Still After You: A Chat with Andy Waldeck (Egypt, Earth to Andy)

Egypt Discography:

Soul Hammer (Trumpeter Records, 1994)

Drowning in the Promised Land (Trumpeter Records, 1996)

Earth to Andy Discography:

Earth to Andy (Voluptuous Records, 1997)

Simple Machine (Voluptuous Records, 1998)

Chronicle Kings (Giant, 1999)

Sticks the Landing (Voluptuous Records, 2003)

Andy Waldeck is quite the man; starting out in the VA fan favorite Egypt (featuring singer Jeff Broadnax, formerly of 24-7 Spyz) and when that band essentially flamed out, he started Earth to Andy. That band has already been discussed here previously with bassist Chris Reardon but it was nice to get the story of the band's singer and his other projects as well. Since ETA also met an early end, he has collaborated with the likes of Daughtry, David Cook and 12 Stones among others. Quite the renaissance man, Andy has quite the story to tell and I was happy he was willing to share it all with me and now all of you.

Pete Crigler: How did you get interested in music?

Andy Waldeck: When I was eight years old I saw a film of Jimi Hendrix on TV. I’m not sure what concert it was or what television show it was, but I was immediately hooked. I knew that I wanted to make music my life and truly, I have never turned away from that dream, and I have turned it into my reality. 

Pete: Tell me about how Egypt came together.

Andy: I met Joe Lawlor at Berklee College of Music in the summer of 1984. Shortly after he moved back to the Washington DC area where I was living with my family at the time. We tried several times to start up the band that we collectively had envisioned. After several flops, we finally started to realize our vision of a band that mixed funk and rock in equal parts together. Even though Egypt went through many different lineups, and players, it was always Joe and I pushing for our collective goals.

Pete: What was it like making Soul Hammer?

Andy: Making Soul Hammer was a great success for us, because Egypt had a reputation as an amazing and dynamic live band. Even though we had tried to capture the magic of our stage performance in recordings, we had never realized our potential in the studio until we made Soul Hammer. We had signed an independent record deal with a small label out of Virginia Beach called Trumpeter Records. The owner, Tres Swann, really believed in Egypt and was very instrumental in helping us produce and record that first record. When it was done I knew that we would look back fondly, and have no regrets about the work we had done in making that record. Also, Jeff Brodnax our awesome singer had just joined the band that year, so we were able to record some of Jeff’s songs as well as the ones that Joe and I had written.

Pete: What caused the band to break up?

Andy: Egypt had been touring pretty much the same regions from Florida to New York with the occasional trip to Colorado for many years. We had some very dedicated fans and we will always be grateful for their support. However I started to have different thoughts about what I wanted to do with my creative spark. The band has always been, and remains to this day, great friends. So our demise was not based on any interpersonal issues at all. I just started feeling like I needed to do something different with my creative energy.

Pete: How did Earth to Andy get started?

Andy: While touring with Egypt for those many years, we always had an acoustic guitar in the back of the van. Even though I have been playing bass since I was 10 years old, I just started picking up the guitar and teaching myself some chords. I found it very easy to write melodic material on the guitar so I pursued it vigorously. I knew that once Egypt had disbanded, I would immediately begin putting together the next project. I switched from bass to rhythm guitar and the lead singer position for Earth To Andy.

I had so many songs written that weren’t the right kind of material for Egypt so when I began putting the new ideas together they sort of took on a life and a personality of their own. Thus began Earth to Andy.

Pete: What was the local scene like at the time?

Andy: Towards the end of Egypt‘s tenure, Joe and I had moved from Northern Virginia where the band was based out of, to Charlottesville. It was a decision based mostly on the downtime in between touring. Northern Virginia was becoming extremely crowded and traffic was and still is insane. So we wanted to have a more relaxing environment to be in when we were not touring with Egypt. So, when Earth to Andy was born it was out of Charlottesville. At the time the Dave Matthews Band was becoming an internationally known supergroup. And even though musically we were very different from them we still felt a sense of pride in being from this little town there was producing some very amazing music at the time. In addition to the creative flow that exists in Charlottesville, our drummer Kevin Murphy‘s sister Dana had just purchased the large nightclub near UVA Hospital called Trax. So we were able to rehearse at Trax and hone our live show on a big stage instead of the typical basement or garage where most bands are born out of. We got a lot of support on a local level from music fans other bands, club owners etc. etc. 

