high school or something. I would definitely say things are taken from day to day observations.

Amy: Is anything going on with Dear Landlord this year or anything with the Copyrights other than the new album and touring?

Adam: Copyrights stuff, we’re doing some touring. Beginning of September, we are flying out to California and doing a West Coast tour and Awesome Fest. We’re flying back from that and we go out East with Strike Anywhere and A Wilhelm Scream, and then we end at Riot Fest, which is my birthday and I will be 30 years old. I am going to be a fucking train wreck and drop the ball on that show, and I don’t give a shit! Dear Landlord is doing a short tour around Insubordination Fest and Best Friends Day. The plan is to lay low during the winter months and maybe do some demoing with Dear Landlord. The Copyrights are going to Europe in May and that is as far as I am booked.

Amy: Is Europe a lot crazier in regards to the crowd? How would you compare Europe versus shows here?

Adam: People are a lot more excited to see a band from America, which is weird. It’s the same if say a band from Japan comes here. People are really excited there and different countries have different cultures of shows. Europe has one or two band bills, which would never happen in the United States. The regular is a two band show; people show up right before the first band comes on, they hang out and drink, then the last band plays and it’s over. They want you to play forever until you can’t physically play anymore and then they think you’re a dick when you stop.

Amy: Go back to America!

Adam: Yeah, then they think you an asshole. Not all the time, but sometimes, which is interesting because when you play in the United States for more than 15 minutes it’s like seen it, done.