A scandal and a government lesson: Gary Levitt of Setting Sun gives Popwreckoning a behind the scenes look at the management to artist relations for a major festival like SXSW, explains how touring in Europe compares to the United States due to government climate and even attempts to get in touch with his feminine side. Read it all below.
Joshua Hammond, PopWreckoning: Want to tell us the whole story again?
Gary Levitt, Setting Sun: I’m going to get you trouble with the whole SXSW. I don’t know. You want to do this again?
JH: Yeah. We’re going to not bitch slap them because we’d like to come again next year. We like to be mad, but not publicly because it fucks us over in the end.
SS: I have a message I can play you from the associate manager.
JH: We can hear that though.
SS: It’s not positive.
JH: It could be fun though. It would be fun to hear.
SS: I’ll play it for you.
Levitt plays a message saved on his phone.
JH: Wow. You should repeat that and plug it into here. That was brilliant. You have speaker?
SS: I do.
JH: I’m OK with running that. Trust me.
SS: Should I put it on speaker?
JH: Yeah.
Replays Message:
Hey Gary, this is Craig at SXSW. You showed up three seconds before set time, freaked out the stage manager and had no band. You picked up passes for more than one person yet you played solo with an iPod on it. That’s not right.
SS: Hopefully that came out.
JH: You’re never going to play this city again. Want to tell the story?
SS: The background story? It’s just me on this tour. We ended up getting invited to play this festival months ago, but they didn’t actually give us a venue or date and this happened at CMJ also. We got invited to play, but we didn’t have our venue date. So finally, two weeks before the festival, we got the email: Ok. You’re playing here. This time. Lamberts Wed. blah blah. So then it was far too late to get my five piece band down here. Flights were already so expensive. Way too late to book a tour. I ended up jumping on a friend’s tour. I could ride in her car and I could play shows on the way down. So I’ve been getting here slowly and playing some songs with a backing track. I put on the ipod and I play, just to represent what the band sounds like, a five piece band. Got down here and I played the show and it went over really well. Great response, sold a bunch of cds. On the tour it has been surprisingly odd that people don’t seem to mind the backing tracks. So kind of weird, but it is going over ok. So we played. That message I got the first thing the next morning from the showcase information. So yeah, there was a lot of bad information on his part with the show. I was at it more than 30 seconds before I played because I was watching the band before. So I don’t know where he got that from.
JH: I almost went on a rant and decided not to.
SS: The bands aren’t getting paid. This is the payment, you get to see everyone’s show. It’s a lot of money and energy, I’m really surprised that they don’t have more sponsor stuff. Gorgeous clubs, great sound system seven or 8 bands a night and every one’s scrambling to find a drum set. The girl that was on two sets after me called me the day of and was like my drum set fell through, can you loan me a drum set. I’m like, why doesn’t sxsw get a sponsor to provide an extra drum set.
JH: Sponsor yeah. It wouldn’t be that hard to get Pearl and have them set up amps and a piece set and put pearl.com on it.
SS: It’s chaotic. It’s a lot of work. I just feel like with the movie industry changing so much and there being less and less money for artists, things like this, need to be changing their policies a little bit. It’s a give and talk, you know?
JH: That I would agree with. Where do we want to go next? We were not very prepared. You should talk about Young Love, Young Love Records.
SS: Ok.
JH: You should absolutely plug your label.
SS: Ok. Plug.
JH: Plug.
SS: Here’s a CD. Check it out. That’s what it sounds like.
JH: I got Quitzow. I don’t think I got this one.
SS: Here’s the remix ep. Do you have the remix EP? You can download that for free.
JH: We’ll link that up.
SS: So Young Love Records
JH: Yeah, how do you compare running your own label to being signed elsewhere?
SS: Yeah, we run it. We have a few people helping us. We have a few girls that help us. How do I like it? I was on Virgin Records for awhile as a side artist. It is very different. I definitely sort of needed a new mindset. You can’t compare to a major label machine, but we have a lot of control and that’s nice.
JH: I found that what most people have said when they answer is that you get the aspect of having complete ability to make the choices you want with your project, but you lose the major promotion machine when they’re shoving you at everything and all the people. It is a lot harder to expose yourself on your own.
SS: Absolutely. It Is harder for people with that kind of machine. You need a video camera if you want exposure.
JH: We have a video camera if you want to expose yourself, Gary.
Jessica McGinley, PopWreckoning: That would be a Popwreckoning exclusive.
SS: That’d be awesome. The Setting Sun/Quitzow sex tape.
JH: SXSW gone wild. I don’t think you’d be asked back, but we’d run that shit everyday.
SS: Nice.
JM: I don’t think I’ve spoken with you since the tour in Europe. How did that go?
SS: The tour in Europe was amazing. It was kind of a life changing experience. The way they deal with artists over there is very, very different. The psychology of the people is different. This is how I describe it in a nutshell: the bottom line—this is what I got personally, it is not imperical fact, just what I got—their bottom line is different than here. Like here in the states the bottom line is the dollar and the profit. There the bottom line is the culture, the good time, the enjoyment, the food. That was most important and that became clear, time after time and show after show after show. We were in like seven countries and just the psychology of the people is really different. I found people’s disposition to be a lot more happy. Even like your average waiter or waitress. They’re not working for tips. They’re making a decent wage. They have total health care, medical and dental. It is a different psychology. Different government breeds a different psychology.
