Interviews

Neon Blonde

Interview with Johnny Whitney on Dec 22, 2005 by Archive Bot

Neon Blonde is the fun, dance-tastic art-rock side project of Blood Brothers front man, Johnny Whitney.  Neon Blonde draws influences from early David Bowie and even Prince.  Think nothing along the lines of Blood Brothers and more something along the lines of playing hopscotch on chards of broken glass and you’ll have Neon Blonde.  Johnny and I got on the phone and got down to business and this is what he had to say:
 
Katie: When you decided to go through with Neon Blonde, it was because you were coming up with material that wasn’t right for Blood Brothers.  Was that because you weren’t being fulfilled?
 
Johnny: Part of it was that, yes.  At the time that we wrote Crimes, there was a lot of personal dispute between me and Cody about how far each member could be creativity wise and one of the things that I wanted to do was write songs on guitar. When it came to writing that album, I wanted to contribute more on guitar and that didn’t work out between us so part of me wasn’t fulfilled at all in Blood Brother’s because I had this creativity that I wanted to use and I wasn’t able to.  Since then, we’ve resolved things.
 
Katie: You mentioned in an interview with Absolute Punk that emo and hardcore currently make for safe, generic bands. Music goes in cycles, so does that mean that bands like Neon Blonde will eventually become safe and generic?
 
Johnny: I never would have thought that the bands that are immensely big right now would ever be that big five years ago when I was in High School, so there’s really no way to tell.  I guess the labels also play a role in what’s going to be huge next, but country music could be the next big thing, it’s all kind of up in the air.
 
Katie: Neon Blonde is a very fun, danceable project, but is there a serious aspect to it that we should be aware of?
 
Johnny:  I think all music is serious; even something like Prince’s “Purple Rain.” That record is really fun and it makes me happy; it brings me joy but it’s serious at the same time.  It’s possible for something to be really exciting and joy inspiring but also be a fad at the same time.  I hope any musical endeavor that I’m involved with isn’t just two dimensional…
 
Katie: Is it easier to succeed with a side project because you already have an established band and people already know who you are?
 
Johnny: It’s an advantage because being in a band you end up meeting a lot of people and making all these connections simply because you’re constantly traveling.  Also, it’s easier to convince people to put out your record. With Neon Blonde, there are so many people that are these diehard Blood Brothers fans and they follow our band so they’re going to be interested.  I feel fortunate to be able to do that because if I just wanted to make a record by myself three years ago it would have been a lot harder to find someone to put it out.  One of the things we want to do with this band is to really pull away from Blood Brothers as much as possible. I think it’s hard for someone who has already done this one thing to do something else because people are going to be comparing them to that thing and I don’t want people to weigh this against the other thing.
 
 
Katie: What was scary about playing guitar with Neon Blonde when you played those shows this past fall?
 
Johnny: I guess one of the things that was really hard was that in Blood Brothers, Morgan and Cody are both really talented and I feel like it’s always a real solid performance no matter what, even when we’re having an off night.  I can kind of improvise and do different things and if I mess up, it doesn’t really matter because they’ve behind me but in Neon Blonde, I had too much control playing those songs with the guitar and vocals at the same time and it’s like if you screw one thing up, you screw the other thing up.  It’s also hard to just start doing something new, that’s why I wanted to do it. Because it freaked me out.  We’re actually playing a show soon but I’m not playing guitar.
 
Katie: Why?
 
Johnny: I feel like the show will be better that way. We played four shows in the fall and the experience made me realize that I just love singing. I love writing music on guitar but in terms of performance, I just love to sing. I don’t have to think too much about what I’m doing and the person who is playing guitar is one of my favorite guitar players of all time next to maybe Jimmy Page.  His name is Evan and he’s a very old friend. We’re going to do a couple shows and he’s going to decide if he wants to be a permanent member. 
 
Katie: Have fans been disappointed that you don’t sound like Blood Brothers?
 
Johnny: I only really hear the positive end.  The only feedback I’ve gotten is from playing those few shows and from e-mails. I haven’t gotten any negative e-mails because someone would probably really have to hate us a lot to e-mail me and tell me that. I know where are some Blood Brothers fans that are really only in it for the spastic adrenaline element of it and that’s not really prominent of Neon Blonde.
 
Katie: So would you say it’s a new type of audience that you’re attracting?
 
Johnny: It’s hard to say because we’ve only played four shows and CMJ was one of them
It’s hard to say because we’ve only played four shows, and CMJ was one of the shows and that’s more of an industry thing so kids can’t really go to that…we’re going to try to do some touring and I think that will really be the indicator.
 
Katie: You once said that you’re fascinated with media. Why is that?
 
Johnny: In the past couple years, general media has become much more focused on short attention span things and everything just gets boiled down to sound bites and headlines. I think it’s really hard for most people unless they take the time to really study something to get a three dimensional picture of what’s going on in terms of foreign policy and the war in Iraq. It’s almost like media is packaging things and using outlandish language to make things seem exciting like the way they would advertise cereal.  Music media is like that too but that’s another story…
 
Katie: Recently I was able to check out the Blood Brothers’ tour with Coheed and Cambria. They have some tough fans…what was it like playing in front of them?
 
Johnny: It was different.  The thing with this last record is that we didn’t do any support tours for it at all. Every tour we did was a headlining tour except the Coheed tour, and that’s really fun and rewarding because every night you’re there to play for people that just want to see your band play. At the same time, it’s not challenging and you don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. Every night it was like we had to prove ourselves to a room full of really skeptical kids that we were worth watching. Some nights it was harder than others and some nights they booed and chanted “Coheed! Coheed!”
 
Katie: My last question is one I ask everyone, and that’s how does your love for music keep you doing what you do?
 
Johnny: I think there are a lot of different things, but one is that I think about how music makes me feel.  I think music tends to be the most important to a human being when they’re in their teenage years and I try to think of all the bands I grew up really loving like The Clash and Sunny Day Real Estate and how that was so important to me, and I want to give people that kind of joy and provide that for someone. It makes me still be able to convince myself even when it’s hard to do.
 
By Katie Ellsweig
**Thanks Mike at Earshot for setting this up and Johnny for participating.