Soap consists of:
- Erich Krapf (guitar)
- Skyler Krapf (piano/vocals)
- Austin Lee (drums/vocals)
- Ross Taylor (bass/ lead vocals)
Ross was unavailable for the interview, so my sit-down was with the other 3 members, Erich, Skyler, and Austin. We talked and laughed about their favorite SCamp memories, their new album, and their own festival Down on the Farm.
Alex: Thanks for taking the time before your show to do this, guys! Do you have a favorite Summer Camp Music Festival memory? (as a performer or band, or both!)
Austin: The first time I got to see Lettuce was at Summer Camp, I was a big fan of theirs for a long time. I think it was 2 years ago they played on the stage, the one with the big hill there –
Alex: The Moonshine!
Austin: Yeah, that’s the one! They got to play there and it was awesome. That weekend, when it was super muddy, it was crazy, and it was one point in the whole weekend that really stood out to me – it was kind of overcast, but still really nice out and we found some high ground so it was dry, and the first time I got to see Lettuce and it was awesome, they’re definitely one of my favorite bands.
Erich: My first time going to Summer Camp was, either 03 or 02, the year with the tornadoes, I remember just going for one day, I had the day pass, I went and there was still shows going on but they quickly evacuated us but I was still having a blast, because of the great people I was with and the shows were still so awesome, and we had a good enough time to drive back the next day to catch the make-up shows.
Skyler: I guess it’d be 2 years ago, with the mud pit, and there was a certain point when I saw like 50 easy up gazeebos rolling through the camping area, and my wife and I looked at each other and said “THE GAZEBO!” and just booked it back to our campsite and for the rest of the night, we just sat there and held down the feet of ours so it wouldn’t fall, and people were trying to look for shelter so we got to meet a bunch of people and hang out and talk, and the fact that our gazebo stayed standing allowed to meet a bunch of new people was really cool.
Alex: You recently had a Kickstarter campaign to fund a new album? What’s the latest?
Erich: We’re over 90% done with the album, we’re going in next Wednesday and we’re going to track 2 new tunes, and the rest of it is in the mixing stage, we’re hoping to get it out late September or early October! With a CD release tour to follow with it. The name is up in the air, we should have an announcement soon.
New song to be featured on the album: Breaking Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOL5CdE2u-I&feature=youtu.be
Alex: You are currently on tour covering Abbey Road for a few shows from start to finish, how did this idea come about? You also just announced a Pink Floyd tribute set at Down on the Farm, how did that come about? What’s the influence?
Austin: We did Abbey Road at a festival last summer, Geneva Lake Jam, in Harmony Park in Geneva, Minnesota. We were trying to talk about a show to do coming back to Minneapolis after we stopped our Cabooze residence which we did for like 4 years, and we wanted to make sure it was a big show and we were tossing around ideas, Abbey Road came up, it’s an album we all love, so we decided to bring it back. And then it just made sense to tack on dates in the surrounding markets.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJXPfISgeSzbg-nr3ecLlaq7iGvnQCzo4
Austin: The Floyd thing at DOTF, we’re trying to put together a pre-party, there was some debate whether we’d just have other bands do it or be involved ourselves, we had already done Wish You Were Here and Animals, and I think it was Brad who saw Animals when they were just coming out and I think it was the Pulse Tour.
Erich: In the Flesh
Austin: Oh! (laughs) My stats have mistaken me.
Skyler: They played Animals in a different order, but did Wish You Were Here front to back. We’re gonna give it our own way though.
Austin: We’re gonna jump in and out, not like we’re gonna do one full album into the next one. Because there’s a lot of iconic songs on both of those discs, some of our favorites and it will be fun to pick and choose, weave in and out of it.
Skyler: And doing it at DOTF, we do some tribute shows, and they’re usually contained to Minneapolis, or when we did Wish You Were Here that was in Colorado, so our fan base in Illinois doesn’t get to see that stuff and this is finally an opportunity for them.
Alex: This year’s Down on the Farm will span across 2 days for the first time. How has your festival been able to keep growing since its inception?
