Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, a band from Northampton, Mass. have been recording albums and touring for the past five years. In commemoration of this anniversary, the band will begin a three-month tour, beginning Sept. 9 in State College Pennsylvania. The second stop of the tour will be at Cat’s Cradle Sept. 10 in Carrboro.
The band got started at UMass Amherst, where lead vocalist Stephen Kellogg, bassist Keith “Kit” Karlson and drummer Brian “Boots” Factor all went to school.
“We all graduated at different times, but were all still living in the area post-college and we had all heard about our previous bands that we were in separately,” Boots said.
According to Boots, after he graduated in 2001, the band came together.
“Stephen was doing his solo career and was looking for some guys to play with and Kit and I were both looking for the same thing, so we started playing together,” he said. “Eventually, we made it a full time thing about five years ago.”
The band wasted no time, and hit the ground running in 2003. Boots spoke about how the first album and tour strengthened the bands commitment.
“We recorded our first album together as a band in summer of 2003 which was before our first full time tour. I think recording the album, which was Bullet-proof Heart solidified us as a band…We always look back at fall of 2003 as our first major one and it really wasn’t that glamorous…There are a lot of cool, innocent things that we all look back on from that tour.”
The first tour may not have been glamorous, but the band certainly enjoyed the process.
“When you just start something new, it’s nice and fresh and we had some really funny moments when the music wasn’t necessarily gelling. We had a really good outlook and sense of humor about everything. It was a good time.”
Boots also spoke about SK6ERS’ musical inspirations.
“We’re all over the map. Stephen is a big 80s metal fan. He talks about seeing Whitesnake, which was his first concert and how influential that was. For me, I love The Band, Dylan and Springsteen. I’m all over the map. Kit came from a jazz background, a more musical background and he listens to everything we do. We’re all on the same page with The Band and Wilco, but we also like different, random stuff.”
As for the band’s message, Boots gave two specific objectives the band has for every endeavor, one of which is directed to their loved ones.
“We’re big family guys. We’re very close to our families and our friends are important to us. Every show, every album we put out, it’s a message to those important people letting them know this is who we are, we love you guys and we’re sorry we’re away from home but this is what we do.”
The other target of their objective is their fans.
“For live shows, people are paying to see us,” Boots said. “We just want everybody coming to the show to have a great night, regardless about what’s going on in the world or your personal life, just block it out for the two hours you’re paying to see us. We’re going to give you the time of your life, as they say. That’s what we’re trying to do. If you come out and you don’t have a good time or you don’t like the CD you bought, we’ll give you your money back. We haven’t had any returns yet (laughs).”
The drummer also gave another reason that the band pours so much energy into their shows.
“It’s funny, when you’re on tour sometimes you’ll do hours and hours of driving, and it’s all for two hours of a twenty four hour day. That’s why it means so much to make sure that the show is the best it could possibly be, even if just for ourselves. It’s what we work for and it’s very meaningful to all of us that the show is the best possible show. That’s why we don’t do…heroin.”
As for the band’s upcoming album, Boots said their excited but it will take more time before they can preview the new material.
“We [previewed songs] for Glassjaw Boxer, but I think maybe we’ll do that after we record it. If we’re going to do it, it would have to be next year after we record the album. We have a good idea what will be on the album, but the songs aren’t chosen yet and there’s still some writing that needs to be done, so hopefully it will happen next year.”
Glassjaw Boxer, by the way, was rated in the top 5 best albums of 2007 by USA Today’s Brian Mansfield.
The next year for the band seems pretty solidified, according to Boots, but conjecturing beyond that can be nerve-wracking.
We’ll be recording a new album in December and then we’ll probably release it next spring or summer, so we’ll be on tour for that. So that’s my one year prediction (laughs). That was easy, but five years? We all would like to think that we’ll be doing this on a grander scale with ten times more fans, ten times more money and ten times more radio hits, which we can’t because we have zero (laughs).”
With five years under their belts, the band members have learned a lot about the life of and what it takes to be a musician. When asked about his favorite part of band life, Boots had this to say:
“I think it’s just doing what our collective dreams have been since we were kids. When you get down on a situation like playing a dive bar in front of 10 people, you have to step back and ask, ‘What better job would we rather be doing right now?’ I can never in my own head find a better job. Playing music for a living, how can you ever complain about that?”
Boots said in five years, he hopes he’s not sweating the small stuff anymore.
“Things on a daily basis can get you down, but you kind of have to, I hate to say it, have to look at the bigger picture, and hang with it. But sometimes you hit walls and you just want…to go to law school. We went into it blind, and in a way it was the best we could have done because you can look at it and say ‘Oh man, this is daunting,’ but we always just had a good time. We’re still having a good time.”
Boots left off with one message to the fans in the Triangle: “We’ll see you at the show, and don’t forget to say hello.”