Before Jason Reeves took the stage Wednesday night for his Bandersnatch Music Series concert, The Daily Orange got the chance to sit down with him and talk about handwritten letters, Colbie Caillat and his favorite place in the country.On his music: ‘I guess I’d like to call it honest music, not using those words like folk and pop and rock. I’d say it’s acoustic-based mellow, honest music.’

On the inspiration for his album ‘The Magnificent Adventures of Heartache (And Other Frightening Tales…)’: ‘It came from fairytales, and this album is a fairytale. So I wanted to give it a name that was appropriate for it. I wanted it to kinda sound like an actual book more than a CD.’

On collaborating with other artists: ‘It’s amazing, probably my favorite way to write is with someone else, because you have so many more possibilities about where the song can go, rather than by yourself. I wanna write with a lot of people, but John Mayer and James Taylor and Bob Dylan and Joni Mittchel would probably be my top four.’

On his pre-show rituals: ‘Hot water and honey. Relax. I just listen to music and drink hot water. It’s so simple, but that’s it.’

On touring with Tyrone Wells: ‘It’s awesome. I’m fortunate to be on tour with friends. I get to go to a show every night, besides my own.’

On the Internet music world: ‘I defiantly did (use the Internet and a grassroots approach to getting my music out there). But the Internet was a huge part of it. MySpace, especially, when it first came out, totally changed everything. I don’t think Colbie (Caillat) and I would be where we are right now without MySpace and the Internet in general. Everyone’s going there now to find music. It’s kinda insane.’

On people saying he’s going to be a star: ‘Geez. What do I say to that? Thank you. That must mean something good. I don’t know what the answer is, if that’s true or not, but we’ll see.’

On his favorite state he’s visited: ‘Well it’s hard to say this right now because it’s fall on the East Coast and everywhere we go is just astoundingly gorgeous, but I think my favorite place out of all of them is northern California and Oregon, and even Washington – the West Coast, the Northwest. I’m probably going to buy a house there. It’s what I want to do.’

On old-fashioned letters: ‘Technology is ruining us. And I think that it makes a lot of things easier, but that’s not at all better. In the end, it’s not better for you to do things easier, faster and, in most cases, I think that letters are a prime example of that. It’s so much quicker to send an e-mail to someone, but it’s so impersonal and robot-ish. If you actually take the time to write something down yourself and send it and put a stamp on it, I feel like there is so much more feeling involved, and I think that’s a metaphor for the bigger situation that’s going on for that. It’s got less feeling. I don’t send very many letters very much because I’m affected just as much as anyone else is. But I do (still write them).’

On his favorite song on the album: ‘I don’t have one. I think they all have to be my favorite, all of them at the same time. Played all the way through as one big song because it’s more of a story and it would be like asking what your favorite chapter is and my favorite chapter of the story is all of them.’

On his iPod: ‘(The last song played on my iPod was) ‘The Waitress’ by Atmosphere. He’s from Minneapolis.’

On his relationship with Caillat: ‘We’re really, really good friends. I’d say we’re brother and sister. (The videos of us sitting on the beach), that’s what its like. It’s perfect. The mood of those videos is a pretty good description of how it is when we’re hanging out and writing. It’s really easy. We just have a good time doing it. We started off writing music in the first place without any reason or intention of let’s make a record for you or anything like that. It was just us writing because we liked doing it.’

On what’s next after the tour: ‘I get some time off in L.A. and then Hawaii, too. I get to go hang out with Colbie finally because we’ve both been gone for so long. And other than that, just writing music and more touring.’

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Published on October 15, 2008 at 12:00 pm