SHINY TOY GUNS SHOOT STRAIGHT ABOUT TOUR CHALLENGES

Shiny Toy Guns is currently out on the road in support of their album, We Are Pilots, which features the standout track “LeDisco.” They’re opening up for Blue October, who are their label mates but display a very different musical angle.

We sat down with Jeremy Dawson, Carah Faye, and drummer Mikey Martin recently in New York City to discuss a bill that on the surface seems very strange.

“You know what? This is a classic example of the world in 2007. Back in the day you had your headliner, you had your band that wasn’t very good and sounded exactly like the headliner, then you had your opening act that made the middle band sound OK and made everyone go, ‘Man I can’t wait for the headliner to play.’ Your punkers on your left, your rockers are on the right, your metal kids are in the back, if you’re 15 you’re up here, if you’re 55 your back there. But that’s 1992, that’s 1987, those days are gone. Nowadays you have kids with a two level pete mohawk five belts on and a Britney Spears CD in the car and a Justin Timberlake CD, and a Napalm Death CD.”

They talked about the different audiences between the two bands.

“We’re getting a chance to play to a Blue October crowd, which is a general sense a bit more of a… not necessarily an older crowd, but more of a working crowd. More of a traditional human being crowd instead of the, like, ‘I have 4000 CDs and six iPods’ crowd — just kind of the more indie, I buy way too much music that didn’t come out until next year crowd.”

Faye said that this tour has been a piece of cake in comparison with a trip overseas in which they played 40 consecutive dives in 40 days.

“Well, we did a tour in the U.K., what?, about a year ago?, about forty dates. It was the beginning of ’07. It was about 40 dates in a row, no days off. It was the most gruesome thing we’ve ever done for the vocalist for a crew. There’s two levels of venues in the U.K. It’s either dung heap, no sound system — or maybe it’s a boom box quality, ro there’s like an amazing venue, much larger. We weren’t there yet. We were playing the same ones. Our crew would get in there and we would have to build. We brought our own. The sound system was ridiculous, everyday. It was the most depressing, gruesome, tiresome tour we’ve done. A lot of our souls were eaten, but at the end of the day you come out stronger and you say, ‘Hey we did that.’ Now you laugh at it, and you laugh at someone who say’s you’re going to do it again because it’s never happening again.”

Shiny Toy Guns released “You Are The One,” and import hounds can find up to eight different remixes on maxi singles. Shiny Toy Guns are on the road With Blue October through mid-November.