Cavashawn
Albums: Cavashawn EP (Black) (March 2008)
Cavashawn EP (White) (Released today! June 2009)
Genre: Rock/Pop
Location: Chicago, IL
Websites: Cavashawn.com, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Blog
Store: cavashawn.storenvy.com
Products sold at Storenvy: CDs, posters, tees, hoodies, totes
Products printed by Storenvy: All of the above
Storenvy: You’re releasing your second EP today, congratulations! Tell us a little about the band. What is your background? What led you to where you are today?
Jesse Feister: We met in high school in Cincinnati, Ohio, and have been playing together in various forms ever since. We went to school together at Miami University of Ohio. We moved from our college town of Oxford, Ohio, to Chicago two years ago and started Cavashawn. We share a common love of the Beatles, Mario Kart for game cube and the Midwest. I think the combination of the three has been what keeps us together.
I play drums, Scott Salmon sings and writes, Chris Hellmann plays guitar and Benton Kubicki plays bass.
SE: Could you give us a taste of the new EP?
JF: How about our music video? It was recently a MySpace music video of the day.
SE: You’ve become a pretty big deal in your hometown of Chicago, and you’ve been selected as an “Emerging Artist” by Summerfest and a Top Unsigned Artist by MySpace. Tell us about your fans, and how you got so popular!
JF: After we moved to Chicago we recorded our first EP with a local producer and hit the streets, really focusing on trying to reach out to people who were already die-hard music fans. We focused on four cities in the Midwest –- Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Milwaukee. We put up a ton of posters and handed out fliers at almost every local show, practiced our butts off and put a lot of time building a fan-base on the Internet. Eventually the word just kind of got out. We started drawing more and more people at our shows, and the local press and scene started to pay attention.
A fan-uploaded pic from the band’s Facebook page
SE: What advice would you give to people wanting to start their own band?
JF: Find people who are as dedicated as you are, make sure they’re good people and then be dig in and be prepared to stick with it. It’s not supposed to be easy, but it should be fun.
SE: Do all or any of you have day jobs? If so, doing what?
JF: We all do random odd jobs to help pay the bills. Scott moves furniture, Ben does landscaping, Chris and I have done data entry jobs, and I build websites. We all went to college, but since our schedules revolve around the band, we have to do pretty much whatever it takes to pay the bills. Usually the lower-paying jobs are more flexible.
SE: You’ve worked a lot with our co-founder Nick Roccanti, who handles all our printing orders and operations. What’s your favorite thing about Nick?
JF: He’s like Val Kilmer in Top Gun. Under pressure, he performs. Ice cold, no mistakes.
Nick Roccanti = Iceman
SE: Who designs your album art and apparel?
JF: Nick hooked us up with Greg Perkins about two years ago and we’ve become pretty good friends. He gets what we’re trying to do, and since we use him for almost every aspect of our design, he can incorporate themes and ideas in the broader scheme of things, which we think is cool.
SE: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
JF: Come check us out live! We’re always playing across the Midwest, and we’ll be traveling to the East Coast this fall.
SE: Would you be willing to give a special discount to our blog readers?
JF: Sure, 15% off from the Cavashawn store with promo code STORENVYBLOG. Offer expires July 15.
The new EP cover, featuring the band’s iconic peacock logo
Many thanks to Jesse and the band! All songs from the EP are streaming on MySpace and available for sale in iTunes, or buy the CD at Storenvy for just $6.
when are you getting diy stores?