Q&A with Middle Distance Runner

Each member of the band has a very distinct personality—evident in everything from your on-stage performance styles to your clothing choices—how would you describe each personality in a word or two?

Allan: Beer Halen
Erik: Baby Gorilla
Jay: Shadow Quest
Steve: Dylan Potato
Tony: Luxury Luxury

You guys have SXSW coming up—any highlights you plan on pulling out for that? What sort of considerations do you take into account when for your shows… here in DC vs. elsewhere around the country?

We’re going to play some songs from the upcoming full-length album. We’re putting out a single called “The Unbeliever” (b-side: “The Wrong Hole”) for the tour, and both songs will be on the album.

When we go on tour, we usually have grand plans for staying healthy, stock up on vitamins and health snacks for the van. Erik inevitably eats 2/3 of the snacks the first day and we end up eating fast food and being drunk every night.

In DC, it’s pretty much the same but we don’t bother with the health snacks.

What process do you guys usually follow in terms of creating, developing, and producing your music?

Most of the time Erik or I will come up with a simple demo and send it around. I’d say an average of two years passes before we revisit the demo as a band and try to work it out. Most of the songs on the new album were written in 2006-7, but they’re only now being recorded.

Jay, Allan, and Tony generally take the framework and pull it apart (while I cry in the corner about my “artistic vision”), and the songs are always better for it.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the Mother’s Day single you guys released in 2008 on your Web site—did you end up doing anything with this in particular? Any self-proclaimed “momma’s boys” in the band?

No, we didn’t do anything with it in particular! Do you know who you’re talking to?! This is Middle Distance Runner, not Productive Distance Do-Stuff!

Actually, the guy who hip-hops on that track is a friend named Jason Moore (a local guy who has two bands, Panacea and RPM), who worked at XM Radio and would play the song as bumper music on the Ladies’ channel. Really, we made that song so people would have something to give their mommas.

Erik’s a total momma’s boy. Er liebt seine Mutter.

It’s great that Middle Distance Runner is finding commercial success in various ads and shows—I’m guessing this can be pretty lucrative for you guys depending on the situation. Do you ever try to write or pen a song knowing that it may be better suited for those promotional venues? Conversely has a commercial or promotion ever provided the inspiration for one of your songs?

Thanks! It’s definitely our chief source of income at the moment, which ought to help us get off our asses and tour in the next year.

Long answer: I wouldn’t say we’ve ever written a song specifically for a promotional venue (except maybe our Mothers Day and Xmas songs), but I’ve always tried to write music that’s immediately accessible to the listener before they have to think about anything. I can’t stand it when “geniuses” write music you can’t listen to but you’re supposed to because it’s “brilliant”. So I guess we try to write music that most people can enjoy, which incidentally appeals to people who are in charge of putting music in ads.

Short answer: yes, we’re total sellouts.

Props on your merch table display – who came up with that? Are you planning on promoting any new items in 2009?

Thanks again! I saw someone else’s merch suitcase with Christmas lights around it and came up with the idea of backlighting a translucent image. The original background was a little version of our first LP, Plane In Flames, with the flames backlit. That one was way better but we’re not really pushing that album anymore so it had to go. The album we’re working on now, though, is gonna make Plane In Flames sound like a fat kid throwing up in the food court at Springfield Mall.

And just for fun… If you could have any sort of super power, what would it be?

Bigger penis.