Interview at BSceneLive

The first time I met Don Martin online, I thought he was trying to sell me something.

Out of the blue, he asked me if I wanted to do an interview. We hadn't gotten fully acquainted; the only thing I knew about him was that he liked music, and that we had some musician friends in common on Facebook. So if he wanted to interview me, there was likely some ulterior motive, right? That's what previous experience had taught me. Eventually he would mention that artists had to pay to be interviewed, something like that.

But no. Further probing revealed that he was a writer who'd stumbled on Cinder Bridge music one day and liked us. When he talked about our songs, it became obvious that he had actually listened to our songs.

My faith in humanity somewhat restored, I agreed to the interview. It's up at BSceneLive. Read on to learn about my thoughts on music, performing, and songwriting. There's tons of stuff there that I haven't already blogged about, promise!

Chatting on the air

Thanks to everyone who tuned in to the Cinder Bridge interview on KXCI this Wednesday.

The whole thing went off much more smoothly than I expected. In general, I am not particularly good at coming up with witty responses in high-pressure situations. If I can get through one of these things without mispronouncing my own name, I consider it a success.

But Wednesday's Live at 5 wasn't a high-pressure situation at all. Instead of firing a succession of questions in our general direction, DJ Cathy Rivers just ... talked with us. It felt like we were simply continuing the conversation we'd started before the show, only now there were other people listening.

We also found out, before we went live, that Cathy Rivers' mother has ME/CFS. So she was more than happy to give some discussion time to "Everybody Knows About Me," our song about living with the disease.

The only thing I'd do differently, if I had it to do over again, would be to emphasize the most serious physical symptoms of ME/CFS -- for instance, the fact that people who have it tend to die earlier. Cathy Rivers said something about how sufferers have low cortisol, which makes it impossible for them to cope with stress. I riffed on that for a while. Now I'm hoping that listeners didn't take what I said the wrong way, thinking stress causes ME/CFS instead of the other way around.

For the record, listeners, stress doesn't cause ME/CFS. The disease is in no way, shape, or form psychological.

Other than that, everything went swimmingly. I can't wait for us to do it again. And I hope you enjoyed hearing us babble as much as we enjoyed babbling.

Before the broadcast

The more Ron the Drummer and I promote a Cinder Bridge event, the more nervous I get. What if it turns out we can't play at the last minute? What if the gig gets cancelled and there's no time to tell everyone?

We promoted the holy hell out of yesterday's Live at 5 radio interview. Through it all, I kept my fingers crossed. I hoped they wouldn't need to change the date on us again. I hoped I wouldn't come down with laryngitis. I hoped that if everything else went OK, I wouldn't forget all the words to our songs as we played live on the air.

Most of all, I hoped we wouldn't run out of time before we got to play "Everybody Knows About Me," about living with ME/CFS. I'd tried my hardest to get word out to the ME/CFS community that we'd be on the air with this song.

My worst fear almost came to pass.

Just before Ron and I were about to load up our equipment, he got a call from the station. Turns out KXCI's board was fried. They could still interview us and play songs from our album, Highways and Hiking Shoes, but we wouldn't be able to perform.

Talk about close calls. The station had a copy of our album, but not "Everybody Knows About Me." If they hadn't caught us before we hit the road, we would have left without it.

Compared to all the work and worrying, the actual interview was a breeze.

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Next time: The actual interview.