The Falcon Lords strike out against boredom at JJ's: full Q&A

In addition to patrolling the streets looking for those who would sow the seeds of discord and injustice, Atlanta rock/hip-hop trio The Falcon Lords strive every night to sever the oppressive chains of boredom wrapped around audiences.

Before he takes up the fight (and his pick) at JJ's Bohemia on Saturday, however, guitarist Lord Falconhorn found the time to answer a few questions.

CP: The best place to start with any superhero team is with their origin story. What's yours?

LF: The Falcon Lords have been doing this their whole lives. We've only been performing live music, though, for the last couple of yeas. We find it to be a very therapeutic way to relax after a long day of crime fighting. We started the band a few years ago. Our tour that kicks off next month will be the two-year anniversary of our live concerts.

CP: How did you meet Lord Falconrod and Lady Falcon Flame?

LF: Well, we're all related. There will be a song on the second record that goes into more detail about how we became super heroes and got our powers. On a really basic level, we're all siblings, and we all fell off Niagara Falls together and were raised by falcons. Then, we went on to live on the streets in urban centers. That's how we got into fighting crime.

CP: Which came first, music or your work as superheroes?

LF: No, we definitely started with super powers and fighting crime and social justice, things like that. We've worked really closely with a lot of non-profits throughout our history. In fact, about eight out of ten of our concerts we play are benefits for non-profits. Every couple months, we help new non-profits raise money. It's a really important facet of our existence, besides fighting robots and monsters and stuff. In fact, one of the major ways we're able to be super heroes is by supporting non-profits and doing things for homeless shelters and food banks and things like that.

CP: What are some organizations you've helped out?

LF: We've done benefits for women's shelters through Push and done benefits for a couple of the more art-oriented non-profits here in Atlanta like Wonderroot and I-Drum.

CP: Which is the more glamorous profession, being a musician or being a superhero?

LF: I don't think that we're really in it for the glamour. I think we're in it for the long haul, the hard work and the toil. Something about committing to a body of work, your life force's sum total of output, that's important to us. I don't know if we're doing it for glamour or fame or money.

CP: You may not be in it for those things, but have you become famous to any degree as a result of your work?

LF: It's funny how intertwined these two lives have become. Some of the best benefit work we did turned into the best moves for our music career. One example is how we hooked up with our producer, Graham Marsh, who is a major label producer for guys like Lionel Richie and people like that. We did a lot of benefit work and food drives as part of this community service challenge in Atlanta, and ended up donating so much food and contributing so many volunteer hours that we ended up winning some studio time with Graham. He ended up falling in love with the concept of our music and doing a great job of mixing and mastering our record. That's one of the benefits of the activism career. They both ended up being intertwined there in a beautiful way. It's the type of thing they want to encourage. It seems like the time we spent volunteering has been the most valuable of our lives.

CP: What's the most heroic thing you've done?

LF: You know, we're not joking about the crime-fighting thing. We don't go out looking for trouble, but if trouble tries to happen around us, it will not stand.

We were out flyering for a concert in Atlanta at the Drunken Unicorn one night, and we heard some girls screaming and calling for help, and they weren't joking, they sounded like they were really in trouble. When we came upon them, we found some crazy crack head trying to attack them and touch them and hit them, and they were trying to make him stop but he wouldn't. We came up on this guy, and he ran off. We called the cops and got the ladies home and went out with the cops looking for the guy with a searchlight.

In terms of our crime fighting career, something like that feels so much more important than being in a band. If we can even save one person from having a really horrible experience like that, everything we've ever worked for was worth it. If trouble tries to rear it's head, we'll stop it.

CP: In your song "Falcon Surprise," you mention the Falcon Jet, which seems to suggest that you can't fly. If that's the case, what are your super powers?

LF: Oh well, that's easy. We have that all worked out, but it took us a while to really figure it out. For a while, we just felt like we were normal people with secret identities playing rock music, but eventually our powers did reveal themselves.

