INTERVIEW: Cash Cash
Cash Cash is popping up everywhere. It’s almost hard to believe that this small New Jersey band is rising so quickly in the music world. Vocalist and Guitarist Jean Paul Makhlouf was nice enough to answer a few questions posed by BeatCrave despite his damaged vocal cords from their past tour with Metro Station. We cover the release of their new album, how Dashboard Confessional spurns acoustic shows, and their upcoming stint on Warped Tour.
How would you describe your music?
A sugar rush explosion in your mouth…Remember Pop Rox candy?? It’s kinda like that…but better! ☺ or I guess I could also say if Michael Jackson had a threesome with Britney spears and Daft Punk and somehow had a baby….it would be us!
You just finished your tour a few days ago, but you’re not starting up again in January, right?
We’re actually are starting another tour in Jan. Early January we’re going to be doing a short acoustic Hot Topic in store tour with We The Kings & Hey Monday. That tour will end in California where our next tour with Millionaires begins.
Since you’re fresh off the road, how about letting us know what some of your favorite pit stops across America are?
Definitely Denny’s, Taco Bell, and random truck stops that have pretty much anything you need…we usually always get ice cream bars & the occasional beef jerky…and Nerds candy!! Sooo good! haha we also get excited when we see a Bob Evans!
A few days ago, you guys were officially announced for Warped Tour!
- Are you excited?
Super excited…We’ve been going to Warped tour since we were little kids and always dreamed of being a part of it someday.
- Is this going to be your first Warped Tour?
Yepp.
- Do you know long you’ll be on the tour for?
We’ll be on the second half starting around July 24ish.
- What are some of the things you’re looking forward to?
Hanging out with all the bands we’re already friends with as well making a ton of new ones!
What are some of your influences?
Jimmy Eat World, Daft Punk, Michael Jackson, Justice, Goo Goo Dolls, Saves The Day, & Dashboard Confessional
Let’s talk about your Self-titled EP that was released in October.
- What kind of feedback have you heard about it since fans have had a chance to listen?
The response has been really good. It got a lot of people hungry and excited for our full length CD that’s coming out Jan 20th in stores. Can’t wait to get that out to everyone!
Why did you decide to release your first studio album so soon after the EP was released?
Well actually, we never planned on releasing an EP. We finished recording the whole album in July ‘08 but we had a bunch of speed bumps along the way with regards to mixing it, and just finding the time to complete the final touches. We weren’t 100% satisfied with the production and mixes that we were given when we got back from our Valencia tour. So in the little time I had between the Valencia & Metro Station tours, I knew we had to take it back to where it all started…my basement. I basically locked myself in my home studio for 2 weeks so I could tweak production & mix all 12 songs on the record myself. It was super hectic but very rewarding in the end. Now, not only do we have an album that we are extremely proud of, but we have a CD that contains music that we had 100% creative control on. So basically, we just put out the EP so we could have something to tour with until we could finish the rest of the album.
Tell us about your new album, Take it to the Floor.
It’s our first full length CD on a label. It feels like our first born child!!!! Haha most people also wouldn’t know how DIY the album is…Not only did we co-record & co-produce the album, as well as mix it, but we also designed all the artwork on it. This album really sums up our whole band up until now. There are a lot of memories on this CD….There’s a shout out to when me and Sam were in our first band together called Something To Say. The Interlude track is a shout out to our friends’ bands back in high school that we used to play shows with every weekend. A big chunk of the album came out of random stupid Fruity Loop demos on Alex’s computer that we never planned on becoming real songs on a real CD…To me that’s the beauty of this record. We didn’t hold back at all. We wanted to do something that sounded new and fresh and didn’t care if people were gonna like it or not!! We used a ton of vintage electro drums, retro keyboard sounds, synths, & bells. We used a bunch of vintage guitars to get a sound on this record that might have been forgotten….We were so overwhelmed with a lot of albums sounding the same these days with the same wall of distortion guitars, the same big rock drums, the same live bass….don’t get me wrong, we all love that stuff too but we just wanted to do something different this time around!! And we did!! We made sure every song had its own elements and vibe. We catered to each song as an individual instead of just recording the same sounds, same instruments & drums to each song on the album.
Was there a specific reason for releasing it via different media outlets on different dates?
No, that’s just what our label suggested.
I heard that you guys played acoustic shows outside the venues after your shows were over for the night – this is a really innovative way of interacting with your fans. How did you come up with this idea and how has it helped your growing success as a band?
Growing up I was a big Dashboard Confessional fan. I would go to his sold out shows and be one of the thousand kids singing along at the top of my lungs to every song. Any Dashboard fan would know what I’m talking about when I say his acoustic shows were some of the most interactive shows ever. He would get the crowd singing every lyric and you could hear the crowd singing louder than him at times. It just showed me there’s something special about playing acoustic because it connects you to the crowd in ways that you can’t when you’re 10 ft back on a stage with a full band behind you. Anyway, so after our shows I would use my megaphone to direct everyone leaving to a certain spot where we would play acoustic. Usually on the side of the street or curb. We plan to continue doing it a lot down the road…even if they call the cops on us! Haha We’ve had the cops get in our face a few times cause we gathered so many people after the show that people started blocking the whole street off. I think they were just jealous that my megaphone was louder than theirs…
Where do you see yourselves a year from now? Do you have any specific goals music-wise?
I see us on the road touring full time till our bodies fall apart….Making our record was a lot of fun, but there’s a fix you get from touring that you can’t get doing anything else. Whenever we get back from tour, we’re home for 3 days and then we get all bummed because we miss it soo much and can’t wait to start up the next one! The only goal we have right now is for those shows to keep growing with each tour…we hope to see more and more people singing along with us!
