START TROUBLE

Movement Magazine: Where did it all come from?
Luke Walker: It all started with four track demos in the bedroom.

Was it just you at the time?
Actually, me and Terry and we were both just writing songs. We weren't really like a formal band; we were just kind of jamming.

Then Matt Pinfield of MTV was in town because his wife's parents lived in Ortega. We were driving around one night and hear our first single, "Chemical," on Native Noise. I had given Flounder a CD with a bunch of different songs on it. [Matt] called me the next day and we all met him at The Loop. He had heard it on Native Noise. The band we were with at the time we were called Ten High. He said ‘Cool, I'll listen to this stuff and get back to you later.’ Three months went by and during that time period we were gonna sign with this guy named Jeffery Stodge. The day I was gonna sign, Matt Pinfield called me back and says ‘Don't sign anything because Sony wants to do a demo deal.’ So they gave us the demo deal. It was me and Terry in LA for two weeks. We re-recorded three songs with Steve Gallagher.

How long ago was that?
That was right before 9/11. So 2001.

So we did the demo deal and submitted it back in and then two weeks later they were like ‘Okay, we’re gonna give you a deal.’ So we get the deal in and we hafta get a lawyer and all this crazy shit.

About that time were you Trouble Is? 
No, we really didn't have a name.

Then we went to LA. We were there from January to April and that was when we recorded the album. That was when we changed our name. We came back to Jacksonville as Trouble Is and did a couple of US tours as Trouble Is.

Actual US tours?
Yes, Months. The longest one we had was a month and a half.

Did they take you all over the US?
We went everywhere.  It was like a big loop around the country. It was really cool, we got to see the country and places we've never been before.

What was your favorite place?
California, New York, Chicago, Canada.

Our first tour was with Mindless Self Indulgence. It was the most fucked up match our booking agent could ever do. It was our first tour so it was kind of like boot camp.

What were the audience reactions like?
In Canada it was good. All those kids, they like everything. In America they're like really devoted. All they want to see is Mindless Self Indulgence, so if you're not Mindless Self Indulgence, they're gonna hate you. It was cool though, because we actually got some positive reactions. People always came up to us after the shows and stuff like that. It was an awesome learning experience though; it was like ‘oh this is what the road is like.’

What was the most important thing that you learned or the biggest lesson you learned?
The biggest lesson I learned was that not everybody is going to like you. Music is an art but not everybody's gonna like what you do and it's like a rude awakening. Even when you're doing songs that you wrote it's hard. What I learned was to keep doing your thing and fuck it, it's nothing to do with them in spite of whatever's goin' on.

You went out on two tours right?
We did Mindless Self Indulgence, then we did like seven dates with the Rhythm Kids and Don't Look Down and Allister around Florida and that was like our fanbase. Then we did Ten Foot Pole for a month and a half and that went all around through Canada. That was awesome. Then we did American Hi-Fi in the spring and Allister in November.

Allan, were you in those tours with them when they came back from AAA or were you still in Jacksonville at the time?
That's when we had [inaudible]. He's the guy that played on the album. We didn't have a drummer and then Edmund bugged the shit out of me and finally joined the band. We ended up not getting along at all going on tour, so he went home. So it was me, Terry, and Allan for a lot of the tour. The second half of the tour we did as a three-piece. It was cool though, and a fun challenge. Then we get back to Jax…then Allen quit the band. Yeah Allen called me a couple days after the tour and said ‘Uh, I'm not gonna be able to do this project anymore’ and said I said, ‘okay, that's cool.’

So then you come back from touring as Trouble Is…when did somebody step up and grab that name?
Just recently. There were actually two different conflicts with the name. One guy we had to buy the name from. He had a band in the 80's and we bought the name from him, then there's still trouble with the name because there is a cover band in Chicago, IL, tri-state area where they've been playing for years. So, Sony's like, ‘you can't play in this region since you have the same name.’ So we were like ‘fuck this, we'll just change the name’ and that sucked.

So we're home from tour one day and we end up at a party at the beach with a mutual friend with Jay Fields and Trouble Is and I ran into Mike and I was like ‘Yeah we don't have a drummer or a guitarist and we're about to do a show at Jack Rabbits.’ So Mike wants to audition and I said ‘hey play this show with us,’ and about 20 minutes later, Allan came over and we all got drunk and decided to audition and play together. So then we started practicing  and playing because we all clicked really well and we all got along.