My power is the ability to eat nightmares and make visions real on Earth. That's generally what I do. I take hold of nightmares and haul out all the bad visions and leave the good visions. It's an ability I've learned through dedication and discipline. Stories of Black Elk and stories about his life have informed a lot of what I do creatively and as a crime fighter.

Lady Falcon Flame's power is the high kick. She has devoted her life to melting your face. Lord Falconrod is the exact duplicate of the astronomy that's in space. That speaks for itself and how deep a guy he is. He's totally deep and unsurpassable.

We actually have a new character. This is our first tour with a new character, our long lost sibling, Falcon X. He's only played half a dozen concerts with us. We were recently reunited when we played with Captured By Robots (a San Francisco-based electro-metal band). They defeated us, and Falcon X came to the rescue. He's been on tour with us ever since.

He's a really great, really talented guy. We're glad to bring him on in all the ways we do. His super power is Falcon Sense, which is a mysterious force. He plays acoustic guitar and does digital percussion. And everybody does vocals, so sometimes, we do four-part harmonies.

CP: Why falcons? Is it because of Atlanta and the Atlanta Falcons?

LF: Honestly, that was an after thought. We didn't recognize the connection with the football club until recently. Just like any other super shamanic tradition, we didn't chose the falcon, the falcon chose us. It was never a question that we would be represented by the falcon. The falcon definitely chose us.

We have actually had some interest shown from the Flacons football club in the last couple of months. Their side has been contacting us trying to license "Falcon Surprise" as an official song of the Atlanta Falcons. They've already prepared, mixed and mastered a TV edit. We're working with our licensing house to get a safe deal on that. Obviously, that would be incredible exposure for us.

The Falcons have tried to have us in different official songs, and a lot of them weren't so good as "Falcon Surprise," so they would really luck out if they were able to secure that.

CP: Is that definite or just in a potential development?

LF: It's something that's in the works. They've expressed interest from their end, as have some of the networks like Fox Sports, as have the people in the stadium who are in charge of music. We have a licensing group out in California working on that for us.

CP: Do you guys have an arch nemesis?

LF: We have a few, but I think the main one that keeps coming up and rearing its head is the mayor of Falcon City. Falcon City is a real place; it's a city in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates that's built to look like a falcon from the sky. It's got condos in the wings and a shopping mall in the head, and they've even rebuilt versions of the seven wonders of the world there.

We used to work for the mayor of Falcon City, helping him clean up the mean streets, and only when we put away the last few crooks that we realized the mayor was actually the biggest crook in town. He was really just using us to put away all the competition. That's why we fled to Atlanta and made it our base of operations. We figured we'd lay low, and the best way to lay low is to start a rock band since no one pays attention to local indie bands. We figured that would be the best way to make sure no one knew where we were.

CP: Where do you find inspiration for your songs?

LF: I think when we first started the band, and for the songs on the first record, they really did come from our fantastical background dealing with all these crazy creations and robots and the mayor. I think everything on the record really does tie into something that actually happened. These things didn't take place in some fantasy world in our heads. They're at least a metaphor for real events in our lives.

That trend is going to continue in the songs for the second record, only now, they're informed by this existence where we're actually a band going out to play shows and going on tour and having these musical adventures at different venues all over the country. It's about all these different bands we play with and audiences we play for on and the crazy stuff that happens on our musical adventures. Our adventures are nutty enough to provide plenty of fodder when it comes time to write new songs. We have lots of real experiences to draw from.

CP: You said earlier that the next record will tell what amounts to your origin story on it. Why wait until the second issue (album) to tell that tale?

LF: You know, I guess there are a couple of different reasons. A lot of the Stan Lee style stuff did start with the origins and there are other comics that leave the mystery and leave things ambiguous. We felt like it was a pop move to leave some things so that listeners and fans could attach their own meaning to what we had to say.

