Christo Bowman of Bad Suns: Interview
01.30.15

Seattle Music News had a chance to speak with Christo Bowman, front man of the breakout, LA-based band Bad Suns. Introspective and always energetic, Bowman took our grab bag of questions in stride, proving once again why he’s the perfect man for the job. Boring interviews are for suckers, anyway, so read below to find out his philosophy on life, pseudo-love, and their mutual disdain for flip-flops.

TM: Coming up in the Digital Age, how has the immediacy of technology affected you?
CB: Being a part of a generation that came up as it started happening, you kind of feel like we’re a part of it, so it’s not as if there’s a disconnect between us and the people who are on social media. We are those people as well. It almost feels like, in a certain aspect, it’s a community. It’s interesting – a lot of the time there can be too much of any one thing, and that’s inevitably going to happen, and people learn how to sort of shift with the times. People will say anything to you on the internet… I think at the end of the day, what it’s taught us is that where we keep our focus is on the show and on the music. The rest of that stuff is secondary, tertiary… People still listen to music maybe now more than ever because it’s so accessible. We never felt deterred by that. We simply realized that people are gonna pay attention to you… if what you have out there is worthwhile… We like to put our focus into just making the music that we’re happy with putting out there, that we can agree upon with each other. So we try not to concern ourselves with the rest of it.

TM: So, the old adage goes something like, “love what you do and you’ll be successful at it.” How much do you think luck factors in to what you guys have accomplished so far? Can you pinpoint any time where you guys stumbled on a big break?
CB: I don’t know. I think I believe in serendipity, to an extent. But what I believe in more than anything else is that if you work hard, put in the time, put in a lot of time, things can happen, as long as you figure it out. That’s not to say that when I was sixteen, and I was still working hard, and I was writing all these songs, my band wasn’t making music that anyone really wanted anything to do with. And of course, we loved it, but it didn’t happen for us then. It took place over time. We started writing this music, people heard it, they liked it, and it kind of just fell into place… It just seemed really natural, and it was great to get that reaction. But it doesn’t feel like luck. It sort of just feels like if you work at something for long enough, sometimes, that’s the lucky part of it – you get something that people like and can relate to. That’s amazing.

TM: What’s your favorite venue to play?
CB: Hmm… that’s tough to say. There are a lot of amazing venues. A lot of the bigger ones that we’ve played have obviously been on tours with more established bands. In Seattle, I really, really enjoy playing both the Showbox and the Neptune Theatre. The Neptune is really great, we had a great time the last time we were there. And I’m in the bus outside of Neumos right now, I haven’t been inside yet, but I’m excited to see [it]. The show is sold out tonight so that should be amazing. But as far as just around the country, the Fox Theatre in Oakland is really, really nice… We’ve been having a really nice time with all the venues on this tour.

TM: Do you find it’s hard to eat well while you’re on tour?
CB: It can be. It just depends on the kind of person you are, whether it’s convenience, or what takes precedence, you know what I mean? We all try to eat well, we all really like good food. We like putting good food in our bodies, so we try and eat well on the road, for sure.

TM: It’s the dead of winter, and you guys are from LA. Did any of you bring a pair of flip flops on tour?
CB: Absolutely not… You wouldn’t catch us wearing flip flops at home back in California either.

TM: Who’s the neat freak and who’s the sloppy one out of you guys?
CB: We all definitely like to keep the bus tidy. I will say, I’ll be honest, and say that Miles is probably the tidiest. And then Gavin is probably the sloppiest.

TM: So you were interviewed by Teen Vogue, and now young ladies can spend hours looking over your articles and pasting pictures to their closet doors… Which celebrity did you have a crush on as a kid?
CB: When I was a kid, let me think… Maybe Nick Carter? No, I’m just kidding! For me it was probably… I remember Britney Spears… I bought the album because, you know, I was in love with her or whatever, when I was what? Six years old? Yeah, I never really had too many celebrity crushes.

TM: Have you had any crazy fan experiences? Any gaggles of girls chasing down your tour bus?
CB: Well… yes. We were in Toronto back in May, and there was this girl who wanted to come with us to America. She didn’t have a passport, we didn’t know who she was… Ya know, you never want to get to the point where you have to be stern with people and tell them, like, “look, get out of the van.” You never want to do that because that’s not the kind of people that we are. It definitely got to the point where you’re kicking someone out of your van. I don’t know what she expected to happen when she got to the border crossing. The border wasn’t anywhere near Toronto. What’s gonna happen when we drive several miles away and you don’t have any means of getting into the country, what do you do then? That was interesting.

