Little Rebellion Music

East Texas quartet JB and the Moonshine Band very much impressed me with their sophomore album, Beer for Breakfast. The album’s singles, ‘The Only Drug’ and ‘Kiss Me that Way,’ were important topics of discussion during CRS 2013, with the music video for ‘The Only Drug’ now playing on CMT. The band, comprised of JB Patterson (vocals, guitar), Gabe Guevara (drums), Hayden McMullen (lead guitar) and Chris Flores (bass), is a real band of brothers and a lot of fun to interview. Read on to get their thoughts on the new music, life on the road, country radio, and about a dozen other topics!

UCN: Okay, let’s talk about music. Your current charting song, ‘Kiss Me that Way,’ is doing really well. I checked this morning, #8 on the Texas Regional Radio Report.
JB: Awesome! We didn’t know that.

UCN: Well, there you go! Top 10 hit! A round of applause! [smiles] [everyone applauds] And congratulations on the Texas Regional Radio Music Awards nominations. You guys are up for Group of the Year, right?
JB: Wow, are we really?!

UCN: I’m bringing you all the good news today! [laughs] JB: I knew there were a few things but I didn’t know Group of the Year was one of them. Wow, that would be really good. I would like that one. [laughs]

UCN: It’s fan voted. Tell people to go vote for that. [smiles] JB: You know, I always feel weird about saying, ‘hey fans, vote for me,’ you know. But I guess you have to if you want win it. We should just leave it up to them.

UCN: About the song, ‘Kiss Me that Way,’ I really do love it.
JB: Thank you so much!

UCN: Tell me about the write, who wrote it, what was the idea.
JB: [leans into the microphone] This is JB, by the way.

UCN: Thank you. [laughs] JB: I wrote it in Galveston, Texas, at 3 am on the beach. It took me about 30 minutes to write the entire song. I had a fight with my wife, on vacation. And later that evening we realized that we didn’t even remember what we had been fighting about, and she gave me a kiss and it just let me know that everything was okay. So then, bam, here comes the song.

UCN: I like that I know that now because, look, it’s written down here in my notebook. It says “real people” for that song. And you can tell in the lyrics.
JB: Thank you.

UCN: What bothers me about many love songs is that it’s all unicorns and rainbows and that everything is perfect, and that drives me crazy. But this song says ‘yes it’s not perfect, and we are going to argue, and I’ll get in your face and piss you off sometimes…
JB: Oh yeah! [laughs]

UCN: This describes something that’s real and I don’t hear that enough.
JB: Thank you. It’s one thing we pride ourselves on, that is if we are anything we are real, raw, and we don’t really apologize for that.

UCN: And you shouldn’t.
JB: We don’t want to be something that we’re not. Even if we could be more successful being something we are not, it’s not worth it to us. We would rather not sacrifice being ourselves for more exposure.

UCN: Plus, then you would have to keep up that act throughout your career.
JB: Yeah! It would be like Miley Cyrus who had to be Hannah Montana! What a horrible life to have to put on some façade everywhere you go. And plus, I don’t even own a wig…
[everyone laughs]

UCN: You said ‘if we could do something to be more successful’, and I’m thinking, why aren’t you? Because this song sounds so good!
JB: You mean, why aren’t we more successful?

UCN: Yes, I mean what’s up with that? Can we change that? Can we come up with something here? [smiles] JB: Well yeah, have you ever heard of something called ‘the almighty dollar’?

UCN: Oh yeah…
JB: That has a lot to do with the music industry. It’s just the way things go. You have to realize that. Are you going to go in there and do your best, or are you going to turn tail and run. But we’re getting in there, we’re throwing our hat in the ring and we’re slugging it out with the best of them. We consider ourselves the Bad News Bears of country music. [everyone laughs] And were kind of proud of that, that’s our angle right now, that’s what we are doing. We’re being ourselves and we’re doing the best with the equipment we have, with the team that we have, and with the bus and the gear, we’re doing the best we can.

UCN: Well, I think your best is pretty damn good!
JB: Thank you!

UCN: Texas radio has really taken it on board and is very supportive. What about national corporate radio stations?
JB: Well, this will be our first single to push to those stations. This is brand new for us. I talked to one of our radio reps yesterday and she says she’s been getting very good feedback from the West Coast. I don’t really know is how it’s developing. Clear Channel is a big corporation and they deal with a lot of other big corporations, and JB and the Moonshine Band is not a big corporation… [smiles] In a perfect world, what they play on the radio would be selected on its own merit and worth.

