What have been your musical epiphany moments?
I think as a band we’ll always have those moments that stand out, or hopefully that will be the case, but for sure there were a couple that I can think of. For me personally, I had this moment when I was learning to play guitar and everything started to click. I hated taking lessons and practicing but I loved playing rock star. Tom DeLonge is my idol and I just wanted to be him. Then one day I realized, hey, he plays guitar, and I’m trying to play guitar and all of a sudden it wasn’t hard to practice. I don’t think there have been many days since then that I haven’t played guitar.
As a band, I think one key moment has to be the first time we started getting songs on the radio. Our hometown station (KJEE – Santa Barbara) played “Carsick” for our first song ever on the radio. It was pretty cool. Our mom cried. Then another time we were on a family vacation when we learned “Elizabeth” was going to be on this station in Alabama, the DJ Monk was way supportive of our band. It was just cool lil moments thinking people didn’t think our music sucked.
Talk to us about the song-writing process for you. What comes first, the idea? A riff? The lyrics? How does it all fall into place?
I think for Destin and I (brother Destin Cavazos, Bass – Vocals), writing is pretty much the same process. There’s no real formula. We or I will usually come up with an idea, maybe it’s a riff, or a melody, every now and then it’s close to the whole song. Then we get together and bring the pieces together and sort of work them out. Every once in awhile we’ll come up with a song on the fly. It doesn’t happen a lot, but it has happened. So we work on the ideas and usually after a session or two we’ll have the song pretty much done. I think we’re at close to 100 songs now and most of them follow that model.
Who has influenced you the most?
Way too tough to answer….there are so many bands that have influenced us. I mean as a pop-punk alt-rock band, Blink and Green Day have been huge influences on us. And Like I said, Tom DeLonge is my idol. But you also have alt rock bands from the 80’s and 90’s that our parents were listening to. If you listen to “Sister Cities” we totally wanted a Cure vibe on that guitar lick. Social D was one of the first bands we ever covered.
I know Destin also draws influence from emo bands like Panic or Fall Out Boy, riot girl/female rockers like Charly Bliss to Blondie.
Way too many bands to list and so many of them influence our music.
Where do you look for continuing inspiration? New ideas, new motivation?
It really can come from everywhere. Destin once did an interview where he said it was kind of a trap to try and write something to a specific thing you’re not feeling at the time. It’s totally true. I’ve had song ideas come while I was out skateboarding. Destin wrote a song about a couch he had in college. I think we’ll always just draw from whatever happens to hit us at any given moment.
We're all a product of our environment. Tell us about the band's hometown and how that reflects in the music?
We all grew up in Santa Barbara, California and they have this great alt rock station, KJEE. Our dad grew up in SoCal with probably one the greatest alt rock stations (KROQ), so when we moved to SB and he found KJEE, it was on all the time. They used to have these great shows at the Santa Barbara Bowl and all these great alternative bands would come in. Huge impact in what we do and KJEE is still very supportive of our band.
Then as we got older and became a band, we started finding out that there were all these other bands starting out just like us. Some were local or some came from the college in town. I think it’s really a cool little community of bands right now. There’s one called Trout Club that we loved and have them on our little record label we started. Another called Loc Dawgs we’ve done shows with. All a bit different styles but it’s a cool little music scene that’s pretty supportive.
Where'd the band name come from?
So we first started a band with a family friend on drums and we used our initials as the band name. But the drummer left cause she went to college and we brought on our friend Owen to play drums. Different initials so we changed the band name to “Porter”. Destin had been kicked out of this college with the same name and our dad is a big Smiths fan and thought using Porter from John Porter would be great. It happened at the same time so we thought it was fate.
When we got a new drummer to play with us and started wanting to write and record our own stuff, we had to change the name again. There is a band called Porter out of Mexico so we didn’t want to mess with it. As huge blink fans we knew about the hassle they went through with their name so we wanted to change it before we got sued.
You have one chance, what movie are you going to write the soundtrack for?
Probably “Scott Pilgrim”. We do a cover of “Black Sheep” that people like so probably just do the whole soundtrack.
