Music

‘It was our Beatles experience’

Catching up with Seth Trotter of The Higher

Julie Seabaugh

It’s been about a year since we checked in; how are things in camp Higher?

We got a new drummer; his name is Doug McCarthy. So we’ve had a little bit of a lineup change, and we’ve been pretty much touring our asses off the entire year. We got to go to Japan, where we’re doing really good in comparison to how we’re doing here. Kids are definitely starting to realize who we are in the U.S., too, and you can tell by the shows here. And today is the first day of our MySpace Records Tour with Sherwood and The Matches.

Any good Japan stories?

It was our Beatles experience. There were girls waiting for us at the airport. We have no idea how they knew we were going to be there, but they knew exactly when our flight came in and what hotel we were staying at. They would wait outside the hotel with gifts every morning; every kid that didn’t know English wrote a letter and had it translated. It was a whole different world for us.

Was your parting with former drummer Pat Harter amicable?

Pat was growing apart from us and touring. He wasn’t really having too many enjoyable evenings on tour, and he was missing some really important things we had to do. We shot for the Japan VMAs; he missed out on that. It started to seem like it wasn’t where his heart was and where he wanted to be, so it was kind of a mutual thing. When you’re married to five dudes, you’ve got to keep that marriage good. We’re still friends and he’s a great drummer, but it just wasn’t in the cards for him to be the drummer for The Higher.

Are you doing any writing?

We were just home for about a month or so. We’ve done some one-off shows, but we’ve been primarily at home writing, and it’s been going really good. We’d like to get in the studio as soon as we can. We’re trying to get our CD out this year. You might be able to expect a new song on February 9th at Jillian’s. But we also have to keep pushing this CD [On Fire], because “Insurance?” might go to radio in April or May, and we’re trying to set up a radio campaign around it.

What can you tell us about the new songs?

The songs kind of have a different feel. It’s definitely still going to be The Higher, but the songs we’re writing are a little bit more mature and a little bit more rock. We’re going to try to win all of our guy friends back. After this tour we go to the UK for about a week; it will be our first trip out there. When we get back we’ll either go in the studio or do our own little West Coast Tour before Warped Tour starts in June.

With Sherwood, The Matches, We Shot the Moon. February 9, 6 p.m. $12-$14. Jillian’s, 759-0450.

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