How are you?

Jesse Draper (drums): Doing fine, thank you.

Jeremy Whitwam (bass): Good, thank you.

Chris Muffet (guitar): Just great.

When did you first become interested in music?

Jesse: I first became interested in music...well from birth really. My dad played guitar and had great Beatles, Who, and such bands on the record player constantly. When I was ten years old (1984)I was introduced to U2, for those of you who know me...that's when the real obsession began.

What was the first band or musical project you were ever involved in?

Jesse: By the time I was 12, I had a beginners drum kit, and was playing Abbey Road, Who's Next, and various Joe Walsh tunes in the basement with my old man. Around 14 years old a kid named Andrew LeRoy and I started banging about together. Using two boomboxes for overdubbing purposes, we recorded With or Without You together in my basement. We even played a birthday party. I suppose that could be deemed the "Official" first musical project I was a part of...however my first REAL BAND was a group called Ideology, that started the summer after my junior year in high school. Andy had by that time already moved to Michigan, so he wasn't involved. Ironically enough, we did actually drive up to Southfield to do our first recording ("One Life") in the winter of 1992 with some guy who called himself "The Round Mound of Sound". We later did 5 more songs in the basement of a guy named Perry White I think, in Glenn Ellen, Illinois and released our first cassette tape "Take a Deep Breath"...

Jeremy: My first prolonged experience with another musician was jamming with Andy LeRoy in the basement of Snider Hall on the MSU campus. We would bring amps to the music room and play for hours. I think we would do a lot of classic rock songs and solo a lot. Sometimes would write riffs or the beginings of songs. Always talked about getting a drummer, didn't happen for a while though.

What was the first U2 song you recall hearing?

Jesse: To the best of my knowledge it would have been either "I Will Follow" or "Sunday Bloody Sunday". I was given copies of both the Boy and War Album around the same time...Unforgettable Fire and October Followed.

What made you want to play drums as opposed to another instrument?

Jesse: My dad played the guitar...better jamming if there's a drummer involved! Actually I'm not sure to be honest with you...something in the way of Ringo Starr or Larry Mullen Jr. or Stewart Copeland to be sure though. My big three at the time of my picking up the instrument were the Beatles, U2, and the Police.

You are once again in a band with Andy Leroy, how did you two meet?

Jesse: Youth Group called "The Herd" at Wheaton Bible Church. He was in with the cool kids that wore jean jackets and vans...I wanted in! He was probably one of the coolest people I knew at the time...Andy, Doran Stambaugh (later of Ideology, Paperman Jake, and Waterworks), and a skater named Dave Gosling were the cool kids. I was just trying to fit in at that time. (Just grew out of the fat kid that people teased phase). Plus...he played the guitar and listened to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin!!!!

When did the two of you meet and how was it decided to form or join (depending on the situation) the group?

Jesse: Ok...as far as I understand this question being directed towards me...Andy and I met in Junior High at Church Youth Group. We only decided to "form a band" one time for a girls birthday party when we were sophmores in High School I think. That was wretched....we even played "birthday" as she came down the stairs. Jeremy I met when I was playing with Paperman Jake in Chicago. He came down with Andy and Tim in what I think was called "Dave" at the time. They opened for us in a local tv show for the college I was attending. A year or so later, I moved up to East Lansing and basically just watched their band (with new drummer Andy M.) as a fan. After a while (and a few random jams) A and J mentioned that they wanted me to play with them. But I wasn't up to steppin on Andy M's toes, so I offered to give him some pointers, tips, what have you. Eventually it managed to work itself out (distance, I think was the primary reason) and Andy M. left the band. I then joined up cause I loved playing with the two of them. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping for that all along. Boom...Trip the Witch.

Jeremy you are also in a band with Craig from Charlie Don't Shake, which band were you in first?

Jeremy: Craig and I started together by both helping his brother Steve Schmidt. Just about every winter/summer break we would come home from MSU and help Steve record his new songs (usually reffered to as The Shoes). Meanwhile while at school I was jamming with Andy at MSU and planning to start a band eventually. In the nick of time our friend Tim Hunt wanted some people to play with while he practiced drums (a month before Andy graduated). He got Andy for guitar and me for bass. After a couple sessions we decided to start a band. We got a show at a house party under the name Dave. It went well enough that Andy decided to return to Lansing in the fall, even though he had graduated. Probably not a parents favorite decision, but Tim and I were pretty happy about it.

To fast forward a bit, Andy and I kept playing together under different names with different drummers (Andy Molhoek, Sam Genio) until right after we recorded our first CD as Trip The Witch. Draper moved to Lansing at this point and joined as our drummer moved away. Fast forward a bit more (years of a LeRoy/Draper/Whitwam three piece), some recording sessions were turning out quite a bit different than we had planned, and the Trip The Witch idea had pretty much played itself out. We decided to change the name and make-up of the band. Rosetta and the album Eternity was the result of finally finishing that recording.

Somewhere in the middle of the process of making what would become Eternity, Craig and I had the idea to make an album as a wedding present to a friend we had known since the 3rd grade, Jon Ramsey. So the year 2000 brought the beginning of The South, which eventually turned into Charlie Don't Shake. The year 2001 brought the beginning of Rosetta. It was a pretty exciting time because after years of working on music we finally had some really cool stuff coming out, stuff that I would go and buy even if I wasn't involved in it. It took a while to get to that point, but we are thick-headed I guess. Around this time the Rexrode Records idea also came around, because all the music that was happening had so much shared talent.

Whoa that's a lot of fast forwarding let me back you up a bit, how long did each variation of the band last and were there any recordings (proper or otherwise) of any of them?

Jeremy: The details are a bit foggy. Dave lasted for about a year with Tim Hunt on drums. There were quite a few cassette four track recordings of us playing the songs live. We pretty much wrote new songs for every show we played at the time, trying to figure a sound out.

