The Tallest Midget

Before I transcribe this entire interview, I wish to ask the readers what appears to be a random and even ridiculous question: Does it matter if you are the tallest midget? Think about it before you dismiss the question as asinine…Does it matter? Aren’t you still short? Don’t people of average height still look down upon you in a literal manner? It seems that would be the case…unless the tallest midget was standing on a stool.

What is this all about? Well, the Columbia music scene is not the greatest scene in the world is it? Be honest with yourself. Think about how many bands have made it big, either in underground/indie or popular music, from this college town in the middle of a state considered “backwoods” by most northern and eastern states. Say what you will, but that area of the country controls most of the music industry. And here we all sit, landlocked and awaiting our messiah.

I don’t deny talent presides in Columbia. Musicians are plentiful, yet, at the same time, a dime-a-dozen. I wait to catch a glimpse of true original talent among the population every weekend, but each time I fall upon horrendous bands, typical formulas and numerous bands mimicking the latest trend in whatever music they find interesting. It is true that modern originality spawns in such practices, but, to be honest, I’m sick of catching these acts.

Everyone wants to be proud of their city’s local music scene. So, when a band such as Kingdom Flying Club unveils themselves to Columbia, we become excited and unfortunately loose all ability to think rationally. Ask yourself: Are they that good?

I believe Kingdom Flying Club has the greatest potential of any band in our little college town. But, what does my opinion matter in the grand scheme of things anyway? The truth is it does not at all matter…I’m only a college kid who wishes he knew more than he does. I write for an unknown Internet magazine based in a town housing few people who can say they know of KCOU/88.1 FM and even less know of Sno-Cone.

The point is Kingdom Flying Club holds great potential, but, then again, according to any elementary or junior high school science class, everything has potential energy.

They have created an original sound and stand out when compared to other Columbia bands. I hope this group can make it, but it is up to them whether they do or do not.

Interview:

Interviewer…Bob Sullivan

Interviewees…Jarret Crader and Matt O’Neill of Kingdom Flying Club

Bob Sullivan: Where does the name Kingdom Flying Club come from?

Jarret Crader: There’s this Danish T.V. show directed by Lars von Tier, the same guy who directed Dancer in the Dark, it’s called The Kingdom. There’s eight episodes out so far, I think there’s four more. But, it’s this hospital…

Matt O’Neill: Anyway, to make a long story short…

JC: …in Denmark…anyway, to make a long story long, there’s this hospital airplane called The Kingdom Flying Club. We always thought it would be this crazyass name for a band.

BS: Who writes the songs for KFC?

JC: We write the lyrics. We write a lot of the basic ideas, structures of the songs…like really simple easy things we bring into the band. We run them through then see what we want to go with…stuff like that. For the most part the lyrics are Matt and myself…it’s actually about 50/50 right now. It kinda fluctuates sometimes I’m 45 sometimes he’s 55 percentage wise…

BS: For the album [Minutes from Meeting], has it taken you awhile to accumulate this stuff or what?

MO: The material?

BS: Yeah.

MO: We recorded Minutes form Meeting after we [KFC] had been together for about…what…4 months?

JC: Not even that. A lot of it is from bands he’s [Matt O’Neill] been in or I’ve been in. Daniel [Stegall] and I have been playing since high school and Matt and I have been playing since college. It’s just like odds and ends of songs and anytime were playing songs and say, “Hey, that’s a good song,” we try to remember things.

MO: Jarret and I have thousands and thousands of hours on tape and we’re going to put together our old stuff and put it out on an album and then release it…

JC: We’re going to just be cheesy like that…we have a website, kingdomflyingclub.com, going up pretty soon and we’re just going to put them up…we do all the recording at Matt’s house…all the burning there, all the inserts and sleves and everything there at this house. It’s just a lot cheaper for us because it comes out to about $2.50 a CD…

BS: So, you record the stuff at your house?

MO: Yeah.

BS: Really…

JC: In his bedroom actually…

MO: On my PC…

BS: Did you have to buy anything special for that?

MO: All I had to got was a soundcard that has eight inputs…that’s about it.

At this point, the door man walked up to Jarret and asked him what they wanted to charge as a cover charge. Jarret went on to explain that it was his birthday and he was not interested in making money that night. So, they settled on $1.

MO: Since only our friends come to our shows, we don’t really make any money. After almost a year we only have about $200 saved up as a band…

JC: It’s really hard for us because most of the bands that play [around Columbia] have a harder edge…inaudible…our’s is like rock…the Doxies are doing their own thing…

Random friend: Happy birthday beeaatch…

JC: Thank you, buddy. We’re being interviewed…

RF: Sorry…inaudible…he’s going to join that big club. That 27 year-old rock and roll guy club…

JC: I’m going to die this year…he’s [Matt] going to die next year. He turn’s 27 next year…anyway, it’s hard for us to find a band that we can play with. We’re playing with a band called In Thicket on Dec. 5th at Mojo’s. The guy at the Blue Note said they had a sound close to us…There’s not been a lot of distinguishable sound…for the most part everyone’s too much of one genre…

BS: Your talking about Columbia?

