Playing for the third time in Blacksburg this year, the instrumental band Basshound will perform at the Lantern tonight with opening act Boogieburg. The group will hit Blacksburg in the midst of a 10-day tour. Somewhere in between Charlotte and Wilmington, N.C., guitarist Greg Maly took some time to speak over the phone with the CT earlier this Sunday.
Q: You guys seem to be on the cusp of playing big gigs like festivals versus clubs; how has your schedule been changing recently?
A: The primary thing is that we're breaking into different markets. Working our way into different states, different cities and just having the regional influences of the festivals we've been playing has allowed us to really break out and drive many, many miles farther.
Q: The band has played in Blacksburg before; how has the response been?
A: Awesome. We expect a really good show this coming week. The first time we came through was in August, and school wasn't even in session and we came through on Tuesday, and it was very well attended. We came through the third week, Sept. 12. It was a really good turnout, probably three-quarters full. I anticipate a full house on Wednesday, but we'll find out.
Q: How was the Lantern?
A: It's a really great club. We were very impressed. They got in touch with us probably early summer letting us know that they were opening up and they wanted to start getting bands in there. So we just took them up on it. We played at Virginia Tech two-plus years ago at Cabo Fish Taco, and it was cool because we had friends down in the area; we were in college then, so we had college friends there. But this time we've been coming through, and this is definitely a much different atmosphere.
Q: I read that you lost your front man last year; did that change the dynamic at all?
A: It actually changed it a lot. He was one of our driving forces in more of our song-based material, more of our kind of folk rock. He was more of that in our sound. So when he left, a big piece of that left as well. I guess you could say that we have evolved into something a little more specific as of late because the rest of us listen to more progressive, instrumental-based music. Our shows are much more reliant on the improvised sessions of the shows and the energy of the instruments as opposed to the vocal lines, so it definitely did change things.
Q: When did you guys just decide to go for it?
A: Probably about the time that our singer quit. Part of the reason he left was that he couldn't really keep up with the schedule; it's a big commitment of time and energy. I think about a year ago when he left, the rest of us kind of made a decision. There's a certain commitment that you have to make to your life to do this.
Q: Unknowingly, was the band moving in a serious direction anyway?
A: We were just playing as much as we could at that point because it was obviously fun and is something that we all wanted to do. But you can't really make the commitment to do it until you see the tangible results that said, "OK, this could actually work." So I'd say that over the past two years, we've been learning to actually to make it work and what it takes. How many shows you have to play a month and what it takes to get crowds out. Once we all realized what it took and said, "OK, this is actually a viable option," that's when the decision was made.
Q: What's something about the music industry that you did not expect to learn coming into it?
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