Erich: Down on the Farm basically grew out of a glorified kegger with live music, and every year we’d add something to it, you know like lights (laughs). It started out at our friends Adam’s house; it was hard to guarantee we could even do it every year. It’s actually now on a property where we know we can do it annually, and last year was a great year; our best yet. So felt like we finally got the foundation to build it up to 2 days, but it’s not a full 2 days, we’re not starting at 3 PM, we’re just calling it a pre-party.
Skyler: We’ve seen a lot of newer festivals pop up and try to go for the full 3 or 4 day event right off the bat, with tons of bands. And it’s just too much for someone to try on the first go. A lot of people don’t realize what goes into making a festival happen.
Erich: We approach it with, when we ask our bands to play, like “how do we want to be treated?”
Alex: So do you all the planning yourselves?
Erich: Yes, we do it all ourselves.
Skyler: Brad, our manager, is included in that, but yes we do it entirely ourselves.
Erich: We just want to treat every band that comes in how we’d want to be treated at a festival. So we’re branching out now to our pre-party, still not a full 2 days.
Alex: A day and a night!
Erich: Still short enough that you can do all of it without having to take a shower. (laughs)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3PNus__h8rk
Alex: Do you have any secret places you like to go stop on the road?
Erich: Fritzes in Salida, Colorado.
Austin: Fair enough!
Erich: They always have a burger of the day, and it’s always amazing. Next to The Victoria Tavern.
Austin: It’s a small little mountain town, we play at The Victoria Tavern there a handful of times now, and every time we play we gotta stop in for a Fritz burger.
Erich: Doesn’t matter what it is, whatever the burger of the day is we just go for it.
Skyler: We’ve talked on many occasions about creating a food blog. For a while I was always recording where we stopped and what we had at each place we went to, and really it’s like I’m gonna lose track of this (laughs).
Austin: I will give this place 5 forks! (laughs)
(Pictures from The Cabooze in Minneapolis, 2015-04-03)
Alex: How did you come up with the name “Soap”?
Austin: That was before my day!
Erich: No, Austin, go ahead and take this one…
Austin: Well, it all started on a cold and blustery morning… (laughs)
Erich: It evolved out of the first song we ever wrote, called Soap.
Austin: We needed a name for our first gig, so we just used our first song, and then it turned out to be the name of our first album, and us.
I love the name, but when I tell people I’m seeing this band called Soap, they’re just confusingly like, “Soap?”
Austin: What do you wash yourself with?
Skyler: That’s how I always explain it, we are what you wash yourself with.
Alex: You feel so clean afterwards!
Skyler: We always get a kick out of it when people try to make an acronym for what Soap means. The one obvious one…
Erich: Don’t say it!
Skyler: Snakes On A Plane is the one (laughs)
Austin: We’ve heard some
quite vulgar ones… We have some nice friends. (laughs)
Alex: Any last thoughts?
Skyler: We’re super pumped to be back at Summer Camp.
Austin: It’s our favorite fest of the year!
Erich: If anyone sees us, come up, say hi and hang out, find us camping, we’ll be around.
Austin: Look for the Soap flag!
Skyler: The past 2 years at Summer Camp we’ve handed out roughly 1,000 sampler discs of our music and hopefully we’ll do that again.
Alex: Thanks so much for your time, and see you at Summer Camp!
Counting down the days (under 30) until I get to see Soap and 100+ other incredible bands at Summer Camp! Enjoy one last video of Soap, featuring Mark Joseph for their song, “Love.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PNus__h8rk]]>
(Pictures from The Cabooze in Minneapolis, 2015-04-03)
Alex: How did you come up with the name “Soap”?
Austin: That was before my day!
Erich: No, Austin, go ahead and take this one…
Austin: Well, it all started on a cold and blustery morning… (laughs)
Erich: It evolved out of the first song we ever wrote, called Soap.
Austin: We needed a name for our first gig, so we just used our first song, and then it turned out to be the name of our first album, and us.
I love the name, but when I tell people I’m seeing this band called Soap, they’re just confusingly like, “Soap?”
Austin: What do you wash yourself with?
Skyler: That’s how I always explain it, we are what you wash yourself with.
