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Interview with three/\sides – IIPA

by Joshua (J.Smo) Smotherman August 23, 2017 10:22 am Tagged With: California, Psychedelic Rock, Rock, surf rock, United States

Three Sides-IIPA

With a passion for classic, psychedelic, surf rock and early disco; three/\sides delivers a creative blend of soundscape and songwriting.

In this interview spotlight, we chat with members of three/\sides to discuss influences, their latest project, challenges as indie musicians and much more.

Full Q&A along with links and streams below.

Let’s dive a little deeper into three/\sides, the band, and your music. What attracted you to this genre and style?

We grew up listening to great rock bands with our parents, though we love about every kind of music, we all just seemed to gel the best with psych rock and surf rock. Most of the modern bands we listen to now incorporate some classic rock flavors and we figured, hey, lets create a style we connect the best with.

How long have you been creating and sharing your music with the public?

We started releasing demos in 2014 but we really started to hit our stride in 2016.

Who or what influences your playing and writing? Also, what motivates you to keep going?

Dogs on Animals by Pink Floyd is really when we all looked at each other and said “we have to start making great music like this again.” A lot of it is drawn from concerts we’ve been to as well. The ability some of these artists have to move a crowd is truly inspiring to us.

Networking and hanging around other people who enjoy music (musicians or not) is the absolute best. It’s like going to a party where everyone is your friend. We love taking peoples minds off the everyday nonsense and focus it on having a fun time, which is a huge motivator for our group. Plus we’re in a band with our best friends, which is awesome.

Were you trying to accomplish anything specific with “IIPA”? Creatively or otherwise?

As mentioned before, we’ve been releasing demos since 2014 (one of them being a very rough version of IIPA). The lyrics were kind of finished but as we grew so did the song. It’s a song about not overthinking life and enjoying the moment in front of your eyes. If you’re focused on the negative you’ll never notice how awesome the things right in front of you are.

What was the last song you listened to?

I believe it was Legends by Drug Cabin

Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s? 

We prefer that you listen to our music anyway you can. We want to spread our music to everyone and give an epic performance.

How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Band camp? Or something else? Why?

They’re all pretty cool and have their ups and downs. If you have a way of hearing our music, that works for us 🙂

Other than the digital era overwhelming us with access to an abundance of music, what are one or two of the biggest challenges you face when trying to attract listeners to your music?<

1) People are accustomed to hearing songs they already know. Trying to create a scene with original music is often overlooked by venues. They’d rather have a cover band or a DJ, which is great, but effects our chances of getting in front of an audience.

2) Most venues we played when we started in LA were strange. The fans come for a specific local band, and after that they all leave. So you’re playing to a room full of people you already know until you build a following. We constantly had to change up and improve our live experience because of this, which actually contributed to leading us where we are now.

Do you gig, tour or perform? Do you ever live stream? Where can music lovers see you live?

We plan on touring soon, but right now we play as many shows as we can in our local area. Our next big gig is at the Roxy with our friends FOXTRAX hosted by Goldenvoice and Bandsintown. It’s going to be insane, we highly recommend you buy a presale ticket before they sell out here: http://www.theroxy.com/event/1545028-foxtrax-nothing-lasts-forever-west-hollywood/

Where is the best place to connect with you online? Discover more of your music?

You can connect with all of our social media, stay updated on our concerts and hear our music on our official website: http://www.threesidesofficial.com/

We post the most on instagram: @threesidesofficial and almost always respond to DM’s!

Any last thoughts? Shout outs? Words of wisdom?

Thanks to everyone who has supported us thus far, this is all of our moment and we can’t wait to share the experiences with our friends, family and fans!

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About Joshua (J.Smo) Smotherman

Joshua is a Music Business Consultant currently serving as COO of Unlimited Sounds, a boutique publishing admin & consulting firm based in Sacramento, California. He also serves as COO of Pac Ave Records. He is an archivist via Indie Music Discovery.com, co-founded with C Bret Campbell in 2011 in Manchester, Tennessee. He is also a Father of 3 and an all purpose Jedi... but before any of this, he was and still creates as an indie/DIY artist. Connect on IG. Read full bio.

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