Josh Beech & the Johns’ Autographed Merch Give Away

Are you a Josh Beech fan? How about a Josh Beech & the Johns fan?
If you answered yes to either of those questions we have something for you. Vestra Vera Press was lucky enough to meet and interview [read it here] the boys of Josh Beech & the John’s and they were kind enough to autograph a hard copy of their yet to be released EP ‘She’ along with one of their show cards so that we can give them away to their fans.

Interested? Well, here are the rules for our Tumblr users:

1. Follow Vestra Vera Press, just following does not get your name put it. Show support for the Josh & the John’s and reblog to do it.
2. Reblog the contest, if you’re following us and reblog your name goes down twice. If you just reblog it will only go in once. 
3. Likes do not count for the contest, spread the love.

Rules for our non-tumblr users:

1. Go to our ask, leave us your email address using the anonymous option. We will put it into the drawing only once. Make sure to let us know that you’re leaving us your email for this contest.

The first name we pick will get the signed cd ‘She’ and the second will get the signed show-card. Remember to check out their video for ‘Follow Your Lead’ and keep your eye out for the release of ‘She’ on April 4th so you can get your hands on your own copy. Good luck you guys!

On March 18th, 2011, Vestra Vera Press sent a representative out to Austin, Texas to see Josh Beech and The Johns. An up and coming band from the UK. They just recorded an EP called ‘She’. It’s available on iTunes now. On April 4th, they’ll make it available to buy the CD itself. Great, great guys. Fantastic music. If you haven’t listened, go to iTunes right now and check them out. We also gave the boys an Iron Man costume. You can see Josh Beech attempting to put the children’s size costume on here.

What’s your favorite part of touring?

Josh: Uh..Meeting the fans.
Martinelli: [laughs] Wearing Iron Man stuff.
Turnham: Yeah, wearing Iron Man stuff.

Has there been any on tour pranks or any embarrassing situations with you guys?

Josh: Uh, I don’t think there’s ever been a time in our day where there isn’t an embarrassing situation.
Martinelli: Yeah, seriously.
Josh: Yeah. We’re constantly making mistakes.

If you follow your twitter, you pretty much know something is always going on. (@iamjoshbeech @iamjohnmart @johnthedrummist )

[Laughing]
Martinelli: It’s always because you see Josh twittering.
Josh: Is that bad, is that bad? Or is that good?

No, it’s fun. It’s fun to follow you guys.
What’s the craziest thing a fan has ever done or asked you asked you guys?

Josh: Uh…I don’t know if we can say that in a magazine.
Martinelli: Tell her.. Tell her about the dress.
Josh: Oh yeah, someone turned up in a wedding dress and asked me to marry her.

That’s creepy.

Josh: Yeah, in Milan.
Martinelli: In Milan!

Oh yeah, that’s crazy.

Martinelli: That’s outrageous

You guys have some crazy fans.

[Josh moves off to have a cigarette.]

This question is for you guys anyway (Turnham and Martinelli).
When the two of you are together how do they tell the two of you apart? Do you guys have nicknames?

Martinelli: How did we get together, you said?

Sure.

Martinelli: Well, Josh has known John for ages, they were in previous bands together. And then Josh found me somehow, we became friends and we all started playing.

Do you have nicknames to tell you apart?

Martinelli: I’m sorry?

Since you’re both John?

Turnham: I’ve just been Turnham.
Martinelli: He’s Turnham and I’m Mart.

No nicknames?

Martinelli: No, no, no. We’re boring. You can give us nicknames if you want.

I’ll think about it, I’ll tweet it to you guys.

[Laughing]
Martinelli: I want nicknames. But make it something cool like ‘Danger’.

We’re going to get your fans to give you nicknames.

Martinelli: I want good ones. Yeah.

What song off the EP is your favorite?

Josh: She.
Martinelli: She.
Turnham: She. Yeah, She.

Okay, Is there a standard writing process for you guys?

Josh: Uh, It’s changing at the moment, it used to be that I would just write the songs but now…he(Martinelli) and I started writing together. And John(Turnham) comes in with his own stuff.

Do you have any plans for a full length album?

Josh: Yeah, we’re writing it at the moment.
Martinelli: Yeah.

Awesome, I can’t wait for that.

Josh: Actually we expect it to be finished by August.
Martinelli: The deadline is in August.
Josh: Yeah August. Because we expect to have it out by October.

Who would you consider your musical influences?

Josh: Uhm, Thrice, John Mayer, Deftones, The Beatles.
Martinelli: Uh, Barry White.

That’s a good range right there.

Martinelli: It’s getting much better just now.
Josh: Blink-182

What motivated you to pursue music?

Martinelli: Thrice brought me to music

I’ve seen Thrice a couple of times actually.

Martinelli: I’ve seen them up from seventeen times. That’s how much I love them.

I totally understand.

