If you have ever seen Jesse McCartney, The Driver Era or Walk The Moon live, there’s a chance you saw the band called PUBLIC opening for them, one of the best bands to open for anyone and pretty soon will be headlining their own shows. They recently just finished opening for The Driver Era on tour and now they’re focusing on creating more music for their fans. ECHO had the chance to chat with the guys from PUBLIC.
How are you guys?
Good. Busy. Crazy busy, haha. After finishing up the tour with TDE, it feels like we haven’t had one spare minute to ourselves. Whether it’s traveling to do college shows or recording new content, there’s always something for us consuming our schedules.
You guys have been doing a few shows with The Driver Era and today’s (April 12th) your last one!! How has the tour been?
Minus driving through a blizzard haha, No place we’d rather have been than traveling in a giant toaster oven through incredibly dangerous elements to see fans! Haha. However, the tour was actually extended past initial end and we were able to spend up until 4/20 with them. Luckily for us, both the members and crew in TDE were the most inviting and fun group of people we’ve had the pleasure of spending time on the road with yet! On top of that, their fan base was incredibly supportive of us as an opener, which made us feel right at home every night of the tour.
How did you guys get connected with The Driver Era?
There always feels like there’s about 1 degree of separation between you and someone else. In our case, it actually came in the form of their tour manager, Diamond, and the littlest of the Lynch brothers, Ryland Lynch. Last year, when we toured with Jesse McCartney, both Ryland and Diamond were a part of the crew, Ryland as the lighting tech and Diamond as TM. During the tour, we got to know the guys really well and continued contact long after tour was over. Fast forward a few months later, we saw that TDE was planning on going on a tour and, through the combined efforts of our MGMT, booking agent Taylor, and just knowing some of the boys in that camp, we were able to join the TDE boys on the run.
You guys compliment each other making it a perfect show! You’ve opened for Jesse McCartney and Walk The Moon and now The Driver Era. I’m assuming those fans are all over the age realm. Do you see fans from Walk The Moon at a Jesse McCartney show or The Driver Era shows?
That’s one of the most interesting about touring and just playing live I general. The bonds created between varying fans in different settings is one of the most amazing things to see, and it can be seen across all genres of music. Fans that came out to see Walk the Moon might end up liking us and coming out to our next show, whether that be a headline or support slot, and find that they like the other band that we play with. There’s a never ending sense of discovery, even with names as big as the ones mentioned above. If you had to pick out one reigning similarity between all the groups however, it would be that they draw more of a young female demographic than anything else
Who’s someone you would die to open for or have open for you?
Not entirely sure if it sounds super self indulgent right now, but we absolutely can’t wait to HEADLINE! The growth we’ve experienced from being on the road with amazing groups like WTM, Jesse, and TDE has been incredible! As incredible as it would be to open for other acts we look up, we want to have the opportunity to give everything we’ve got to the fans who have followed us this far by giving them a killer headlining run with all the bells and whistles we can’t supply in a support slot
How have you guys changed since opening for Walk The Moon back in 2014?
The biggest change we’ve gone through since that tour has got to be that we use tracks in our live show now. When we first started out, we were very much going for a completely raw, rock and roll feel along the lines of Led Zeppelin. We wanted everything to be organic and took pride in our abilities to play our instruments. However, as our song writing began to incorporate more elements, like synth, we began to realize that tracks could be more than just a means of playing what we couldn’t perform, but also of amplifying the sonic space and production of our live sound completely to better the experience of the listener.
You haven’t released a song since 2018, can we expect some more music this year?
We actually just released a song this past March called “Honest”. When you compare it to our previous releases, it’s actually got a much more angsty, alternative vibe to it. Apart from that, we’ve got some upcoming plans to release a new summer single!
Speaking of which, your 2018 song “One That I Want” is a bop! What was the recording process of that like?
Thank you! We really enjoyed recording the song and really appreciate you liking it! As far as the recording process goes, the song began with John presenting a demo, complete with the track foundation and vocal melodies/lyrics, to the rest of the boys before heading into the studio. From there, we ended up recording the tracks skeleton (bass, drums, some synth, guitar) before applying the vocals. The very last part to come into the play was actually a complete accident. Right before leaving the studio for the day, Matt played a little bamboo flute synth tone on his synth and we ended up being really excited about it and stuck it in the chorus.
So you guys have been in the music industry for a bit. What’s the biggest thing that you think has changed in the industry since you started out as a band?
From our perspective, the biggest element to have come around since becoming a band has got to be streaming. Since the inclusion of services like Spotify and Apple Music, the variables that determine how to discover new music or whether a group is doing well have changed drastically. It’s something we’re still pretty nieve about, but are trying to delve into more and more to utilize it to its full potential.
Finally, as 2019 goes one, what can we expect from you guys later this year/after The Driver Era tour?
More Music! More content! It’s crazy, but one of our tracks, “Make You Mine” has exploded on an app called TikTok recently. Our goal is to continue creating as much good content as quickly as we can to keep the new fans we’ve made engaged and excited about us
Make sure you stay up to date with PUBLIC by following them on their socials and listen to their music via streaming or downloading.
