Santa Cruz’s return gig received a lot of attention on social media. Now the band’s beaker released a video telling him what the backing tapes were all about.
The Santa Cruz band made the expected comeback last week when the revamped band performed at the Whiskey A Go Go Club in Los Angeles. The band received attention, but not in a very positive light.
The band’s first gig with a new line-up in 2019 caused a stir. American music journalist and radio presenter Eddie Trunk wrote tweets criticizing the band’s performance. The use of backing strips came to the fore.
– I have long opposed the use of tapes by bands on Live. And how fans and promoters just accept “live shows” and are willing to pay for them. This is how bad this has become. Is this okay for everyone ?! Incomprehensibly! Trunk wrote and shared a video of the Santa Cruz gig.
Santa Cruz’s frontman Archie Cruz aka Arttu Kuosmanen, 30, published a picture of the gig on Instagram, and criticism continued in the commentary section.
– The performance was terrible, comments are criticized.
– However, remember to train your songs before you go touring, the comments suggest.
However, many fans of the band have defended Kuosma and encouraged him to keep the flag high.
Kuosmanen was horrified by the comments and sniffed in the stories section of Instagram. He posted a video to his Instagram account in which he also gives an example of his own playing and singing, and then plays the backing tape from the machine for comparison.
Kuosmanen commented
Kuosmanen answered Iltalehti’s call on 13 April. The singer says the band uses background tapes to enhance the sound world of the performance in addition to playing and singing, which is common at big band gigs. Santa Cruz, however, did not have his own vocalist involved this time, and the backing tape of one song was mixed too hard and at the wrong pace, from which the fuss began. The band plans to continue using the backing tracks, but with their own voice.
Kuosmanen is surprised by the negative attention received by the gig and its extent. The gig had a good atmosphere and the feedback from the spectators on site has been mostly good. Negative feedback has only come from people who have seen videos of the show on social media, he said.
– The debate has turned into a bit of a lynch. Social media is easy to paint. One should now try to take advantage of this publicity and pull the next gig so well that everyone goes to the flour mouth.
In Kuosmanen’s opinion, the scale of the discussion has gone to extremes, considering that it was one of the wrong performances and the first gig of the new line-up. He adds that all the members of the band were excited, which could also be heard in the playing.
– Now, in my opinion, it goes to the peak that it was the first gig of that line-up. Errors are happening.
Kuosmanen said earlier on Instagram that using background tapes would be just a publicity stunt. He now admits that he said the comment only with a joke, and did not mean it literally.
Santa Cruz broke up in 2018 in a quarrel. Kuosmanen is the only original member of the current line-up. The singer says that the return was also negotiated with the old members, but Kuosmanen ended up continuing with the new US callers. Santa Cruz is currently focusing on touring in the U.S., so working with U.S. callers is easier for practical reasons.