Jeremy: Andy Molhoek came around at some point, again played for about a year. The first Trip The Witch album was with Molhoek on drums. This is also when Eric Best came into the picture, he offered to record a demo for us, it turned into the Trip The Witch album. That came out in 1997.

While we were finishing the album, Molhoek had to move to Detroit. We jammed with Sam Genio during the week, played a show or two with him. Around this time Jesse moved to Lansing and joined the band for good. OK Computer came out and we pretty much started over again with new songs. While we were trying again to find our sound (a common theme, heh heh), we had an offer from a guy in Chicago, Brian Whitman, to record some songs. Patrick Paulin had joined as our second guitarist, he brought a cool new dynamic. We put down whatever songs we had ready at the time, and that turned into the Mocker's Paradise EP (1999). We had collected another batch of songs, and Eric Best was interested in recording some of them. We started with six, and it exploded from there (and took a coupla years). Patrick moved to L.A. about the time we started the first recordings of what became Eternity. Vera may be the only song that made it through the whole process, and he plays a guitar part on that.

How and with whom did the Rexrode Records idea start?

Jeremy: Jesse had always talked about starting a record label. As a first step we made up a name of a record label for the Mocker's Paradise EP. When we started distributing The South's Rexrode we got the name Rexrode Records. It didn't pick up much steam until Curt Micol got involved, roughly around the time when Eternity came out.

Rosetta and Rexrode Records, where did those names come from?

Jeremy: We were working on Eternity, and were almost finished. We knew we needed a name, and had a long list of bad ideas. At some point Andy, Jesse and I were sitting around listening to Let It Be, and took Rosetta from the banter at the beginning of Get Back. The name Rexrode Records came from the name of the album/song by The South (eventually Charlie Don't Shake).

The progression of official names (better to embarrass ourselves):

Dave
The Wells Convention
94
K. Belloch
Dirty Luna
Trip The Witch
Trip
Rosetta

These are just the names that we used to either a) played a show or b) handed out demo/promo material. There were many more, oh my.

Tell us a bit about how you guys came to be introduced to and work with Eric Best.

Jeremy: When Andy Molhoek joined the band he had some connections to all the guys in Dave Dale and The Blues Control, a Lansing blues/rock band. Eric was working on recording them, and eventually got around to working with us. We learned a lot from him about recording, playing live, everything. We actually haven't gotten around to paying him for any of his help, so hopefully he won't ever realize we appreciate it. Its also great having Eric in town now, for the other projects he was coming in from Detroit on the weekends.

With all this talk about defining your "sound" when did you feel that you had arrived at that sound?

Jeremy: For me it was while working on Eternity. Not neccesarrily that Eternity is the actual sound, but it represents the people involved pretty well. That was the first time we were presenting good songs in a way we were all happy with.

Jesse: I'd say somewhere in the middle of the Eternity tracking as well...probably towards the end, once Andy found his vocal style and we had moved past a few songs that were more Trip than Rosetta in feel and shape. When we realized that a song should never be 5 minutes long, is when we really got our thing together. Although, damn, Andy was sexy in "Lemon Drop". I've really stopped pretending to be anything other than a drummer very heavily influenced by Larry Mullen and Ringo Starr. Once I started playing within myself a bit, then I think I got my sound down. As such I'd say I'm a confident, better than average drummer...maybe top ten in the area, but only because I play within myself.

You also mentioned Radiohead releasing OK Computer. Would you say there were any other highly influential bands or albums that incited a re-think?

Jesse: For them, Definately Ok Computer...for me, back then, I just wanted a very raw, real drum sound. Very little reverb, very classic in nature (meaning sonically produced in the vein of the Beatles, Stones, Who, etc...of the sixties). Midnight Oil has always been an influence of mine, and so I probably wanted a bit of that punch to it as well. I only did one or two things on the album outside of the percussion, so as far as the rest of the sound goes, I really left that up to A and J. I just periodically asked to hear where they were, and made my comments as such. Hard to remember what I was listening to back then...but be assured it was most likely U2, Beatles, Radio Head, Midnight Oil...with whatever the flavor of the week happened to be thrown in here and there...ooooooh....and MILES.

Does Rosetta have an ethos or mission of sorts?

Jesse: To the best of MY knowledge...Rosetta is about creating music that we in the band enjoy..creating excellent music...and not being afraid to be who we are (not changing who we are either) in the musical culture that we find ourselves in. But I don't see Andy trying to advance some ideology or message in his lyrics...I just see them as an extention of who he is...and he just happens to be a guy who tries to make the ugly things of this life beautiful...and it comes across in his lyrics...I think so anyway.

What did Rosetta use as a criteria for choosing what songs they would cover when doing shows on the last album, Eternity?

Chris: Nothing too obvious, nothing too obscure.

Jeremy: In the end it always came down to the vocal style/range. There are tons of songs that musically we would have loved to do, but we didn't have the right vocal style. Like every band probably wants to cover Led Zepplin, but few have the right singer. We also based a lot of it on what tempo/mood of song we needed to fill the set out. So I think most covers were uptempo...

I hear there is a recording floating around of the Jakcson County Fair show where Rosetta played nothing but Beatle songs, any truth to this claim?

Chris: We had to play two full hours at that show, so we learned a Beatles song from every album. I don't know that anyone recorded it, but maybe.

Jeremy: We cheated a little on the song selection, included the singles released with an album. That was a great learning process actually, having to play all those Beatles songs. Those guys are amazing. Some tough stuff on bass too.

What is your personal favourite cover song to perorm or would like to perform eventually

Jeremy: Baby Your A Rich Man (Beatles) and I Am the Resurrection (Stone Roses).

Chris: Please Please Me (Beatles)