Remember a couple of weeks ago we told you about Pandora – the online music station? Well, we tried it and it worked a flipping treat. One of the songs thrown up was Rolling Like A Stone by Greg Summerlin. And it instantly became our new favourite song.

The album that Rolling Like A Stone came from, The Young Meteors, is full of songs just as good. It’s a fantastic listen – managing to sound like a top-flight US college-rock band bulging with the biggest Britpop melodies you’re likely to hear in quite some time. And to call us new converts to the church of Greg Summerlin is quite the understatement

We caught up with Greg Summerlin to talk about The Beatles, snowboarding and disastrous long-distance relationships…

Who are you, and where are you?
My name is Greg Summerlin and I am a musician in Birmingham, Alabama in the US.    

Describe your music for us, would you?
That’s a tough question.
Although I’m a southern American, I’m heavily influenced by British
rock and pop. If you could imagine a southern kid growing up listening
to The Beatles, The Clash and The Who along with American bands like
The Replacements then you might end up with the music I’m making.

The Young Meteors sounds like a
freewheeling summer-soundtracking album. Any plans to change for the
next album?
I think the next record will be a bit different, but
there will still be plenty of up tempo numbers. The Young Meteors was
my attempt to make a record that maybe had some of the spirit of one of
the early Beatles records. It was also a reaction to my first record
which was a bit more moody. So, the songs are mostly upbeat. I’m
writing songs for my next record now. The tentative plan is to get in
the studio in late spring with a release date in the fall. It looks
like there will be a wider range of musical styles on the record and
I’m actually toying with the idea of a concept record of some kind. 

Tell us about your musical past.
I’ve played in various bands in
the Birmingham area for a few years, then joined a band called The
Quinsonics where I played lead guitar. Believe it or not, we were a
country alt band, kind of in the same vein as the early Wilco or Son
Volt records, and had somewhat of a cult following in the South. When
we broke up I started writing songs for my first self titled record
which came out in 2003. I recorded the record not sure what to expect
but then it was received pretty well at college radio and I began to
develop a local following. When The Young Meteors came out last year I
was pleasantly surprised at the critical acclaim it started receiving
across the country and as a result I started getting much more national
recognition. Lately, Paste Magazine picked the record as one of their
recommended CDs for February and its been featured on Awarestore.com
and has been licensed by MTV for one of their new shows. We’ll start
touring this spring mostly in the midwest and southern U.S.

We haven’t been able to shift Rolling Like A Stone from our brains since we first heard it. Is there a story behind it?
The
story is somewhat autobiographical. It’s basically about a guy trying
to persuade a girl to reconsider her plans to move to another city
where another guy lives. It’s primarily based on one disastrous
relationship but I draw lyrical content from several similarly ill-fated situations.  Unfortunately, as in real life, I don’t think the
guy in the song wins the argument. 

A woman has 5 potatoes to feed 3 children. How can she give them equal portions without fractions?
Here in Alabama we would just serve mashed potatoes.

What’s the Alabama music scene like?
I don’t really know about
other cities in Alabama, but the Birmingham music scene is actually
really good right now. There are several bands in town that are
starting to get national recognition and you hear stories all the time
of major label guys coming to town to hear what’s going on.  I think
people who are not familiar with Birmingham would be surprised at the
amount of good music coming out of the city now.

Preach about something you love (not related to the band) in 100 words.
I
love to snowboard, which may sound strange since I live in the deep
South. I learned to snowboard about ten years ago and I usually try to
take a couple of trips out west each year. A couple of years ago I
drove out west with a good friend of mine and we spent a month driving
around the west US and Canada snowboarding at a different mountain
every three or four days. I think we ended up driving around 7500
miles. I wrote a song about the trip called A Snowboard Odyssey that is
on The Young Meteors.

What’s on your iPod?
I’ve got about 2,000 songs including almost
the full library of The Clash, The Beatles and The Replacements. I’ve
been listening to the Who’s remastered Tommy that came out a couple of
years ago a lot over the past couple of weeks. I’ve had the record for
a long time, but just recently bought the remastered version and you
can really hear Keith Moon’s incredible drumming. I’m just blown away
by the scope of the entire record and the genius of Pete Townsend. I’ve
also been listening to The Futureheads record, which was my favourite
record last year, and the Nada Surf record The Weight Is A Gift.

Favourite movie soundtrack?
I don’t think I own any movie
soundtracks (except for A Hard Day’s Night), but if I had to buy one
tomorrow I think it might be Grosse Pointe Blank or High Fidelity.
Something about those John Cusack movies I guess.

Motorhead have Cheese And Chive Ruffles on their rider. What’s on yours?
I
just thrilled to have someone want me to play so I don’t really worry
about any riders, but I would always take more money if someone wanted
to give it to me.

Are you going to come to Britain and play your songs at any point?
We
have been tossing around some ideas about trying to get to the UK this
summer sometime. Hopefully we can have discussions with a promoter over
there soon and see if we can put together a tour. I would really like
to get to Britain before long because I think the British would really
get what I’m doing.

What are you going to do right now?
I’ve been really busy with my
record label, Superphonic Records, which I started in early 2005. We
have recently signed a couple of bands and have been working with them
on their new releases. I just had a big show here in Birmingham so I’m
going to try and relax for a while before hitting the road in March and
April. I’m heading to Colorado in a couple of weeks with some friends
to do some snowboarding and hopefully I won’t break my neck.

The Young Meteors by Greg Summerlin is out now. Visit the official Greg Summerlin website or Greg’s MySpace page for more information and all kinds of brilliant stuff to listen to.

[interview by Stuart Heritage]