Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Radio Hodar Keys Off the Record Podcast with Greg.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Bradley cartters with us. It's good to be here. It's
great to have you back in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
I've had a beautiful four of all days. I was
here for my dad's seventieth birthday and it's been amazing
with it up in Manga Way been great.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
You were in stereo Graham the day it was.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
It was a beautiful part of my life. I've lived
in America for twenty two years now, I'm forty four
years old, so half my life. It's all gone very quickly.
With Stereograham. We were so young. We just wanted to
have fun. We wanted to go to America. We didn't
know what would happen. It was almost that we got
to America six months before the cops showed up to
(00:51):
the party. You know, it was like before it all changed.
But we still got in the gate and it was
still got to ride and it was amazing, you know.
We got to go all over the world and do
all that stuff. Musically, I don't know if it was
any of our favorite kind of music. Like, we enjoyed
it and it was fun watching people enjoy it with us.
It was fun learning about ourselves growing. I think a
(01:12):
lot of us changed a lot in that first Again,
we were just doing it for fun, to go and
have fun and talk about I mean, white trash is
because we loved mullets and we wanted to have mullets,
and we got to do them for the video. And
that's probably still my best mullet I've ever had. Nowadays,
that might be offensive to say something like that, it's
the weirdest time we're in, you know, like it's culturally
(01:34):
different in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Twenty years ago when you were in Los Angeles in California,
we're playing parties or was it just gigs.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
We're playing shows. Our first ever show was at the
Viper Room opening for Kuntu Reeves's band, and it was
basically I was twenty two at the time, and it
was like it was just all these women in their
mid thirties just staring at count No one cared about
his band, but he was so cool. He came and
said high to us and hung out. But we did
a lot of touring. We like did shows. Like the
(02:05):
first festival we played was Milwaukee Summer Fest. It was
a band called Billy talent. I remember being on a
bit of a night with the bass player Ian from
that band on our first ever tour, and it was
just like this is great, Like we're in a random
city and people want to take us everywhere, and I
think me and him ended up on a on a
bachelorette party on some bus all over the city. And
(02:27):
then yeah, because as long as you're at the van
in the morning, you'd get in and go again, you know,
to the next town. But we did a lot of
touring right away. But then we probably I don't know
how many shows we played a lot. We were on
the road for a long time over there.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
In Europe as well.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, we did Europe a few times with Stereogram. When
the iPod ad came out, I think that was sort
of again, that was kind of a moment culturally when
the iPod ad happened really helped us in the UK,
and then Michelle Gondry video at the same time kind
of hit and then we got to be in the
charts in the UK and then all our shows were
sold out, so we had a whole sold out tour
in England and it was amazing. We're like, wow, this
(03:02):
is is it? We're doing it. I remember staying at
the Trafalgar Hilton, which is a very expensive hotel in London.
We had like in Trafalga Square, yeah, and we stayed
there for maybe two three weeks. We had these cool
Mercedes limousines that would take us around to all the
interviews and stuff, and they had PlayStations in them, and
it was like it was like, this is cool. And
(03:24):
then I remember a lot of people from I used
to go to Comma High School and some of some
of my friends from my art class. It would come and,
you know, come and have a drinks with us at
and because the label was paying for the drinks, you know,
so it was just kind of like it felt like
a good completion of cycle. When you say you're going
to do something, You're going to go play music around
the world, and then your friends from school get to
(03:46):
come and do you know, drink with you. There's something
cool about that, you know. But six months later we
went back for a tour there, almost nobody came. It
was almost it was such a we were It was
a moment. It wasn't like a at the time, anything
we understood building a culture or even understanding it was
also an awkward time, and there was no Instagram more,
(04:08):
how do we even talk to people back then? You know,
it was a weird time. You're either on the radio
or you weren't. And at that point when we were
it was great. And then when we weren't, like I
think the worst show we ever had was in Wolverhampton.
