FIVE POINT PLAN

Interview with Jordan 24 July 2002

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Starting with the individuals, tell me about yourselves, where you're from, what you're backgrounds are and what you individually like.

(I've been having a hard time getting responses from people, I'm just going to give you a run down of
everyone in the group if that's ok)

Latrice Barnett - vocals (Concord, CA)
Latrice began singing quite by accident while living in France in 1996. "I was at a party and my friend
told these guys that I was a singer," she recounts. She ended up touring France with that band, and shared
several appearances on radio and TV.

Jordan Glasgow - keyboards (Portland, OR)
I began studying classical piano at age 8. Like any kid, I grew to hate practising and eventually quit. In
the 7th grade my music teacher brought in a sampler and played Stairway to Heaven backwards. I think that
was when I realized that I wanted to get back into music.

Michael Cruz - bass (Chicago, IL)
Mike grew up listening to the Beatles, Steely Dan, and John Coltrane. His first instrument was saxophone and
he later switched to the bass. Mike is one of the primary song writers for Five Point plan.

Tim Carter - drums (Walnut Creek, CA)
Tim is the only drummer we know with perfect pitch! He can also play all of the instruments in the group just
as good, if not better, than their usual players. On Rare, he plays a mean electric sitar part on the song
Love Divine. Tim and Jordan met in 1993 while studying music at UC Santa Cruz.

David Metzner - guitar (Los Angeles, CA)
Dave studied classical and jazz guitar at University of Miami and originally hooked up with Jordan, Mike,
and Tim when he joined their band Supersauce in 1997. He had auditioned for the group several months prior,
but didn't get the call until the regular guitarist got sick the morning of a gig up in Lake Tahoe. We
woke him up around 9:00 in the morning and said, "You want to play in Tahoe tonight?" We picked him up a few hours later and taught him the tunes on the four hour drive to the gig. He didn't miss a beat.
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A lot of influences in there, how does all that translate into Five Point Plan.

With any group, we've got a lot of different things that we're all listening to. Everybody obviously has
lots of passion for anything groove related. A couple of us are getting more into the electronica thing,
especially fusing that with funk. Everybody in the band pretty much listens to everything from bad
classic rock to straight ahead jazz and everything in between.
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And how did Five Point Plan come together out of this. Some of you have been together for some time now - was that for live performances or did you put anything down. What kind of things have you done previously.

Mike Cruz and myself used to play in a group called Supersauce at UC Santa Cruz which started in 1993. We
were an eight piece funk-party band featuring two female voclists: Maya Rudolph who's now a cast member
on Saturday Night Live, and Gretchen Lieberum who recently signed a solo deal with Lakeshore
Entertainment. That whole project kind of evolved from the Brand New Heavies who were huge at the time. Tim Carter and David Metzner (drummer and guitarist for FPP) joined the group soon after.
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How long have you been together as 5PP.

Supersauce disbanded in 1998 and that rhythm section started writing and rehearsing with vocalist Latrice
Barnett in 1999.
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The album I guess is the first, how long have you been working on that, say something about how it all came together and has it encapsulated the feel you wanted.

We actually had a previous self-titled release from 1999. It started as more of a demo, but we ended up
releasing it. Its much more lo-fi than Rare, but has a cool sound. Rare was conceived as more of an album. We
started all of the writing on our own and then got the offer to work with producer Dave Lebolt a few months
before we went into the studio. Lebolt used to play keyboards in the 80's with a ton of bands like David
Bowie, Billy Joel, and Chaka Kahn. We were still on a budget, but working with him gave us the opportunity
to get into a nice studio and get a ultra-professional recording. We also got to experiment with some things
that were new for us like tracking live against a loop and working with a string section.

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How did you put the album together, who does what.

We did several months of preproduction and rehearsals with producer, Dave Lebolt before going into the
studio. He helped us tighten up our arrangements and honed in on our strengths. We like to track as much
stuff live as possible, so its important to everything dialed in. In the studio, we did about four days of
basic tracking, with most of the keepers being first or second takes. Latrice kept several of the original
vocals too. We then spent several months doing overdubs and bringing in guests like DJ Pause, Merl
Saunders on organ, and the Turtle Island String Quartet. Latrice does most of her own background
vocals, with Mike adding some stuff on a few tunes. We also brought in some gospel singers on the song Rare.
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Which tracks are getting attention.

Tremble is definitely the most pop and radio friendly. A lot of people like on Second Time and Love Divine.
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Latrice's vocals seem perfectly fitted to your grooves, how long as she been with you

Since Five Point Plan started in 1999.
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It's kinda mature for a young band, is this the direction you feel will be successful for you, rather than say more in your
face R'n'B

Its hard to say what will or won't be successful. You can try and predict what the labels are looking for,
but that changes from week to week. The best thing for us and any artist to do is just to make the music that
we love, and hopefully others will too. The production on Rare is pretty slick, I'd expect the next record to
have more of a raw feel.

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How's the album going down , what kind of feedback you gettin, any interest from labels, or overseas.

Lots of great feedback from our fans. For labels, especially in the States, it doesn't fit neatly into
one of their preset molds. We've gotten a lot of great responses in Europe, especially in the UK.

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What about as a live band, how many gigs do you do, how far afield are you going. Tell me about your 'show'. What's SF like right now. You toured with Sade, what was that like, where did that take you, or was it just the
local legs of the tour.

We're currently playing about once a week. Depending on the gig, we like to stretch out and improvise quite
a bit. We've all been playing together for so long, especially the rhythm section, that there's a lot of
unspoken communication that goes on. I wish I could say that we toured with Sade. We only got to do one
local show with her. We did do some dates in New Mexico and Texas with the Counting Crows and Live
which were great. We also recently got to open for Los Amigos Invisibles which was amazing. Its great to play
with artists that we love.

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A lot of promo through the internet , how's that going.

The internet is our friend. We're able to reach a lot of fans that wouldn't be able to hear our music otherwise. Its the best way for independent artists to promote.

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I think there's been some interest from the Uk for a licensing deal - what's that all about.

We're going to have a few tracks coming out on Café de Soul's upcoming Volume 2 compilation for which we're very excited. They've been distributing both of our CD's in Europe as well. We also have some songs that will be airing with a new UK T.V. pilot called the Lads Guide.

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Anything else you'd like to add.

Nope, that's it.

 

 

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