Interview With Netherfriends' Shawn Rosenblatt

Story by Alex Wunrow 

| Published Nov 9, 2010

The line between being prolific and simply being bored is a blurry one. Shawn Rosenblatt has been idling that line the past eight months. A year removed from graduating at Columbia College in Chicago, Rosenblatt’s lease on his apartment ran up. And rather than committing another year of his life to paying rent, he took to the road.

But touring alone wasn’t enough to fill the time left in his homeless schedule, so he decided to pick up where Sufjan Stevens merely joked--writing a song in each of the 50 states. Something so vast needed playing rules, so Rosenblatt made a code for himself--the songs can only be worked on while in the state that the song is titled after--written, recorded and produced.

Fresh off playing the Pitchfork Music Festival, Rosenblatt found some time in his schedule to conduct a phone interview with The DailyER.

Dailyer: You record all your stuff and it’s basically just you, but do you have any constant members of the band?

Rosenblatt: There’s this one member Justin Fernando, he’s kind of a constant in Chicago, although it’s kind of hard, because I haven’t been back in Chicago as frequent as I used to be. So I don’t work with him as much, so all of the new songs I’ve been recording myself.

Dailyer: When did you start touring on a regular basis?

Rosenblatt: As soon as I started, actually. I started in 2007, formed in the summer and then started touring in the fall. So I was touring pretty much through my Junior and Senior year of college.

Dailyer: Was it difficult to tour while you were in college, or is it something you just did?

Rosenblatt: It was really easy, I don’t know why bands don’t do it. I played music at school and I couldn’t believe that no one else was touring in the music department. Everyone thought that when they graduated they would somehow get signed. There was this really sad story that someone told me, they were like, ‘some kid asked if they could get a show at this venue in Chicago if they showed them their diploma.’

Dailyer: You’re doing 50 songs in 50 states right now, how many states do you have done so far?

Rosenblatt: I have 32 states done.

Dailyer: What was the last one you did?

Rosenblatt: Fargo, Nebraska.

Dailyer: You mean North Dakota?

Rosenblatt: Oh, Fargo, North Dakota. I don’t know why I keep saying that. I’ve done it like five times. It’s like I mean to not say it, but I’m just constantly like ‘don’t say Nebraska, don’t say Nebraska’ and then I say Nebraska, I don’t know why.

Dailyer: How long have you been homeless for?

Rosenblatt: Since April. My lease ran out and I just decided that this was the best thing to do. I just didn’t really see a point in having an apartment if I’m touring so frequently.

Dailyer: Did you graduate this summer?

Rosenblatt: Yeah, well I actually graduated in 2009. So I’ve kind of spent a year touring every month. And just for a few weeks every month, I bring different people out, and I just realized that it would be easier to get up to places like the west coast or east coast and just had kind of temporary home base.

Like, I did Philly for two months as my home base in April and May. And then did Seattle for a month in September and late August. Did Chicago for a little bit. And then I’m gonna be doing Austin, Texas in January, hopefully get all the southern states done.

Dailyer: Since you’ve been going from place to place, do you just have a shit-load of friends? How do you find new places to stay when you’re traveling across the country?

Rosenblatt: It’s weird, I think that Seattle was the most foreign place to me. I had a friend from Chicago moving out there and I told them that I could drive them out there with their stuff, because I have a huge van. And in exchange, can I maybe crash at your place? And I kind of assumed that he would live in a kind of cool part of Seattle, but he lived in west Seattle, where old people and kinda crazy people live.

And so I spent more time meeting people and kind of staying with them in Capital Hills, which is the kind of cooler, hipper area of Seattle. Which, I never really thought I’d be able to meet as many people as I did. I kind of lucked out in Seattle.

Dailyer: So you have these home bases, but what do you do when you’re traveling to a new city every night?

Rosenblatt: Usually I just meet someone at the show. We had to sleep in the van for the first time ever in Hill City, South Dakota. We slept in a Walmart parking lot. And I’m just very fortunate, I’ve got the system down. I make a point of never being the band that’s like asking people on stage, by saying ‘hey we need a place to stay.’

But usually someone comes up says ‘hey great job.’ I usually ask them if they know a place I can crash, and nine times out of 10, they’ll say ‘you can crash at our place.’ Or they’ll have a friend who’s place we can crash. It’s really nice, I mean, it says a lot about humanity, you know?

Dailyer: Do you play a lot of house shows?

