{"id":27725,"date":"2015-10-05T19:12:09","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T00:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=27725"},"modified":"2015-10-11T16:47:32","modified_gmt":"2015-10-11T21:47:32","slug":"the-captain-midnight-band-live-october-10-at-proud-larrys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/the-captain-midnight-band-live-october-10-at-proud-larrys\/","title":{"rendered":"The Captain Midnight Band: Live October 10 at Proud Larry’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Captain Midnight Band<\/strong>, based out of Nashville, Tennessee<\/strong>, is a genre-defying band that is paving their own way. Lively stage antics, eccentric costumes, and their jam band-meets-R&B-meets-Classic Rock style, make for a band always pushing the musical envelope. On October 10th, Captain Midnight Band will be performing at Oxford\u2019s Proud Larry\u2019s<\/strong>, and Pithecanfunkus Erectus<\/strong> (a.k.a. P-Rex<\/strong>) will open up the show.<\/span>
\nI had the pleasure of speaking with Joshua Cooker<\/strong>, better known as Captain Midnight, about his Oxford roots, creating a new genre of music, and the importance of having fun. \"CaptainMidnight_BitchinPoster\"<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about the creation of The Captain Midnight Band. You were a member of the Oxford based band Cardinal Fluff in the 90s. So tell me about that experience and your evolution into the Captain Midnight Band.<\/strong><\/span>
\nStarting out in Oxford was really weird because it was in the height of the grunge movement where having fun on stage and dressing up and trying to put on a show was frowned upon by a lot of people. And we saw a lot of our contemporaries following that trend. So we made a point to adamantly do the opposite of that. And we just decided that if everyone else is gonna be moping around with flannel shirts and combat boots when just a year ago they were putting on an interesting show and writing these introspective lyrics, then we\u2019re going to go out of our way to be overtly entertaining and write about having a good time and partying. We were trying to bring the entertainment aspect back to a scene that had kind of gotten a little too serious for its britches. I\u2019ll put it that way. \"IMG_5854\"<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I completely picked up on that when I listened to some of your songs. While some music out there is very introspective and deals with some of the harsh realities of life, yours is so fun and feels like an escape from reality.<\/strong> <\/span>
\nExactly! We want to force-feed the fun. But that\u2019s also how we really live. It\u2019s not made up. We just happen to try to have a lot more fun than most people.\u00a0\"IMG_5958Web\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

You created a genre for your music called \u201cWaterbed Rock & Roll.\u201d How did that come about and how would you describe it?<\/strong><\/span>
\nIt has to do more with a time or era before all that grunge stuff happened. A waterbed is a good representation of something that\u2019s excessive, frivolous, and kind of a pain in the ass. It\u2019s not a practical item. But once you get it set up, it\u2019s great! The music that we\u2019re doing has never been about practicality. It\u2019s about enjoyment and having a good time. And if you have to go through a little extra trouble to do that then, it\u2019s worth it. I like to think Waterbed Rock & Roll incorporates elements of classic R&B from the 70s and 80s. It\u2019s got a good groove, but it\u2019s also got the crunchy rock guitar. The Isley Brothers\u2019 and Parliament\u2019s lyrics from back in the day that were kind of overtly sexual with more of a rock format. We wanted to combine classic R&B and classic rock with improvisational music because we like to do a lot of jamming as well.\u00a0\"lolCaptainMidnightWeb\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking of jamming, you guys are very much a live band. What are some of your favorite things about playing live?<\/strong><\/span>
\nThere are a couple of things I like about playing live. First of all we have a great band and I like all the people in the band. Most of the people that come to see our band have the same attitude that we do so we\u2019re allowed to take some chances and try stuff on stage. If the audience is being open minded enough to even be at the show then we feel like we have the ability to try new things every night. The other thing I really like is that when we walk out on stage a lot of people look at us and think we\u2019re dressed up because we\u2019re over compensating for a lack of musical ability. <\/span>
\nI\u2019ve been told that by people who initially wanted to dislike our band. But you see people kind of standing there with their arms folded and then they slowly remove their helmet of cynicism when they see that we\u2019re actually a great band that can play. It\u2019s a fun thing to witness and be a part of, when you can visually see you opening somebody\u2019s mind and changing their attitude.\u00a0\"IMG_5876Web\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

What is a Captain Midnight Band live show like?<\/strong><\/span>
\nWe\u2019re a dance band. We live in Nashville now and it\u2019s tough because a lot of people don\u2019t dance up here. It\u2019s more of a listening crowd. But we try to get people\u2019s energy out. The main thing with our live show is that we try to get people to let down their inhibitions and dance and then eventually if they\u2019re having a good enough time and not being so self-conscious maybe they\u2019ll bump into each other. And if you bump into someone enough times, you end up making a friend! We just want to bring people together.<\/span>
\nEven though many people may know you as a performer, you\u2019re actually a producer too. How does that factor into your vision as an artist?<\/span>
\nThis probably sounds really egocentric, but I basically try to produce music that I\u2019d want to listen to, not just think of it as a job or a check. I think, will I be able to sit down and enjoy this album twenty years from now? And if the answer is yes, that\u2019s how I base what I do for others and for myself. And if not, I won\u2019t take the job. I don\u2019t want be associated with anything that I\u2019m not super into.<\/span>
\nYour last record, Colder Than a Witches Tit, was released in February of 2014. When can fans expect to hear new music?<\/span>
\nWe haven\u2019t begun recording anything yet, but I\u2019ve started pre-production on a new record. We\u2019ve gone through some lineup changes over the last year. We\u2019d actually recorded a couple of live albums, but some of the people we recorded with are not currently in the band, and I wanted to put out something that\u2019s representative of what we\u2019re doing right now. So we\u2019re gonna be working on a new live album this fall, probably recorded over the course of a few different shows. And we\u2019ll compile the best of that. I\u2019ve also started to demo a lot of songs. So I\u2019m hoping to get a new full album out by early 2016.\u00a0\"The<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Captain Midnight Band, based out of Nashville, Tennessee, is a genre-defying band that is paving their own way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":247,"featured_media":27836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[6905,44,7092,7182,7278],"class_list":["post-27725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-shows","tag-captain-midnight","tag-captain-midnight-band","tag-joshua-cooker","tag-local-music","tag-the-captain-midnight-band"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/CaptainMagmaFEAT1.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/247"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}