09.09.05 - Volume 1, Episode #8 - Length 37:23
With a vocalist that is haunting similar to Andy Wood, Mojo Filta’ will rock you hard; crazy guitar solos, sweet bass licks, and a drummer that pushes them all. This band jams. Discover how each of their unique backgrounds came together to form one of the south-ends best.
Mojo Filta members: Eric Breding – guitar/vocals, Jay Selstad – guitar Wayne Ballew – bass, Erick Carlson – drums
AAC 34.7 MB
MP3 34.2 MB
( ♪ - Recorded Live by BSB ♪ )
Erick Carlson: Well, we were just kinda’ looking for names. I had spent some time in a cover band making some money and we did a lot of Beatles’ covers and I always like that line about Mojo Filta’ in ‘Come Together’ and I always wondered what is a Mojo Filta’? It seemed to apply well to us in that unlike our old days we’re not as negative. Everything is more positive. So, this band kinda’ soaks up the negative and filters it out and throws out positive. It seemed to fit. The ‘a’ on the end of filter came about, I think ‘cause, we had a bit of a funky side to our hard rock and when Eric (Breding) would tell people who were, he say, “Oh, we’re Mojo Filta’”. “You mean Mojo Filter?”
Eric Breding: No.
Erick Carlson: No. Mojo Filta’.
Eric Breding: Filta’.
Erick Carlson: It stuck.
Eric Breding: Like Andy Wood would say it, you know. Child of the watia. You know, Mojo Filta’.
( ♪ - Recorded Live by BSB ♪ )
Wayne Ballew: Our early influences were Black Sabbath, of course, the british invasion and metal…a lot of bands, you know, Iron Maiden and stuff like that.
Erick Carlson: Judas Priest.
Wayne Ballew: And then along came stuff like Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots and stuff like that. Those are the ones that I pretty much get my influences from.
Jay Selstad: I am an old KISS freak from way back.
Eric Breding: Who’s not a KISS freak?!
Erick Carlson: Yeah. Me and KISS go way back.
Wayne Ballew: We can all share that one.
Eric Breding: I listen to absolutely everything, with the exception of Country like everybody says, but if it’s harder edged lyrics then I really like that Country stuff, you know. But, I am known to put in Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie type thing and turn around and put in Antichrist Superstar. He (Erick Carlson) made fun of me because I was listening to Usher the other day. I listen to it all. I don’t care what it is. I really wanted to work with musicians in a band that didn’t have this preconceived idea of what our sound has to be. Somehow come up with, just like you said, a melting pot and of course, Andy Wood is god. (Laughter)
Erick Carlson: It’s hard when people ask me, “well what do you play?” Say well, rock-n-roll. They want more of a quantifier to that. I don’t know what to tell them. We are a little bit of everything. I know my dad weened me on…well, my dad weened me on, that sounds odd. (Laughter) He weened me on old hippy rock from the Guess Who, the Doors, Janis Joplin and then as I got older and got into the real hard rock like the KISS, the Judas Priest and the Iron Maiden just kinda’ started leaning harder and harder and for years got into the real heavy stuff, but always had that classic rock background behind what I do and I think all of here are about the same with that whatever it is except I think maybe I’m the only exception with Oingo Boingo being a big influence because…
Eric Breding: ...Right…
Erick Carlson: Danny Elfman is just a frickin’ genious.
Eric Breding: He’s awesome. I was a metal head in high school and I had all the T-shirts, the whole deal, you know. And I remember having to go home and having to hide to listen to Depeche Mode. (Laughter) I would never let my friends know that I was listening to Gene Loves Jezebel and stuff like that, you know.
Wayne Ballew: Why are you letting us know now?
(Laughter)
Eric Breding: I don’t care now. I don’t care now, but I remember back then, man, it was a huge deal.
Erick Carlson: And he used to keep his Dr. Martens in the closet with special colored laces, you know. (Laughter) He didn’t want any of his buddies to see that.
