Hello!

Here's part 2 of my soon to be published interview with Alice Barkwell of Playgrounds Magazine in Columbus, Georgia!

Did you do music in school? Either band or chorus?

I tried. I transferred schools at an odd time that one particular year, however. The band class at the new school started a semester earlier than the one I was leaving. So I kind of got shafted despite the fact that I'd scored so highly on the entrance test. I was a small kid and they actually stuck me with the tuba. Thanks to that, my interest waned in band quickly, especially since I had my guitar at home. So I think I stayed in it half of one year before giving up.

What were you like in school?

Well, that depends on when you're asking about. For the first half of my school days, I was a "brain", I guess. I was in the gifted programs and pretty much always got straight A's. I actually liked school even though I would occasionally get into trouble for doing things "too fast". On two different occasions, they wanted to bump me up a grade. My family didn't want me to because I was so small and they thought I could learn more and do even better if I spent more time. I still say that was a mistake. By middle school, things were changing as I got a handful of teachers around the same time that were terrible to me. Many people that I've told don't even believe the stories about how awful those three particular teachers were to me. The bottom line is that on a whim, they decided to fail me for the year despite the fact that I'd always had great grades prior to them doing things like throwing away my tests without even grading them. I went to summer school that year and had the all-time highest average in the history of those summer sessions. I went back into the "gifted" side of things when I went back the next year. Timing again intervened and because of what those teachers had done, I wasn't allowed to get into the college prep courses that I should've been able to start. That made school painfully dull for me. I already knew what they were trying to teach and, of course, the boredom turned to mischief and just not caring anymore. So in high school, the principals, guidance counselors and everyone else knew me by name. Of that, I'm sure. I became acquainted with suspensions and all kind of other things I would've never known had I not come across those teachers or had been "moved up" when they suggested it originally. I did have some rather surreal and over the top stories from high school thanks to not caring about the educational side of it anymore but I have a feeling that at least some of my band mates might think that this isn't the right forum to tell those stories.

How many bands have you been in before Critical Darlings?

I wasn't in that many actually. I guess five or so and most of those never performed. My first real performance was at a high school talent show, which we won. Having 800 people on their feet clapping, stopping and screaming for an original called "Scream For No Reason" was enough to solidify whatever it was that got into me in the first place. From that talent show, I guess the rest was more or less inevitable. While in high school I joined a mostly cover band that lasted a bit longer than the rest of high school. Let's see, then there was a band called Q-Sign that was named one of the "best unsigned bands in America" by Musician Magazine and a "joke" group called Star Zero that kind of did what The Darkness did later. Star Zero was a really over the top hard rock group with a full light show and even pyro wherever we went. After that I quit for as long as I could before the vacuum pulled me back into playing.

Is your band name wishful thinking or did you actually have a lot of positive press when you started it?

Hmmm…well, I didn't choose it. The original drummer wanted to call the band "Critic's Darlings" since we were both music critics for Flagpole Magazine in Athens. I said, "Whatever, but I don't want a comma in the name." So it became the Critical Darlings, which worked well enough. I'm still not a big fan of the band name but from what I've learned, most people in bands don't actually like what they're called. It is appropriate enough I guess since we're all hyper-critical and, in my opinion, fairly Darling.

As for positive press and wishful thinking, the truth is that to date, I don't know if we've gotten a bad review yet. They're not all glowing by any means but I'm surprised at how kind everyone has been, especially given our name. I've been waiting for big beat up but it hasn't happened yet. Even Jeff Clark from Stomp And Stammer and Bob Lefsetz (the notoriously prickly author of the music industry's Lefsetz Letter) have given us the thumbs up. Of course, now I've jinxed it and we're going to really get beaten down because of me saying that. Maybe your job is to be the one that really tears us apart, I don't know. But we can take it. And we know we're extraordinarily proud of our brand new album Satisfactionista so it's okay. That's the most important thing to us. Our fans seem to truly love it, too. So if others don't like it, that's alright. There's plenty out there for them and we'll continue to cater to ourselves and those who listen to us.

Part 3 to come soon!