When you grow up in a tiny Wisconsin town, your career options may seem limited to either a) making cheese or b) hawking Green Bay Packers merch. Not so much for The Wildbirds – four good ole’ boys from the Midwest who stumbled across their parents’ record collections, fell in love with Tom Petty, Van Morrison, and Creedence Clearwater Revival, and decided to play music before they could get sidetracked by dairy farms or Brett Favre jerseys.

In the past month, the band has been touring with Jesse Malin, cribbing vegetable oil from restaurant dumpsters across the country (more on that later) and preparing for their first album, Golden Daze, to be released on August 14th. After a recent show at Pianos, we caught up with the Wildbirds’ rhythm section – drummer Jon Fries (pronounced “FREES,” not “FRIES”) and bassist Hugh Masterson (sounds like it’s spelled).

Here’s ten things to get you acquainted with the Wildbirds…

1) They don’t take any cues from fashion magazines or music blogs.
“In the midwest, all we really had was our music and we were our own little tight group,” says Fries. “We didn’t have a lot of fashions and trendy people to bounce ourselves off of, so we had to dig into ourselves into what we loved and what we wanted to be.”

Masterson adds: “We’re not influenced by east coast, west coast, whatever it is going on. We don’t really know, to be honest!”

2) The cops chased them out of town to the woods of Wisconsin — where they buckled down and wrote most of their album.
Noise complaints from neighbors meant the police were constantly harassing the Wildbirds and telling them to find new practice spaces. “We lived in a small town,” explains Fries. “The cops are very bored. They would bust us once a week and tell us we had to move. Finally, it was just like, ‘you know what? [Guitarist] Matthew has a cabin in the north woods!’ So we just went up there, brought our record players and instruments, and had an amazing time writing the record.”

3) The album was recorded live-to-tape in Los Angeles.
Producer Greg Fidelman – who has worked with Jet, U2 and Audioslave – caught the vibe of the band and invited them out to L.A. to record the album. Most of the songs were laid down in just a few takes and tweaked just barely in the mix – resulting in the raw, unfussy sound of the final product.

4) The Wildbirds just want to partaayyy! Or at least make their record sound like one.
So much that they had a strobelight in the recording studio – which Fidelman, their producer, would set off when the guys were recording and he liked what he heard.

“Something would be good,” recalls Fries, “someone would be playing something, and you’re getting out of your chairs a little bit, and it’d be very cool, and all of a sudden the strobelight goes on and it’s just a party! You don’t think that studios are like that, but our producer and engineer set the tone to make a party record. It was just fantastic.”

5) The band has been touring the country in an eco-friendly bus that runs on vegetable oil.
Move over, Al Gore! This is how you practice environmental sustainability.

“We converted our bus to run off of fryer grease that we pick up from restaurants,” explains Masterson. “We have a few barrels that we keep in the trailer and a barrel in the bus between the bunks. We dig it our of dumpsters with a pump most of the time when people aren’t looking, and we refine it ourselves. We smell like vegetable oil most of the time. Or curry. It depends on what kind of restaurant we get it from.”

6) There’s a pair of newlyweds on the Wildbirds’ eco-friendly bus.
About a week before the band embarked on their tour, guitarist Matthew Reetz married his long-time sweetheart, Emily. The pair has spent their honeymoon traveling the country on the bus with the rest of the band on tour.

“We built four bunks on our bus, and theirs happens to be eight inches longer than all of ours,” says Fries.

“Sometimes I get jealous,” laughs Hugh.

“We haven’t caught them in any newlywed acts yet – but we’re in the market to bust them,” adds Fries with a grin.

7) MySpace has helped them out with more than promoting their music. It helps them get out of the occasional traffic ticket, as well.
Take one instance in Texas when the band was pulled over because they were driving without a license plates.

“[The cop] looked us up on MySpace from his squad car,” remembers Masterson. “And then he came back and he was really nice. I was like, ‘are we gonna have any problems with the license plates?’ And he was like, ‘I think you’re gonna be all right.’ But then we got pulled over a bunch more.”

8) The Wildbirds <3 NY.
So much that they wouldn’t mind coming back to the city and hanging out for awhile after they finish their August residency at the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa, California.

“There’s been a lot of whirlwind at the moment, ” says Masterson. “We don’t really know how long we’ll be in LA, but we’re definitely going to find ourselves back in New York for some time. Maybe even with an apartment for a little bit. That would be cool.”

9) They’re ready to bring their party-drenched, blues-and-rock sound across the pond.lm
Like many up-and-coming bands, the Wildbirds would love to go to the U.K. and play. This brings up the subject as to why it’s more fun and exciting for emerging artists to visit jolly ole’ England and its neighbors: they’re more receptive to exploring new music on their own.

“People come out and line up for the opening bands over there,” explains Fries. “That’s not something you see in America very often. It’s like everyone needs someone to tell them ‘hey, that’s cool,’ before they come to a show. Whereas [over there] it’s like, ‘I like this, and I’m gonna go see this show.’ ”

10) They want the simple things out of life — people to buy their record and enjoy their music, health insurance and a clean pair of jeans.
Having spent the past year shuttling between Wisconsin, L.A., and much of the southern and northeastern U.S., the Wildbirds hope that the release of Golden Daze brings them more fans, a little stability, and possibly a new wardrobe.

“I’d love to sell some records and play to as many people as possible. Bring them into what is happening with us and within our band,” says Fries. “We just want to connect with as many people as possible.”

“We just want to have fun at night playing shows,” adds Masterson. “And I think that our dream would be that we all have an apartment or a house that we can call our own. And health insurance.”

“Maybe like in a year, we’ll buy like a great pair of jeans and a new pair of boots,” says Fries. And then, perhaps thinking of another night to be spent driving in their bus fueled by fryer oil and curry, he adds: “I’m tired of wearing the same clothes every night. They’re getting greasy.”

Related Links:
• The Wildbirds on MySpace
• Click HERE for exclusive photos of The Wildbirds
• The Wildbirds on Amazon.com
• The Wildbirds on iTunes