An Interview with the White Tie Affair's Sean-P

The White Tie Affair is America's newest boy band straight out of the Midwest. Like Fall Out Boy, the White Tie Affair mixes catchy lyrics with a rock/pop beat that appeals to the tween to twenty-something crowd. Their first album, Get in Where You Fit in will be released April 22nd by Epic Records.

Founded by guitarist Sean-P and vocalist Chris Wallace, the White Tie Affair released their first single, Mr. Right, on MySpace in November of 2006. The song developed such a huge following on the social networking site that within three months the band was signed and four months later were in LA recording their first album. Since then, the band has been touring non-stop, playing to sold-out shows across the country.

I caught up with Sean-P during a recent break from the road. The White Tie Affair's lead guitarist was busy on the phone making arrangements for the band's upcoming West Coast tour. At one point during the interview, he borrowed my phone and worked two phones simultaneously. Finally, the phones were turned off and he sat down to talk about how The White Tie Affair became a reality and where the band was going from here.

Q: What were your musical influences when you were growing up? What bands did you listen to?
Sean-P: I was into modern, progressive type music, but also pop & R&B. I had some Boys to Men, I had Milli Vanilla when I was a kid. I was really into pop music when I was a kid. As I got older I started getting into rock.

Q: How old were you when you started playing music?
Sean-P: I got my first guitar when I was around twelve.

Q: How old were you when you started your first band? Tell us about the band.
Sean-P: I was fifteen, I think, and I started Nine Cycle with Jeremy, when we were young bucks.

Q: What were the influences of that band?
Sean-P: It was a rock band, a progressive rock scene band. I played guitar and Jeremy played bass.

Q: How many bands between Nine Cycle and The White Tie Affair?
Sean-P: I was in 5 bands.

Q: All progressive rock?
Sean-P: Yeah. Some were more experimental, some were poppy rock.

Q: When did you get together with Chris Wallace?
Sean-P: Chris and I got together about two years ago. I put together my own band and I needed a singer, and I was song writing, so I looked him up. I saw him in a video and heard he was good so I dropped him a email. We shuffled back and forth a couple of times and finally hooked up in another band and were the songwriters in that band. We started our own band cause we wanted to go a little more pop / dance kind of thing.

Q: Where did the name The White Tie Affair come from?
Sean-P: It has a nice ring to it, it just means a white tie affair, the most formal-est of all affairs.

Q: So it's a formal affair?
Sean-P: Well, we don't all wear white ties. I guess its the band that makes the name that makes the band.

Q: You said you and Chris were both the songwriters; how does that work?
Sean-P: One of us will come up and idea and I'll program it. We both write lyrics, we both write the melodies; we both do the guitar riffs. We both do a little of everything, that's why it works well.

Q: How did you get The White Tie Affair's electro-pop sound coming from a progressive rock background?
Sean-P: Even though we've both been in progressive rock bands, we both liked pop as well. I like hip hop, Timbaland, things like that, groove based music. Also bands like Prince and Michael Jackson helped a lot. As far as developing a sound like that, it was a progression of writing that got us to that point where we thought that we could pull something like that off. When you write long enough, you learn that mixing those two sounds together well takes more work.

Q: Is it more difficult to write pop / dance than straight rock?
Sean-P: Blending of the two in my opinion, is not difficult, you just got to know how to do it. There's been plenty of people that have done it before us, I think we've done it a little bit differently but that's just the way it came out. We didn't try to come out that way. It's more than just a mix of pop and rock.

Q: How hard is it to come out with something your audience isn't use to hearing from you?
Sean-P: You definitely get ridiculed by people who don't get what you're doing. A lot of people are scared by what they don't know. But if its good music people are going to appreciate it for what it is. For a new band, one of the things that I've seen that doesn't work is they get a sound and they get a couple of tunes that work well which people appreciate. Then they just want to get out and tour. One of the things that has really helped us has been concentrating on the song writing. We got together a set of solid songs before we went out to play shows. A lot of bands don't want to put that kind of work into it.

Q: You guys have been touring for almost an entire year at this point. How is that going? How important is the touring?
Sean-P: Its been going good. Touring is very important in the sense that you got to get out there so people can hear you. The Internet is a very valuable tool but now that the market is saturated with so many new bands, its not how it used to be anymore. Now the fans have to feel the band. Now with so much competition, bands are willing to do things that they wouldn't do before. Like calling fans on the phone or writing personal emails. You could never do that before. So when you get out and tour, you get to meet the fans; not mention the connections you make with other bands, which can help you. So touring is very important.

Q: Your first song, Mr. Right, came out originally on MySpace. How has the Internet affected your band?
Sean-P: The Internet is everything. You put a song on the Internet and millions of people have access to it and word spreads. A couple of websites helped out as far as getting the buzz going. The Internet is most valuable tool out there for bands right now. Bands are getting record deals and entire fan bases before even hitting the road.

Q: Some of the older established bands seemed to fight the Internet at first but the newer bands seem totally down with it.
Sean-P: Even the record companies have come to the conclusion that there's no stopping it, so they are going with it. It all goes back to what I was saying about being in touch with your fans. People are downloading music, so to get one up on that, you have to be more personable. But as far as downloading goes, to me its when people aren't trying to steal your music is when you got a problem.

Q: Lets go back to touring. The band has been on the road this past year, playing mostly small venues. What is the best thing about playing a smaller club?
Sean-P: The best thing about playing a smaller club is obviously the intimacy, you're right there with the fans. To me, it also helps our playing. Playing a small club, you can literally see everyone and hear them. Also, when the club is packed and the people are really into it, its rocking.

Q: What is the worst part?
Sean-P: The sound systems aren't always the best and the accommodations aren't really that great. [laughs]

Q: Was the Sean Kingston show the biggest you've played so far?
Sean-P: Yeah, it was about twelve hundred.

Q: What was it like looking out at that huge crowd?
Sean-P: The crowd was great. They loved it and we made a lot of new fans from that show. I wish I could have enjoyed it a bit more. It was so hot that day, I felt like I was going to pass out. Hot as hell.

Q: TWTA went onto the studio this fall and recorded their first album. How was it different from other studio work you've done?
Sean-P: Well, I've been in nicer studios before but the difference was that we got to work with a great set of producers, Matt Mahaffey and Jeff Turzo. It was different because we were playing for keeps, not like on a demo that disappears. The creative process there was great, they were great with helping out and doing what they do with production. It was stressful cause you're on a time constraint but it was a lot of fun and a great learning experience.

Q: When is the album coming out?
Sean-P: It will be released April 22nd.

Q: Is there a title for it yet?
Sean-P: Not just yet, there are a few possibilities.

Q: Is there going to be a video?
Sean-P: Yeah, we'll be doing a small one for Mr. Right. It will show up on You Tube and our website, of course.

Q: So what is coming up for TWTA in the next year?
Sean-P: We'll probably be touring all next year, the record is coming out, things will probably be real busy for us. We'll just be touring in 08.

Q: Any thing you want to leave us with? A Sean-ism?
Sean-P: The Sean-ism today is not everybody's boat floats in water. I just made that up.

Q: Uh, okay. Thanks.
Sean-P: You're welcome.

To check out the White Tie Affair's newly released video and hear some of their songs, go to the White Tie Affair's MySpace page or their website, The White Tie Affair.com.