ROB CALDER - Stepping Up To the Plate, June 2008
You may be wondering why there is an interview with someone other than the Amazing Three. Well, it turns out that bassist Rob Calder not only has ties to Fiction Plane dating back many years, and he was a core member of the Indiana-based hard rock outfit The Cutters, alongside a Mr. Pete Wilhoit. Calder was most recently called up to fill in on the last few dates of FP’s spring tour with The Bravery, when Seton was unavoidably required to return home to the UK. Read on and learn a bit about not just one of Pete’s best friends, but an amazing musician to boot!
FPIC: How did you get this run of gigs with FP?
Rob: I’ve known Pete for nearly 20 years as we’ve been band members in The Cutters, a band we were in for nearly 10 years. In fact, we had played music together since Pete was in high school, so our musical connection is pretty deep. I essentially learned to play in band with Pete on drums. In addition to all that, we’ve been best friends for as long as I’ve known him.
FPIC: Have you played / filled in with them in the past?
Rob: Yes, there was a tour about 2 years ago where Fiction Plane was booked to open a tour for Sting [2005’s Broken Music Tour], and a couple of the guys in the band were having trouble with their work visas [Seton and former bassist Dan Brown], so they turned to me and [guitarist] Jake Kovach to fill in for a bit.
FPIC: When approached, were you given the choice of bass or guitar, or was it specified from the onset? Did you have any apprehensions of filling in for a 3-piece act?
Rob: I do play some guitar, but I’m mainly a bassist, so I don’t think there was ever a question of me playing bass, although we had a 2-second conversation about maybe me playing guitar on “anyone”, only because the guitar part was straightforward. Of course, we didn’t follow through with that at all. As far as having apprehension, I’d say there was definitely some, but not too much. When you are in a three-piece band, you really have to add some extra juice to what’s going on musically. I’ve been doing a ton of support of other artists as a sideman, so there is a definite mind set change that needed to happen. It’s quite a different mindset one needs to play in a power trio.
FPIC: Did they give you a list of songs to learn, and how much time were you given to learn them?
Rob: Pete did give me a list of songs they had been used to playing a lot. There were definitely more tunes on the list than we were going to play. I had a blast learning them all. I’d obviously heard the tunes way before the possibility of actually playing them. But when the idea that I might play with them came about, I think I had probably a week and a half to wrap my brain around the tunes as a player.
FPIC: What was the fan reaction to you being on stage with Pete & Joe?
Rob: I think there was a fair amount of confusion while I was up there. Fans certainly expected a certain group to be up there, and they also expected Joe to be playing bass. I saw a few puzzled looks on a couple faces, but most of the people at the shows were immediately into it. I received some really positive fan reaction, and if there were any disappointed fans out there, they never came to me to express their disappointment!!
FPIC: Where / when did you originally meet FP?
Rob: I met Fiction Plane back when Pete got started playing with them while we all still lived in Indiana. I remember them coming through Indiana and seeing a show and then the next day all of us (Cutters and Fiction Plane) hitting the pitch and playing some informal football.
FPIC: Who moved to New York first, you or Pete?
Rob: Pete and Kathy and Lisa (my wife) and I decided to move at the same time to New York City.
FPIC: After listening to some of your material, it seems that you (and Pete) aren’t “rock musicians”, but actually versatile musicians who can pretty much play anything you desire. Is that how you approached THE CUTTERS, or were there stylistic sacrifices?
Rob: Good question, and thanks for the compliment. Not sure we made any decisions while we were in The Cutters together. That was a band made up of four great musicians who made music in the only way possible. We had some abilities, maybe more than the average band, and so that might have given us some more options musically, but I don’t remember us ever struggling with stylistic issues. In fact, we always felt our music was a good combination of “hard rock” and “acoustic” music.
FPIC: Did CUTTERS only ever release 2 CDs (1998’s Sonic Wave Love and 2001’s Flypaper Highway)?
Rob: We released 2 full length CDs and we had a number of EPs that we recorded and released along the way. We also managed to record a ton of demos, but what band doesn’t do that?
FPIC: What’s the story behind being big in Australia?
Rob: That’s just a joke we put up on our website, a bit of an inside for joke for us in the band because our BMI checks showed a surprisingly large amount of airplay in Australia, despite the fact that band hadn’t done too much in the last couple of years.
FPIC: What caused the demise of THE CUTTERS?
Rob: Perhaps the demise of the band came from a number of sources, but a good place to start was the fact that the band had a hard time rebounding from the fact that we got dropped from the record label BMG [CMC International]. After the band received this bit of news (being dropped), it was hard to get the big machine to start from scratch.
I look forward to the The Cutters getting some stuff done again down the line soon. Perhaps we might do a few shows in the city, so long as we might convince the others in the band to come down to NYC and give it lash.
