Elizabeth Elmore is probably best known as a former singer and guitarist for the now —defunct band Sarge. Based out of Chicago, Sarge first appeared on the national pop-indie radar in 1996 with the release of their first full-length Charcoal (Mud Records). In 1998, the band released The Glass Intact, also on Mud, which received acclaim from SPIN and The Village Voice among others. Later that year, they were named a "Hot Band" by Rolling Stone Magazine and even managed to play a KSPC Blow-Out show before calling it quits in 1999.

Earlier this year, Elmore, then in her second year at Northwestern Law School (She has since taken an official leave of absence), began playing live shows with changing groups of friends. Out of this eventually emerged the current line-up: Elmore, bassist Joel Root [Ed. note: Joel is so cute], guitarist Sean Hulet, and drummer Chad Romanski (also an ex-Sarge member).

After a brief stint as The Elizabeth Elmore 4, the band has been touring under her name and will be going into the studio early next year [the band’s name and label have yet to be decided].

This past Tuesday, Elmore and the gang opened for Mecca Normal as part of the KSPC Blow-Out.

I was first introduced to Elmore’s music through Sarge’s third and final album, Distant, which Elmore compiled after the band’s break-up. Featuring unreleased songs and covers, Distant is a veritable retrospective of Sarge’s work, and highlights Elmore’s syrupy sweet voice and its contrast with the high-energy electric sound. This, coupled with the fact that, while not a household name, Elmore is a nationally known indie-rock figure made for me being a tad nervous about the interview and that I would blow my cover and reveal myself for the U2 fan that I am. Bear with me.

EE: When Sarge broke up, I kinda was stunned and out of commission for a while and I started touring solo even though I hated playing solo because it was better than not touring at all. I grabbed a couple friends–Sarge’s first drummer, not Chad, and they started playing locally with me, just a few songs here and there. Then I grabbed Sean and Joel and another guy to do a tour back in the spring of the east coast. It was supposed to be just temporary but the three of us got along really well and so then we’ve just been switching drummers since then and I ended up throwing myself on Chad’s mercy and begging him intermittently for about two months straight to do this, and he finally agreed.

EE: Sean works at the best guitar store in the world and I met him right when I got to Chicago and everybody loves him because he is, like, the nicest guy. He just gives bands equipment right and left. When my guitar got stolen, he loaned me different guitars. He’d give me like $6000 of guitars, just give them to me, didn’t know me, didn’t even know my last name, just handed them to me. I ended up buying my guitar from him. And we’ve got to be friends over the past few years. He came through, when I needed them.

Sean: Yes, I have a band in Chicago with one more show left. Named Moreno. We have one EPL.

EE: Day 12? Day 11, 12…it’s only an 18-day tour. Just the West Coast. We go into the studio November 24, the day after we get back. Touring is what we wanted to do; it’s weird that we don’t have anything out yet. The last time Sarge was on the West Coast was 2 years ago. … When we get a record recording, we can tour hard.

EE: I’m officially on a leave of absence. I finished my second year, I have one year left. I worked in a law firm all summer and used the money to buy a van to go on tour.

EE: Not soon, I’ll go back to it. I’m willing to be a lawyer forever. I’m going to be a lawyer someday. The thought of starting to work 70 hour weeks, which is what you do as a first year associate, a year from now just wasn’t appealing to me. I’ve got a lot of time to do that and maybe not as much time to do this stuff.

EE: No. To me, it combines the worst sides of both things. Music lawyers can be very sleazy and even if you’re an advocate for the bands, you have to deal with music industry lawyers. The last thing I want to do is take something that I love and deal with the yucky side. I’ll probably take enough classes that I can do pro-bono work for small indie bands just look out for their interests but I don’t want to do anything where I have to deal with the corporate side of the industry.

EE: My family’s a foster family, an adopted family, so I definitely want to do that. Last year in law school, I worked at a legal clinic. I had five different cases I worked on…advocating for them in the court system.

Joel: Sometimes you feel like you want a night off, and you don’t have one.

Sean: I think it’s me having to speak to any of these three. The hard part is that I don’t get to bring my cane with me

Elizabeth: We told him it wasn’t punk rock.