There's something to be said sometimes for leaving things mysterious and revealing the origin in a later issue. That also happens in the comic book world a lot, too. We didn't want to bolt down the listener with specifics too early in when, really, it could be whatever they wanted to make out of it.

CP: Do you think that will give fans a new perspective on tracks from the first album?

LF: I think so because there are things we might reference in a single phrase on the first record that might get their own song on the second record. Then, perhaps, those whole phrases we just casually drop will give a new level of meaning on the next round.

CP: Have you got a name picked out for the second record?

LF: No, we haven't even started tracking it yet. "Volcano Lair" only came out seven or eight weeks ago. We'll be touring on that one for a while. A lot of the songs for the second record have already been written. We have pretty much all the material, but it takes a long time to make an album. It took us almost a year between getting signed up with the producer, tracking, mixing, mastering, getting all the artwork done and publishing it. We'd like to have another record out by this time next year. It's almost time to start cutting that next record.

CP: Does this mean Falcon X will be involved on the next record?

LF: That's the intention, yes. Both he and our producer, Ricky Falcone, will take larger roles on the next record. What we avoided on the first album was having a lot of guest stars. It can be fabulous having a lot of guest musicians, but on your first album, you want to prove that you can do it without them.

What that does, though, is that, on the second record, we might feel more free to take on a lot of guest musicians, use lots of different kinds of arrangements and instrumentation and give and be generous and give larger writing and performing duties to our producer and Falcon X.

CP: James Callahan created a comic book of your (mis)adventures to go along with your first album. What was it like seeing your tales of daring do depicted that way?

LF: It was awesome, actually, I have to say. There's the actualization of putting on your super hero costume and hitting the street to patrol, but to see it made fantasy is another thing entirely. Normally, it goes the other way and starts as a fantasy and then, in rare cases, emerges into the real world where you see some comic book character walking down the street.

For us, it really was the opposite. The Falcon Lords were real people in the real world, and then we were transferred into the realm of fantasy. That's what was so cool about what James Callahan and our lead animator, Chris Miller, did.

To see the work James did was excellent. It's was so great because we've never met him and he doesn't know us and we didn't sit over his shoulder and instruct him and send back hundreds of revisions. We saw some of his artwork on a skateboard at an art show once and thought it was cool. We looked him up and thought his body of work was very interesting, so we contacted him and he was interested.

We let him run, and what he brought back was fantastic. It's a fully illustrated, 16-page comic book with all the lyrics to all the songs. It's included in the price.

That's one of the things. If you're going to bother and try and sell a physical copy of a CD to somebody, there better be a reason because getting the audio isn't really enough. People can obtain audio in any number of ways these days, so if they're going to get the physical copy, there needs to be something they can't get through the Internet.

We thought it would be cool to bring a really insane package that demonstrates our patronage of the arts and takes our real life adventures into the world of fantasy.

CP: By letting him work so autonomously, were you at all concerned he would get the details of your adventures wrong?

LF: We would've been, if he hadn't been so talented. That's the thing. He's never met us, so he doesn't know that the Falcon Lords like to not only unwind by playing music after a day of crime fighting but also pound back a few drinks. He's never met us before, but the comic book is just littered with us double-fisting drinks all the time. I'm waking up with a martini in my hand in almost every panel. Somehow, he was able to intuit that from our lyrics and our audio files alone. He grew to find his own method for knowing us, and we were so satisfied with it that we didn't have to become all editorial with him.

CP: Do the costumes ever get in the way on stage?

LF: They're like a second skin; it's like they're not even there. It's kind of like being naked, actually. It's as close to being on stage naked as is legal ... probably. (Laughs.) They generally don't get in the way, but there's a sensation you get when you've had the mask on for 16 hours and then take it off. It feels like it's still on for another eight hours.

You really have to watch out if you're out in the sun like we were in Asheville, where we played a convention last Saturday. It was really sunny out, and we were worried because we didn't have any sunscreen, and we were concerned that if we took the masks off, we would have a little tan line. (Laughs.) You have to watch out for stuff like that.