Martinelli: They brought me to music.
Josh: Uh…The Beatles really.
Martinelli: Pink Floyd.
Josh: Yeah, Pink Floyd. My mum used to blast Pink Floyd when I was a little.
Turnham: The Beatles for me, my mum was a Beatles fanatic.
Martinelli: Yeah, like Josh said the Beatles. They were an amazing band.

If you weren’t in a band or modeling what would you be doing?

Josh: Uh, probably working in Starbucks
Martinelli and Turnham:  [laugh] Starbucks
Josh: No, but seriously I think I would be doing something helping animals, really.
Josh: I love animals.

How do you think the music scene in the UK differ from the US?

Martinelli: They’re mental here.
Josh: Uh..I think like..the UK to the US? It’s hard to tell at the moment because we’re only just coming over here. This is our first time ever playing here. It’s like we’re a new band. And they don’t know who we are. We’re trying to build it up and I think time will tell. Everybody who we’ve met who’s come to our gigs is like been so nice. It’s like really lovely, warm people.  We’ve all been in bands previously that weren’t quite big. When you’re not big, people just fucking talk all the way through. Shit. In England they do it the whole time. Here they don’t. There’s a lot, yeah, a lot of respect. More respect for musicians, I think. So, I’ll have to say it’s better in the US, I think.

This is for Josh. Do you know you have fan blogs on the internet?

Josh: Uh…yeah, he winds me up about it.
Martinelli: Yeah, it’s quite funny. It’s funny.

An owner of one of the blogs (Karla from Josh Beech Daily), asked us to ask you a question.

Josh: Okay?

She wants to know what your favorite Jeff Buckley song is.

All three: Oooh.
Martinelli: That’s a great question.
Josh: Grace.
[Pause]
Josh: Oh..wait.  Is it Grace?
Martinelli: Are you sure? Yeah, it’s probably Grace because Grace is so good.
Josh: Is it Grace that uh [hums melody]? Is that it?
Martinelli: I have no idea.
Josh: Oh and Last Goodbye is so sweet. [sings lyrics] No, yeah. I would go with Grace.

For the two of you (John and Mart). On the internet, we can find anything out about you. We need a couple of facts about you guys(John and Mart).

Martinelli: Couple of facts. Okay, uh I don’t know about this.

I have you on record.

Martinelli: Oh, I know. No, I know. I’m just trying to be reasonable. But…a couple of facts.  Want to help us, Josh?
Josh: With what?
Martinelli: She wants a couple of facts.
Josh: What? About you two?
Martinelli: Yeah.
Josh: He likes pasta. And his first band played in Japan before he was like [mumbling] seventeen[?]
Martinelli: And uh, I like brunette girls.
Josh: You can have a go, because he likes brunette girls.

Well, that’s another one. They’re going to come following you.

Turnham: I like blondes.
Josh: I don’t have a fancy
Turnham: When I’m not playing music with them. I work for Green Smoke Records, a Hip-Hop recording company in the UK.

Okay, well that’s all the questions. I guess we’re done.

Josh: It’s done?
Martinelli: Well make up more questions!

Yeah, how are you going to put me on the spot like this?

Josh: Oh come on.
Martinelli: Think up with something really weird.
Josh: We don’t mind because you’re really cool.

Really weird? Ask each other weird questions. Go.

Josh: What color is your penis right now, mate?
Martinelli: Really, really red.

I’ll be sure to include that. that’s another cool fact for them to know.

Josh: Uh, And also you should put We love partying. Like some of the videos of us on the internet, right. Don’t take them too seriously. We’ve never actually killed anyone, that’s a lie.

Now we have that on record.

Josh: None of us have girlfriends.

Well there, you go something else your fans would love to know. Now you can only be bombarded and you can only blame yourselves.

Martinelli: That’s alright.
Josh: Bring them on.
Martinelli: We’ve only done it to ourselves.
Josh: You want to meet our guitar tech guitar tech, Dan Lancaster?
Dan: Hi

Well, since you’re here you’re going to have to give us a fact about yourself.

Josh: Uh, He is the first official member of the crew.
Martinelli: Yeah, yeah. He’s a pretty big deal.
Josh: I’ll tell you a fact about Dan Lancaster he’s probably the worst guitarist out of anyone in the band.
Martinelli:  The worst guitar tech ever. [Laughs] Well, that’s something you want in a guitar tech.
Josh: And he likes, what color girls? Oh, yeah he likes tall girls.
Martinelli: Tall girls.

Alright, tall girls. They’re going to be all lining up and you’ll only have to blame yourselves. But I think that’s it.

Martinelli: Thanks a lot.
Turnham: Yeah.
Josh: Thanks so much.

Great interview. Lots of laughs. Check out the contest here.

VVP would like to thank Josh Beech and the Johns as well as their manager Jack for this interview.