After a year or so of playing at Trax, opening for lots and lots of national acts, we were able to play our own headlining shows here in town. Soon after we started selling out Trax whenever we played. This brought the interest of Coran Capshaw the manager of the Dave Matthews Band and the leader of Red Light Management. He offered us a management contract and we gladly signed.

Pete: What was it like making those first few indie records?

Andy: The early records were incredibly fun and creative to make. Both Tony and Chris were excellent engineers and producers, and had a bunch of really high-quality gear to record on. We spent as much time in Chris’s basement recording tracks and demos that later became album tracks as we did practicing for the live show. We used to go back to Chris’s after playing in say New York City on a Friday night and spend all Saturday and Sunday recording the new songs.

Pete: What was songwriting like within the band?

Andy: In the beginning, and for most of our career I was the primary songwriter. Although all the guys in the band contributed greatly to all the successful material that we recorded and released, most of the ideas at that time were mine. I always considered it my job to continually write new songs and come up with creative new musical ideas to bring to those guys. And truly nothing that we did would be anywhere near as good as it was without everybody’s input and everybody’s personality involved.

Pete: How did the band come to sign with Giant and how do you feel about now?

Andy: Well, it is bittersweet. When we signed with Giant Records we felt elated about crossing the threshold that all bands dream of: getting signed to a major label. At the time when we were starting to meet all the people at the label we felt very good about their support for the band and their interpretation of what we were trying to do as a musical group. The reality of Giant Records and Earth To Andy became evident fairly early on. The label flew me out to LA a couple weeks before the band was due to arrive to record Chronicle Kings. While I was there I met a musical director for films and TV named Bruce Burman. He was the musical director for a sequel film that was coming out called “Heavy Metal 2.” If you remember the original “Heavy Metal” it was all old-school 70s and 80s metal with a cartoon movie. Well the second one was supposed to be the same kind of movie but with modern heavy-metal artists I can’t remember all the bands that were on the list but I remember Monster Magnet and Rob Zombie were on the playlist. Bruce showed me a section of the movie that was not finished and had no audio to it and I wrote “Still After You” for the movie. Unfortunately when our A&R guy at Giant heard the song he was convinced that it should be our first single. The band, management, and myself all realized this was a big mistake. I had written a song on the heavy side to fit in with the other artists on the soundtrack. I knew it was way too heavy and aggressive for Earth to Andy’s first single.

Pete: What was it like making Chronicle Kings?

Andy: Making Chronicle Kings was a very awesome experience. We were in the studio with world renowned producer Nick Launay and very capable house engineers in the place we worked. We took our time making the record and really dug our heels in to make everything exactly the way we wanted it and when we finally heard the mixes done by Chris Lord-Alge we were blown away. I actually secretly cried at one of those listening sessions because I was so overwhelmed by hearing our music sound so amazing.

Pete: What was 'success' like?

Andy: Success is a funny word. I think it means a lot of different things to different people. For me over the years, it has meant many different things as well. I have felt successful standing in front of thousands of people playing my music. I have also felt successful standing in front of my 10-year-old kid and playing him a song too. I feel successful now because I get to do a lot of writing and recording and producing for other people. I’m glad that I’ve been able to use the skills that I developed over many years to make great music as a support mechanism for other artists.

Pete: How was it touring with STP?

Andy: Touring with STP was amazing. As a band they have always been at the top of their game, however, their singer Scott Weiland has had so many demons with drug abuse that he has been in and out of greatness. When we were on tour with them he had just come back from rehab. He was absolutely sober and absolutely amazing night after night I watched from the wings of whatever theater or show we were playing with them. They were incredibly inspiring to be on tour with because watching them play all those hits that we grew up on was fascinating and exciting.