We played a show and it felt really good. The next tour we went on was a US tour. It was sponsored by RadioTakeOver.com. There was the Fallout Boys, Middlefield, Acceptance, and us. We played first every night. [That tour was] awesome because the Fallout Boys have like an underground pool. So it was pretty much packed out every night. Then we got the hook-up from one of Allan's friends and got to go to Miami and open up for Ludacris. That was real fun. We didn't sleep for like three days straight. It was hard, but it was fun. We all kind of grew together on tour.

So we're sitting around with our thumbs up our asses in Jacksonville waiting for something to happen with the label, waiting for another tour.

What do you mean, waiting for something to happen with the label?
Well, it's like they weren't full-steam-ahead for awhile. For like two years.

Why do you think that is? Did they give you a reason for that?
I guess it's just like a timing thing. Apparently it happens a lot with a lot of bands. Then we decided to get to the bottom of it and so all four of got into the Jeep and drove to New York. We went around the office and were like ‘Hey what the fuck is going on?’ After that, everything started happening. Allan came up with the new band name, Start Trouble, and they were like ‘sounds good, let's do it.’

Haven't had any problems with the name so far?
No, Amazingly the .com wasn't taken.

Did you get the record company to help you out with researching the name, making sure it's not taken?
Yeah, I think they did some searches and stuff but we did most of it on our own. We looked up names like Trouble Was and Trouble Ain't…Trouble Could've Been. It was three, four years of learning about what goes on and what we need to do and how you gotta do it. Which is a good thing because it comes in handy.

How the record company been treating you as of late?
They're awesome, they're right on top of it. We got commissions at Mardi Gras this year, like cups and condoms and stuff, and we're playing Spring Break in Jamaica, the 8th through the 20th of March.

Sweet.
Yeah and we got a Budweiser promotion in Canada where they're gonna feature us on like 25 million cases of beer. The album comes out in stores across the country March 23rd.

So is this the same one with "Chemical"? I know you said that was the one that started it all.
That's the first single.

Was the span of music on this album all recorded on that first trip to LA?
The majority of it was, but "Chemical" is the song that they always believed would be a real big hit on the radio.

How many songs do you have on the album?
There's 14 on the album now. We were practicing in the storage unit one day. We hooked up some mics and we were just fucking around with Ludacris’ "Move Bitch," just covering it. They ended up putting that on the album and it was like recorded in a storage unit with like a few mics. We were like ‘whatever.’

Ten of [the songs] we recorded in LA with our producer John Travis. Two of them were recorded in Jacksonville.  Me and the band produced them and Matt Pinfield came down and helped us with "Chemical." There was some kind of conflict where he couldn't get partial credits or something, because he's there I guess. I did the vocals in my bedroom for the first single. So it all kind of got Frankenstein-ed together.

So is Matt still in Jacksonville? Is he still involved, or do you get in touch with him on a regular basis, is he still part of the whole machine?
Yeah he actually just signed with Codian Camry [?]. It's a band that's given a lot of potential and they were just here with The Used. They're playing with AFI, yeah we're gonna try and get in on that show and we're going out on another tour with Allister again in April.

Full-scale tour?
It's just two weeks it in, I think the southeast. We'll do LA, FL, then up to GA, AL.

Have you done headlining shows or tours?
No headliners yet.

Do you think they're probably gonna send you on a headlining tour anytime soon?
We couldn't do one right now because we don't have a big enough fanbase but we've got an album now. Probably if "Chemical" is very successful, then I'm sure we'll go. "Chemical" was released to radio February 3rd, so there's like 15 stations playing right now. Jacksonville, unfortunately, isn't one of the ones that picked it up

They haven't gotten you on Planet Radio yet?
No, we've sent them countless e-mails and trying to go up there and talk to them. It's the kind of thing where you really can't do anything about it, you just have to wait and do as many things as you can, you know whatever.

Yeah it's a shame that the record company in New York has to prod a local radio station to play your alternative local music.
Well, Robert Goodman plays us every Saturday. So it's getting play. I mean that's how it happened with Limp Bizkit. He would play "Counterfeit" and now radio’s practically begging for the phone ins. I'm like ‘Man, I remember when you guys would actually play that shit. You know, man you would play any local music.’ Now DJ's, my friends over there, they played local bands and they got suspended for two weeks without pay, for playing local music outside the required playlist that the giant computer spits out. That's right, they're not DJ's anymore, they're on-air personalities, because all they do is sit and they have they're stack of CDs of their required play stuff and their touch-screen computers for the commercials. One got suspended for two weeks without pay and Flounder got fired.

So what's the future for Start Trouble?
Our second single is going to be "Non-Stop," which the lyrics in the chorus are:

‘I wanna fuck non-stop/Baby, I think you're beautiful/You've got to tell your pops/I'm cool and I'll be good to you /I'll drop you off at your curfew, it's true/I wanna fuck non-stop/Baby, I think you're beautiful.’

