Frustration is a feeling that I think all of us are more than familiar with. Especially when it comes to romantic circumstances. We feel love-ridden, angst filled, lovelorn, but at least not without any hope. These ingredients for frustration mix together perfectly to make for excellent love songs. The Frustrated Bachelors is a local band that does just this. Though they may be frustrated about their love lives, they don’t have to be frustrated about their talent. So, one afternoon, this frustrated pseudo-interviewer sat down and frustratedly tried to figure out a mini-tape recorder and interview Will Saulsberry, the frustrated bachelor/singer/songwriter for this frustrated yet, talented Columbia band.

Mini tape-recorders are cute but evil. Hidden volume buttons, bizarre rewind sliding bar things, and itsy bitsy tapes. Forget love, those are the perfect mix for frustration. Magically, I became smarter than the machine, and started the interview.

Rachel Gagnon: How long ago did you start the band?

William Saulsbery: Dave and I? I started the band last October, it was me and Austin; he played the piano. Dave joined the band around August.

R: Wow, that’s pretty recent.

W: Yeah, its pretty good, we’re doing so well, so quickly, playing and making records and stuff like that. This past cd is me, Austin, and Ben who played guitar for us on there.

R: Did you know that was the kind of band you wanted to be? Or how did you go about setting the style of music that you’d be playing?

W: Well, I guess those are the kinds of guys who are my heroes, acoustic singer/song writers. Guys like Townes Van Zandt, Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Van Morrison, guys like that. Like Ryan Adams, more recent guys like Pete Yorn, that’s the kind of stuff I really love…since high school…it’s the only music I know how to make and write. Bruce Springsteen is probably my hero. It’s just the kind of stuff that molds me. They kind of write about everyday life, I don’t want to make it up or make it too trite, I don’t care if its too catchy, as long as I think its something important to write about.

R: How long have you been writing songs?

W: Probably about a year and a half now. I had this one teacher in high school who was amazing. I wrote this thing about my grandparents in high school, she was like, “You have to give this to them, and make them read it.”

R: Did they like it?

W: No, I never did, I lost it (laughs). But that’s not the point! She told me I should write, and it just kind of picked up after that. Bit by bit and kind of snowballed. I used to write a song every few weeks. Now it’s like three or four a week…sometimes I’ll write like four in a day. Sundays are usually the best days: I’ll sit while football’s on and just write.

R: When you are on kicks like that, when you write like four a day, what do you usually write about?

W: I dunno! I write a lot about…not really growing up, but kind of the life that we led…I grew up a working class kid. I’m the first person in my family to go to college. I guess the factory life is what I call it. It’s how I grew up. I’ll write about stuff like that. Women, naturally, like what most of the great art of our time is written about.

R: I’m going to completely steal this question from the movie Almost Famous, but, do you have to be in love to write a love song, do you have to be sad to write a depressing song, do you think all of that’s true? Does it help if you’re in a melancholy mood?

W: Ummm, well, that’s the only time I write, when I’m feeling down. If you listen to most love songs, they’re usually about somebody someone’s lost.

R: When you do that, do you reference a specific event?

W: You know, you try to…you want to make it personal, but not too specific because, if you do, then it’s so deep and personal, and no one else would be able to get it. I mean, it’s a fine line you have to walk, I’ve never written anything when I’m happy. When I’m happy I want to enjoy it, when I’m sad then you want that release, that escape of writing. Yeah, so I’ve never written anything “happy happy”. There’s always some sort of sad thing going.

R: So all of your songs then, have to do with some personal experience that you’ve had?

W: Yeah, ‘cause, I try to reference things in my life, I can’t really just make things up, I’m not that creative, I’d like to think I am, but I’m not. Its kind of hard to write about something that’s foreign to me; I can’t write about stuff that I don’t know, it’s usually something that’s happened to me, or my family, or someone that I love, stuff like that.

R: What is the song Washington Street about?

It was about here that the tape ran out. Tiny tapes, tiny amounts of space… I flipped the tape over and played it cool like the amazingly professional interviewer I am and re-asked the question.