Pete: How did the band end their relationship with Giant?

Andy: Badly…..Giant Records was founded by Irving Azoff, the well-known Los Angeles-based music manager. The parent company was Warner Bros. which Giant used for distribution, radio, marketing and development. About a year after ETA got signed, and our record had just been released, Irving Azoff decided he did not want to run a record label anymore. Bands that were on Giant Records and had made the company money in the past, got moved over to Reprise Records or the parent company Warner Bros. Since ETA had just been signed and a record just released, we hadn’t made any money for the label, thus we were dropped.

Pete: What was it like within the band when making Sticks the Landing?

Andy: Making Sticks was great. We were free from the record label constraints, and their unfortunate input. We made the record in our own studio at our own pace putting lots of songs on the record that had been written for the second Giant release.

Pete: What was it like making your solo records?

Andy: Making the solo records was very fun for me. I really couldn’t imagine making another rock record like Earth to Andy without those guys. So I went the opposite direction and did my first solo record called Offering with just acoustic guitar, vocal, and piano on one track. It was very stripped down and very lean. My second solo record, Long on Summer, had more instrumentation on it, but again I went for a slightly more jazzy funky vibe than the Earth To Andy stuff.  

Pete: What was it like working with David Cook and Daughtry?

Andy: Those guys were great. They are both amazing singers with very talented musicians surrounding them. My thing with Chris was born out of a friendship from way back in the early days. He was attending school at Fluvanna high school when ETA was selling out Trax. Back then having an unknown local band open up for us in front of our big crowd was unheard of. Normally we would have saved that slot for a band in our position but from another city. One we could trade shows with to try to build audiences in new cities. Then one day Chris asked if his band Cadence could open up for Andy and we let them. Fast forward to years later, Chris has done American Idol and his first record had sold 8 million copies. He called me from tour and told me that he always loved my song “Riding” and could we get together and write for his second record, which we did. One of the songs we wrote called “Every Time You Turn Around,” made it onto his second record, Leave This Town. It was great for me because I got offers from publishing companies to represent me as a writer. I eventually signed with Sony/ATV and that is my publisher to this day. They also got me connected with other artist to write with, and for. And that’s where David Cook comes in. He was writing for his next release and I met with him several times in Nashville, and Chris Reardon was part of that as well. We wrote nine or 10 songs with David. And I think his record Digital Vein has five cuts on it that I cowrote in one form or another.

 Andy and Chris Reardon as Killer Deluxe

Pete: What are your memories of Tony?

Andy: I have so many fond memories of Tony it’s hard to know where to begin. His passing was very hard on all of us, and even though he had moved to Nashville and we hadn’t played together in many years, we were still very good friends. I will say that without a doubt my own guitar playing improved vastly with his guidance. He had an amazing sense of what to play for any given part in a song and I learned so much. 

Pete: What are you currently up to?

Andy: Right now I have a live band called E3 that plays mostly events on the weekends. I have Nate Brown from the band Everything playing drums and singing, and a newer younger guy named Aaron Sheldon playing guitar and singing. We are a three-piece band and it makes traveling and setting up very easy. I am also continually writing with Chris Reardon and other people to present songs for artists that need songs. On the homefront I have a beautiful new studio and I produce a lot of artists from there. I run ProTools, have a large guitar and bass collection at the ready, and lots and lots of keyboard and synth sounds in the can.

Pete: What has it meant being a musician from Virginia?

Andy: I’m very proud to be part of the musical fabric of Virginia. I didn’t know when I moved down to Virginia after college that it would be my home for as long as it has been. There is a great and vast musical tapestry in the state and a wonderful camaraderie amongst the different players, artists, and side musicians.

Pete: What do you hope your musical legacy will be?

Andy: I would like to be remembered as someone who took chances, and was not afraid to push the boundaries and different genres, and actually, for a short time, had the brass ring in my hand. All that said though, I think the most important thing is we finally remembered as somebody who was really good at one thing in life, and for me that has been music. I have always said that you don’t choose music as your lifestyle. It chooses you.