TM: What’s the biggest life lesson that you’ve learned thus far in the music business?
CB: Well, in a lot of ways we’re not at a place to decide, being this early in our career, there are still a lot of lessons that we have to learn. But there are some that we’ve learned already. And I think it’s that, a lot of the time, a young band – which is natural, because that’s what people do, you see something that you like and you wanna create that for somebody else. And a lot of the time people think that the easiest way to do that is to just do whatever it is that, just basically mimic the band or the music that was inspiring, just kinda mimic that and that’ll come out and be the same. But the thing is, it’s never like that. You should never try to mimic anybody else… Nothing is completely original, because people are exposed to things and they know what they like, and that’s great. But, be yourself.

TM: Do you believe old souls exist?
CB: There are things that I’d like to believe. But there are also a lot of things that I know I’ll never find out to be true or not… It’s hard to believe something that you don’t see. It’s hard to believe something that you can’t know. That’s difficult enough in itself. I think that depends on the kind of person you are – whether you’re willing to believe something blindly. I don’t know if old souls exist. I don’t know if there are souls out there, I don’t know if ghosts exist… I think aliens exist.

TM: Where do you see your band in five years?
CB: I don’t know. I don’t wanna try and map out the perfect career trajectory because I don’t think one exists. There are a lot of bands that have one song on the radio, they die out, their shows get smaller, people forget about them, you see a lot of that. There are a lot of bands that have done that. But when you compare the greats and how different the Beatles career was from the Rolling Stones, and how different the Rolling Stones career was from, maybe, the Arcade Fire. There are so many variances as to how different The Police were from U2, and how different Depeche Mode was. There’s so many different ways you can go about taking it on. And I think that’s what’s beautiful. And what we like about this is the open-ended possibilities of everything. We don’t wanna make the same record twice. I don’t know where we’ll be in one year, two years, so, we’ll see.

TM: If you could collaborate with anyone, who would that be?
CB: There are a ton of artists that I really wanna collaborate with. Most recently, I’ve really been giving a whole lot of thought about how fun it would be to get into a studio and just write like an EP or a record with Ryan Adams… He’s one of my favorite, most prolific song writers. He’s been having a great year, and a great career. He’s just a really exciting guy to me, and I really, really like the way that his mind appears to work, and his output musically is just insane. I feel like, when you’re young, you wanna learn from the big dogs. So that’s how I kinda feel about Ryan Adams. I don’t feel as though I’m worthy.

TM: This is the last one I have for you, and it’s a question we ask all of our interviewees: If you were stuck on an island and could only bring one book, one movie, and one album with you, what would they be?
CB: OK this might take me a little bit of time… One book? Well it’s gotta be a long book, doesn’t it? Or it’s gotta be incredibly re-readable… So I don’t know, I don’t know what I would decide to bring with me… Well, you know, generally speaking, books are to learn and to utilize new skills in life, and I’m just stuck on an island, I might want to bring a book that’ll teach me how to live on an island. So I don’t know the author or the book, but I should probably start thinking about that in case the scenario happens at one point. Part of me wanted to say Harry Potter or something, but I don’t think Harry Potter is gonna help me in this case… The movie is not gonna be instructional, I wanna enjoy the movie! So maybe Castaway would be good, but maybe not. Well Castaway, because then I’d possibly be waiting for this thing, and it might kinda just bum me out at a certain point to know that he made it outta there. Let me think, it might just be kinda too close to home… You know, I’ve seen Pulp Fiction so many times now, I went to a screening in [LA] for the 20th anniversary, and it was pretty amazing. I relearned so many things and I caught so many things that I had missed, so a Quinton Tarantino movie is always good… he’s probably my favorite filmmaker to begin with. And you said one album? This one’s gonna be the one that’s tough for me… It’s hard… Honestly, and I know that this is not the best answer, for several reasons, but you’re gonna get sick of whatever you bring with you. So I think that, at this point, I’d probably bring our own album, because I’d at least be reminded of what I did. There are way better albums out there, but I think I’d bring that one. Because, you know, at this point, it’s my life’s work.

Interview by T. Monte