W: Oh, in downtown St. Louis, there’s this street called Washington Ave. When I wrote this song, called Washington Street, it was horrible, and I had already made up the case for the record we were going to do, it was all printed out, and I thought it said Washington Ave. so I was like crap! So I rewrote a different song, and that’s the one that’s on the record, but I had to call it Washington Street ‘cause that’s what it says on there. It’s about Washington Avenue downtown though. My friends and I went to a fest down there and I hadn’t been for like 5 or 6 years. We were walking down Washington Avenue and it’s just, the cover of our record is actually a shot looking down it, it’s just my favorite street in the whole world. So I just wrote it about that street, and the girl I had just stopped seeing at that time, my longtime girlfriend, it was kind of about her, and how it all ended, but how beautiful the whole city is. If you go over there in the middle of the day, there’s no one on that street, just construction on both sides and two or three cars.

R: What about it makes it your favorite street? I’ve been on it, and its kind of a seedy street at parts, which is cool, but…

W: Yeah, yeah, I’ve never been there at night when the club kids come out, you know, where the pretty plastic people are, but I just love it, because the buildings are so huge, and you look up, and no matter how great you think you are, you’re really not that big at all. It kind of humbles me.

R: What are some more of your individual songs about, like what does “Wonderful, Anymore” mean?

W: That’s about, 2 girls really, I was dating this girl, but I was just out one night and I ran into this other girl, and we just had a really good time together, nothing ever came of it or anything, but, it was kind of about that. I met her one night, and I liked her a lot, but that’s what the whole chorus is about, and the girl I was with thought I was so perfect but she never knew I wasn’t.

R: So is each song about a different girl pretty much? Because that’s a lot of girls!

W: Take it easy!

R: You gotta admit…

W: There are only four songs on the record, but Dave and I have twelve songs now. It’s getting more mature, it’s not all about women anymore, it’s more about real life, and my sisters, and stuff they have to go through, they have it really hard compared to me up here, I’m kind of pampered. It’s getting more grown up I guess.

R: Where are you hoping to go with the band? Do you want it to stay a college thing? Or you want to extend past that?

W: I look at my life and I realize what I want to do, and I think all I want to do is, I want to have a love story and I want to make records for the rest of my life.

R: Hey, that’s a pretty good life I think.

W: I know, if it works out, it’d be great. I guess it’s kind of my dad or mom’s mentality: if you’re gonna do something that you love, you might as well try to be as good at it as you can instead of just playing around with it. It’s a fun hobby, but I want to be as good at it as I can. I want to make something of it. I feel if I just stop, then all the hours that I spent would be wasted.

R: No, that’s understandable. What do your parents think about it? Have they heard you play or anything?

W: Yeah, my mom has my record, she loves it, I mean she’s my mom. She’s like, “I love that song! Play it!” I’m like, “No!”

R: (laughs) Do you ever play it for her?

W: No, (laughs), no I haven’t played a song for her. Umm, my dad, he liked it, he’s like “That’s not bad!” Which is, I guess, the best compliment you could get from a dad. So he liked it, he wants to hear me play.

R: So how did you think of the band name? It’s hilarious. Where did you come up with it?

W: The Frustrated Bachelors. Austin and I were sitting around one night, this is, last year, and we were trying to think of it. We had all of these goofy names and I was talking about how I just broken up with this girl and he was having problems with the girl he was dating so he was like, “We should just be the Frustrated Bachelors,” and I was like, “That works.” That’s it…so that’s it…us just sitting around whining…pretty much being bachelors. I’ll probably forever be frustrated.

R: Alright, if you could play any gig, anywhere you wanted, with anyone, opening for anyone, or being with anyone, who would it be? Where would it be?

W: Wow, I’d have to say, playing in Greenwich Village, opening for Bob Dylan where he got his start. That would be great. And maybe me and Ryan Adams and then Pete Yorn and then Bob Dylan to close the night. That would be perfect for me. I’d also love to play in my hometown in St. Louis.

R: That could be your whole homecoming thing, you know, after you hit it big. You know, how all the big stars come back home and play these huge “Welcome Back” shows.

W: I’d have to play someplace downtown, with like Wilco, because they’re from the Midwest. I’d love to play downtown…where a lot of my inspiration comes from…where I grew up. That would be great.

R: In your songs, do you include other elements of St. Louis in there?

W: I wrote a song, a few days ago, about downtown and the river and its called “Big River”, and I wrote about that because I can remember the fourth of July one time and the fireworks going off over the river and you could barely see anything. It was like a sea of people underneath the Arch, and I wrote a song about that. I really love that town. I write about St. Louis and the Midwest because I’ve never really been far from home for a long period of time. So what I have to write about is right here.

Concluded the interview and made friends with the tape recorder. They’re not so bad. And as the band shows, frustration makes for good art. *February 20 @ Central Tap*

- Rachel Gagnon