You now write for a music publication (The Ripple Effect?). You're going to write a 1,000 word essay on one song. Which would it be and why?
Dang…a thousand words??? I’m going to give this question to Destin and he’d have to get back to you. He was an English major so it’s perfect for him.
Come on, share with us a couple of your great, Spinal Tap, rock and roll moments?
Ha…yeah, we’ve had a couple of those for sure. One of the best ones is probably this time Destin ran and jumped on stage and almost pulled his cord out of the amp. We can get pretty jumpy on stage. I’m usually the one doing most of it. But that one by Destin was massive air. He came pretty close to pulling the amp down.
Tell us about playing live and the live experience for you and for your fans?
We love playing live. Doesn’t matter where and if it’s a huge crowd or not. It’s just really cool to look down and see someone jamming to our songs or totally crazy when they’re singing back to us. It’s hard to describe what that feels like. Obviously the bigger the crowd the higher the energy level but having just even one person liking our songs is a very humbling thing.
What makes a great song?
A great song is definitely anything that just connects with the listener. When we’re writing or recording stuff we’re kind of just doing it because we like the idea or the tune. After it’s out there it takes on a new life and if it reaches one person for whatever reason then it’s a great song.
A couple months ago we had this girl hit us up on IG and she asked us for the lyrics to “Lusitania”. I sent them to her and asked her why and she told us it was her favorite song. The local radio station there was playing it all the time and she loved it and wanted to play it but wanted to make sure she got the lyrics right. I love that song and I think it’s good, but she took it to another level.
Tell us about the first song you ever wrote?
Well the first song that I ever wrote myself was probably “Carsick”. Like I said, Destin and I will usually put the songs together when we’re working them out but Carsick was the first one where I had it pretty much done by myself. Destin was in another band called Steve Holt and he had a couple songs he did that we’ve thought about making an exPorter version. I think maybe the first song we wrote together is “805”. We did an EP called the Hidden City Sessions with some of our earliest songs. We’re actually recording new tunes right now and the idea is to re-record some of those as B-Sides.
I think we’re really proud of all the songs we’ve done. I mean these are your babies, how can you not love them? It takes a lot to get a song together and to get it into the studio and tweak it and then let it out for people to hear. And I think any musician should feel that way. If you’re passionate about it you should be proud of it and being a band is what we really want to do. If you’re just writing crap or being trendy trying to get clicks then maybe not, but if it’s something you’re really doing out of passion then you should be proud.
Who today, writes great songs? Who just kicks your ass? Why?
Again way too tough to answer. There’s so many great bands out there. I’ve been listening to a lot of Joyce Manor lately.
Vinyl, CD, or digital? What's your format of choice?
Vinyl for sure. We actually wanted to release our album on vinyl but is way too expensive.
Whiskey or beer? And defend your choice
That’s another one for Destin. I don’t drink. I know Destin likes IPAs.
We, at the Ripple Effect, are constantly looking for new music. What's your home town, and when we get there, what's the best record store to lose ourselves in?
The record store in town just closed which is pretty sad. But there are great bands here in Santa Barbara and a lot of the clubs and bars are really supportive of local music. I think you should all just come out and you’ll find a great band playing.
What's next for the band?
I think we’re going to try and do a final video for a song off our debut album (NoBrakesNoBrakesNoBrakes). We put that out last year and “Venus” just kept popping up as a song we should really do a video for. We’re also going into the studio to start recording new stuff. We supported NoBrakes since it came out and we’re still doing shows with a lot of those songs but it’s kind of cool to be getting back to recording.
Any final comments or thoughts you'd like to share with our readers, the waveriders?
Just thanks to checking us out. Like I said it’s pretty humbling to have someone write about you or play your song so we want people to know how much we appreciate it. Thank you!
exPorter Web – www.exporter.band
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/exporter.band/
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/artist/3jfTdDZQ7SrLeQD9t9z8IZ?si=ozmCdaVkRHOU_47ssL2RSg
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@exporter4492
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