Eric Breding: The girls like Depeche Mode, man. They didn’t like Celtic Frost (Laughter) or Cannibal Corpse.
Erick Carlson: Oh yea.
Jay Selstad: Christian Death.
Eric Breding: Put that on and you weren’t getting any. There’s no way.
( ♪ - Recorded Live by BSB ♪ )
Eric Breding: Olympia has been…we all grew up in Olympia. I hope I am not speaking for everybody too much, but I didn’t necessarily buy into the K Clique. I was never a part of the K-Rock scene or the Kill Rock Stars scene. I know those guys, played with all those guys, you know and only by growing up with them for ten or twelve years do they now respect me. Back then our guitars were a little too much in tune I think or we just were on a four-four vein less punk oriented. So it’s been hard playing in Olympia. We’ve always had to carve our own ways, find our own places to play and really appeal to the outer lining areas of Olympia: Tumwater, Lacey, stuff like that rather than the downtown crowd. We’ve never pulled that crowd. There’s been times when it absolutely completely depressed me. There’s been times when we’ve reared our heads up and tried to just fight through it. Now I just make the music and don’t worry about. But there is always somebody willing to listen to good music, no matter what kind it is. Just because you live in a certain area doesn’t mean that’s what your going to make up. Nothing against those guys. They are terrific artists. I just wasn’t particularly in that bane. I don’t know if I am speaking for you or…
Erick Carlson: No, I think there has been a lot of talented bands that have come out of Olympia, but just like everything else, in Olympia nobody notices.
Eric Breding: Um hum.
Erick Carlson: Played with a lot of bands all over the Puget Sound and you know, unless you were from Seattle you didn’t get a lot of recognition. Seattle was the Northwest. It is the Northwest. Even if you go outside Washington State and tell somebody you’re from Olympia and their like, “From where? Huh? What?”
Eric Breding: Unless their part of that punk crowd then they all know you. That K-crowd.
Erick Carlson: But typically and you tell them we’re from from Seattle or you just tell them you are from the Northwest and they go, “Oh, you from Seattle?” Ugh, yeah, sure that’s where we are from and they treat you a little different. It’s hard to explain but most of the bands, regardless of the talent level, in Olympia they are either still doing it on a very small scale or they’ve gone onto other things. So, yeah. It’s pretty hard. But, Olympia is not much of a music scene anyway so, you kinda’ have to get out of town and go do other things.
Eric Breding: Anymore. I remember when I was younger we would have Fitz of Depression, you’d have us, the Accused and maybe then the Humpers or more of a pop band. I was just talking to the guitar player from Bacchus the other day and we were talking about how that just doesn’t exist anymore. What happened to the eclectic bill? I loved those bills. I hope that comes back around.
( ♪ - Recorded Live by BSB ♪ )
Wayne Ballew: I’d put down music and been in bands, played around these guys and gone and seen their shows and put down music for quite some time and I bought a bass and started playing again, just kinda’ tinkering around and kinda’ got that hunger again and started going to Eric’s (Breding) shows and started talking to him after the shows and telling him to come over and start practicing a little bit and see what we could come up with. He was always so busy in the band that I don’t think he took me too seriously. Finally we got together and it was just a good fit and then we started looking from there and of course he knew Erick Carlson for years too and found out he was available.
Eric Breding: I hunted Erick (Carlson) down.
Wayne Ballew: Yeah, you hunted him.
Eric Breding: I hunted him. I was like, I gotta’ find Erick Carlson.
Erick Carlson: Fortunately I was on hiatus so…
Eric Breding: Thank god.
Erick Carlson: When he came calling and said, I got this bass player and a library of songs I want you to hear and maybe put some drums behind and they came over late that night and took a listen and said, “Yeah, I’ll be a part of that.” And it’s turned out.
