The Rosebuds stole the show at SXSW this year, and Night Of The Furies remains one of the best albums we’ve heard all year. The group has an upcoming Wisconsin show scheduled in Eau Claire on Saturday, June 2nd at the House of Rock.

We sat down with Ivan Howard for another version of 5 Questions w/Muzzle of Bees. We hope you enjoy the interview below and make sure to pick up the new album, it’s fantastic.

We really enjoyed checking out your photos from your tour/trip to Moscow. Tell me about that trip, how it came about, the show(s) you played, and some of the non-performance highlights.

Well, it turns out we were invited to play a concert as part of a movie premier festival for the Russian movie Paragraph 78. It is the first official big budget Russian movie ever. So when we arrived in Moscow, there were billboards all over the city advertising the festival. But the festival was only three bands; The Rosebuds, Ian Brown from the Stone Roses, and Brett Anderson from Suede. Pretty crazy, honestly, because we did not know what to expect when we got there. The first thing is we get driven to our hotel, the same hotel that Bill Clinton stayed in when he visited Moscow a few years back, and the first person we meet is Ian Brown. Kelly said, “Ian!” Which sounded like, “Long time, no see!” To which he replied, “Yeah! How are you! Fucking Moscow. Your going to love it!” We rode the elevator up together and he was telling us how nice everyone is in Moscow. In the elevator was an older Russian gentleman. And Ian said, “Everybody is just so nice here.” As Kelly was getting out of the elevator, her luggage got stuck on the door. The Russian man helped her with the bag, and excitedly Ian said, “See! I told you they are nice!”

Your latest release Night of the Furies has been well-received with many people calling it a departure or different direction. When I spoke to you at SXSW, I said that was a good thing – that you’re not making the same records over and over again. Is that something you strive for with each recording or something that comes about naturally?

I think it kind of comes about naturally because we would get bored making the same record again and again. It seems a few people come to expect one certain sound from the bands they like, so we have gotten a few questionable reviews from writers who loved “Birds Make Good Neighbors” when they listen to the new record. But luckily most people seem to respect our choices and listed to the record for what it is. We just can’t really make the same record twice anyway. It would be like someone repeating a year of school without growing. We started the band barely being able to play our instruments, so of course the sound is going to evolve the more we learn and listen to other music. Who knows what the next record will sound like.

The internet has dramatically altered the way bands can reach an audience. With things like blogs/myspace/etc, what are your thoughts on the power of the internet in terms of helping (or hurting) your music?

Well, this answer could go on forever! The internet is a wonderful communication tool. But it is sort of a Catch 22 in some ways though. I remember recording our last record and the engineer mentioned that if we toured as much in 1994 as we did in 2005, that our first record would have sold ten times more copies than it actually did in today’s climate. It does give smaller bands like ours more recognition and can even the playing field more now. But the internet has made the world itself a much busier and faster place than it was ten years ago. That includes bands: how fast they can now put up songs on the internet, how fast a blog writes about them, and unfortunately how fast they get slid out of the way to make room for the next new band the next day….. It all depends on where your attitude is coming from when you look at the internet and it’s effects on our culture. For The Rosebuds, is has allowed us to do things and reach people we never would have ten years ago. We did an entire European tour with no record label or distribution in Europe. But in some ways it makes it harder to be an artist. There is a whole generation of young folks who might not ever be in that special relationship with a band where no matter how much your life sucks, you can go buy the record, go home put on head phones and stare at the art work and get transported to another world where you feel like the only person in the universe allowed into this special place. Because now people feel like there is SO much music out there, that they have to be informed before they buy. I feel that way too. But it seems inevitable that music and art in general that can be accessed with the web browser will begin to lose it’s value as an art form. There is just so much information out there, that it is just hard to invest your time to really get to study and fall in love with new music. And for the bands it is a different world now too. And now, you can just google your name and see what everyone thinks about your art. Pretty scary and beautiful the honesty that is out there…… As for music blogs, I read them all the time. Not sure if this is a good thing or not (especially when they talk about us) but I love music and blogs are people just like me who feel the same way. Unlike some major publications where people are just getting a paycheck reviewing things assigned to them. The only hang up I have with blogs is that sometimes there seems to be no standard of judgement from one album or song to the next. But they allow us readers a chance to listen to new bands, and get all the entertainment news we’ve ever dreamed of.

What was the last show you went to see, as a fan?

We saw one of the greatest bands in the whole word, The Loners from Raleigh NC on the last night of shows at our local music venue KINGS BARCADE. The city of Raleigh is tearing the building down to put up a parking deck……..

On your blog you said you were asked to cover The Pixies’ “Break My Body” for an upcoming tribute album. Have you decided who will handle the singing on that track, and any idea when that tribute album might be coming out?

I think the album is called “Digging for Fire,” and it comes out Nov 17th 2007. And Kelly sings the lyrics. It was her idea because she is convinced Frank Black wrote the lyrics from a woman’s perspective. She’s all over it. And it brings a new dimension to the song. It has taken on another life now.

MP3: The Rosebuds – Get Up Get Out
Myspace: The Rosebuds