Jon Kaplan is the lead singer of the band Bicycle Thieves. Recently, his band's song, "All That's Missing," was featured on an episode of the Real World New Orleans. Jon was nice enough to conduct an interview for this site. Here, he tells how his band's song got on the show, among other things. To learn more about his great band, you can go to www.bicyclethieves.com

~First off, tell us a little bit about your band.
Bicycle Thieves played our first gig in November of '98. I put the band together with Scott Aronson on bass, who was from my previous band Available Jones. We found drummer John Dinsmore and keys player Mike Salamone through a series of auditions of area talent. The music is definitely rock, and draws on influences from rock, pop, folk, jazz, blues, funk...you name it! I write the songs and I'm influenced by people like Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, B.B. King, Radiohead, Thelonious Monk, Stevie Wonder, the Beatles....all sorts of good music.

~How did you go about getting your song on the Real World?
Basically, I read an interview with Chris Burch who is the music supervisor on the show...in it, he gave his email address and I emailed him and asked if I could submit our music. He gave me the address and I sent it in. After that, I just started emailing him once every few weeks or so and he finally wrote back that he was interested in using the music. Bunim-Murray has rights to the whole CD if they want to use it, but so far, they've just used one song.

~Has your band's success changed greatly since your song was on the show?
Well, it is a little too soon to tell, but I think that national TV exposure certainly can't hurt...and it looks pretty good to have your music on MTV in any form...it's pretty exciting. Other bands I know who have had their music on RW have progressed steadily from there to gain a wider following and more success. I think it's a really good sign and a step in the right direction.

~Did you get to go to any premiere parties or meet any of the cast members?
Unfortunately not! I think the music is probably just about the last thing that they do when editing the show, so we were involved more on the back end of the production. Our music didn't get involved until the final stages of creating the episodes for the new season.

~Did you ever think you would have one of your songs on a national television show?
Well, I guess I hoped that I would. And I really hope to have more on there. I would love to have a video on MTV next...

~Are you glad that your song "All That's Missing" was the one featured on the show, or would you have rather had another one of your songs on?
I was happy that they used one of my songs, and I really didn't care which one they used. I hope they will use more of them as well. It's very cool to hear myself and the guys on RW.

~What's next for your band, Bicycle Thieves?
Well, we are based on the East Coast, in the Washington DC area, and we play a lot of shows around DC, MD, VA, and now New York City is one of our regular stops. I hope to continue to expand our touring base and put out a new record as soon as possible. A record deal would be nice.