-Kari

Hey everyone. So several weeks ago, myself and a friend of mine had the amazing opportunity of interviewing Anarbor. We’ve been extremely busy for the last few weeks with a bunch of technological and academic issues, but we finally got it transcribed for you all to read.
Anyway, they are definitely some really cool guys. Check them out here! And also, buy your tickets now to see them on the rest of the Vultures Unite Tour with headliner VersaEmerge and supporting acts The Dangerous Summer and Conditions here.
So here’s the interview. I hope you guys enjoy it. 

So we read somewhere that your original name was Troop 101. Is that at all true?

SLADE: Yeah. That is.

Will you tell us a bit about that?

SLADE: Yeah. Well, when we first started out, we needed a band name. We didn’t really have a name, and it just sort of came up.
ADAM: We’re not very proud of that…
SLADE & MIKE: Yeah… haha.
ADAM: We were so young. We changed our name for a reason.

When did you change it?

MIKE: Back in 2003.
ADAM: No, no. It was in 2006.
MIKE: Oh yeah! We formed in 2003. That’s right.

So your first few EPs gave your band a lot of exposure and some awesome opportunities. How has this new full length been for you so far?

SLADE: Great! We got to go on Warped Tour, and we toured off of it. That was also our first U.S. tour off of it. So far, so good.

Have you guys ever done a headlining tour?

SLADE: No. Not yet.

Any plans for that?

SLADE: We hope so. Nothing’s for sure yet, though.

So seeing that you guys are on the Vultures Unite Tour, have you guys done any good tour pranks yet? Those are always fun to hear about.

SLADE: Not on this tour. You know, usually you do those at the end.
MIKE: Yeah. We usually save those for the last days.

Do you have one that’s memorable?

SLADE: We used to have wars where we would just chuck like Pepto-Bismol…
MIKE: Or like soda, cakes, basically anything. We would throw anything that we could at each other’s vans.
SLADE: It was really scary, because we’d be on the road.
ADAM: Yeah. We weren’t being very safe on the road.
MIKE: Yeah! We were, like, on the highway!

So do you have one place to play that you would call your “all time favorite”?

MIKE: I honestly love playing California. Anywhere in California is my favorite place to play. We always know we’re going to have a great show.
SLADE: Chain Reaction is great. We always love playing there.

Over the summer, you were all on MTV’s Silent Library. How was that experience?

SLADE: That was funny.
MIKE: That was really, really ridiculous.

Well, you got everything, didn’t you?

MIKE: Yeah! It was awful.
SLADE: Yeah, but it was pretty good. It was definitely a good experience. I mean, we got the money, so we’re happy. We got a whole lot of money.

If you were to choose a part that you would absolutely never do again, what would it be? No matter how much money you get?

ADAM: All of them. Yuck.
MIKE: The eating ones were so gross and so hard. They were bad.
SLADE: Yeah, if we didn’t have to do anything with eating, it would’ve been a lot easier.
ADAM: If I had to do the fish one, I swear I would’ve barfed.

Who do you think had it the worst?

MIKE: Me! I had, like, 4 bad ones I had to do. I had to do the eating one that we all had to do. Then, I got picked, like, 6 times.
SLADE: I think Greg got out of the eating one. Maybe? I don’t remember.
ADAM: Yeah, and Tom had to do that shrimp thing.

The shrimp waffle?

ADAM: Ugh. Yeah. That was gross.

So anyway, you guys released a new lyric video for your song “Mr. Big Shot”. Whose idea was that?

MIKE: It was kind of a collective thing. The new Google app that they came out with, we all thought, “Wow, that’s kind of cool. We should maybe use this for something.”

How did you create it?

MIKE: Well, how it worked was we got all the clips by posting on our Tumblr something like, “Hey. Tweet us your favorite lyric from ‘Mr. Big Shot’.” And then we did all these different things, like posting pictures on our Tumblr, and we purposefully did that to set it up.

Do you run your own Tumblr?

MIKE: Yeah. We all log in; we all have access. It’s cool, because it has those applications for pictures and songs. We can just send them straight to our Tumblr.

On another note, do you all have any advice for budding artists?

SLADE: Keep at it. You know, you got to work for it.
MIKE: Don’t try to take the easy way out.

What would you define as the “easy way out”?

MIKE: Don’t always do what everyone’s doing just because it’s cool at the time. Do something that you know that’s right and something that’s going to last.

Awesome. Any last things you’d like to say to your fans?

SLADE: Check out our stuff.
MIKE: Check out the new album!
ADAM: Check out the album. Come see us at a show, and say hi.
SLADE: Yeah. Check us out on Warped Tour… on Warped Tour? What?
ADAM: Yeah. Go see us on Warped Tour!
SLADE: No! Vultures Unite Tour!

So that was it! Hope you enjoyed it.
CONTEST: Also, reblog this interview in order to win a free signed poster by Anarbor! Contest ends by the end of the week. You can reblog it as many times as you want. The more reblogs, the more likely you are to win!