Colour Revolt’s Jesse Coppenbarger on songs, how to not get sick of playing them

Photo by Kaiya Morrison of Colour Revolt performing at The Spanish Moon in Baton Rouge.

Honesty is a universal favorite policy, and at the root of that favoritism is truth. If you’ve heard anything by Colour Revolt, you’re aware that they share that root, but if you ask them about it, it’s pretty hard for them to explain.

In a six-month stretch of 2010, the Mississippi-based band lost three of its five members – two in the same day – and still put out an album by the end of the year. The first track of The Cradle, “8 Years,” is a candid and raw outpouring of how frontman Jesse Coppenbarger felt when two members of the band quit, giving no mercy and sparing no detail. That’s track one.

That dedication to truth is reflected in the origin of the band’s name: “colour revolt” is a phrase used by author E. A. Abbott in his 1884 mathematical novel, Flatland, to describe a brief period of time when the populace experiences total peace in the face of art. Though the novel takes place in a two-dimensional world, Colour Revolt aims to make it happen in our three-dimensional realm. They’ll do us in at the Spanish Moon on Saturday, Feb. 4, in the middle of the Southern leg of their tour.

Dig spoke with Coppenbarger about the nature of songwriting, what it’s like to play “that one song” over and over again until he hates it, and how he makes sure Colour Revolt writes as few “Freebirds” as possible. We found out that he hates interviews – he cares so much about putting together his songs, that he has a hard time explaining how he does it.

Read the full Q&A on DIG Baton Rouge's site by clicking here.