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Cartel tours in the wake of 'bubble' experiment
Many people told Cartel drummer Kevin Sanders that recording his band's 2007 self-titled album in a giant glass bubble on New York's Chelsea Pier was "ridiculous." But the business side of him didn't care.
"Honestly, it was a big stunt, I guess you could say," Sanders said in an interview with LiveDaily. "Everybody's like, 'This is ridiculous.' I'm like, 'Look, I understand how crazy this thing appears but on the promotion side of it, it's a no brainer.'
"If any label came to a band and said, 'Hey, we want to give [you] this much promotion for [your] record,' I don't think anyone would ever turn that down. All we had to do was hang out with each other for 20 days in a room. I do that anyway on a bus. So why not do it? The situation was abnormal, but it really felt normal to us. We thought, 'Who cares? Let's do it.'"
So the Georgia pop band spent 20 days in the Dr. Pepper-sponsored bubble, beginning May 24. But it wasn't without its snags. On June 3, a storm blew out one of the windows, leaving the band--which also includes vocalist/pianist/guitarist Will Pugh, guitarists Joseph Pepper and Nic Hudson, and bassist Jeff Letterson--forced to flee the catastrophe.
"They told us the bubble was hurricane proof," Sanders said. "But on the first day we ever had a big storm, a pane of glass was just sucked out. We kind of attribute it to the fact that there were probably mixes in pressure going on. It was actually kind of a drafty environment. We just imagined it created a vacuum and sucked the pieces of glass out. We said, 'F--- this, we're out of here,' and we just ran out."
Cartel was still able to finish the self-titled record on time.
"We [think] this record has a lot of different sounding songs on it," Sanders said. "So, in a sense, the record was like a new Cartel. We thought this is a good time to go ahead and do a self-titled record. It's much like [2005's] 'Chroma,' but I think we took steps off of the beaten path of the poppiness.
"I hate to say it's a more mature record than the last one, but there's a little experimentation more with the things we hinted at with 'Chroma.'"
For example, with the song "Wasted," Cartel brought in a high school marching band. The group utilized strings and piano on other songs.
"I think sometimes fans expect bands to reproduce the same record. People fall in love with the band for that one record they had so many good times with it. Then, when the new one comes out, they're like, 'Oh my god, what's it going to be like?' We tried our best to please old fans, present fans and hopefully gain new fans."
September 2007
6, 7 - Los Angeles, CA - The Avalon
8, 9 - San Francisco, CA - Slim's
11 - Portland, OR - Roseland Theater
12 - Seattle, WA - The Showbox
15 - Denver, CO - Ogden Theatre
16 - Lawrence, KS - Granada Theatre
17 - Papillion, NE - The Rock
18 - Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue
20 - Milwaukee, WI - The Rave Eagles Club
21 - Pontiac, MI - Clutch Cargo's
23 - Toronto, Ontario - Opera House
24 - Rochester, NY - Water Street Music Hall/Club
25 - Pittsburgh, PA - Mr. Small's Theatre
26 - Cleveland, OH - House of Blues
October 2007
2 - New York, NY - Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza
4 - Hartford, CT - Webster Theatre/Underground
5 - Philadelphia, PA - Electric Factory
9 - Norfolk, VA - The NorVa
10 - Charlotte, NC - Amos' Southend
13, 14 - Atlanta, GA - Coca Cola Roxy Theatre