So we're talking to a director named Alan Ferguson right now. Alan did a JT video down in Jamaica. He wrote us a treatment up for non-stop, I talked to him the other day and was like, ‘man I don't want nothing like a punk rock video, I want something different.’ So we need a good concept…the video that [we shot] March 5th, 6th, and 7th, right before going to Jamaica, we got a real low budget for it… The concept is gonna be an interracial relationship where the girl, a little white Catholic School-bred girl, likes a thugged out black dude and her dad's not diggin’ it. So it's gonna be a high contrast between the black and white and try to make it meaningful because the song isn't about using your dick for the first time, it really has a little bit of sensitivity to it. So, we're gonna try to convey that through the video. So, that's our next step. We're gonna hold auditions at DA and Mandarin High.

Is there a full version of the "Chemical" video, because I have just a clip?
That's just a promo really.

Are you gonna do a video for that one?
We're gonna try and get our friends UNF to do the full because they have access to all the equipment. We're trying to get them to come down to Jamaica and actually shoot some live footage. So we're trying to work on that. I guess if "Chemical" takes off a little better once the album gets out there, it might take off on the radio then we'll do a video for that.

So when do you think your next Jacksonville show will be?
Right now, we're gonna do a CD release party. We're gonna do like an acoustic show at CD warehouse while they sell our CDs at the same time and CD Connection out at the beach is gonna have a release party. Then maybe like an official release show at Jack Rabbits, Saturday right after the album comes out. That's something that we really want to promote. We're gonna put these everywhere, try to sell some CDs, since that's what it's all about.

You getting the full nationwide release and everything, you’re gonna be all over the place?
Yeah it'll be in Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Tower. It's actually like an international release, like a full wide commercial release.

With your deal with Columbia is it the one or are you signed to a multi-album deal or what is your preterm right now for the future?
The deal that we signed was seven albums, with options so if you suck they can drop you, but if they suck there's nothing you can do about it. (Laughs) It really doesn't mean anything. But we're not really worried about it because that's really our forte, writing songs and being in the studio.

That's really what I was getting to with the other question, about like having "Chemical" as one at the very beginning and you have another so are you guys still continually writing songs and like pulling them back for other albums and stuff?
Yeah that or put with other kind of side stuff and not only do we have like Start Trouble and Matt project, those songs were picked by Matt really. Hey that's three albums then make it this project, a band project. I mean, we all do solo stuff, too.

Right you guys have Bed Destroyers as well, is that just the two of you?
Yeah we have Bed Destroyers it's kind of like a rap thing where it's [Allan] on the guitar and me on the mic.

Is that it or do you play drum tracks behind that?
Everything’s just like sequence stuff. It's just like a hip-hop show with keyboard because he plays keyboard, so some keyboard. It's just fun to me because I don't have to stick behind the mic in one place, I can walk around and rap.

Actually go see stuff?
Yeah, eventually I'll actually get out and go see some shows. My schedule doesn't allow me to go see any shows. Actually haven't played an event show in a long time. It's been a couple months. We've had a lot of label press for Bed Destroyers for a while, Folio and Entertain Us, you [Movement!] did a lot of Bed Destroyers stuff. It was around the time the label wasn't ...we were just waiting around. I was like, ‘I gotta do something, I can't just sit around and write, writing songs, I gotta do something.’ We were out on a Bed Destroyers tour, like an East Coat tour and then after the date we ended up driving back to Jacksonville because we had to make a DVD for the label.

A DVD?
Yeah, That's when everything started rolling. We decided like if we're gonna do Start Trouble then we're just gonna focus on that. It was a lot of fun, but it helped us see the other side of things.  All the tours we had been on we had tour support. I think one independent show was enough for him. (laugh) It really helps to have tour support.

Here's where the real turnaround was like they had that corporate downsize and they got a new rock radio guy and they got a bunch of new staff members and right after that happened that's when we went over there and we like met everybody.

They were all really impressed with you?
Yeah we just kind of became friends with people. I think it solved a lot because now we keep in contact with everybody in the label, more than our management, more than anybody.

Do you have management local here?
They're up in New York.

Sounds like a lot of help.
Yeah they're coming through on some things.

You talk to them pretty often?
Now we are. For a while it was like ‘What are they doing? What's a manager supposed to do?’, you know, ‘what's going on? I'm not feeling very managed...’ (Laugh) They did score us a $250,000 publishing deal from Warner/Chapel so it's worth living off of . They did a bunch of little things, like chose sponsorships and other little stuff, but we got the big stuff so I'm not complaining. Well, it's been interesting. we'll see where it goes.