Introduction The 4th Street Band has gained a huge fan base over the last couple of years, proved by their top 8 album Live Anthology Vol 1. They return in August with Live Anthology Vol 2 and a US tour supporting the album which stretches from August to November. The tour begins at Madison Square Gardens on August 7th and ends on November 28th at Madison Square Gardens, It’s also been rumoured that they will announce new dates in 2011 which could take in Europe and South America. The band formed in 2007 by Max Armstrong, Lucy Tyrell and Robin Krieger as a side project to The Junction who have recently announced a break up. It’s also been announced that 4th Street Band have a new member, 18 year old Piano, Guitarist Jenny Hudson, we’ll be catching up with Max and Lucy as well as previewing some of the songs which will feature on Live Anthology Vol 2. Max Armstrong Interview When we arranged to meet it was clear that Max was going to pick one of two places to meet for the interview, either his New York headquarters 4th Street Studio’s or his New Jersey home both of which are places he spends equal time between, His decision was Jersey and as the plane touches down in Newark Airport we’re met with rain and dark clouds, I hurry out of the airplane and make my way inside the airport. Once I have my bearings I make my way to the outside of the airport where apparently there will be a ride waiting for me I see a small child standing next to a car holding up a sign with my name on which says Mr Jacobs, I walk over to the child standing next to the car and say my name is Mr Jacobs, the car window winds down and a voice says “Hey get in your gonna get soaked out there, did you not bring a umbrella or a raincoat we’re in Jersey man you shoulda known.” that person in the car was Max Armstrong and the girl with the sign is his 14 year old sister Jennifer, he’s decided to pick up an interviewer rather than send a taxi, to be honest I’m not all that surprised, this is a guy who gave a busker $400 just for playing one of his songs, this is a guy who offered an unknown musician called Jack Frost the chance to be the opening act for his run of New York gigs and also offered him the chance to use his record studio to make some demo’s free of charge, despite the fact that he’s a rock star he’s surprisingly approachable.
So how’s your week been I ask, “It’s been good, I just finished my final New York gig on Thursday at the Apollo Theater in New York, It was exhausting I did 21 songs and didn’t get off until about half past twelve, It was a great night though.” He’s listening to the radio and on comes a Tisha Jackson song, his sister in the back seat shouts “Turn it up Max”. We both smile and he turns the radio up.
I comment on his sisters music taste “The naivety of youth hey.”, he smiles. “This kind of music is on in our home a lot, I’m outnumbered Juliette, Jennifer and Katie listens to it when they’re at home, It’s not top of my pile, I try to get them interested in music like Jakey Comatose and The Bards but they won’t have any of it. It’s usually Tisha Jackson playing on their itunes, I don’t mind it, It’s not my kind of music but it’s pretty decent, have you ever met her?.” I shake my head no. “Shame she’s pretty good fun, I met her through Alicia (Lena) and myself Juliette, and Alicia have been out to a couple of clubs with her, She’s fucking great fun, and Jennifer asked to meet her so I gave her a call and she said she was in New York and told me to bring her over to her apartment and she could meet her, That was pretty kind of her.”
We begin talking about New Jersey and I ask why he likes it so much, “It’s simple it’s the place I grew up, fair enough I left as soon as I could but it’s still home and when I was younger I did have fun living here. The way I see it is New York is for business and New Jersey is for fun, Juliette hadn’t been to Jersey before we met and when she first came she hated the cold weather because she’s been living in California so it was a bit different but before I knew it she had made it her own new home and she rarely leaves Jersey. There is such a traditionalism about Jersey which you just don’t get in New York and when I come over the bridge back home from New York I always get that home sweet home feeling.”
The car ride is over and we’re at his Jersey home, It’s not a mansion by any means “I’m not going to be so up myself that I buy a fucking mansion, I live with four people and this place accommodates that well, it’ has started to get a bit cramped at times but I’m not going to buy a mansion, I don’t want to be that fucking guy, I can afford it but that’s just not me, I prefer the traditional things in life.”
We take a tour of his home and the over-riding feeling of it is that it is very traditional and homely, upstairs there is four bedrooms and a spare room which is currently the host of exercise equipment, there is a room in the loft which we make our way up into, “The loft was made into a extra room maybe 2 or 3 years ago I think, We don’t use it an awful lot and Juliette rarely venture’s up here, she just finds lofts creepy.” back downstairs I’m led into the basement which is music central in the house, it hosts the equipment and is sound proofed, “I spend a lot of time down here, it’s a place for me to just go and relax.” The house is certainly not of the type you see on MTV cribs.
