Interview taken from the Troy Record (Troy NY)
Live & Lively
By Don Wilcock, The Record June 05, 2003
Half an hour into our phone interview, the doorbell rings and Will Bradford excuses himself to let his wife into the house and out of the rain You see, they were on their way to the Children's Museum when Will remembered he had to do this interview.
"I forgot about the interview for a minute," he admits, "and went, 'Oh, my God. I've got to go back.' And I forget about that slightly. I left her in the rain."
For a half an hour! In her own house! "I am probably more the intruder," he says with a nervous giggle.
The name of his band is See Peoples, and they open for Runna Muck at Valentine's in Albany Saturday night. Their name explains where Will is coming from, sort of.
"We did base the name on the actual sea peoples, which were pre-Phoenician anarchists that went around destroying civilizations before civilization really got built up.
"They had a great little culture there before they were completely wiped out. But ah ... they were on a very interesting mission. It was to create art and everything, but stop civilization, and specifically, large agricultural developments. So just throw that out there."
Will says See Peoples, the band, is not on a similar mission. "I don't think so blatantly. We're not carrying clubs and burning things, but we're trying to look for life that exists outside of society, and outside of consumption, outside of even 'family values' that we've created. "Basically, outside of any constructs that are created by society, by humans a long time ago that sort of force us to live a certain way, force us more importantly to think a certain way sometimes."
Letting his wife in out of the rain may be the most focused thing this guy does all day. The music on See Peoples' two-year-old album reminds me of Tangerine Dream with vocals, Country Joe & The Fish without the Vietnam War to rail against, Morphine, the band, on anti-depressants.
In fact, Morphine's baritone sax player Dana Colley appears on two of the cuts. The album opens with a deep male voice that very well could be Lamont Cranston, The Shadow, trying to convince a young lady to blow off her job at the department store for the day and just have fun.
'Will isn't sure where he got it from, but he thinks its from a very old public service announcement about staying on the job.
His own band members could have benefited from the message. Not one of the people on the album is still in his band.
"The lead singer and the bass player didn't even last until the end of the album. I don't know if they shared the artistic vision with me, and getting into the studio was really where that vision got expressed, and I can't say it has been all aboard for everyone that's been involved with it, ever!" He laughs again, nervously.
The son of a Boston doctor, Will moved to Portland, Maine, because Boston rents were too high. Now he's contemplating a move to North Carolina. But his drummer, Ben Fourier, isn't going with the band. "I don't know how to spell his name, actually. He's got a weird last name. He's actually, sort of a temporary fix. He's not planning on moving to Asheville with us." In a couple of months, See Peoples will release their second album. It will contain 15 songs lasting a total of 73 minutes, about the outer limit of how much can fit on one CD.
They've also got a couple of songs on the soundtrack of a film called "60 Seconds Til Freedom" that debuts at the New York Film Festival and the Los Angeles International Film Festival in September. He's not sure the film lines up with the band's view of life. "To be honest, I've yet to see it. A lot of opportunities arise, and you just take them just because they seem good-natured, and you kind of hope that the music itself will kind of speak to that."
Will quit college at 18 to go into music targeted at his contemporaries. His band at the time was called Cosmic Dilemma. As outside the loop as that band was, he's finding See Peoples to be even more problematic in finding its audience. Young teenagers seem to like his music the best. Does he have trouble finding people his own age who agree with much of what
he's saying.
"Some of the kids, 13, 14 years old, just have an amazing view of the world and really get it and are totally on your wavelength, which is really kind of an interesting feeling. I find it interesting. Like it's real easy sometimes, especially for kids, to see things that their parents are just swallowed by, you know, the world and by reality and by money worries, and things that when you're 13 you are not quite so involved in yet.
"I think sometimes that it's a clearer picture for kids that age. There were some kids that I know were young, some family friends, and I'm interested to see if when they do get my age something that they still feel." Naïveté is the luxury of youth.
©The Record 2003