Chad: Lack of space.

Elizabeth: If we get a private tour bus we’re going to get a van and hook it up to the back of it and let Chad pretend like he’s driving…For me, I get really stressed out if I think someone’s not having fun, or someone’s mad at me. Certain towns you can have a show that’s not very good but the people there are so fun and so cool and so ready to hang out afterward that it doesn’t matter. There’s other shows that should be these great, shows. It definitely has a lot to do every night with how open the crowd is. If people are really distant, I kinda wig out about that.

[Sean whispers to Elizabeth, she laughs.] Elizabeth: Hot. Gary Sinise. I was talking about my deep seated desire to have carnal relations with Gary Sinise. Collaboration’s one way to put it. I need more water. Well, I’m actually doing something with my friend John Davis. It’s been going for a long time. We’ve got a little side project that’s about two years in the making now but we think we might finish it in the summer. It’s called Cosmopolitan. Guys, you?

Joel: I’d love to play with Amir Thompson of the Roots.

TSL: What would you being doing if you weren’t doing this band?

Chad: I’m a web developer in Chicago.

Elizabeth: I’d be doing this. No other options.

Sean: I’d be doing something musically related. I’d be in a bad metal cover band.

Sean: Both.

Joel: I’d be working on my jazz band, Andiamo.

Elizabeth: Chad’s in a great band, called Bob Rising And The Blisters. Their band is really, really good.

TSL: Who were your biggest musical influences growing up?

Sean: I would say Jimi Hendrix.

Chad: Keith Moon and The Who.

Joel: I listened to a lot of pop-rock bands–The Posies, REM

Elizabeth: You said growing up, so honestly like, classical music, old country, and show tunes.

EE: Oh yeah. I went to show choir camp. For seven years in a row. I held the fucking record. Because nobody goes for seven years in a row. I went the summer after I graduated high choir camp.

EE: Seiten. It’s wheat gluten. Most mock meat you have in restaurants, probably most of it’s seiten. It’s different than TVP, which is texturized vegetable protein. I usually eat until I make myself sick, because I get so excited about having it.

EE: I did play a bass on a song on Distant. I have a violin–I’m trying to learn how to play it. Joel plays string bass. I played drums for eight years but then I wanked off and I suck now. Yeah, I play piano and guitar and bass a little bit. The song I played the bass line on, we had to record a million times because I kept fucking it up, so I’m not very good.

EE: Yeah, I mean, with Sarge, it never seemed like a big deal because we were still kids, and even if we were playing different types of music, I very much envisioned our community as being the same community…we’d play with hard-core bands.

And it’s so funny because indie-rock kids are total assholes about hard-core bands but the hard-core kids would totally accept us and be nice and cool about things…the hard-core kids were a lot cooler to us than our friends were to them. But I think it’s getting a little harder now because with Sarge I was 19-22 and now, I mean, I’m not the oldest person in the band but I feel like, I mean, you play shows with people a decade younger than you and it’s the whole Fashion Police thing and I totally understand that–I was exactly like that at 18–where I was all punk-rocked out wherever I went. We’re all like, we don’t fucking care. Nobody makes the effort.

EE: Chicago with Sarge had some really great shows, but we haven’t had any yet. We’re kinda the low man on the totem pole. Chicago’s a really busy town musically. Middle East and Boston–love it [Sean concurs]. I’ve always had a great time in Houston. Blackberry in Portland was a really great venue.

TSL: You’re going in to record in the end of November. Do you know how long the whole process will take?

EE: We are hoping to God our work will be done by December 15–master and everything and we hope to have it in hand by mid-February and in stores by March.

EE: Colleges have been cool. With Sarge it was nice because we didn’t know where to play and I was doing all the booking myself and I didn’t know where to go and I could usually call the [college] radio station and eventually get passed to someone who had heard of Sarge and would help out. It’s all different branches of the same thing, whatever that counter cultural, underground community is. College kids are cool and everyone’s helping each other out and we try to help out bands and I’ve got a million numbers so I definitely help bands with bookings and I just figure that everyone evens out in the end.