We sit down at the dinning room table and begin chatting about his life. First on the agenda is how he came to making Junction Records such a success “I had a lot of help there, I didn’t have a clue how to run a record label neither did Lucy but we earned a bit from touring and we pooled together to create the label, after we had earned a bit more money we branched out and hired Gregg (Walls) who has experience at a previous indie label and he helped us get things running, although myself and maybe Lucy are considered the heads of the label because it is our label, Gregg is the man who’s made it all run smoothly, he’s a fucking genius to tell the truth.” Alicia Lena is considered the labels big star and she made quite and impression on Max, “She’s the most talented singer I’ve ever met, She doesn’t use any of that computerized shit on her vocals it’s just all her pure talent. She’s also incredibly attractive and that helps a hell of a lot, I don’t like that that helps but it’s just the way it is. She’s so hard working it’s unbelievable, when she was recording the album she barely left the studio’s, she’s just an incredible talent and I believe she’ll still be around in twenty years time.”
He’s currently engaged to Juliette Moore, “She’s set me straight on a few things, last year I was struggling, I was admitted to hospital and she was kind of like the light in my life, excuse the cliché please. She picked my life back up and put me on the straight and narrow. She’s incredibly beautiful and she’s already part of the family.”
His main success has come from the 4th Street Band “It’s been an amazing rise, unexpected but amazing. I didn’t expect Vol 1 to come it at number eight but that was amazing and it’s whats helped get us back together. I prefer working with the 4th Street Band more than The Junction and as a solo artist because I’ve got seven amazing musicians who get the best out of me, when I work as a solo artist I have no one who says to me this songs shit and this songs fucking hot. As a solo artist I have to make the decisions alone, Lucy for example is brutally honest when it comes to stating her opinions, I come up with a new song and she’ll go no, keep that for yourself it’ll be better as an acoustic solo song not with the band behind it, or that song needs to be more powerful so we should record that as a band.”
His friendship with Lucy seems to work very well and she’s his onstage foil, but was there any romance between the two in the past, “We had fun, we’d tour a lot and touring can make people become very lonely. After a gig we’d all go backstage and have a few drinks and take a few stuff. We were left alone one night, we had had a few drinks, we weren’t hammered maybe a bit tipsy. Anyway to cut a long story short we started making out, then she went down on me, but anyway that occurred a lot after most shows and before too long we began dating, It didn’t last very long but we’re just good friends now. bare in mind that this was like 2007, I‘m certainly not this kind of person anymore believe me, it frightens me when I look back on those memories of when I was starting out, I fucked around a lot.”
The band has a brand new member in Jenny Hudson, “She’s a talented young girl, She tried out for Junction Records, I wasn’t there when she tried out, but she made a good impression on Lucy and I listened to a couple of tracks she had written and we just had to have her on tour with us, She’ll be huge someday. I’m sure of it.”
His sister Katie has been spending the last month in LA and has been linked to Ryan Ross Hernandez something Max isn’t entirely happy about, “I kind of understand that she wanted to go somewhere different to New York and have some fun and it was obvious that LA was top of her list. I’ve spoken to her a lot when I read those stories about her dating Ryan Ross, she assured me that there isn’t anything to worry about but come on the guy is a notorious asshole, I know Katie is more intelligent than that, She was at NYU but she doesn’t want a normal job which is fair enough I guess. Anyway I called her when I read those stories and she said that she did hang out with Ryan a couple of times but she assured me that she wasn’t interested in having an exclusive relationship with him, She’s just doing what girls her age do in LA, She hangs on the beach with friends then she goes to clubs at night and she probably hooks up with people every so often. She’s not in a “Relationship” with Ryan, She may have partied with him and maybe done other things which I don’t want to think about but their certainly not in a relationship.”
He’s about to return with 4th Street Band but does he ever get nervous “Yeah a little bit, If you don’t get nervous then it’s time to retire from music because that’s what it’s all about. We’re in talks to make our return in July at Aftermath 4, Jakey Comatose has quit the music business which means the Friday headline slot is now available and we really hope we can get the chance to make our return in July at such a huge festival.” Well our interview is over and it’s time for me to make my way back to Newark Airport.
(Lucy Tyrell Interview coming soon)
(OOC: This is probably the longest post I've done, So let's know what you think. Thanks for reading)
Edited by user 23 May 2010 01:49:24(UTC)
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