Nate Ruess (Fun., The Format)

0:00Don't you explain to people where we are here? It's a pretty pimped up bus. Yeah, we're in the back of the Def Leppard bus. That's what we like to refer to it as. It looks very Def Leppard and right now I'm killing Nazis on the Xbox 360. Very nice. Yeah. I think I give you a nice pimped up bus. Hook you up with everything? Yeah, I know. It's... Well, we're paying for it ourselves, but... Oh. Well, you put yourself up very nicely. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's hard work. Set the show off of the song. What do you want here? Something from your band, of course. Ummm... Old record? Whatever you want. One of the EPs, the record, whatever you feel like. Let's do... I don't know. Tune out. Cool. Okay. It is probably... Off the old record is probably my favorite song off the old record.

0:49Nice. That's the format. A song called Toon Out.

4:17We're talking with Nate from that band. How are you working on a new record, actually, just down the street in Burbank a couple months ago? Yep. It's almost done. It's just being mixed right now. You have a title for it? Yeah, it's gonna be called Dog Problems. Oh, nice. And when's it coming out? It's coming out on July 11th. Cool. What? A label, major label, independent? Well, we got dropped from our major label, Lannick. It was like a mutual sort of split where we didn't want to write songs for them and they didn't want our songs anyway. And then after... Sorry, excuse me. After that, it took a while to decide whether or not we wanted to go back to another label and after much debate and discussion. We decided that for now we just want to release it ourselves. Nice. Seems that you can do that nowadays. With my space, the internet, and all that stuff, it's obviously all of your website.

5:07You have a period volume link. Creep space too, is that one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't really need a label anymore. Do you think we're gonna have labels like 5, 10 years? Well, that's that was sort of the counter argument. We're part of a management company that's really forward thinking and they also have the same resources that a major has. So, I mean, we would get all those things regardless on top of that. They let us do creatively whatever we want to do. That's pretty cool. So it's wonderful. It doesn't mean a ton of money up front like a major label would give us. But that's, I mean, I don't know. It's better to work for it anyways, right? Yeah, definitely. Do you think this will download anything? Well, obviously it's changed the way the music industry works. Do you think it's going in good direction or? I do. I think it's actually going in a good direction. I buy most of my music off iTunes. Really? When I don't go to like a record store.

5:54But it's an easy way to be lazy and get music. I'm not, I mean, occasionally I'll download things like illegally that I can't find. But for the most part, I think almost every song on my iTunes has either been like purchased or, you know, via iTunes or through record stores. It's playing another song. What do you want here? Um, what's interesting? I would like to hear career day. Why not? I was just listening on the way over. Nice. A song called career day talking to you with Nate from the band. You got the new record coming out on the website.

12:25You mentioned harmonies, lots of harmonies and orchestration. It's recorded out here. So it makes me think of the beach boys. Any kind of direction like that or what I was going to expect to hear. It was pretty heavily influenced by the beach boys. We wanted to do, I mean, initially when we first started writing dog problems, like the day we got out of the studio from recording interventions, we wanted to do something that was kind of like Broadway-esque. Very like 19, 1920s. Really cool. So there are a few of those songs on the record for sure. It's very heavily orchestrated. We kind of wanted to make something that was kind of like Harry Nelson and kind of like XTC at the same time. Cool. Is it a full band or is it just two of you? How's it working? The two of us did most of the recording, but we had plenty and plenty of guests and a lot of the guys that play with us live played on the record.

13:17How many people do you bring on the road with you? Well, in the official band there are six of us that play on stage. We've got a tour manager. We smoke some pipe. And a corn cow pipe. Yes. And then a merch guy. But this band Onafalo who's out on tour with us right now, they play horns and they've got great voices. So they help us on a lot of the new songs. That's pretty cool. So there could be upwards of about 11 people on stage sometimes. I know. I'm going to use it in all air so small. I know. The glass house we were able to do last night and the glass house in Pomona has actually got a pretty big stage. So it's kind of easy. Tonight at the troupe it's going to be interesting. Yeah. Have you played the troupe before? Yes. Cool plays? Love it.

14:03Nice. Let's play another song. First single because that's how I heard you guys. The format, a song called the First Single, talking to you with Nate from the band.

18:33Now that song shows up on an EP called EP, also on the record intervention in the lullabies. Was it re-recorded? We re-recorded it for the interventions in lullabies. It was the first song that we'd ever written. It was what got us any sort of attention off the bat. I mean, regardless of the fact that we're tired of it. But it was definitely the song that made people take notice. I like how it's called the first single. It's pretty cool. Yeah. He was just called EP. Yeah, I know. It was a lack of creativity. Well, it seems like it's very creative though. It worked out in the up. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. On your porch, played on the OC. Got you a lot of, I guess, exposure from that. Was it? I heard on the OC. Wow. Crazy. I didn't know that. You know that. You learn something new every day.

19:19And a bunch of my friends, they heard it, they downloaded it illegally maybe. Perhaps. But you think it's helping you or harming you more? Probably helping us. I mean, we'd taken the last year off to make a record and we thought that maybe everybody was going to forget about us. No. And it's three times bigger than it's ever been. It's insane. It feels good. So I mean, stuff like that has to do with it, I'm sure. Cool. We just ate every week. Five questions. Five quick questions. One word answers. iPod or CDs? iPod. London or McCartney? McCartney. Alcohol or marijuana? Alcohol. Song you've written your most proud of. Probably a song called Dog Problems. The title track off the new record. Cool. And one word, the format. See, that's a tough one.

20:12First thing pops in your head. I mean, I'm looking at a can of Coca-Cola. So can't. Let me close my eyes and then ask the question again. One word, the format. The color orange? Nothing runs with orange. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. One song close set. What do you want to hear? Let's see you on your porch. Cool. Thanks, man. Thank you.