JM: I know people are pushing for Obama to more global and common health care.
SS: Yeah, we’re the only country in the whole world that doesn’t have one. And some of the venues get a tax check because they have live music. So because they have live music, they’re giving culture to the society and the government gives them money to do that. The domino effect of that is they’re not relying on alcohol sales, so they’re not interested in having cover bands play and they want good, quality, original music because they don’t have to worry about that. Most of the shows were pretty good, but there were a couple shows on this tour that it wasn’t that well attended. Two shows in Germany particularly. We weren’t guaranteed, but they had no qualms about paying us. They had no qualms. It was very, very different.
JH: I can’t even picture it. Working in music in America, I can’t picture it that way.
SS: You know the rapt.
JH: I know the bar stiffing you pay because you didn’t bring x amount of people. All of the bull shit that we have to go through, I can’t picture it any other way.
SS: It is a different bottom line. They have to bring in the people. Even if your band is not good here, but they know you have a lot of friends that you’ll bring, they’ll book your crappy set because you’ll bring a lot of people. That means it is ruled by the dollar while there it is, oh your band is good. That’s how you play. Then they promote it.
JH: Let’s move PopWreck to Europe.
JM: I don’t know much about booking and all that.
SS: Luckily, we have a really great booking agent in Europe and they did an amazing job. We’re going back the beginning of 2010. They’re nurturing our career. We’ve done seven countries, but they’re looking at the routing and spreading us out. Austria and france, germany Italy, Belgium Switzerland Luxembourg. So they’re really like ok that was good, but not we’re really going to spread out likewe’re early in our career.
JH: Is it harder to tour in Europe like with passport regulations and going between countries?
SS: When we were crossing the border I think it was from Switzerland into Italy, they were standing there smoking cigarettes and they were like oh just go. They didn’t even want to see us.
JH: That’s awesome.
SS: It’s all part of the European Union.
JH: Cool. What else? We talked through questions in the car verbally and I don’t remember any of them now.
JM: How did the remix albums come about?
SS: The remix albums came about , the EPs came about as just as an idea to keep the promotion going for our records Children of the Wild and Art Collage. We just did that. For me, doing the remixes was like the funnest recording project that I’ve ever done. It is nice to have something that was completely done and then just totally screw it up. It’s like it is already done. It’s like alright, let’s take out the acoustic guitars and put in a lot more keyboards. To make it more electric and just mess with it. And knowing that we were giving it away for free too.
JM: After hearing the album, what was the reaction like for the people that then heard the EPs?
SS: Pretty good. All I can really tell is what people tell us. It is a digital release, so you have to sign a mailing list and we’re getting a lot of people signing the mailing list. You don’t get like as much of a response for an EP as you do a full length. And also it is not packaged. So it hasn’t been quite the hubbub of the record, but it is still good. For me it has been great because it kind of represents the direction that I’m going with the next release. A little less folk but a little more synthy and just south of going electronic. I’m merging. Keeping all the string elements and keeping all the songwriting, obviously. A lot more electronic drums and a lot more synthesizers. So I’m really happy.
JM: How far are you on the next record?
SS: We got about five songs done.
JH: The other questions that I thought of were for Erica [Quitzow], but she’s not with us.
SS: I can try those.
JH: What is it like being a woman on tour?
SS: It is really different than being a man on tour. I’ve done both. I can’t answer that actually.
JH: I think that’s it really. I think we’re good.
SS: I can call her?
JH: We should! That would be cute.
SS: Want me to get her on the phone?
JH: Yeah. (shyly)
SS: I don’t know how you‘re going to get it on the recorder.
JH: True. We just want to say hi.
SS: I can put it on speaker phone.
JH: We’re just going to say hi.
SS: Hey Erica, I have Josh from PopWreckoning and he wants to interview you. You ready? Here you go. You’re being recorded. Every single word and breath.
JH: Hey. We just wanted to end the interview with putting the recorder up to the phone and letting you say hey and saying we missed you.
Erica Quitzow, Quitzow: Aw. Thank you.
JH: No problem.
EQ: Miss you too. How are you?
JH: Aw. I’m great. I’m just exhausted. We didn’t prepare for SX. We didn’t train. We didn’t know we had to mountain climb and shit to be here. We’re really tired.
EQ: Wish I was there.
JH: We wish you were here and I’m sorry they didn’t prep you properly.
EQ: I plan on it next year.
JH: We will definitely be here with you next year then.
Setting Sun: website | myspace
Photos by: Jessica McGinley
Quitzow, fronted by the lovely 
A very brief intermission occurred following Quitzow’s set as the six on stage rearranged themselves and set up to perform Setting Sun’s set. Decidedly less electronically influenced than the evening’s predecessors, Setting Sun powered through a fantastic set of jaunty and catchy indie pop rock tunes rife with guitar and drum hooks.
