The Artichokes are:
*Daniel Simons- Lead Guitar/Whatever he finds that he wants to play
*Taylor Hodge- Bass
*Emrys McMahon- Rhythm Guitar/Vox
*Jay Ellis- Drums
Obviously pop culture plays some influence in your music; what role would you say it plays?
*Emrys: we use sources from the areas of pop culture that dont include music to draw inspiration. for instance, we wrote a song about Fahrenheit 451 and a song about myspace. We try to avoid a single genre because theres something dislikeable about every genre weve encountered.
*Taylor: Yeah, i wouldnt say that popular music today plays a big influence. More so everything but music because pop music is teh suck
Why do you create music?
*Daniel: to have something to do besides sleep
*Taylor: its fun to learn new things and see how people respond to what you create and play
*Daniel: and not fall asleep while doing so
*Jay: because it flows out of our asses
Do you stand by being a sarcastic jam band?
*Jay: artichokes=artic hokes=arctic hoax. our band name is a subliminal message. we believe that antarctica isn't real
*Daniel: Dude it isnt. i mean have you been there?
*Emrys: ive never seen it
*Emrys: do you know anyone who has?
*Jay: thats why are name is arctic hoax
What have you been listening to as of late?
*Jay: Pink Floyd, Death from Above, kings of leon
*Emrys: i would have to say Neutral Milk Hotel, the Shins, and the Mountain Goats
*Taylor: all day ive had a playlist on shuffle of the beatles, the decemberists, the beatles the buzzcocks, the cure, and cake
*Daniel: the shins and the new franz ferdinand cd
What plans do you have for releases, if any?
*Emrys: we just released a cd that we recorded in a garage over the course of a weekend. It has nine songs and is available for five dollars from any band member. However, if you live far away we'll probably send you a compressed file of the album
Why "The Artichokes," and not another band name?
*Jay: from a movie we didn't make okie dokie artichokie
*Emrys: what movie?
*Jay: the one with plungerman and el paco
*Emrys: dude we named it that because i did a project on anti-vegetarianism with the slogan 'artichokes have hearts too'
*Jay: haha yeah right give yourself credit
*Emrys: We were going to make a movie with a bunch of random stuff and one of the random things was a bunch of talking artichokes or something. someone said "okie dokie artichokie" and an artichoke said "hey, dont be dissin my peeps." I did an anti-vegetarian project involving the slogan "artichokes have hearts too" which ive recently learned was a line from Amelie.
Yeah were taking this whole band thing seriously and playing shows. Its also fun because we can put almost any prefix in front of chokes and it sounds cool. The electrochokes, the acoustichokes, the hawtichokes. We hope to actually make some good music and perhaps release some more cds. We began as a sarcastic jam-band but inevitably began taking things seriously when we realized we could make real songs. Hopefully nothing bad happens or we dont get hit by cars.
-Emrys