Future Leaders of the World – Interview

LVL IV”-Level Four-the debut from the Buffalo quartet Future Leaders of the World, is a musical testament to the indomitable will of the group’s front man, Phil Tayler.

What makes the album even more remarkable is the poverty, homelessness and despair the 20-year-old artist endured to make his music a reality.

So you grew up in Buffalo?

Yep.

Same here, well Lockport area.

Really? I lived in Amherst.

I know the area well.

I went to school in North Tonawanda for a while, too.

Where do you call home now, besides the road?

Where I am right now actually. (We both laugh) I don’t really have a place to live right now. I want to move to Brooklyn. I have to find a place to live.

I didn’t know if you were calling Buffalo home still.

Definitely not. My last place of residence was Chicago.

The thing is once you get out of the Buffalo area, I don’t live there anymore either, you realize there is a lot more in the world than that area.

Yeah, and I always knew that and that is why I left. I had a feeling.

Do you ever get back there? I’ve been back only about two times in five years.

I stayed there this summer.

What do your friends think?

It’s all good. It never changes.

Nothing changes there.

(Laughs) Exactly, nothing changes there.

Did you know move to start a band or move to get out of Western New York?

Music was the only thing I had passion for and thought that I was good at in anyway. I went out to San Fran to try and make it happen.

That is a big risk—moving and trying to make it in a band. Did you say “the hell with it, I’m going to make it happen?”

Yeah. I thought whatever it took I was going to make it happen. I’m still doing that right now.

When you left Buffalo were people positive or where they telling you that you’d never make it?

I wasn’t really in contact with people. I was pretty isolated. I just squeaked my way out of high school and stayed in my friend’s attic and went to two classes and when I graduated I sold my ’88 Honda Civic and took my $500 and moved to San Fran.

You probably could have driven out there for less than $500 with the gas mileage that car probably got.

(Laughs) You’re probably right. My friends though it was crazy but wished me good luck.

How long after you showed up in San Fran did you get signed?

I was eighteen and got signed when I was twenty. It took about two years to get a demo deal.

That’s not bad at all.

It was two years when I made the demo and then 2 and a half years I was signed and it was three years when I made the record and now it’s been four years. It’s taken four years to get the record out.

When did you put the band together?

The band formed around the demo. I made the demo and the label wanted me to put a band together. I found the drummer in Buffalo and the band has been together for about two years.

That is wild that you had a demo deal before you had a band together. That is rare.

They liked the songs. We had studio musicians come in and I wrote the guitars.

How did you get the demo in the label’s hands?

I was working for a company called Progressive Campaigns working on environmental issues. I met someone who had their own independent label and the founding member of the label and was in an R&B group from the early ‘90s called Az Yet. I went downtown and played them songs and they let me sleep in the studio for a month and a half and record the demo with them. I did the demo and went to a Puddle of Mudd show and got the demo to somebody who knew someone at a label and got me money to make a professional label.

That is wild.

It is. After that I made the demo and I went back to Buffalo for two or three months and the label didn’t know if they wanted to do anything with it and then Epic picked it up and gave me a demo deal and I was playing with the drummer I have now and bassist. So we went back and wrote a few songs and got signed.

It’s interesting how different every artist’s story is. People write us asking how they can get signed, but every story is completely different. There is no set way to get signed to a label.

It was over the span of a couple of years and even during the process it was slow. Everything has been a gradual walk up the mountain.

I think a lot of people may have given up well before you did. I think people think there is a timeframe or buy a book and think it’s a way to get signed. I never heard a successful band who said they bought those books on how to get signed and got signed.

Exactly. I think you just make the best music you can and then go out and try to make something happen. If nothing happens then go back to the drawing board and work on your skills. If you really believe in your music then there is someone who is going to help you if it’s good.

+ Charlie Craine