The Mikey Needleman Band returned to STA Friday, Jan. 29 for their second annual diversity week concert. Hundreds of STA students flocked to the the auditorium to cheer on and sing along with the Christian rock band. Lead singer, Mr. Mikey Needleman, gives his reaction to STA’s enthusiasm

Coming soon: Video interview with Mikey himself!

Dart: What was the band’s reaction to the concert?

Mikey: Bill [bassist] is married, he’s been married for about 2 years now, and he’s like, “You know, although these girls are in high school and everything, I’m sure my wife would be really jealous.” It’s like what I said on stage: It really feels like we’re way famous even though we’re not, but it’s kind of a cool treat. Bill also said, “I think this is what the Jonas Brothers feel like.”

Dart: What did you tell the band members who weren’t there last year to expect?

Mikey: I kept on reminding them saying, “Seriously guys prepare yourselves.” And they were like, “We get it, we get it.” After the show they were like, “Oh my god you were right it was so much more than you described.” We do really big shows…and we’ve had great crowds, but [STA] is like by far, the loudest, the most intense crowd that we ever play to…it by far exceeds anything we normally do.

Dart: How does it feel to be on stage?

Mikey: We play over 100 shows a year so we’re really busy, and although we all have our own day jobs, it’s really important for us to play music for the income of it. So for some of our shows, even though we always have a blast we always have fun, it can be strictly business. But then every once in a while we do a show like [at STA] where it’s like, sure, we get paid and it’s fun, but it’s so much more than that. We’re really feeding off the crowd we’re really showing everyone a good time and we can just feel like everybody’s vibing with us. We still get nervous before shows, but usually we get up on stage and start singing and we’re not nervous anymore at all. I think that kind of shows sometimes when we look really comfortable up there, because we really feel at home when we’re on stage. Especially when there’s a crowd like [STA] who’s really just digging our stuff.

Dart: How did this year’s concert compare to last year’s?

Mikey: Last year we kind of had to win over the crowd because it was weird…there was a concert going on during lunch and a few people were like, well we’ll go check it out. It eventually turned into shenanigans and it was fun because once we got the crowd into it, it started escalating. This year everybody knew what to expect. So, right when the bell rang there were girls running to the front of the stage chanting “We want Mikey!” There was no winning over to do. You guys were already there. It was like we basically picked up where we left off last year. On stage I made the announcement, “Sophomores, juniors and seniors let’s show the freshmen how we party,” because the freshmen were the only ones that didn’t know what to expect. I think it would be a cool tradition to every year have the freshmen be pleasantly surprised by how much we rock.

Dart: Why do you think STA students have so much enthusiasm at your concerts?

Mikey: I don’t know. I think we had a really good, successful year last year and I think that fueled this year’s [enthusiasm]. I can’t tell you what happened last year, but a spark was made, and it has carried over the entire year. I can assure you of one thing: we were just as excited as you were to come back.

Dart: How did you decide what songs you would play for us?

Mikey: We learned some specifically for you guys. We made a joke about Hannah Montana or Miley Cyrus last year and you guys started going crazy and so we said, “We’ll learn a Miley Cyrus song.” We’ve been toying along with that and we’ll just play the chorus or something when we play out, but we learned the entire song for you guys. We started learning “Black and White” and we’ve been working on it because we knew that would be a hit.

Dart: Why christian rock?

Mikey: The bottom line is as much as we are a rock band, we do represent Jesus Christ. So we wanted to learn a couple more praise songs that would be fun to dance to, to sing to, that were catchy, and that would fit seamlessly into our set list, because that’s really the most important part. We wanted to make sure we were very clear about why we were there. It’s not to just be crazy, even though that’s fun, it’s really because God gave us a talent and we’re sharing it.

Dart: How did you get involved with STA’s Dancing with the Stars?

Mikey: Debi Hudson contacted me in early January and kind of explained it to me what it was and said, “Would you be interested?” And the whole time I’m thinking, “She’s going to ask me to be a judge, she’s going to ask me to a be a judge. That’s going to be awesome to be a judge.” And then she was like, “We want you to be a dancer?” And I was like, “Oh! Okay.” My girlfriend was next to me while I was having the conversation and I remember getting off the phone being like, “It’s cool if I dance with a high-schooler isn’t it?” She’s cool about it. I think it’s cool because it’s a good cause and I’m flattered that I would be considered a “celebrity” or a “local celebrity.”

Dart: Are you a good dancer?

Mikey: I’ve been told that I am. I don’t know if i should tell you this, because you’re probably going to print it, but I actually tried out for drill team my senior year at [St. Thomas Aquinas High School]. Me and my best friend tried out for drill team…and they said they could only put one of us on the team and we were like, “Oh man, now we cant do it.” So they made us drill team managers. Both of my sisters danced. You could just say that I have an extensive background in dance. You’ve got to have rhythm to play music.

Dart: What developments has the Mikey Needleman Band had since last year?

Mikey: 2009 was great. We played 115 shows which is about about 30 more than in 2008. We played bigger gigs like Leawood City Park for the Fourth of July. We played at the Kansas City Power and Light Mainstage a few times. Our Facebook group is up to 1,500 fans now and probably 80 of those are because of this last show, but that’s been getting a lot of momentum. We played on TV a few times because Bill works for Fox 4…2009 was like our best year, so hopefully 2010 will be just as good.

Dart: What is the future of the Mikey Needleman Band?

Mikey: I don’t know. We would really like to do some more out of town gigs. We love Kansas City, but we’d like to start testing the waters if we’re gonna be liked other places. We love doing our cover gigs where we play a majority of cover songs, but we’d also like to do straight original gigs…The definition of “success” or if you “made it” changes every year, because every year we get to what we thought “successful” was. So it’s like, “What’s next?”

Dart: Please explain Vince’s facial expressions.

Mikey: Every musician practices looking cool. And Vince [lead guitarist] is definitely a very animated player, which is why we like him. He adds so much to the sound but then he also adds so much to the experience. I’ll never tell him to back off or slow down. You can see Lance [drummer] in the back twirling his sticks and stuff. We want it so that if you focus on one member the entire time, you’ll get a show. We want it to be fun in every aspect of it.

Dart: Will the Mikey Needleman Band concert at STA become a tradition?

Mikey: I don’t think that there’s an option anymore.