Eric Breding: I was in a “kill-your-mom” metal band and I was ready to be out of that band.\
Wayne Ballew: Yeah, that’s what was tough. Watching Eric put his vocals to the test all the time. I kept thinking I got to convince this guy to start jamming with me because I didn’t want him to blow his vocal chords out. (Laughter)
Erick Carlson: We all have some history in Olympia. We’ve all been in various bands that have played opposite of each other for years and years and years. When Eric got this rolling there was mutual respect there, there was already knowledge of each other was capable of.
Eric Breding: It was a no-brainer. I didn’t even…When he said he would jam I was like, okay we’ve got a drummer, I didn’t even need to go out and play with him, you know. This band ultimately cleaned me up completely. I was on the brink of not even being a human being at the end of the last band. This band was just like, I don’t want to sound all cheesy, but “Awe” (Singing like an Angel). For some reason I was really down on jamming. I just wasn’t into it anymore. And it was because I wasn’t finding melody. It was just “bucka-bucka-bucka-bucka-bucka” and here comes bass player melody guy, you know. That’s fun. Melody is fun.
Erick Carlson: And then there was Jay.
Wayne Ballew: Then there’s Jay.
Eric Breding: If you can get two words out of him I’ll give you a hundred bucks, dude!
Wayne Ballew: The silent Jay we call him.
Erick Carlson: Silent Jay, the new kid. (Laughter) With Jay…
Eric Breding: The silent partner is what I call him. (Laughter)
Erick Carlson: He came to a lot of gigs and just became a fixture of the audience for a while and when we were looking for a guitar player…
Jay Selstad: I slipped Wayne a disc of songs I recorded myself playing.
( ♪ - Recorded Live by BSB ♪ )
Erick Carlson: We hope to get back into the studio this Fall. That’s the goal. As apposed to having to take a year which is what 360 did. It took us about a year to actually wrap up. There was a lot of other stuff involved with that that will be easily avoided in the future. Knock on wood.
Eric Breding: We had engineering and studio problems and had to pack it up and leave and go to another studio in the middle of the whole thing which delayed it months.
Erick Carlson: But I think this Fall we will get in and that’s where we are shooting for; getting into the study by the fall, hopefully just in time for the Christmas season.
Eric Breding: And I don’t want to make a date because as soon as you make a date you’re screwed. You’ll never make it, you know what I mean?
Erick Carlson: Alright, I’ll buy that.
Eric Breding: But if we can be in in the Fall we’re stoked.
Erick Carlson: Yeah. As much time as we spent on 360 we also spent a lot of time writing new material, getting it down, getting gigs under our belt and really getting tight as a unit. So, going into the studio won’t be nearly as, I don’t know what the word is…
Eric Breding: It won’t be that difficult.
Erick Carlson: Difficult’s a good word. You know, it should be badda bing, badda boom and then just refine in the mix down or what have you. Everything is pretty much set so it should go pretty good. Obviously things change once you start hearing the stuff recorded little tweaks here and there, but ultimately it should be a piece of cake. Get in, get it done, get it out.
Eric Breding: I would like to be a band that just put out a bunch of product, that just put out a lot of songs.
Wayne Ballew: Or we could do a best-of.
Eric Breding: We gotta’ write more.
Wayne Ballew: We could do all five songs.
Erick Carlson: For me personally, it was always a challenge to get guys into the studio and get the stuff recorded and get it out. But I don’t think that’s the case with Mojo Filta’. It’s so geared around, this is great music, let’s get into the studio, let’s get it recorded, let’s get it out there. I see a lot of recording and a lot of promotion and a lot of getting out and about on the town and getting out to the people. I see that happening more so with this band than any band I’ve been in.
( ♪ - Recorded Live by BSB ♪ )
Eric Breding: Well, they can go to your website. (Laughter)
Erick Carlson: Yeah, go to BrightSideBroadcast. Um, www dot Mojo Filta’ dot com. Triple w, m o j o f i l t a dot com. From there we let people know what’s going on with the band, where are gigs are. There’s contacts, pics, video, well soon to be video, audio, obviously a podcast. Everything that has to do with us. We’re going to get out there on the web and get to as many gigs as we can, as many venues as we can. Because that’s really the only way, I feel, to get your sound out there. It’s just to play in front of as many people as possible. You can direct everybody to a website or a brochure or flyer or a commercial…what have you. But until they see you and feel the energy live you don’t really have them. To get them you gotta’ get in front of them, you’ve gotta’ play for them, get them involved and they get other people involved and it snowballs from there.
