Semi Precious Weapons Goes on Tour

© todd owyoung

Just a few short years ago Justin Tranter was selling jewelry in order to fund his band Semi Precious Weapons, a group of male rockers known in the NYC underground party scene for their loud guitars, howling vocals, and high-heeled shoes. When on tour, SPW would drive their own van and book their own shows, stopping in every small bar that would allow them to perform. But what a difference a few years can make; the band is currently in Japan while on tour with Lady Gaga. Gone are the days of self-promotion and van driving, traded in for planes and agents and roadies. But the loud guitars, howling vocals, and, of course, the high heeled shoes, remain. 

So you are on tour right now. How is it going?

We are on a tour of the whole world with the one and only Lady Gaga. And between Japan and Europe we have two weeks off, so we figured instead of relaxing or something like that we would come back to America and play a round of shows there. So it will be kind of awesome to play those four shows, we have LA, New York, Boston and Chicago, and for those we will be headlining. We have been doing amazing half hour sets for Gaga but obviously it’s a whole different thing to play a 45 minute to an hour long set on our own and we can’t wait. We love a long guitar solo, I love to get out into the audience and get with the fans and those are some things we haven’t been able to do during the Gaga tour so we are really really excited about it.

Do you feel a big difference between how you perform as an opener versus how you perform during a headlining show?

We give it our all no matter what, whether we are headlining or not we still go nuts, we break our necks and break our voices and all that good stuff, so we really go for it whether we are opening or headlining. We did play America with Gaga, so it will be a lot of fun to go back on our own now; we also toured America so much way back when we were a bit lesser known, driving everywhere in our van, so we are excited to go back and play the clubs that are a little bit bigger than we are used to headlining. We are excited to see all these Gaga kids at our rock and roll show.

You are such a dynamic group on stage and your image and presence is so strong, do you feel that these things are important for the fans to get the whole Semi Precious Weapons experience?

Totally. I have been writing songs since I was a teenager and I love it so much- I really write them all to perform. We love our album and we are so proud of it and we feel as if we have finally made an album that sounds like us, but to us the most important thing is the live show. It really is a “show” and if you are coming to see a band in person, then they should really entertain you. If you go to see a band perform and they are boring you might as well just play their CD. We really like to perform its our favorite thing to do.

You mention that you are traveling in style now and that it’s a big change, I have heard people say that touring is the hardest part of the gig.

 It’s funny, everyone always says to make sure that you take time for yourself and make sure you take time to relax, but for what we were used to… we spent three years in a van, driving ourselves, selling our own merchandise, booking our own shows. Now we are confused about how tired the bigger people are while touring arenas. I mean its like, how are you so tired? What are you doing? We aren’t even allowed to move our own gear according to certain laws, so what the fuck is it that makes you so tired? You can’t move your own amp even if you wanted to! So we are energized and excited and just want to keep going.

You guys originally started your band in New York and went to school in Boston, two liberal places that would be less shocked by the image of a rocker performing in a dress. So what sort of reactions do you get from the crowds in middle America?

It’s actually amazing, the people in the Midwest and so called “middle America” are just really wonderful. They really like rock and roll. So they get over the fact that I am in pantyhose and heels really quickly because they are so impressed by the guitar solo that they are hearing. No matter where we play a lot of people love our shows because they are a lot of fun, but you know there are a good handful of people who hate it and we are okay with that. They hate us because of racial issues or they hate us because our guitars are loud, but we are all for it. I think we believe that all rock and roll… all good rock and roll should be all over and people should really love it or hate it.

As long as they have a strong reaction either way.

Exactly.

Tell me about your new album.

Tranter: Well since our live show is so important to what we do, it’s really hard to translate that onto a recording. All of the recordings we did earlier were with our own money in small studios so it was difficult for us to translate the energy and the ridiculousness of our live shows to a record. This record we made in a big studio in LA and Jack Joseph Puig produced it and he really understood what we wanted, which was party dance, filthy, upbeat, crazy music. Rock and roll with dance to it. And we (the band members) did go to Berkley together so we do actually understand the elements that go into it, the rock and roll and the filthiness of it. We take it seriously. So we were just finally working with the right producer who understood us and in the right studio, and we finally feel like this is the first record we have done that sounds like Semi Precious Weapons.

What is next for Semi Precious Weapons?

Tranter: Well we do the mini headline tour and then we go back to Europe with Gaga and then our record comes out in America on June 22nd, and then we tour all over America with Gaga, and then we will just keep on touring with the genius that is Gaga, and our goal is to bring rock and roll back to the beat street. So that is what we are hoping for 2010, to be the most loved and the most hated band in the world, and bring that all back to the beat street.