Hey Monday and The Ready Set say ‘hello’ to Pittsburgh

Hey Monday is a band lucky enough to be jointly represented by two labels. Hey Monday, The Ready Set, This Century and Cartel

Altar Bar

Nov. 4 at 6:30 p.m.

$20.40

412-263-2877

Hey Monday is a band lucky enough to be jointly represented by two labels.

Support from Columbia Records and Decaydance Records, the brainchild of Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz, gives the band’s dynamic what member Alex Lipshaw considers a unique touch. Pittsburghers will have a chance to hear that special something at the band’s Altar Bar concert tonight.

“Columbia’s just [a] full-on mainstream, big, major label and Decaydance is kind of indie; they just have different ways of doing it,” he said. “I don’t really see any difference as the artist but I know that we’re the only band that’s ever had Columbia and Decaydance do a joint venture, [so] it’s like winning the lottery.”

Lipshaw believes his work with Decaydance allows the band the advantage of learning from Wentz’s established career.

“[Wentz] has got himself figured out, he’s a professional, he’s someone we can all look up to as a band [and] he’s a member in a band,” he said. “We got to tour with Fall Out Boy a little bit over a year ago and that’s where we grew more than ever, we realized that we can actually take this band to the top, it just takes a long time and a lot of hard work.”

The band recently recorded a live, acoustic set for MySpace transmissions. Among the songs was a cover of Jason Derulo’s “In My Head.”

“When you do a cover that’s hot, that people care about, it’s great [because] it makes people appreciate you a lot more,” he said.

Lipshaw believes playing the band’s cover of “In My Head,” on Warped Tour helped the band expand its fan base.

“People that wouldn’t normally stop and listen to our band, I feel like when they were walking past our station and they heard us playing [“In My Head”], they stopped and they watched,” he said.

The artist said he knows he’ll continue to make music he’s passionate about as the band grows. Unlike many performers Lipshaw has met who claim to fall into careers in music, sometimes as a second choice, he and his bandmates picked music as their first career choice.

“A lot of people get this opportunity and it wasn’t the first thing on their list that they wanted to do, but with us, I feel like it really was the first thing that we all wanted to do. So we just put everything that we possibly can put into it and over the past few years we’ve all grown as musicians and hopefully it shows,” he said.

One of the band’s accompanying acts, 20-year-old Jordan Witzigreuter, also picked music as his first option.

Witzigreuter’s solo project is called The Ready Set. He’s been in bands and prefers solo work, but he’s grateful for the experiences and lessons about the music industry he learned in those groups provided, such as when he learned how to book a tour.

“I was in high school finishing my sophomore year and I booked this really bad summer tour [with a band]; it was a huge loss of money. But it was definitely a good thing for me to do because [then] I booked all my shows up until a year and a half into touring for The Ready Set,” he said.

Another reason he prefers solo work is the artistic control that he has over his music.

“I wanted to make everything that I write and do just completely me because when you have a band you have so many different people you have to [incorporate],” he said. “Whenever we play shows I have a band with me so it’s like the best of both worlds.”

Despite having an interest in the punk and rock genres, Witzigreuter is most drawn to pop music.

“I’ve been into every style of music possible but what drew me into certain songs and bands was all melody, and pop music is the most melodic type of music there is and it’s the kind that the most people can relate to,” he said.

Although Witzigreuter’s interest in music originated when he began playing the drums at the age of 11, he didn’t start writing his own music until several years later.

“I had been singing for about four years when I was 16 and me and my friend had this little acoustic project. We would write songs and that was the first time I had ever tried to write a song or melodies and lyrics,” he said. “Once I realized I could do it on my own, he had moved away and I just wanted to write my own songs and that’s what The Ready Set started with.”