Larson Hicks: Promoter Extraordinaire
An Interview by Anthony Saia
It is interesting to think that some people involved in the music scene of Moscow and Pullman do not know who Larson Hicks is. As a former student, husband, father and businessman, Hicks is a very busy fellow. His hobby, Stereopathic has been around for a few years now and for the time being, most of the local shows that happen around town are likely to have Hicks and Stereopathics hands in the mix.I had an opportunity to sit down with Mr. Hicks and pick his brain about music, Stereopathics music festival Birds On A Wire and the state of college radio.
Anthony Saia: So, what I can gain from it you are Stereopathic. Now what is Steropathic? Be specific, can you give a brief history?
Larson Hicks: Yeah. It started as, it really actually started as a radio show at KUOI. Me and a good buddy Josh Stevenson just got together and thought it would be fun to do a radio show. I think leading up to that I actually put on a bunch of local concerts like house show kind of deals. I grew up in a community where we had lots of shows and house shows and stuff like that so I kind of was looking to make my own fun and so I started doing that. It really started with was a kid that was out here from Texas named Brady Allen whose super good, just writes really cool music. Its kind of like sexy John Mayer kinnd of stuff but its really good. So I was interested in getting the word out about him. So I put on a lot of these house shows and had him play a couple shows, helped him get a couple other shows around town, coffee shop type stuff. And on the radio show we ended up featuring a lot of local music so we had like two and a half hours to work with so we would just play music we were into and it was a good chance for me to just get immersed in music for a couple years. We did it for like a year and a half maybe two years. We brought on a lot of local musicians to come and play on the air. Sometimes when bands were traveling through we would bring them in. Super XX Man, who is from Clarkston. He came through and played on our show and we ended up going out for beer later and after that I started managing him, like just being his manager, kind of an experiment, just a dabbling kind of thing. So for about a year I was managing him. I think, November of 09 we brought out our first like national touring band. It was Women, and they are really good. We charged four bucks a ticket and we did it at the north theater and had like 150 people come. It was a great show. From there it just took off. We did like 20 or so shows in 2009 and then another eight or nine in the first part of 2010 then Birds on a Wire.
AS: Cool and so time line wise, how long has Stereopathic been Stereopathic?
LH: I dont know. I want to say that maybe summer of 07 was when we started doing the radio show, that might be inaccurate but I think thats right. We also kind of started a blog at the same time and started putting out blog post about music we liked and we also had on our radio show a chat room that people would get on and chat with us on.
AS: So you mentioned Birds on a Wire Fest that happened in Pullman. Obviously you got some big names to come out, Justin Townes Earle, Damien Jurado, Rocky Votolato and Joe Pug just to name some. As far as the whole concept of birds on a wire, how did it come to be? Was it kind of like a thing that was planned or was it a spur of the moment?
LH: Well, I was having coffee here at One World with Eric Gilbert from Finn Riggins. We were kind of BSin and he said, You know Ive always thought it would be cool to do a music festival in Moscow, and I was like its a cool idea – lets do it. Then, he was like Woah! I dont know if I want to do it, Im just saying it would be cool. So I said I want do it, lets do it. I think he was just kind of talking and I thought we could do it. So I got to work on it and pretty quickly he realized I was shooting for the stars and he just wanted to do something laid back. He said, Ill give you advice and help on anything but Ill just let you run with it. So I kind of slowed down on that one and just booked a bunch of shows, just decided to book a bunch of shows. What happened was around the end of March early April I got this real strong influx of bands, agents were like, Hey can you do a show on this date? It kind of wigged me out because I had only been doing shows for a couple months, and in this two-week time frame I had like 8 or 9 shows. Agents and bands were asking me if I could do shows. So when I realized there was this chunk of shows and the bands were mostly Indie funk like Horse Feathers, Sera Cahoone David Bazan this chick Shelly Short from Portland who is really good, Richard Buckner, and Laura Gibson. So anyways, there was this two or three week period of time where I had a bunch of shows so when I started looking into it and talking to the bands I realized they were all on their way to or back from South By Southwest in Austin. At that time, a light went on and I thought this might be a good time to plop a festival down because artists are naturally moving back and forth and looking for shows so I thought I could get some good deals on bands at that time. I realized the indie folk roots are pretty big in the Northwest and is musically one of our biggest natural resources if you will. So we did that and decided we would do a real festival. We ended up calling it Birds On A Wire.
AS: So are you looking to make this an annual thing?
LH: Thats the plan, yeah. Last year was the first full on festival, the year before that was like a series of concerts, we hope to do it next year too.
AS: Any artists lined up for that so far?
LH: No. Weve planted some seeds and kind of mentioned some things to agents, nothing really official. Im actually going be working back stage chief at Pick-a-thon. Pick-a-thon is actually a big inspiration for the festival. Its a big indie roots folk country festival in Portland and its on its 12th or 13th this year, so Im going work back stage at that in a couple week and they have a killer line up so Ill talk to a couple of those guys.
