Knox Hamilton, an up and coming indie pop band from Little Rock, Arkansas, played a show at the U Street Music Hall on Oct. 21. The Eagle’s Miranda Clark sat down with frontman Boots Copeland to talk about their first few months on tour.
Eagle: Can you give me a little background on yourselves?
Boots: Me and Cobo [Copeland], our drummer, we’re brothers and we moved from Sherman, Texas to Little Rock, Arkansas about 10 years ago and met the other two guys in the band and started playing together. We met in church actually, so that’s kind of our story.
E: You guys had been playing music more on the side, and when your song “Work It Out” was released, you really blew up. How has that crazy success changed things for you?
BC: Yeah, that was the first EP that we ever sent out to anyone other than friends and family and that song kinda caught on, especially on Alt Nation and things like that[.] It kinda went further than we planned on. And yeah, it was quick. We all set out on the road and left jobs behind to try to make something happen. We’re in the process of touring right now and it has all been pretty crazy.
E: So you have been touring for a few months now, what would you say are the best things and the worst things about being tour.
BC: Well the best parts are definitely playing for people that enjoy it and that have a good time with you. The worst parts, obviously, are being away from our families and the sleep deprivation.
E: Why aren’t you sleeping?
BC: Yeah, I don’t know how other bands do, but on our tour we’ve been crazy busy. If we have a chance to sleep in we usually have a radio thing that morning. Or it’s that you are trying to get to the next place and you might be eight hours from the next place so there’s not a lot of time for rest. What I never really planned on was that you think you get to the venue right before you play but you actually get to the venue at 4 p.m. so you don’t really get a whole lot of time to just chill in a city and see it. It’s all kind of scheduled out pretty strictly.
E: What have been your favorite places on tour so far?
BC: I think the best shows have been Portland, Los Angeles and Dallas. Those have been the most memorable with the best crowds both in terms of numbers and participation. Obviously, we have had a lot of good shows but those have really been the high-highlights.
E:Are you excited to be in D.C.?
BC: D.C. is actually pretty exciting because we know that the 9:30 Club is pretty cool, and we’re excited about that.
E: Can you tell me about the album you are currently working on?
BC: We’re gonna have the album out later on this year or the first of next year. We’re getting closer to the new year, its sneaking up on us, so it might be next year. We’ve had the songs for quite a while, and we’ve had them recorded for a while, but there are additional things to do while out on the road its kind of difficult. We’re just recording it as we get to go back home. We recorded a few things in Little Rock, and then while we were in Nashville we recorded a few things. Its kind of all thrown together but we’re trying to do it as quickly but sufficiently as possible.
E: Is the album only music that you had written before and played before or is there new music as well?
BC: It’s kind of a mixed bag. Probably about half the album will be brand new and half the album will be songs that we’ve had for a while but never really recorded.
E: Musically, who would you say are your biggest influences?
BC: The whole band really enjoys Motown, so Otis Redding and The Temptations and bands like that, as well as stuff like Billie Holiday. I, myself, love the Beatles. We try to kind of modernize our old soul tastes. So that’s what we all enjoy, kind of pure old school music.
E: How would you describe your sound to someone who had never heard you before?
BC: I would say we’re alt-pop. We’re alternative but we definitely have popular themes as far as chorus hooks and melodies and things like that. I would just say that we write songs that are easy to sing along and dance along to.
