Brendan Ekstrom
Brendan Ekstrom is one of the guitarists and original member of alternative rock group Circa Survive.
Here Brendan talks about touring in Asia, the guitars he prefers, the making of Circa Survive videos and much more.
Transcript
Guitarhoo!: How are you doing today Brendan?
Brendan Ekstrom: I’m good. Happy to be here. Never thought… I grew up in a small town in the United States and I used to dream what it would be like to even get to California, you know, and so to be in Asia and to be in the Philippines is amazing to me.
G!: I’m happy to hear that. So, how do you like the weather?
BE: ah, it’s sucks, hahaha!
G!: Haha, I agree. So you’re currently playing some concerts in Asia. How are things going?
BE: Honestly, this has been probably one of the best experiences I’ve ever had personally and as a band we just feel like rejuvenated by being in these new places. Being a band for eight years, never being able to meet certain fans you know, and so to now come here and to play for these people that have been waiting so long, there’s really nothing like it. It’s been an amazing experience.
G!: Great! So, this is your first time in the Philippines?
BE: First time in the Philippines, first time in Asia. We did Singapore, Malaysia and now Philippines.
G!: Hopefully there’s more visits to come after this. You’re playing the Pulp Summer Slam tomorrow with a huge list of bands. Have you toured with some of them before?
BE: We’ve done about five shows on this tour with Coheed and Cambria and we’ve done a lot of tours with them over the years. So, we’re happy to just be with those guys again. We always have a great time. Last night we met Dragonforce and a couple other bands and it’s just been awesome. That’s the cool thing about festivals, there’s so many people there, there’s always people to meet, there’s always something new going on.
G!: How long of a set will you be playing?
BE: I think it’s about ten songs. I’m not really sure. How ever long ten songs is for us.
G!: We’ll be watching that later on. Do you prefer playing large festivals or more intimate club settings?
BE: It’s very different, you know. It’s hard to compare the two things because it’s so different but overall in general I like being able to be right up next to the crowd and like, to be able to touch them if I want to. I just feel like you can feel there energy more like that, but at the same time we’re not a massive band that plays arenas or to thirty thousand people all the time. So maybe if we played to thirty thousand people and all of those people were singing our songs that would be an interesting thing to have happen too.
G!: Some day that’s going to happen for sure. What guitars do you prefer to record with or play with live?
BE: The brand of guitar I use is called Melancon. It’s a guy that lives near New Orleans in the United States and he hand makes all of his guitars. I guess I found one ten years ago and it was really light. I have kinda a really bad neck and back, so it was really light and still sounded nice, so I’ve just stuck with it ever since then.
Brendan playing live with his Melancon Telecaster guitar
G!: Great! From your latest album “Violent Waves”, you’ve got some creative videos for “Suitcase” and “Sharp Practice”. Do you come up with ideas for the videos or is that left up to the director?
BE: Well, the video for suitcase is a good friend of ours and we’d been talking about doing a video with him for a long time and I think Anthony pretty much came up with the idea and started talking about it with Colin, kinda throwing ideas back and forth and then we gave it to our friend Danelle. At once, I think, you give the video to the guy that’s going to direct it you just kinda got to let him take it and do what his vision of it is because otherwise if every one is trying to put there input into it it just sort of falls apart, at least in our experience from the past. And then the other thing was Steve the guitar player for the band Thursday knew the guys who made the video for Sharp Practice, and they were just telling him we have have this new technology no one’s ever done anything quite like this before and we really want to make a video and we were lucky enough to have him get us in contact with them and put it together for us.
G!: Those are the questions that I have for you Brendan and I’m happy you spent time with us. More power to you guys and good luck with your concert tonight!
BE: Thank you very much.
© 2013 Guitarhoo!
Brendan on the web
