EMQ’s With Scattered Hamlet
Hi Everyone! Welcome to another EMQ’s, this time with USA based Hard Rock/ Southern Rock Band, Scattered Hamlet. Huge thanks to Vocalist and Frontman, Adam Joad, for taking part.
What is your name, what do you play, and can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
My name is Adam Joad, I’m CEO for the Alpha Rock Supreme, the American Dream, Scattered Hamlet… which incidentally is your new favorite band.
How did you come up with your band name?
It’s a slang term I snagged from a civil war book for small spread out rural communities, like where our music comes from. In hindsight I should have picked something more obvious.
What Country/Region are you from and what is the Metal/Rock scene like there?
We tour either out of Nashville or where I live on West Virginia/PA border. To see a show where I live you have to drive either to Morgantown, West Virginia or Pittsburgh, PA, the latter is about an hour away. It’s been a long time since I’ve been involved with any local scene, so I can’t really answer this question. It was our local punk scene many many years ago that gave me the chance to cut my teeth, learn how to be in a band, and eventually move to LA and do this full time. Hopefully there’s young people out there doing stuff like that still and not just dancing and filming themselves lip syncing on TikTok.
What is your latest release? (Album, EP, Single, Video)
We released our 3rd full length “Stereo Overthrow” a couple of weeks ago.
Who have been your greatest influences?
There’s too many. It would depend on the influence…. If you asked who influenced me to be a better person, a musician, a marital artist, a fisherman etc, they’d all be different answers. Overall, it would probably be Burt Reynolds and Jerry Reed – they have influenced me and shown me how to be awesome.
What first got you into music?
When I was a wee Joad, I was gifted a Mickey Mouse turn table. Having no adult records, my brother let me go to his collection and pick one. I carefully looked through and shining like the holy grail or the vinyl of destiny was “Kill Alive II”… and the rest is history.
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician, who would it be?
Oooh good question. I like to collaborate. I’ve been calling for this one for a while. I’d like to work with Tim Armstrong from Rancid. I think we could come up with something super cool. Kid Rock just did a collaboration with Monster Truck, it came out really good. I think in general we all need to collaborate more. Tom Morello just did a bunch of cool ones too with Atlas Underground. So yeah, I want to work with Tim Armstrong. If I could shoot for the stars though it would be Dave Gilmour or George Thorogood.
If you could play any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
We’ve been fortunate enough to play many US festivals, but I’d really like to do the Download Festival.
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
Weirdest and most awesome was a custom painted beer keg that we’ve carried on stage at every show since.
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
Please don’t DM me on social media and ask about show times, show tickets, or your orders from Buck Moon Productions!
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If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
I don’t know, there’s so many awesome folks we’ve lost along the way. How about Joe Strummer? I’d love for him to come back and the Clash have one last tour.
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
I enjoy performing, I’m a performer, the stage is what it’s all about for me. My least favorite part is “the business.” We are in the music business, you can’t forget that. Keep your eyes on your money and watch what’s going on around you.
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
The devaluing of the physical copy for music I’d change – you can’t go back in time though we live in a digital world. Streaming sucks for the artist, it pays very little and bands are judged by how many times they’ve been streamed or followed on Spotify. We’ve been turned down for things by suits because “our Spotify numbers aren’t good enough…” and then they pick an algorithm band over us and we have sold more albums, more merchandise, and can out draw them in ticket sales in all major markets. In sum, we have more real fans from touring and having an impact, rather than just fitting an algorithm that gets played a bunch on playlists where the listener doesn’t even know who the band is. It’s weird. I’m grateful for our fans’ dedication, it keeps us going. I’ll take one of our fans with a CD in their truck and an SH sticker in their window over a hundred thousand streams on a playlist where the listeners don’t even know your band – we’ve had both, I know which one has a greater value both artistically and financially.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
I’ll name three, Social Distortion “Sex Love and Rock N’ Roll,” Springsteen “Darkness on the Edge of town,” and Bob Seger’s “Night Moves.”
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CDs, or Downloads?
Cassettes are useless, those are for hipsters trying to be cool – hipsters suck. I love vinyl, I actually have a really solid vinyl collection and I enjoy sitting around, sipping bourbon, and just listening to records and then flipping them over while looking at the art. It’s a great experience. It’s not practical for travel or for my studio, so for that I use Spotify. Like I said earlier, streaming sucks for artists, but what I didn’t say is that it’s awesome for the listener. I have literally everything at the tip of my fingers. I don’t download and I don’t buy CDs. Our touring rig has a CD player so if a band gives us an album, we’ll check it out. It’s cool because with that physical copy we’re more likely to listen to it on tour because if we have to go to Spotify to stream it that means we have to remember to do it and in the middle of touring it’s easy to forget shit.
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
I don’t even know how to qualify what’s best. If you’re saying the biggest show, that would probably be Sturgis Buffalo Chip mainstage. One year we did it with Disturbed, and Kid Rock another year. My favorite shows personally were probably the camp ground one’s at Rocklahoma in the early days. We didn’t get paid and we weren’t able to set up merch but it didn’t matter. There were so many people at those and it was complete chaos.
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
No clue – I’ve had so many jobs before so I don’t know where I’d have landed if I wasn’t doing music. I’ve been a maintenance worker, grounds keeper, bouncer, sparring dummy for pro MMA fighters, coach, actor, teacher, electrical assistant, vintage toy seller, writer, I’ve scored films, I guess scoring films would be a musician… shit so many. I have no idea what else I’d be doing. I still want to make my professional wrestling debut.
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
That’s a good one – I’ll assume they have to be living and I like random people that are different. How about Mike Ness, The Iron Sheik, Glenn Danzig, Ted Nugent, and Mike Tyson. Wouldn’t that be a random clusterfuck?
What’s next for the band?
The new album just dropped, we have a few more dates left in 2021. You can catch us live Dec 2 Akron, Ohio (Vortex), Dec 3 Ardmore, PA (The Nail) & Dec 4 Etna, PA (Porky’s). After that 2022 is anyone’s guess. I hope to be out supporting the album but the world is a weird place right now.
What Social Media/Website links do you use to get your music out to people?
This will send you to them all: https://linktr.ee/scatteredhamlet
Jaffa Cakes? Are they a cake or a biscuit?
I literally have no idea what you’re talking about. We put gravy on our biscuits here and you don’t put gravy on cakes.
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Thank you we appreciate the questions and coverage.
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