Memphis, Tennessee gave so many influential musicians their start in the music industry. Familiar names like Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash immediately come to mind. Memphis is known as the Home of the Blues and the Birthplace of Rock and Roll. It’s a city where you go to play music and try to become a star. For Artifas, it’s just home.
Artifas is comprised of Scottie Somerville (vocals), Cody Criswell (guitar), Mikey Miller (guitar), Anthony Mattox (bass) and Jared Wainscott (drums). I spoke with Scottie Somerville during the band’s downtime between tours to recap 2015 and find out what the band had planned for the near future.
Side Stage magazine: Your debut album, Inhuman, dropped July 11, 2015. How are sales at this point in the life of the record?
Scottie: Sales have actually been higher than expected. Especially in today’s industry while selling hard copies of the disk which is actually a pretty tough task. We hit a goal that we were trying to accomplish by paying off the record by the end of the year with the sales of the record. We accomplished that goal, so I’m pretty excited about it and I think we are going to sell even more in 2016.
With that said, is a new record on the horizon?
For at least the first half of this year we will be pushing singles from Inhuman but we are constantly writing. We also write a lot while we are on the road during down time. I’ll say by the end of the year, maybe next year. We kinda like to record in the winter time just because we hate driving in the snow. We’ve had such bad luck in it so we will probably record again when it gets too cold to drive.
Memphis is home to many different genres of music, including blues, jazz and rock n roll. How has living in Memphis influenced your music?
Like you said, there are all of the different varieties around all the time. You can go to Beale Street any day of the week and there will be somebody jamming some blues with a bucket out front and there will be some of the tastiest licks you’ve ever heard. You can pick up just great influences from everywhere. There’s so much talent it’s just saturated in this area.
2015 was very successful for Artifas. You toured with some huge bands like Theory of a Deadman and Saint Asonia. I’ve personally known you guys for almost three years and remember the first EPK you sent me before you even tried to tour. You’ve come so far, so fast. Describe what this ride you’ve been on feels like.
It’s crazy to think back to the beginning. It’s something you dream of but it’s also such a far-fetched idea to be successful at it; but it’s something you want to grasp at. I think just the hard work and keeping going. Keeping up with our fans and talking to them. Keeping them active and involved has helped us grow so much. We never try to shoot too high. We always try to just take that next step up every time. Just gradually climb and that way you just learn along the way. I feel like over the last three years we have all grown. Not just as musicians, but also as businessmen and managers. We’ve learned a lot and I think that has helped us navigate in a better direction. The whole trick is to not stop playing. If you just keep it (the band) together, you can make something happen. The hard part is keeping it together.
If you could record any cover song as part of a new record, what song would it be and why?
Cody (Criswell) and I were just talking the other day and we talk about this all the time. Back on our first EP we did a cover that we never released. We recorded it and never released it. We did a cover of “Kiss From A Rose” that we used to play live a lot. People dug it and so we were like, “What cover can we do for this next set of songs that we are working on?” Duncan Sheik was on the radio the other day and you know that “(I Am) Barely Breathing” song, that old 90’s song, it came on. I was like, “Man, we gotta cover this.” Me and my girlfriend were riding around and I was just like, “Damn I gotta Cody right now.” I called him and was like, “Hey man we gotta cover “Barely Breathing” and he was like, “I’m down” so as of right now, that’s what we’re looking at. So maybe be expecting that in the near future.
If you could add a member of any band to Artifas who would you add and why?
Oh man. Man. I think we could just add ole J.T. in. Good ole Memphis boy. We’ll just bring Justin Timberlake in the band and he can teach us all some suave dance moves and we can up the show just a little bit.
And then you wouldn’t be the singer of Artifas anymore.
Scottie: Damn. Yeah. I would just be like, “Hey guys, I’m just going to stage manage now.” [Laughs]
The Round Two Live and Loud Tour with The Veer Union, Bridge To Grace and Bobaflex starts Feb 25th. You’ll be busy hitting 19 cities in 23 days. Is The Veer Union the headliner or is this a four band co-headliner tour?
