Ed Roman

Ed Roman:
Thanks for having me today and it’s nice to talk to you.

Tony Coke – Bands Rising:
Sorry I missed you at SXSW! How did my fellow Texans treat you this year at SXSW? Any crazy experiences in Austin?

Ed Roman:
Well that’s okay you can catch us next year. Your fellow Texans were gracious hosts and we felt welcome from the moment that we arrived. I didn’t expect to see JR or run into any Dallas cheerleaders but we were definitely headed for the beautiful musical talent of Austin. The city was alive with music and musicians abound. 20 city blocks closed down that house this incredible musical week. One of the things I was most impressed with was how everything was just allowed to happen on the street. Live music performances in every club on every hour and at the same time street performers, people clothed in wild costumes, live drumming and musicians happening everywhere and an abundance of good spirit and camaraderie towards your fellow man. We had friends come as far as Fort Worth and Dallas to watch the show and it was great hooking up with everybody afterwards. We heard there were greased bikini-clad ladies riding a mechanical bull in a club but we were minutes from missing the show. Next time I’m getting on the bull with the hottest lady in the house.  

Tony Coke – Bands Rising:
Yes! It’s definitely a crazy an fun experience, musicians and fans alike should experience!
Your style is hard to pin down to one specific genre. What are your musical influences?

Ed Roman:
Why I think that is a complete complement. Many people ask me this question and often I say my music is the kitchen sink. You will find elements of folk music, rock, jazz, R&B, spoken word and country. I grew up listening to so many of these styles and genres of music. Some of my biggest influences as a young kid were singer songwriters and storytellers. I’m always drawn in by a good story about the misunderstood individual or situation that goes wrong. John Prine, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Johnny Cash, Tom Waits and so many more filled my mind with the possibilities of lyrical adventures into lilting stories about the human endeavor. As I grew older and found love with playing music many people that drove me were artists such as Jaco Pastorius, Geddy Lee, Chris Squire and Mark King as well as a multitude of other bass players who exuded musical prowess and abilities. This really fueled me as a young player to be better at my instruments especially the bass, and pursue music all through high school and college. I also fell in love with a lot of jazz composers such as Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis as a result of my pursuit of jazz in college. All this combined hosts an inordinate amount of music that spans decades if not a century. I love so many different styles of music and it’s very difficult for me to negate those loves and passions in the writing process. Even artists such as the Beatles who I really fell in love with at an early age all had elements of different forms of genres woven through their music more like a tapestry. Stevie Wonder is another one of these infamous characters who despite we look at him as a soul or R&B artist he has also given us an incredible amount of diversity in his music. We as people tend to put music in boxes and categorize out of necessity, but it’s all music.

Tony Coke – Bands Rising:
You play most of the tracks on your records… including sitar… how does someone go about learning sitar, and where do you even get one?

Ed Roman:
Yes that’s true I do play a great deal of the instruments on my records including electric and acoustic bass, acoustic and electric guitars, drums and hand percussion, Hammond organ, Fender Rhodes, some accordion and a multitude of squeaks and whistles. Most recently I acquired a sitar which I heard about from my nephew. I took it into my loving arms, cleaned it up and ordered new strings and tuning pegs and fine-tuning swans and fish from a local Indian store in the city of Toronto. Once shipped to my door I then embarked on learning how to string it and tune it correctly. Over a very short period of time I began to experiment on the instrument like any good musician would and started to find a voice of my own. At the same time I acquired a book on tonal techniques which helped me understand the instrument far more. It’s not something I felt I had to have plastered all over the album but there are a few unique moments at which I felt it appealing and necessary in the music. The instrumental song Melanchthon June Bug asked for a buzzy, nasally yet harmonic type of instrument to help illustrate the melody. I grew up listening to the Beatles and sitar was one of the instruments that I fell in love with at an early age. Why not?

Tony Coke – Bands Rising:
What differences, if any, have you noticed between Canadian music fans vs. US music fans?

Ed Roman:
The difference that I’ve seen between Canadian music fans and US fans is that the United States tends to be more active in local music culture. So often I have seen on any given night of the week far more people in clubs in the United States than there are in Canada. Canada has a multitude of great venues and cities that are filled with wonderful music and great musicians; however Canadian culture is very lax in the way that it participates in weekly music events. Hand-in-hand with the economic struggle that most Canadians and Americans share it becomes quite difficult for people to spend money and time attending local venues and watching independent music in their own communities. Technology has also made it very easy for people to say “I’m just going to stay in tonight” because you can watch anything at any moment in time at any time of day. I’ve even seen commercials which were endorsed by Randy Bachman suggesting that you can now log on to watch music through the CBC instead of coming out to the gigs and watching live shows. It’s extremely crucial as a live performer to have some symbiotic relation between the audience and the musical moment in time. Music is meant to be felt and shared and not just visualized in small digital boxes. Don’t get me wrong, technology is one of the most incredible things which has allowed many independent musicians to have a voice all over the world. It is important however for us to participate in music culture because it keeps it strong, vibrant and alive for generations to come.

Tony Coke – Bands Rising:
As the music industry changes, how has your recording or business model changed since you started your musical career, and what are your plans for the next 12 months?

Ed Roman:
Everything has completely changed since I started playing music. Without really dating myself I have some of my music on 45, so when I was much younger,  the industry functioned on much more of a personal contact basis. You would spend a lot of money and time on press kits, mailing them out all over the country and waiting for a response. You then go through a series of callbacks making sure people got your packages and that they were listening to your CDs and reading your form letters. Now a days the Internet has made it very easy for anyone anywhere in the world to be able to create electronic press kits and be able to have them into people’s boxes electronically within seconds. The recording medium has even changed a great deal. We’ve gone from 2 inch tape and reel to reel machines and expensive recording studios to home recording studios, digital hard drives and computers and a do-it-yourself mentality. This in some ways has lessoned the quality of some recordings as people feel themselves to be experts in all fields of what they do when it comes to music. At the same time there are some amazing new types of sounds and feelings that are being created in small studios all over the world. What hasn’t changed is musicians writing music and recording their songs when they feel the time is right. The second part to this is that people have had the ability to download music for free for many years now and it has made it very difficult for musicians to sell their CDs and music the same way that they did 20 years ago and rely on it as an income. More musicians spend time playing live, which is a good thing, but instead of buying the CD first and show second, the artist and or band is more likely to sell a hat and a T-shirt to that patron of the gig than a CD. 25 years ago people would’ve purchased the music by the artist as a result of falling in love with the music, perhaps attend a concert and then buy a shirt which was a secondary item that the fan could then take home. This model is rapidly changing from day-to-day and it’s important to pay attention to not only the trends but the things that seem to be working for you. I find when I put more of myself and my personality into what I’m doing along with my musical ideas it allows people greater access to me as a person and an artist which makes the music feel more like it belongs to us. Over the next 12 months I plan to keep on with this mantra and at the same time writing and recording music for a new record to be released sometime in 2016.

Tony Coke – Bands Rising:
Thanks Ed for sharing your time and thoughts with us, and I’m looking forward to hearing your new music in 2016!

Ed Roman:
Thank you so much for having me today and it’s been a great pleasure to speak with you. 
Ed over……

Tony Coke – Bands Rising:
Connect with Ed Roman:

www.edroman.net
www.twitter.com/specialedroman
www.youtube.com/specialedroman
www.facebook.com/edromanmusic

Be sure to check out his soundcloud as well. There’s a very cool cover of Rush “Spirit of Radio” that I really love!!!!