October 29, 2008
Response to a student’s questions
A student named Kyle wrote this wonderful email to me early on in the semester and it was hard for me to answer back then. I just answered him now, and it’s such a wonderful set of questions I thought I’d post my answers here, just to add to the Poster Children online knowledge database.
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Hi Kyle -
I’m trying to clean out my inbox! This is one of my most special emails to answer. So I’ll try! (I’m also going to post this to my blog - thanks for asking these really great questions!)
1. What were my favorite songs to play live: mostly the ones where we could improvise near the end, ones where I could really, really thrash myself around. There was one called “Space Gun” where there was a lot of time to try to get bass feedback, lay on the floor, pound my arms on my bass, etc. Another called “Wide Awake” - although I hated trying to sing the ending part. Definitely the funnest “live” songs were not always everyone’s favorites, that’s for sure.
I always loved playing “Revolution Year Zero” too. And the ones that people would sing along with and jump up and down were fun, some of our audience had hand symbols for some of the songs (like “6×6″) and actually I used to like playing “Where we live” because it’s a pretty song.
2. Most successful song / album in terms of record sales? I don’t know, that’s probably the question that stumped me. We never, ever, ever paid attention to that stuff. I’ll tell you why - because I think that even when we had a “hit” record (which would be a record that was pushed by a major label) - probably “Junior Citizen” - it was a record that the majority of people bought because they heard the single on the radio. I don’t think those people were really “true” fans in a way; I think they were more fleeting.This may not be a valid opinion, but I’ll go on: when people come up to me now and tell me how much they have loved Poster Children over the years, they usually talk about our song “If You See Kay” which was on “Daisy Chain Reaction” which came out on Twin/Tone Records, an indie in Minneapolis. That song made it to MTV a couple of times, so people knew about it, and we toured extensively on that record, it was our first big tour. People will also tell me that they loved “Junior Citizen” which was the pushed radio single from Reprise / Warner Brothers, but I kinda feel like “If You See Kay” was more successful just because it seems like more people may have discovered it through more indie methods.
I’m happiest with our newest records because we had the most control over them. To me, that’s how I count success. I’ll bet you’ll get the same answer from other rock bands too, just because when it’s all over (or almost all over!) the money is really all gone, and all you have left is your integrity and what you really loved, and how many lives you changed. We have had so many people come up to us and thank us for changing their lives; that means more to me than a number of records sold.
3. How difficult was it to get endorsements from instrument distributors?
We never tried. I know we were offered free shoes a bunch of times and we thought hard about taking them - but we did. We never accepted endorsements from people whose names we’d have to carry around with us; for example Dockers offered us thousands of dollars to do an ad for them, playing a show with their banners up behind us, and we refused - and it felt really great to do so.
Actually we used to get free software more often than instruments; (which is what we wanted anyway!) - and the instruments we’d like to use were always very old anyway so it’d have been impossible to get endorsements for them.
4. If I brought my bass in during your office hours, would you be kind enough to sign it?
I don’t think you really want that! I’ll sign your report card when class is over, is that ok? 
If you do still want your bass signed after the semester is over, I’d be happy to do it!