Rosenblatt: Eh, not much. I kind of make of point of not wanting to play all house shows, or all bar venues, it just kind of varies. The house shows may be really well attended, but for paying wise it’s not very great. Financially it’s not the best.

Sometimes it is, sometimes we’ll get paid more at a house show. Like, while we were in Montreal (Canada) we got paid more at the house show that we played, versus the venue.

Dailyer: Since you’re traveling around so much, how do you manage the booking process?

Rosenblatt: I don’t have a permanent agent yet, I actually had someone helping out for the first time on the west coast tour, which was really nice. But it’s mostly just me sitting in front of a computer for an hour everyday. Typically getting stressed out, looking for shows.

It’s really difficult nowadays, because of Myspace. Myspace used to be the way to contact other bands, but now no one checks their Myspace, and they don’t have an email address. So I feel the best thing is for bands to contact other bands instead of the venues.

Because venues tend to give you a hard time, and make you book the whole show. Because no one at the venues wants to do the work, and then sometimes they won’t tell you to find other bands, but they won’t do it themselves.

It gets a little frustrating, especially if you’ve never played a certain state. The whole (50 songs in 50 states) project, is kind of like getting me out of the typical cities that you would play.

Like most bands would play New York, LA and all the major cities. But then not play these really small places like Casper, Wyoming.

Dailyer: You blog a lot, is that how you try and stay connected to your fan base, or is it more just for you?

Rosenblatt: It’s kind of just for me. I mean, I’m always surprised when people tell me they read it. I was always kind of shocked, because I didn’t know that anyone actually read that stuff.

I guess I assumed that somebody would read it, but it’s really just to keep me busy. Being on tour is definitely not as exciting as people make it out to be.

I mean, it definitely is a fun road trip, and I love every aspect of it, but there is so much down time and that’s why I’m doing this (50 states) project.

Dailyer: On your blog you have a column called ‘This is why your band sucks”, what inspired you to start doing that?

Rosenblatt: I started by making themes to the blog articles that I wrote, I just think that other people’s problems bug me a lot more than my own. And it’s really discouraging for me to see other bands do things that are so disillusioned.

They have all these weird views on what their band is or what their band can become, but it’s hard to do that when you’re not on the road. Or you change your band name every five days.

Dailyer: Do you try and use the internet a lot to spread your music, or are you more inclined to play for whoever is listening?

Rosenblatt: I think it’s a mixture of the two. I’m definitely not anti-internet, but I’m very pro-touring, even though that a lot of people are super against it and believe that what I’m doing is a complete waste of time.

I believe that the internet can help grow your fan base, and I know that I’ve had people come up to me after shows who heard of the band on the internet.

It’s just funny how much touring has changed, for me especially with Facebook being, you can see how many people are RSVP’ing to the show you’re about to play. So you kind of have to do the whole Facebook equation, which is if it’s half the people that RSVP’d divided by some obscure number, I don’t know (laughs). Usually you can kind of figure it out.

Dailyer: How many shows have you played in the past year?

Rosenblatt: I don’t know, I had to answer that question for the South by Southwest registration, and I had to ask some people to figure it out. Because Myspace won’t let you look at your past shows, past the 10 most recent ones.

I don’t know why. So I’m not too sure, but I mean, I usually do this two and a half week thing, where I tour for two and a half weeks and then take a week off.

Dailyer: How do you feel when you play five nights in a row, is that fifth night any different than the first one?

Rosenblatt: I don’t know, sometimes I get exhausted really quickly and then I’ll regain everything, but this is all I know, so it’s just one of those things where it doesn’t really phase me.

Because I bring different people on the road every single tour, and right now I have this guy Chris who lives in Chicago playing Keyboard for me.

And this is just his first tour playing music ever, it’s always really fun to bring someone who’s never really been on the road before, because it’s kind of like you’re doing it for your first time.


Dailyer: Since you’ve done everything by yourself to the greatest extent, what advice would you give to any band that’s just starting out and getting ready to tour?

Rosenblatt: Well, I mean if they really, really wanna play music, you just have to give it your all. I think there’s a difference between having it as a hobby and making it a career.

But there’s so many kids that think playing in their basement and playing local shows to all your friends is what’s gonna get you to a new level. And I think it’s getting out of your comfort zone, and welcoming the idea of never being comfortable.

I mean it sucks, but it’s better than working at Guitar Center and playing in like six bands in Chicago.

Everyone just has this skewed view on the idea of ‘making it.’ I just don’t understand this concept, and that’s what people need to realize, there is no ‘making it.’