AS: According to Stereopathic’s Facebook/your Facebook you have been putting in a lot of work to get shows here, Roadside Graves is obviously to be determined, but you’re trying to get Sleigh Bells and Japandroids. Anybody else?
LH: Yeah the Roadside Graves for sure, its going be at Mikeys Gyros. There are a bunch of shows that we have got in the works. What we are doing on Facebook is kind of like market research, a way for me to gage the interest in a particular opportunity and try to figure out how much I need to charge for tickets to cover the band. Other stuff we have in the works is, Denison Witmer, Joe Pug, and Horse Feathers are probably both going come this Fall, and The Thermals. It looks like thats going happen. There are a couple others too.
AS: So is there anybody that you are just kind of scoping out and getting a feel for?
LH: Im kind of always doing that – scoping out and sending out e-mails. Theres something I could see tomorrow that looks like it might work.
AS: Switching gears, what do you think of the state of college radio right now?
LH: You know I dont know a lot about the radio station industry in a broad sense. It does seem to be more of a dying thing which may just be the nature of terrestrial radio, like antenna based radio versus satellite radio and internet stuff. Its definitely hurting but I hope it doesnt go away. KUOI is rad. It is a super cool thing thats happening there. The fact that it is free form and there is so much music over there, its a pretty cool resource. Im surprised more kids at U of I dont know about it. I would just think there would be a lot of kids lining up to DJ. Its such a cool opportunity I loved DJing. Ive thought about picking up a DJ spot again.
AS: That was my next question, KUOI misses you man, and you can come back!
LH: Yeah I might. We quit doing it because both Josh and I have kids. We had a lunch slot on Tuesday and it was really good for us. It was not a prime spot but it was good for us because all of our listeners were at work and would tune in on their computers and that worked really well – but we were both ditching a lot of work to do it so we had an opportunity second semester to get a better spot so we grab a Wednesday night 8:00 spot which was really nice and laid back. That was cool but another one of those deals between that and shows and everything else in our lives; it was just a time thing. So we decided to focus on podcast. We did a couple but only put out three legitimate podcasts that we put on the website. They were really cool but it was just a time thing. Josh has his own website now called stervenson.com.He is kind of a comedian and he writes comedy stuff so he has a humorous podcast and is doing his thing. I would not be opposed to doing something again though. I think it would be fun. Something I actually worked on with the podcast is I worked on getting it syndicated in this region and trying to get college radio stations to pick it up and we had a little time there when we started doing it, KUOI, KZUU, and Whitworth were all playing it, just our 20 min podcast. So thats another way we could do it so its not a two and a half hour commitment and it could maybe be a once a week deal, so Id be up for something like that maybe.
AS: Who are your Top 5 favorite artists at this moment?
LH: Ive been really obsessed with Morning Benders these last couple weeks. Their new record is really awesome. Someone I havent spent enough time with but I was just listening to today is The Low Anthem, we almost got them for the festival. I just realize today I just watched a video of them and realized how awesome they are. So I need to get back into The Low Anthem and check them out some more. I was obsessed for Department of Eagles and Grizzly Bear for a good strong year. So yeah theres a couple. I get on these kicks where Im listening to one thing on repeat for hours. Oh you know what I got obsessed with too pretty recently was Elvis Perkins and Deerland. That album is awesome I got pretty into that. Bibio is pretty rad, its weird, this dude and his computer, its electronic kind of stuff, Im kind of all over the place.
AS: Top 5 favorite albums of all time?
LH: I would probably put Grateful Deads American Beauty on that list. Id probably put that Led Zeppelins album with the song “Black Dog” on that list, stuff that Ive listened to my whole life. I was pretty obsessed with Pedro The Lion Control was an album that I wore out. That album was amazing. Its probably way too soon for me to be talking like this and I might back off on this in a couple years but that last Grizzly Bear album was awesome. I listened to that thing like crazy. I was actually chiding my friend for not having listened to Sufjans Come On Feel the Illinoise. On my iPod I put like four or five stars next to all those songs. Rising Tide was another album that was pretty huge for me. I loved that album. Also Weezers Pinkerton and The Blue Album. Pinkerton is definitely on my top two.
AS: As far as questions go thats all I have, any closing words?
LH: Im always pumped to have people spreading the word about what we are doing and I always encourage people to get involved. We are a small community and its not easy to get good music out here. So each show that we put on represents a ton of work and often times a ton of money. So support your local music scene even if the band isnt what you are way into and just come out to the shows. Come support the scene and start bands, I would love to see some more Moscow bands happening, there is a couple but there is a lack of local bands at least that Im aware of, so yeah, thats all.