Interview with Elevenwire

What got you into music, and if you had not gotten into music what would you be doing today?

Ron:  Jonathan and I grew up in a musical household.  Our parents met singing in the church choir, so we grew up singing and being musical.  I started playing trumpet when I was 9, but gave it up in High School for competitive sports.  I was asked to learn to play bass for a Christian rock band when I was 17 and I was hooked.  Lucky for me, I also have a day job.  If I had not gotten into music, I most likely would have continued in competitive sports, gotten left behind in college for not being tall enough, and a couch potato by 30.  But with music, I wasn’t a couch potato until 50.

What do you like to do when you are not playing music and how does that influence your creativity?

Jim: I live near a river and I flyfish frequently.  It helps clear my mind and quiet the demons.  I took up skydiving a few years ago so I could become a wingsuiter.  When you’re jumping out of a plane, you’re 100% in the moment, totally focused.  It’s almost impossible to have other thoughts.  All the daily B.S. of life that seems so important just evaporates.  Achieving that kind of focus with meditation can take years of practice, but it happens instantly with skydiving.  Also, the demons are afraid to jump, so they stay behind on the plane.  

So, when it comes to creativity I would guess that totally clearing my mind regularly helps me to tune out all the B.S. and focus intently on music.   

How long has your band been around?

Jonathan: We officially started in December of 2017.  We had been talking about doing a project together for a little while, but decided to meet in the studio to work through ideas and bits that we all brought to the table.  We spent the next year or so writing and demoing and eventually got our debut album, “Blood Red Sun” completed in 2023 and released on OOB Records in March of this year (2024)

Where are you based out of and how did that influence your music?

Ron:  The three of us grew up in California less than 300 miles from each other.  There are so many famous California-based bands that it’s very easy to get into the music scene (especially for me back in the 80’s & 90’s).  I think every kid in California wanted to be a professional surfer or a musician back in my day.  The music scene was huge.  In Santa Cruz (where Jonathan and I grew up) there must have been 20 or more clubs that played live, original music.  It was a great time to see good music or to be a live band.

How did you come up with the name of your band and what does it mean to you?

Jim: It’s one better than 10.  Our wires go up to 11.  

Ron: Jonathan and I are 11 years apart, guitars have wires, and “Tenwire” wasn’t available.

Tell me about your most memorable shows.

Jonathan: Well, this band (Elevenwire) hasn’t played anything live as of right now but we’ve played together in lots of other projects.  I’ve personally had a lot funny live moments like power outages in the middle songs, smoke machine mishaps, etc.  but one of my most favorite memories is when Jim sang his “Folgers” song at my Mom’s birthday party.  That was amazing.

What is your favorite venue to play at, and do you have any places you want to play that you have not already?

Ron:  We are still putting together a live band with the ability to play our music and put on a good show.  Our plan is to book some shows locally to see if we can pull it off, with or without the need for “technology.”

If you could play any show with any lineup, who would be on the ticket?

Jim: If you mean living or dead I’d definitely want Eddie Van Halen on the bill.  Also, Queensryche, Evanescence, Leaves Eyes, Delain, and Iron Maiden.  

What is some advice that you would give to someone who is just getting into playing in a band and some advice that you would give to your younger self?

Jonathan: Practice is everything.  I think when people say that, “only certain people are born with musical ability”, it’s just an excuse.  Maybe some people have more of a natural tendency for music than others,  but it’s all about how many hours you put in.  More importantly, I would tell someone getting into playing in a band for the first time not to be afraid to try things musically.  We as humans have such a strong inner-filter and it just gets in the way of true creativity.  Be as free as you can when it comes to expressing yourself musically.  Overall I would tell my younger self to put myself out there more and not care so much about what people think.

If you could go back in time and give yourselves advice, what would it be?

Ron: I was fairly shy and withdrawn when I was a kid, and even though I never really experienced stage fright, it was way out of my comfort zone to perform in front of people. Thousands of performances later, I would love to go back and tell myself not to give a flying eff about what other people might think and just have fun. I think I would have developed as a musician much quicker had I dropped the “caring too much” mindset.

Of your songs which one means the most to you and why?

Jim: Well, somehow I got elected to write most of the lyrics, so they’re all very personal to me.  But if I have to pick it’s probably a toss-up between Fortress and  Aggressive Tendencies.

Which songs are your favorite to play and which get requested the most?

Jonathan: As I mentioned before, this hasn’t played live yet but “Zero One” seems to be the favorite as far as streams on Spotify.  I also had a blast singing on that one.  It has a harder edge than I’m typically used to, but it was really fun to sing.  “Paradigm” is also really fun because it has so many changes and movements to the structure.

What is the creative process for the band, and what inspires you to write your music?

Jonathan: There’s a band we love called, “Flying Colors”.  We heard from a documentary that they did how they approached their writing process and sort of borrowed from that.  The idea is that each of us bring under-developed song ideas (“song starts”) with the intent of piecing them together into fully-formed songs.  Since we don’t all live in the same place, it’s enabled us to share files back and forth and still be creative.  I think, for the first album, all of us being in the same room whenever we could make that work was really helpful.  All three of us are songwriters so this approach enabled us to all have our hand in each of the songs.

What kinds of messages do you like to get across in your music?

Jim:  We always write the music first.  When writing lyrics I don’t think in terms of any kind of specific message or agenda.  I write what makes the hair on my neck stand up.  My process is to listen to the song over and over again with a notepad close to hand. And usually a gin-and-tonic…or three. As I’m listening I focus on the emotions that the music is evoking.  As this happens, I free-associate and just write any words or phrases that bubble to the surface no matter how weird or irrelevant they seem. I totally ignore my inner critic.  I’ll fill up pages with this stuff, and I’ll often do this over multiple sessions. As I’m doing this, certain phrases will leap off the page and make the hair on my neck stand up.  I circle those.  For example, when I was working on what eventually became the title track, the phrase “Bones of the Fallen” popped out.  Chills up my neck.  I had no idea why. I didn’t know what it meant.  But I circled it.  After a while a theme will emerge.  Once I have a theme or a topic, then I’ll focus on crafting the lyrics into a story.  But it all starts with the neck hair.

Do you ever have disagreements in your band, and how do you get past them?

Jonathan: Yeah, I think anytime you work with other people there will be disagreements, but I think that makes it all better in the end.  We’re also all pretty willing to try out any ideas that one of us has and hear each other out.  I think there’s an element of trust between the three of us.  We’ve known each other for so long and we know what we’re all capable of so we can move past any disagreements pretty well.

What are your plans for the future, and do you have anything that you want to spotlight that is coming up?

Ron: We are always coming up with new content that we post on the socials, like lyric video singles, radio station appearances, magazine interviews, and other goofy stuff. We also have a bunch of cool merch and autographed posters. We’re also secretly working on a second album, which is coming along well, but don’t tell anyone. Shhh.