Eric Breding: And our goal is always been to try to write the best songs we can, try to perform in the best way we can and whether one person hears it or a million people hear it. I have said this so many times. It doesn’t change the intent of the artist or the way that it sounds. We’re stuck in this thing now a days is the guy who sells a million copies is in a better band than the guy that sells one and that’s just not true. Otherwise Zappa wouldn’t be Zappa, you know so, you know the thing is, we’re just going to make the best song it is and not get caught up in all the politics of rock-n-roll. If it blows up, it blows up, if it doesn’t, hey, we made a great song, we had a good time doing it because that’s where we are getting our love from is from playing the song. Not any not anything monetarily, really. If it did move to a bigger level then monetarily-wise they would have to pay us a lot of money because we all make pretty good money. (Laughter)
Erick Carlson: I like to play in front of people and I just like to get up on stage and enjoy the atmosphere and do my thing and hopefully people get off on it. You know, like Eric said, it’s not about the big status, the big fame, big money because twenty years down the road I will be just as happy if I can look back on what I did and be proud of it.
Eric Breding: You ever notice when you talk to bands nowadays you walk up to buddy and you say, hey man, how’s your band doing. “Oh, we just played the Fenix and we might be getting a show at the Showbox.” Nobody says, well the other night we were jamming and we all just clicked and it was right and we did this improv stuff and god it was so awesome. Nobody says that. You know we are working on this song that is challenging me this way.
Erick Carlson: Or you somebody say, we’re doing good. We’re doing good. We’re feeling it.
Eric Breding: Yeah, we’re feeling it.
( ♪ - Recorded Live by BSB ♪ )
Wayne Ballew: I would say, probably more than anything, is we got a lot of respect for each other I think because it kinda’ shows we’ve spent quite a bit of time together now. We all have different personalities but usually I guess if we fight, if you can consider it fighting if anything it’s more like brothers.
Eric Breding: It’s constructive.
Wayne Ballew: Yeah, we don’t really have any arguments, especially about music. If there is any kind of argument maybe it’s the fact that one of us can’t get together one night and all the rest of us are really stoked on playing that night. You know, just little things like that, but other than that I couldn’t ask for things as far as the way they go, I mean, they go great when it comes to that. Otherwise you usually have so much drama in a band that you just suck all the fun out of it. And sure you are playing places, your selling CDs or something, but are you happy? You know, probably not. Because I think we’ve all been there. I think we’ve all been in those bands to where you feel like you are the only driving force, you’re the only one that really cares, the only one that’s got money, ya’ know, I don’t think any of us could deal with that nowadays because we have been through all of that.
Erick Carlson: I want to think outside the personal side of things. There’s some of the stuff that might be more obvious to folks. Mojo Filta’ doesn’t really sound like anybody else. You can’t really classify us. You do you team me up with in gig? With a metal band or a pop band or with a punk band or who? Because we’re somewhere all over the place. Cohesively, but all over the place, none the less. We go from one extreme to another and not a lot of other bands can say that. A lot of other bands, this is what they are, this is their genre or their style and it’s just like the same style as a dozen, two dozen other bands.
Eric Breding: Yeah.
Erick Carlson: Where Mojo Filta’ is not like that. As well as a lot of bands take themselves really, really seriously. Whereas we all get off by just being on stage, getting to a place, getting up playing, getting it done and having a good time. At the same time being professional about it as well and respecting other bands. Back to your Olympia question that’s something that I’ve noticed around here is there is not that band camaraderie that there used to be, at least not in the Olympia scene.
