The Bite had the chance to catch up with pop-rock band The Summer Set at this year’s Heavy and Light event put on by the non-profit To Write Love On Her Arms. The intimate night included conversations, hope and performances by singers and survivors alike. We sat down with vocalist Brian Dales and guitarist Josh Montgomery to discuss Disney World, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, life on the road and more before they took to the stage at The House of Blues on January 31.
How are you guys enjoying Orlando?
Love it. I went to Disney World yesterday, can’t complain about my life.
Are you guys excited for the show tonight?
Of course. We did this last year and I think ironically…it’s the first time we’ve ever played in Orlando. Besides Warped Tour, which I don’t even count. Warped Tour is like its own little vortex. It’s cool playing the House of Blues too.
You guys have a very diverse fan base. When you make music, do you think about how your fans are going to respond to it?
I think we have a diverse fan base because all of us are different from each other, so I think we have fans that kind of cater to the personalities of each person in our band, which is really great…There’s a fine line where you have to write a song and you have to like it first, but obviously we all think that people are hopefully going to like the song…There’s a human element to our writing with all of us having separate lives, and we’re five very different band members so we can each take pieces of our life and…we’d use real life circumstances to inspire a story and elevate it and make it more connectable.
What’s going through your mind on stage?
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I’m usually thinking about maybe eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich after, and today it’s going to be, “Can I make it to Disney World before the park closes?”
Where do you get inspiration for your songs?
Life inspires art, I guess…We finished Warped Tour last August with the idea that after being on the road for three years we’d dive right back in to making an album and have a record done in the fall, and here we’d be come February, next month, having a record done and that’s not the case. We’re not even close, and that’s okay, because we needed to get back to living our lives and not being on tour the whole time…Everyone in our band moved from Arizona to L.A. and that was a huge life change, and I think that inspires a lot of songs. I think we kind of had to get back to the roots of living to have things to write about. I feel like all the songs of the recent weeks that we’ve been writing have been better than when we were just trying to force-crank songs out in October, so everything now feels really good.
What is life on tour life?
More boring than you think. Let’s think about life on tour in the 80s when you were in a metal band like Motley Crue, and it was sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I’d say now it’s more like Netflix, yoga and Facetiming your dogs at home. It’s not what it used to be…We’re total sociopaths now. I meditate; it’s a new thing. That’s been like four months now, and it’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. You grow up and it’s like the things that used to make you feel alive start to make you feel kind of dead, and all of a sudden you find yourself being a soccer mom…We’re better now. When you’re taking care of yourself, your art becomes better and your craft becomes better and then you’re a professional at what you do.
What’s the coolest place you’ve been to?
My favorite country that we’ve been to is probably Australia…But for us, when we go over to the UK for example, it’s an out-of-body experience like no other because the shows are so incredible. I don’t think we don’t really understand why, so that’s really cool. We’ve started going over there a lot so it’s starting to feel like that place is a second home, and that’s really awesome.
Where do you see yourselves in five years?
Opening for Celine Dion in Vegas as a residency. The goal is to be a classic rock band. You want to have a career forever, so if one day we can be like, “Man, Dad was in a classic rock band,” that’s the goal.
Do you have any classic rock bands you look up to?
I grew up in a house where Bruce Springsteen was a religious experience to my family, so he’s influential in everything I do, just as much as Justin Timberlake is as a singer. So across the board it’s pretty wild…I never thought about this until right now, but we’ve been a band for eight years and we’ve toured for six. We’ve toured with a lot of bands and a lot of friends in bands, and a lot of those bands have come and gone, and we’re still friends with a lot of those people who have new lives post-bands. When you’re younger it was more about what our peers were doing, what was hot, what was cool, and now at 25 and we’re still a band, I’m more thinking about why did this work for this band that’s been around for 30 years versus our friends that didn’t last as long, and how do you put yourself on the same platform as the rest of them. I guess there’s some sort of element of chasing greatness to it.
