by Kenneth Morton

Known more as an acoustic entity for founding member Greg McGowan, Time And Distance has returned and they are ready to rock your world. Their latest effort is entitled Gravity, and it’s pop perfection is guaranteed to lift up even the most jaded of music critics. We caught up with Greg one afternoon for a friendly chat…

Where are you from and what is your music scene like there?
I’m from Charleston, West Virginia – it’s pretty desolate to be honest. We have a couple of venues and there’s some bands. A big show here would be like 200 kids. So we definitely have to get out of town to get noticed.

How does Gravity compare to your previous releases?
It’s my favorite of the three. I think it’s the best thing we’ve ever done. And I think it’s kind of a progression – Time and Distance started out with Blood Loss for an Excuse, which was just a solo acoustic with me. Then we put out The Way It Should Be a couple years later, which was acoustic, but it had a band. And then Gravity is mostly an electric record. There’s a little bit more energy to it, for sure, and it’s louder because of the electric guitars. I would like to think that anybody who liked the last two records would be into it, but at the same time we tried to go a little bit further than we had gone before and try some different styles and ideas.

How frustrating has it been to have band members come and go, and is this line-up pretty stable?
This is definitely the most stable line-up we’ve ever had. It’s frustrating, but sometimes it’s a necessary thing if the songwriting thing isn’t working – or if you’re in a band and you tour a lot and you spend a lot of time with each other in really close quarters – and that can definitely work either in people’s favor or negatively sometimes. But also everybody has their priorities in life and they’ve gotta do what they gotta do. It’s definitely a frustrating thing. It’s a bad feeling to feel like you’re taking two steps backwards; but a lot of the times at the end of the day, you wind up overall stronger after all is said and done.

Where did you get the idea for the song First Time Caller?
I tried to make it pick up where the last song on The Way It Should Be left off. The last song was called Addicted and it left off at this point of despair – in this unhappy place – and First Time Caller was the song that was supposed to pick up on that from a more positive note – it’s a new day and a new time – keep your head up, do what you’ve got to do and just figure it out. And then it was also inspired by – we recorded the record in New Jersey and we recorded right across the river from New York City. So every night we’d drive home from the studio and we’d be looking at New York, which inspired the line in the chorus, “Standing on the corner with the skyline in our eyes.” It was kind of crazy living up there and making the record.

How annoying has it been to be compared to bands such as Dashboard Confessional?
You know, it’s 50/50, I guess. There’s a side of me goes no, we don’t sound anything like that. And then there’s the other part of me that, “You know, Chris Carrabba is a really successful songwriter and he writes really good songs.” And I don’t think that my band sounds a lot like Dashboard Confessional, especially not so much anymore. I could see that on the earlier stuff. But I’ve never really taken it offensively. The other side if it, especially when I started touring, I got the Dashboard thing all of the time. But the reason for it, because at that point, there weren’t a lot of dudes that were going out with an acoustic guitar besides Dashboard Confessional – so it was kind of inevitable. But no, I’m not put off by it. I’m actually more put off by the ones that are really, really so out of reach that I don’t see how people come up with them.

Will Time and Distance find some time to tour this year?
Yeah, we’re going to be out in August with a band called Status – they’re on Doghouse Records. And we’re still finalizing some plans for the rest of the year. But we’re definitely going to be planning for shows.

Do you have any messages for people reading this who might want to check out your new record?
We have a new record called Gravity and it’s out on Not Alone Record. You can check out a couple of songs on our Myspace. And if you like it, you should be our friend and follow us on Twitter and all the other cool sites. And hopefully we’ll see everybody on the road.

TIME AND DISTANCE links

TIME AND DISTANCE on Myspace: The Official Myspace Page for TIME AND DISTANCE!
The Highwire Daze Home Page: Return to the Main Page!

Counter