I think thirteen people showed up and I was just like,
what's going on? You know? And so it's almost like
those films you watch about bands where it's like really
(04:28):
cool and then really not cool. It's I think any
other band who's had like a bit of a ride
probably can empathize with some of those things.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
But you didn't give up. You carried on. I want
to get into that more in a sick and what
happened next for Stereogram. Bradley Carter is with us and
you mentioned that song with the mullet video.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
White Trash on Radio Hidarchy Radio, Hidarky.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Stereogram White Trash. Bradley Carter from that band is back
in the country momentarily. He's in the studio where us. Bradley,
we were talking about your adventures in the UK following
that debut album. You came home after that, you made
the second album, This is not the target market.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I think we kind of went extra a bit, a
bit harder on that record because we played so many
shows by this point, and I think we were just
in a phase where we wanted to turn the amps
up a bit. Jess Coleman was around at the time.
He was not sober then, and he came into the
studio and there and wanted to sing with us on
(05:45):
a song called Get Up. But it was just it
wasn't playing. It just happened, and I ended up in
be in a booth of them singing. And then somebody
I won't name him called us out for trying to
sound like killing joke on this next record, and I
was like, you realize it. It was a good moment.
I felt good to be in the studio with a
(06:06):
legend like that. And then that song now on Spotify
or whatever. When they put it on, it's like whoa.
It's essentially a Queen's of the Stone Age rip off
for being honest, but the energy is so good, you know.
After that record, we did a tour into Japan, we
did maybe a few more shows in England, and then
we did a really cool opening tour for this German
(06:28):
band called the Atsta. They liked our, they liked Stereogram,
and they took us on this tour, playing like twenty
thousand people a night, tour buses all over Europe, all
that kind of stuff. You know. At the end of
our Stereogram era, which i'd probably call it, was we
played the Big Day Out and we played Moving On
to that crowd and it was everyone singing it and
it was a pretty cool moment. We already decided that
(06:52):
we were kind of done as far as the band.
We never really broke up. I think we just there
was a moment in America where we just sort of
stood around one day and we're like, you guys want
to do something else? And I think I've done it
since I was nineteen, So I was twenty eight at
the time, and I was going through a lot of
life changes. Everyone kind of was, you know, I was
clearly searching for something different musically, but I was also
(07:13):
grateful for the ride in my friendship with the guys
in Stereogram, and we're still really good friends now. And
I think it's just like that whole journey was almost
like we got picked up and put on this insane rollercoaster.
Maybe in two thousand and two to about two thousand
and eight. It was just this very quick and very
wild ride.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, will you ever do it again with them? See it?
Ef We're going to be a reunion of Stereo Grade probably.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
I think we've talked about it. At some point. It'll happen. Yeah.
I think everyone's into the idea of it. It's just
that everyone's also doing other things. We did actually play
one show at Tim's wedding, like in twenty seventeen. We
played three songs and we hadn't played together since the
Big Dayut, and I remember being We're in New York
in this like little rehearsal room. I think Tyson kund
(08:00):
that's end or something, and I was just slay boom,
there it is. It just felt pretty cool. And then
when we played that night at the wedding, because we
only need one whressal, there was definitely something special about
the energy of those five people on stage. Me being
one of them, it just felt like a switch that
just turned on and it was there. I've been in
mini bands now and you don't always get that anything.
(08:21):
Whatever concoction was happening with our lives at the time
and our pursuit of having fun with music and wanting
to take it as far as we could take. It
was just a recipe for something really special, you know
that we got to enjoy.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Safe travels back home to California. It is home now, Yeah,
it's been.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah, I've lived there for pretty much the whole time. Yeah,
so I would say it's home from one home to another.
I know this is home, you know always.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
But as soon as I said that, I thought, I
think no.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Actually, at the last line of Chasing Sunsets, which is
our new song, I made a slight little reference to
New Zealand in the last line of that song, because
it is every time I go to the beach in California,
I look off the coast to Nay. I know that
if I just keep swimming right now, I'll get to
go home in this seific ocean. Yeah, there's something cool
about that. It's kind of it's kind of special. It's
like we're not too far away. It's a quick flight
in the home.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Youner Bradley Carter, thanks for your time on Headaki.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Thanks Greg.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
It's called reminisce on the Stereogram days and that song
you just mentioned, the new one from your new band,
Faux pre Chasing Sunsets. It's playing now on Radio.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
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Speaker 2 (09:50):
Thanks mate.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
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