UCN: Yes, but unfortunately it’s not.
JB: Exactly, that’s not the way it works, there are other things involved. Politics, money… I don’t like to get into any of that, what I like to do is write music that I think people want to hear, and that certainly we would want to hear ourselves. That’s what I’ve done so far. If anything comes of it, then great, and if not, then I still do my job.

UCN: I like that attitude. It’s great because it informs the music even more. I already like the Beer for Breakfast record, but now that I hear you talk I’m going to like that even more!
JB: Well, thank you.

UCN: The single in Texas, ‘The Only Drug,’ it just sounds fantastic. I mean with that mix, it sounds amazing.
JB: That’s going to be the single now. And CMT has decided to make us the Artist of the Month for March

UCN: Awesome!
JB: They’re going to do the premiere of the video on March 15. We shot two endings and in the two weeks leading up to the premiere of the video, they’re going to be running a contest on CMT where fans can pick which ending they want they want. Does the main character live or die?

UCN: [laughs] That is so cool!
JB: So, make sure you go vote.

UCN: See? You can tell me to go vote. You’ve got this.
JB: Well, it’s not really to vote for me, it’s voting for the character. [smiles] And I would vote die… But you can vote for whatever you want. [smiles]

UCN: You guys play an enormous amount of shows, pretty much all over the place but obviously focusing on the market you are doing really well in now. How is life on the road going?
Chris: Life on the road is easier for me in this band because it’s like we’re brothers first, and then we’re a band second. I don’t feel any stress. I never feel like I don’t want to be here on the road. It’s always smooth sailing for me. We always try to keep it fresh with new songs. We have songs people haven’t heard before and sometimes we’ll play them
JB: Especially in encore situations, we’ll bust those out and we’ll let the fans know what we’ve got going.

UCN: How is it traveling with this band compared to other projects you’ve been involved with, what makes this so much fun?
Gabe: I’m going to reiterate what Chris said about being brothers. There was just something about the first day when we all got together. It was just a bonding that was bigger than us that happened. It was something very special and magical that I don’t think anything or anybody can break. It definitely helps transcend into some of JB’s writing, and definitely helps how we get along together on the road.
Chris: Like a lot of times now, we know what the other person is going to order in a restaurant [smiles] JB: We know that Hayden doesn’t like beans.
Chris: And JB likes fish soup right now. [laughs]

UCN: How did you all end up on the same stage in the first place, and was it literally from the first song you played you went [snaps fingers] ‘we have a band!’
Hayden: Yes, it was straightaway, it was really quick. First of all, JB had the songs, so when we decided to go try out for the band, I already liked the songs so that’s one of the big things. I’m not going to play something I don’t like to play.

UCN: Yes, if you play 200 shows a year, you can’t play stuff you don’t like…
Hayden: Yes, and that’s another thing, going back to playing some new stuff, that also helps us get even more excited about playing live because it’s something different.

UCN: So you have a different set list every night?
JB: Mostly, and we add new songs instead of just playing the same set. So we get excited saying that ‘we’ve got a new one, and this one’s really bad ass!’ [smiles] Hayden: And we have also realized we get to pay our bills by playing music for people.
Chris: I’ve never woken up and thought I don’t want to do this today.

UCN: Not even the first 5 minutes?
Chris: No, not even that, man! I’m never like [in a whiny voice] ‘I don’t want to do this today.’ It’s never been a burden. I’ve had normal jobs that were tremendous burdens but now, never!
Hayden: Yeah, like when I was a hitman. The stress! I’d be like ‘I don’t want to deal with that today.’ [smiles] [everyone laughs]

UCN: Everybody lives today! [laughs] Hayden: Yeah, just not today man…

UCN: Wah, I don’t want to sit on a roof top today… [laughs] JB: Yeah, it’s really too cold out.

UCN: Oh, this conversation is so wrong! [laughs] We’ve had the guys from The LACS in here before, and they were talking about pranks on the road. Any stories there?
JB: They threatened to put a goat on our bus! [laughs] But they ended up just hiding our coolers, which really just pissed us off… [laughs]

UCN: Yeah, that’s just not on. You can do a prank but don’t touch the beer! [smiles] JB: Yeah, I’d rather they put a goat on my bus! They can have my blanket, they can have my food but not the coolers!
Hayden: We could give the goat the beer… [smiles]

UCN: And then you could put that video on YouTube. Gold! [smiles] JB: We’d have PETA all over us! [laughs]

UCN: Let’s talk about your label. You guys are on Average Joes, and I’ve been really impressed with them for a couple of years now. It came up with The LACS too, they don’t seem to tell you what to put on your record, they let you be yourself. You are allowed to be who you are and then develop the way you are. How does that feel from your end?
JB: What I like about the label, you know, they didn’t try to control anything. I mean, I produced this record. They just said, ‘here’s your budget.’ And then I got to go make a record, whatever kind of record I wanted to make, which I don’t think you often get to do. I’ve never been on another label, but I don’t think that’s very common. I think there’s usually a lot of label input.