What are some of the differences between your live music and your recorded music?
We definitely have more energy in our live show. We really try and interact with the crowd and connect with them as much as we can. Our songs also come off a lot harder live than on cd. There’s more of a live feel with the drums and guitar.
Are there any changes in terms of what you do in the studio and what you do on stage?
We extend certain parts and spunk things up here and there but we always try and give you everything that’s on the CD and then some. I know growing up I would hate going to see my favorite bands live and not hear that one vocal hook, or that one back up vocal that just made the song that much better…or not hearing that one guitar or effect part that I would love hearing when listening to the CD…We want to give you everything that’s on the CD and more!! Sam and Mike both sing so we cover all the vocals and harmonies. Alex plays the Vocoder & Talk Box live so the effected vocals are there, & Anthony triggers all our effects and electronic drums that our on our CD. So pretty much what you hear is what you get.
You guys are a very diverse band as it is – you cover electronica, pop, and new wave. Are there any other genres musically that you would like to try out?
We definitely would love to experiment with other styles and others sounds and instruments down the road. We all love so many types of music and so many artists that I can’t see us doing the same thing over and over again, but I know we’ll always have that one thing in the music that makes it Cash Cash.
As a relatively young band, how do you think you influence your fans in ways other than music, and do you guys do anything special to further them as responsible citizens? (i.e., Warped Tour’s Eco-Initiative, various foundations that bands have set up: Incubus’s Make Yourself Foundation, Jack’s Mannequin’s Dear Jack Foundation)
We haven’t started any organizations yet cause we’re a fairly new band, but we definitely recognize the influence we can have on some of the fans and it’s very important to us that we act as good role models! True story: On our last tour these 2 fans came up to me after our acoustic show to say what’s up. They must have been 11 or 12 years old with braces and cigarettes in their mouths!!!! I totally freaked out and was like, “Girls, Girls! What the hell are you doing!! I know you don’t want to be smoking those right now! You guys don’t need them to be cool!” I was like, “Do you guys think I’m cool?” They smiled and shook their heads “yes” (that’s when I noticed their braces and almost died)… haha anyway, I was like, “Well, I don’t need to smoke to be cool and neither do you!!!” Then I said, “OK girls, on the count of 3, let’s throw them on the ground and stomp em out.” They listened and did it with huge smiles on their faces and it was just sooooo obvious they didn’t want to be smoking in the first place… I went back and told my whole band the story and it brought up the conversation on how easily some of these younger fans minds can be negatively influenced and how we gotta take every chance we get to be a positive role model.
What advice do you have for up and coming bands that want to make it big?
The biggest advice I can give is to do something original and different. It’s an oversaturated music scene with a lot of the same stuff. You’ve gotta stand out. Obviously hard work is very important too. You’ve gotta be hustling day in and day out trying to get heard. No label wants to work for a band that isn’t working for themselves. I tried for years to get my band going when I was treating it as a weekend thing, and writing music that was being played by 1 million other bands…No one cared. Then one day I decided to drop everything and just focus on the band. I took a risk. I left school & work and literally spent every minute I had on music. I threw everything I knew about writing music out the door and started from scratch. I set out to write something new and fresh. It’s all about spending time creating a solid product, and then spending just as much time networking and buzzing it out. I was never a fan of the “tour-tour-tour-as-an-unsigned-band” when you can’t even draw people in your own town…You end up losing money that way and you aren’t making any fans cause the tours would fall apart. I think DIY tours are such a waste of time unless you have someone of some sort of relevance behind it. Instead, worry about building a huge fan base in your own area. Play shows in surrounding states, take short trips, but don’t kill yourself booking a full US tour filled with basement shows, half of which end up getting canceled…your time could be better spent!!! I spent my time getting a new batch of fresh songs together. Once I did that, I spent every minute I had hustling in the city at clubs and shows with back packs filled with CD’s. I would try and find hot spots where A&R’s & industry people would hang out and try and network with them. I mailed hundreds of press kits out, and literally spent every waking hour finding ways to buzz the band. I would send mass emails out every day with links to our online press kit to every industry email I could find online…3 months later we had a different record label calling us every week. So my advice is to HUSTLE! HUSTLE! HUSTLE!
If you had the option of touring with whomever you wanted (be it living or deceased), who would it be and why?
Current bands I would love to tour with would be Dashboard Confessional, Jimmy Eat World, and Maroon 5. Past bands would be Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, or The Beatles. I think it would be so much fun touring with a band that I grew up listening too and seeing in concert. The feeling of actually being on the stage with a band that 5 years before you were watching in the crowd from a distance must be amazing.
What are your top five albums of 2008 and why are they your top choices?
- Katy Perry – One of the Boys (so much edge, great song writing, and sonically it sounds soooo fresh)
- Britney Spears – Blackout (the programming is just awesome and there are some really awesome new sounds used in it. It’s just got some really fun pop songs to get down to)
I don’t know, I think 2008 kinda sucked a bit actually…so I’m gonna backtrack a year to some albums that tickled my pickle in 2007!!
- The Used – Lies for the Liars (the production is absolutely insane (John Feldmann is a genius), new elements in every single song, crazy instrumentation, & killer lyrics)
- Cobra Starship – Viva La Cobra (Fun, Retro, Dancey, and Catchy. What’s not to like?)
- Maroon 5 – It Won’t Be Soon Before Long (Pure genius, insane musicianship, tasteful, simple yet not boring and easily sing-able)
Is there anything you’d like to tell our readers?
Peace & Love…Lots of love
Cash Cash’s album is aready available digitally, but make sure you get the hard copy when it comes to stores January 20th! Check out upcoming tour dates here.