Eric Breding: That we know of.
Erick Carlson: Yeah, that we know of. I am sure they are out there. We just haven’t played with them yet. There’s no pretension in Mojo Filta’, there’s no attitude. It’s just about getting up and having a good time with the people that are there to have a good time with you. I think our live show expresses that just as much as our music expresses who we are.
Eric Breding: It sounds cliché. It sounds cliché in a way but we’re here to have fun. That’s it.
Erick Carlson: Um hum.
Eric Breding: If fifty people show up versus two-hundred, you know, we are not going to cry about it. The thing is we don’t want to sound too mature. We kinda’ ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, you know what I mean. You’re suppose to be all, you know…WHOOOAHOO! When you’re a rock-n-roll band, but really we’re past that. It’s to the point where we all think before we do. I think I am probably the less of that, but we all think before we do in a way. (Laughter) That’s just nice to know that I don’t have to go out and find my guitar underneath a tire. It’s nice to know. Although you’re underneath the table. (Laughter) You weren’t underneath the table where you? You were on top of the table…inside joke, sorry.
( ♪ - Recorded Live by BSB ♪ )
Eric Breding: We play the 4th Ave a lot.
Jay Selstad: That’s what I was going to say, but you know…
Erick Carlson: We play the 4th Ave Tav downtown Olympia a lot. They treat us real good down there. I don’t know, call it a following or not but typically we pack that place pretty good. Everybody seems to have a good time and stays after hours and really enjoys themselves. Who knows, we’ve got a lot of other places to play yet too.
Eric Breding: I’ve played every frickin’ place in this state 20 million times, you know, so personally I’m not eager to just go out and play Monday nights at the Central. I would rather spend the time writing a good song and recording it. I think there is going to be a stage in this band in the next year, year and a half to where we really do become a bit of a road dogs. You know, where we play pretty hard. But I think we’ve been gelling to get to that point. Live for us for this band… I dont’ know, when I was a kid, you did probably too, I didn’t think I would grow up and record a song I just put the KISS record on and pretended I was rock star. That’s where music came from me. So ultimately the ending is, “Awe” on a big stage. I want to play in front of as many people as I can but, I think we are taking a little more mature of an attitude to get to there this time. Rather than playing in front of ten people on a Monday and four of them are mad because they didn’t get their chicken strips. (Laughter) We’re trying to take more time to appeal to the crowd that is going to take the time to listen to us and actually…We trying to move along in a more mature way to where we are eventually going to play a lot of live shows. I know we are but at this point…so, I think we made a decision. We could either play our asses off like we’ve done our whole lives or we can try to do it in a different way. I want to get a little more festival oriented. I thought I would never say this, but I’m purposely not using a lot of edgy words and stuff like that so that we can appeal to more of a crowd in festival settings and fairs and stuff like that so we can appeal to more people.
Erick Carlson: As long as our music does. As our music does. It doesn’t make sense for a band like Mojo Filta’ to play heavy metal night…
Eric Breding: Hell’s Kitchen. At Hell’s Kitchen.
Erick Carlson: ...At Marty’s bar you know because the people there wouldn’t necessarily get it. Some would, but obviously that wouldn’t be the crowd that we’re trying to hit. We’re trying to hit as many people as possible with our sound, our attitude, our presence and personalities. That’s where you going to find it is the bigger venues. The ones where their bringing in acts that draw more people.
Eric Breding: Ultimately we sell ten thousand copies they can’t deny it where we play. That’s where I want to get to.
Erick Carlson: Absolutely.
Eric Breding: It’s easy to fall into that rut because we’ve all played those. You know, those Monday nights. That’s the first place you wanna’ go. You almost punish yourself. You think you have to go out and do that, but you don’t, you know.
( ♪ - Recorded Live by BSB ♪ )
"This band ultimately cleaned me up completely. I was on the brink of not even being a human being at the end of the last band." - Eric Breding
Official Website http://www.mojofilta.com/
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