We are super stoked about this. The schedule is going to be brutal. The Veer Union is the headliner. The label had the idea to put this tour together because there are so many pay to play and buy-on tours now. The prices are so outrageous so we were like, “Why don’t we put the control in our hands and do this tour? Let’s get a good headliner and get out there and put on some good shows.” We wanted to make sure that every band on the tour was just a killer band live with great songs. Because I think that’s one of the things that can hurt a show more than anything. Everyone wants to be entertained from front to back and you don’t want to have somebody bring the crowd down. The night will kick off with Bridge to Grace and those guys are amazing. They always sound great live and always have a lot of energy. Then us and Bobaflex and I am really looking forward to seeing Bobaflex. I have heard so much about them and we have never had the chance to play with them. We are always playing two or three days before or after them and I am really looking forward to seeing their live show. I am stoked about The Veer Union. I became a fan of them when they dropped that “Seasons” song in 2008 or 2009. This new record they’ve got coming out sounds badass. I think it’s going to be a sick tour.
Knowing those bands and the people in those bands, that is a great mix of guys to go on the road with.
Hell yeah! It’s going to be a good time. We’ve played with Bridge to Grace three or four times now and every time we’re with those guys it’s fun. We’ve met some of the Bobaflex guys up in Ohio when we played there. They came out and watched us. It’s going to be great camaraderie with great shows. It’s going to be killer. I’ve heard a lot of great things about Crispin (Earl) and The Veer Union guys.
How do you prepare for this kind of a “brutal” tour? Anything different than usual?
Well, no, not really. We always take our little break when we get home and kinda do nothing for a few days. Everybody is playing their instruments all the time, every day. We haven’t really gotten to see each other since we’ve been home from the last tour so we went to the MMA World Series of Fighting here in Memphis since they were going to use “Blood for Blood”, “Inhuman” and a couple of our other songs for the fights. We got to go check that out ringside, but other than that, we haven’t really gotten to see each other. We will get together a few nights before the tour and jam through the songs and we will just go from there. I think the reason we don’t get together and practice too often is more to the fact that we are always playing shows anyway. We are literally rehearsing non-stop. Everybody does their parts individually while we are home so when we get back together it’s never a problem. The hardest thing is making sure that we are not smoking cigarettes. It is a hard thing to do – to put on an Artifas show while smoking cigarettes. As I’m smoking one right now. [Laughs]
I see you’ve been recently added to the Lovers are Lunatics family. Congrats on that. Does that mean Jacoby (Shaddix) has taken interest in your music?
Yeah, that’s pretty huge man. Their people reached out to us. Anthony (Mattox) has some Lovers are Lunatics gear and he posted some on Instagram and what not and their people reached out to us. Asked if we were interested. Of course we were stoked about it. So they sent us a lot of gear and we’ve been in contact with them and also pushing it a lot. The head guy over there played a song for Jacoby and Jacoby was super into it. He really dug “Blood for Blood” so I’m really hoping that sometime in the near future you see a Papa Roach and Artifas tour. We’ve always talked about it because we are all huge fans of Papa Roach. They put on an incredible live show. That would be a band that we would fit really well on a stage together with. I think it will happen one day. I think about it so much that it’s got to happen. We have so many fans that are huge Papa Roach fans too it would be great to put that together.
Is there anything else you’d like to say to your fans?
I would like to say, “Thank you” to every single person that has helped us through the way, has supported us and came to multiple shows, told people about us, and brought us tequila, and cooked us food, and gave us a floor to sleep on. Without our fans none of this would have been possible. Our fans have carried us through the last four years and we hope that that continues. We really love our fans and we have a good time with them.
Keep up with Artifas on their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages.
You can catch Artifas on the Round Two Live and Loud Tour at one of these venues:
25-Feb Fitzgerald’s San Antonio, TX
26-Feb Legends Rock House Abilene, TX
27-Feb Clicks Live Tyler, TX
28-Feb 18th Street Pier San Leon, TX
29-Feb The District Lafayette, LA
2-Mar The Corner Pub Slidell, LA
4-Mar The Warehouse Clarksville, TN
5-Mar 11th Frame Madison, AL
6-Mar The Empourium Jackson, TN
8-Mar Venom Backroom New Port Richey, FL
9-Mar Pug’s Live Tallahassee, FL
10-Mar Amos Southend Charlotte, NC
11-Mar TJ Whispers Anderson, SC
12-Mar The Rock Shop Fayetteville, NC
13-Mar Blind Tiger Greensboro, NC
16-Mar Memories Bar Waldorf, MD
19-Mar Hard Times Cafe Hagerstown, MD