JC: Yeah. And for us it’s really hard to find someone to play with.

MO: Plus we play songs from all kinds of genres. It makes it difficult to get an audience. The first time anyone here’s us, they can’t really latch on to anything. We’re thinking about making the songs sound more the same…

JC: Trying to coalesce it all into like one same sounding thing…even the songs that are more varied…like speeding up the tempo a little bit is generally what it takes for us. We’d like to make it one cohesive thing. But, then again, we don’t want someone to come up to us and say, “You have a deal because you sound like this.” We’re highly content to…some of us are students, the rest of us are working and living, you know. We’re highly content to take it as it comes. We’re not ready to change anything, yet.

BS: That was going to be one of my questions. Do you have an ultimate goal for this band? But, you’re really just going to take it as it comes…

MO: I reached it when I made the album. Now it’s all just kinda downhill.

That was a joke. I didn’t get it right away, but O’ Neill is very deadpan.

JC: Me, personally, I would like to do it for a living. Even make a little bit less than I do right now, just to be in a band…people so up at your shows and sing along to your stuff, you know. I’m not saying, “[This is] the land of opportunity,” you can be anything you wanna be…but, it would be really nice to sing songs and make money doing it.

BS: So, have you played outside of Columbia?

JC: We’ve played St. Louis twice. We played Warrensburg once. We’re not even a year old yet…we’re only 11 months. We haven’t really shot out yet…

MO: We’re really lazy…

JC: Yeah, we’re really lazy. We could probably get out there and play these songs for people in other towns and they would probably like it and maybe come back to see us again when came back. We all have such huge daily lives…That’s not to say this is not what we want to do, it just…I don’t know….We have trouble practicing. We’re shooting for a July/August tour…next July and August. Everyone will be free of school obligations, I’ll have vacation and we’ll just give it a shot. It’s the best we can hope for being a fledgling band. If anything, we’ve learned form the bands that came before us…inaudible…Here Crader talks about how the band just takes this easy. They’ve learned from not to let stupid and/or petty things stand in their way…not like we’re laid back and passive aggressive…

MO: Actually they do a lot of times. That’s when I get out the whip I have and make Jarret pull his pants down…that’s how we got the vocals on the album…

JC: Yeah, I had to be naked…always…

MO: The whole band actually. I can’t get this band to get naked on the stag, which is actually my dream. If I reached that…inaudible…our drummer doesn’t want to be naked. She’s like our conscience holding us back from making asses of ourselves…

MO: Did you have more questions?

JC: We’re glory hounds…

Random friends come up and wish Jarret a happy birthday…he got a few gourds, Fritos, Hot Tamales, etc…Billy Schuh shows up and talks a bit. Matt, Jarret, and Billy talk about how old they feel after asking Ty and I when we were born. 1981 for Ty and 80 for myself. Matt picks up the recorder and holds it to Billy’s mouth…

MO: Hey, Billy, when did you loose your virginity?

Billy Schuh: Um, well, it was a long story…Is this on?

BS: Yeah, it’s on.

Billy: Oh, I’m sorry…sorry…

Everyone laughs and Billy continues to apologize. We then find out who Mr. Bunny was (The rabbit in the insert of their album) and learn the band members like cats. I ask one final question:

BS: Do you have any major influences?

MO: I do. Paul McCartney. Elliot Smith, and Ween…

BS: Are serious? I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.

MO: Me neither.

JC: Right now I’m listening to Death Cab for Cutie, Guided by Voices…you ate on of my Hot Tamales…name of 15 top Indie bands like Built to Spill, Superchunk…inaudible…

This part of the tape can hardly be heard, but I did catch one interesting thing Crader said about writing songs…

JC: …don’t take yourself too seriously, write about being pissed off, broken up, or happy and if you’re not either of those things just write about being drunk. That’s really what sums it all up.

BS: Well, is there anything else you guys what us write?

JC: No…well, make sure you put Jarret loves Kim. She’ll like that.

Ty asks if he can take one more picture and then begins talking to O’Neill about the digital camera and stuff I don’t understand. From this point, we all had our separate conversations. We shook hands, said thanks, and went about our own business until the show began. Thanks again to Matt and Jarret of Kingdom Flying Club for allowing Sno-Cone to conduct the interview. We appreciate it and wish you and your band all the world’s luck. We hope you make it.

- Bob Sullivan