No, the costumes don't get in the way. It's not just stage wear. It really does kind of represent our brand and the fact that we do this as a lifestyle choice. We don't just wear them on stage. We wear them around town while we're out meeting and greeting fans and making sure everyone is safe. It's a big part of our lifestyle and our brand.

I don't know if other bands have this where they can just walk down the street and everyone wants to meet them and find out about them and take pictures with them. I don't know that that happens with other bands.

When we were in Texas, we probably had 400 photo ops over the course of a few days. People were stopping us left and right wanting to take photos with us. We couldn't make it down 6th Avenue without people wanting to take pictures with us.

CP: What were you there for? A festival?

LF: We went out there for SXSW. Our record had just come out, and we lined up a few key locations. The thing about Austin, Texas at that time of the year is that it's a microcosm of the international music scene. Everyone in the world gets compressed on that one spot. To not be in that spot would just be a crime, especially with having a record just out. We went ahead and made the effort to be out there and be represented as part of that event. It was really important to be out there.

CP: If you or an audience member were attacked during a show, how would you react? Would your super hero instincts force you to act immediately or would you finish out the set in true rock star fashion?

LF: You know, there's always that little conflict of interest, isn't there? Must the show really go on or should we go defeat the villain? It's something we're always faced with because any time we're on stage we could be out wrestling to secure social justice.

Since there are four of us now, I think any of the Falcons would be strong enough to secure that situation. Probably, one of us would leap off stage to end the problem, and the other three would keep the show going. I think we can do both now that we have the man power.

CP: Are there any circumstances under which you would reveal your secret identities? What would you do if someone were to discover your identities unaided?

LF: The reasons that secret identities exist for super heroes in comic books apply to us as well. It's to protect us our families and friends from harassment or reprisals for the work we do. That's very important.

There's also the hidden facet where The Falcon Lords may become fairly famous, but their secret identities are completely anonymous. We can walk down the street in our home town as our alter egos, and no one recognizes us as members of the Falcon Lords. That's very comforting that we can continue to lead normal lives, and the celebrity doesn't have the potential to ruin our lives like it does for everyone else. That's really nice.

As far as revealing our secret identities is concerned, we hope that never happens. The only way that would happen is if someone were to out us, which has happened to other heroes. We don't want to invite that on ourselves. We hope to never have to do that unless there was some dramatic benefit of doing so that would really fit in with our objectives about social order and social justice and so that our families and friends were protected. That's the only way we could feel comfortable doing it.

CP: Who are some of your superhero peers you look up to?

LF: There have been a lot of great things in the comic book world. We're big fans of the comic book creators like Steve Ditko and Jack Kriby and Stan Lee. We're also big fans of cartoons, the old school cartoons like the Hanna-Barbera stuff, and the more edgy stuff like "Ren and Stimpy" that aren't super heroes at all but still inform a zaniness we like to tap into.

That's one of the main things we try and get across with all this stuff. It's not political, and it's not this depressing drama. Out of all the other popular bands these days, the main thing we bring to the table when we play is fun. We find that severely lacking in most bands. There are so many awesome sounding bands out there but very few of them are actually fun. We were so tired of being in bands that were overly political or angry. We really just wanted to make sure that if people came to see us, it was because it was actually going to be fun. That was one of the main things we wanted to bring to the table.

Every different Falcon Lord has their own favorite super heroes. I like The Punisher, for example, and not just because of his alleged brutality but because he was just a guy who didn't have any powers or any miraculous protection. He was just a guy who wasn't going to take it anymore. That's something I can relate to.

My other hero isn't a comic book characters. The main character I derive a lot of inspiration from is Black Elf, the Native American shaman because of the things he had to say about visions and making them real on Earth. That informs everything I do that's artistic. We have this vision in our minds, this dream, and then we go out and reenact what we saw in our spirit vision and make it real. That seems to be what every artist is doing. That's what represents creation for me.

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