Love Out Loud's Dillon Jones on moonlighting as a booking agent & Saturday's album release

The toughest part about trying to break into the pop scene is definitely its lack of opportunity on the way up. Pop dominates the charts right now but at a local level, the ability to grow is much harder because a lot of local venues are dominated by the hardcore scene and indie scene. Minnesota local pop really died out after its huge uprising when bands like Quietdrive, Motion City Soundtrack, and Sing it Loud were in the scene. Touring on bigger packages and just overall trying to break into a higher level in the pop scene is a huge struggle because it's always a roll of the dice. You just have to be in the right place at the right time and meet the right people. Until you get that though, you need to give it your everything and don't just sit around waiting for it to happen.

How did you approach the writing process for Catch Me If You Can, and what was the story that you wanted to tell with the new album?

The story behind the album is progressing. We chose Catch Me If You Can as the album name because we wanted to make this album our first real breakthrough album. We expect big things to come from this album and want to experience this with our family (fans) and make them feel like they are part of something big happening.

Writing our second real album was the scariest time for our band, simply because that second album can really make or break you as a local/regional artist. The album took us just over an entire year of constant writing and choosing only five of about 20 songs to actually go on the album. We had a couple writing sessions where we literally locked ourselves into a place and lived there for a month until we could write some songs we were proud of.  It's easy to put out your first album because you haven't set a bar and there isn't anything you have to beat.

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You also have your own booking agency.  How do you handle so many aspects of the music business? 

Being a DIY band isn't an option for a band starting out -- it's the harsh reality. When you first get into the industry you think all these great things are going to happen for you right away. It takes awhile before you realize that nobody wants to do things for you until you can already do it yourself. Labels, agents, and managers can only help you do things better than you could have done alone. That's when you realize that it's going to be a LONG process of trial and error before you actually know what you're doing -- or what half of the industry terminology even means.

I joined the Ambition Agency because nobody was taking our band seriously when the lead singer tries to book the shows and get the tours. It only worked for so long. I like to think of "Dillon Jones, the Booking Agent" as my alias that makes me look way more legit because someone with a business behind them represents the band, not just the lead singer.