UCN: Yes, if you record for the bigger labels, they would definitely have something to say. There are good labels out there, though. The way Big Machine works, with Tim McGraw it seems they just said ‘go make your record dude, you’re Tim McGraw, you know what you’re doing.’ I like labels that say ‘you make your record, and then will market it.’
JB: Yes, I think it’s kind of a lost art. What it does is, it lets us be us, and not something that some suit thinks that everybody wants us to be. I don’t want to be N’Sync, you know what I mean…

UCN: Aw, come on, you don’t want to be the Justin Timberlake of country? [smiles] JB: No. [laughs] I mean, I wouldn’t mind his money… [smiles] Well, I don’t want to diss anybody, not even N’Sync, it’s great stuff.

UCN: Yes, I’m sure it gets played on the bus. [smiles] JB: Yes, we celebrate their entire catalog. [laughs] We just enjoy doing what we do and we’re thankful that we can make a living from it. And it’s fun to see it grow. And I mentioned CMT, but I don’t know if I’ve brought up Rolling Stone yet?

UCN: No.
JB: Rolling Stone named us in the top five country albums of last year.

UCN: I’m not kidding, this record sounds really good. And that you completely self-produced it is incredibly impressive. The mixes are perfect!
JB: I have a background in audio as well. I was an audio engineer for a couple of years between 18 and 26. So I have a pretty firm grasp on sonics and studio work. The production side of things, I think that’s my favorite part. ‘Oh there’s a little part that needs to go right here, this needs to be like this, this pattern needs to be like that,’ that all seems to come natural to me, and really all of us. We just figure it out as we go, and it doesn’t hurt that we are out playing 200 shows a year, playing the songs before we get in the studio. By the time we go in, we worked them out. We may change the arrangements slightly, or things like that, but parts wise we’re pretty much there. I’m just really looking forward to album three. I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves. But album three, I promise you, will be revolutionary. So look out for it!

UCN: How far along are you in that?
JB: We haven’t started yet. We are in the middle of remodeling a lake house on a private fishing lake in White House, TX. It’s 100-year-old log cabin and that’s going to be where we will record the next album. We have some titles ‘were playing around with, our favorite so far is ‘pretty good.’

UCN: Well, if it’s going to be revolutionary… [smiles] JB: It’s funny, I only say that because a lot of times people come up to us after shows and say ‘I’ve never heard of y’all before, y’all are pretty good!’ And we’re like’ ‘thanks, that’s what we were going for…’ As long as we’re pretty good, we’ll be all right. [laughs] That’s just a little joke, we’re not really going to name the album ‘pretty good’.

UCN: You know, I think you should.
JB: The more I say it, the more I think I can convince myself. [smiles]

UCN: Or it could be your banner on the website underneath the band name it can say we’re pretty good!
JB: Yes, that’ll be our motto! [laughs]

UCN: This conversation keeps getting off track. Where are those coolers of beer you mentioned? [smiles] JB: I actually did have beer for breakfast this morning, a room temperature Corona.

UCN: Oh no! Blech! [laughs] JB: Oh, you should try it! Don’t knock it till you try it! Room temperature Corona works. I found, it doesn’t work with many beers, but with Corona I found it works.

UCN: Corona is not really beer anyway. When you go to Europe, try to get some Belgian beer.
JB: It’s not like I go drinking Corona every day, I pretty much drink every kind of beer. [smiles]

UCN: Are you guys touring anywhere in this area?
JB: We play so many shows that we don’t memorize them all. We just get on the bus and then find out where we’re going.

UCN: And then trust them that you are in the city that they say you are, so you don’t have that ‘Hello Cleveland!’ moment. [smiles] JB: Oh, I was still do that though… [smiles]

UCN: One feature we’ve been trying to set up is get on the road with artists and do a ’24 hours on the road with…’ piece.
JB: Well, come on! That’ll be great, come ride our bus for 24 hours!

UCN: After this conversation, I think I have to. [smiles] JB: Great! Let’s do it!

UCN: This was really fun. Thanks for your time guys.
JB: Yes, it was great to meet you. Thank you!

To find out more about JB and the Moonshine Band, including future tour dates, please visit www.jbandthemoonshineband.com.

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Liv Carter

Liv is a career coach for creatives, and the people who work with them.
She holds several certificates from Berklee College of Music, and a certificate in Positive Psychology from UC Berkeley.
Her main influences are coffee, cats, and Alexander Hamilton.

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