hi. Chris from Motico interviewed me (Hank) for a little blurb he's doing on us in the New York Press. this is what i said. thanks, Chris!
next show:
Saturday, 6/25 @ Lit Lounge (93 2nd Ave between 5th/6th in Manhattoe)
w/ Apse, the Fugue and Rancho Notorious (feat. Joe McRedmond from Hoover and Crownhate Ruin)
9pm
$5
here's the interview:
***what do you say when people ask what your band sounds like?
i've started saying "prog-punk," but some of our friends take issue w/ that
b/c they say we aren't mathy enough to be prog (i guess i see their point,
given that we play in a town where bands like Zs and Behold... the Arctopus
perform regularly). the reason i say "prog" is that i feel like i need to
convey that the music is kind of weird (e.g., it's not retro or genre-based,
like most rock bands seem to be), at least i'd like to think so; and the
reason i say "punk" is that i think that although we're tight, we like to
keep the rough edges too. i invoke other bands to describe us sometimes,
but i always feel like i'm name-dropping rather than being honest. as far
as what we like, Hoover and the Misfits are big touchstones, shared
obsessions, what have you (and wouldn't ya know, the show at Lit is with
Rancho Notorious, a side-project of Joe McRedmond from Hoover). another
thing is that i used to say "instrumental" when describing us, but vocals
are creeping in more and more; they'll probably be all over the next record.
(if you see Joe, tell him he should sing more b/c he's awesome at it.)
i'm always curious to see what other people say about it too. my friend
Tony from the band Archaeopteryx said that we sounded like the instrumental
Descendents songs (e.g., "Uranus" from the record called ALL), which i took
as a huge compliment; i think that music is amazing. we've also gotten DNA
and King Crimson, and those are fun too.
***after your first bass player fled the country, how tough was it to find
Ben to replace him?
he was right under our noses, but we tried some other guys first. the
biggest problem we had was finding someone who could play the stuff tightly,
but without too much of a "chopsy" sheen, and Ben was able to do just that.
we'd known him for a while, and had fond memories of playing Pantera songs
with him at our old practice space, which we shared w/ his other band, the
Isles. so far, he's doing an awesome job, and we've written a bunch of new
material with him, which we'll be recording at Colin Marston's (from
Arctopus) Pain Cave in August.
oh, and Tom didn't flee the country; he's just in Chicago now. Joe was the
one that went away, and that was to China.
***are you touring any time soon?
well, we really, really want to, but nothing is planned. i want to wait at
least until this new recording is out (i'm really hoping that we can
interest a label, but if not, we'll release it ourselves like last time).
that's the priority right now, at least for me: i just want to make a record
that captures what we do live. maybe we'll do something next fall or
spring. when we do tour, i want to be able to take along a current
recording (for one thing, Ben isn't on the first one), and perhaps some
wearables.
***does everybody in your band have those custom earplugs or is it just you?
just me. Colin sent me over there--Park Avenue Acoustics, baby. one thing,
though: mine are level 25, which blocks out a little too much sound for my
tastes. if i had it to do over again, i'd go with the 15s.
...
as far as newsworthy tidbits... one time we got billed as "Dave Fucked" by
a Philly paper, and another time we played at a venue that wouldn't let us
use our real name, so we called ourselves either "Stay Frenched" or "Stay
Rock" for the duration of the show.
