If anything, the members of St. Helena, Jessie and I can agree on one thing: Allston bars, you’ve gotta knock it off with the Top 40 radio bonanza.  Patrick, Shawn, Chaeten, Magen and Keith all mirrored our distaste for the onslaught of Britney and Katy and Rihanna our ears were met with over the course of our conversation at a Harvard Ave pool hall one sunny Saturday afternoon.  Though the nauseating musical selection in the background  served as a running joke throughout the duration of the interview, St. Helena’s lady and gentlemen were champs when it came to scarfing some pizza and spilling their guts on any and all things concerning St. Helena.

Though the band was created in 2003 by Patrick Teahan, the current lineup of St. Helena includes some longstanding talents who have been playing to sold-out Boston venues for years and new kids known for their wise-beyond-their-years guitar skills alike.  Their latest release, Slow Jack, will be celebrated this Saturday night at the Cantab Lounge with what’s sure to be an evening that’ll have elaborate keys dueling crashing cymbals and catchy choruses.  Though Chaeten’s been known to start some onstage antics with bass player Keith [the two play on opposite sides of the stage from each other for a reason], you may be lucky enough to see these goofballs play hard and work hard onstage at the respectable Cambridge music spot that night.

-Hilary Hughes

OPENING ACT: ST. HELENA AND THE TEAPARTY TEN

What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

Chaeten: CTC, aka Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  Or something cooked by a beautiful woman who I just met the night before.

Patrick:  That is the most decadent statement I’ve ever heard.  Anyways, I’ll go with Greek yogurt with walnuts and blueberries.

Magen: Kashi!

Shawn: Cocoa Puffs.

Keith: I like Life Cereal but it makes me fart really bad.

Who would you rather punch in the face: Long Duk Dong from “Sixteen Candles”, or Mouth from “The Goonies”?

P: I’d hit Mouth.  Long Duk Dong is a good person.

C: I’d hit Mouth, no qualms.  Long Duk Dong is great!  I could never hit Long Duk Dong.

S: I’m staying out of this.

M: I’ll go with Mouth, too.

K: Yup, Mouth.

If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be?

S: Blender.  I’m mixed up! (Laughs)

P: I’d be a waffle iron.

C: Yeah!  Get the party started.  I think I’ll be the refrigerator so that I can get all the attention.

K: Bottle opener.

M: Microwave!

You go to bed, wake up, walk into the bathroom to brush your teeth, and you look in the mirror and you realize that you’ve turned into one of Jim Henson’s Muppets overnight.  Which Muppet are you?

P: Kermit.

K: One of those old guys in the balcony.  I’ll be Waldorf, the one with the mustache.

C: If I’m gonna be honest with myself I’m gonna have to say Animal.

M: I’m Janice.

S: I like Animal.

Say you have a crazy night, you black out, and you wake up feeling like crap the next morning and you realize… you got a tattoo.  What’d you get inked?

C: I’d get a portrait of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.  My roommate tries to get me blackout drunk so that I’ll go tattoo Will Smith’s face on my bicep or something.

P: If I was wasted the only tattoo I’d think to get would be something I hate but it would probably be the fighting Irish guy or some God-awful shamrock.

K: I’d get something really douche-y, like the Tasmanian devil doing a keg stand with a lightning bolt in the background.  I’d want something I could laugh at.

S: If I woke up the next morning after blacking out the night before and I saw a tear drop tattooed on my face or something… Yeah, I wouldn’t want to know what happened anyway.  I’d be pretty scared.

M: It would be some really, really awful Celtic armband.  I wanted it in high school.  I know that’s where my brain would go.

Would you rather be a rodeo clown or a sumo wrestler?

M: Rodeo clown!  That’d be so much fun.

C: Rodeo clown.  Hey, sumo wrestler can only have women on top, man!  You want to be able to mix it up! (Laughs)  You have more options if you’re a rodeo clown.

K: Rodeo clown.

P: Rodeo clown, yeah.

S: Rodeo clown.

If you were a particular style of facial hair, what would you be?

C: Sideburns.  Yeah.

P: General scruff.  I secretly admire a very, very thin chinstrap.

K: I’d take a lot of work if I were facial hair.

M: I’d be a nice five o’clock shadow.  I had a drag party one year and I got it painted on me and it looked pretty good, actually.

S: Pass.

If you were a type of cheese, which cheese would you be

S: I’d be American cheese!

C: I was thinking Muenster cheese because I can’t correctly pronounce it.  It feels very comfortable to my palate.

M: Gorgonzola!

P: Goat cheese.

K: My wife is from Switzerland, so I’ll be Swiss cheese.

P: He calls her Swissy.  It’s cute.

K: I’m in love, okay?!

What’s your quintessential “I’M GONNA DANCE AROUND MY APARTMENT IN MY SKIVVIES AND LOVE LIFE!” song?

M: Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation.”

K: “Dancing Queen.”  I fucking love that song.  I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I love. That. Song.

S: “Hot in Here” by Nelly.

C: Every song off of Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall.

P: Anything by Otis Redding.

What’s your favorite word?

C: I’m going to say Chaeten. Chaeten is a nice word. (Laughs)

K: Foosball.

M: Pejorative. I’ll go with pejorative.  And decadent!  I like decadent.

S: Sex!  I’m gonna go with sex.

P: I’m going to go with royal.

THE MAIN EVENT: THE ST. HELENA TPB INTERVIEW

Let’s get some names for the record.  Where are you guys from, and how did you come to make music together as St. Helena?

Patrick: Hi!  I’m Patrick.  I’m from the South Shore of Massachusetts.  I played in a bunch of bands, and then I started St. Helena in 2003.

Keith:  I’m Keith!  I’m from a small town called Endicott, New York.  I started playing in bands when I was about 15 with guys in their mid-twenties and thirties playing a bunch of hair metal, and I’m still very much into that stuff.

Chaeten: I’m Chaeten.  I’m 22 years old and kind of an outlier, here.  I grew up all around North Carolina and I came up here to go to school.  I had already been listening to St. Helena for a while and I heard that they were looking for a bassist, and I didn’t have a bass amp at the time.  It’s funny that Keith wound up fillin’ that slot.  Then I saw they were after a guitarist, and I was like, “What’s up?  Let’s play some music.”  I realized a few months into it that I had grown up listening to the bands that other members of St. Helena have played with, so it’s an honor to be here.  We’re a motley crew.

Shawn: I’m Shawn.  I’ve been around here for a while and I grew up in Rhode Island.  Patrick, we met how many years ago?

P: I’d say a good four years ago.  We just knew each other from Cambridge.

S: We met, and then he needed a drummer and I hadn’t played in awhile, so I said I’ll help out.  I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to join the band, but it was kind of unofficial; I never really became a part of the band (laughs).

P: Yeah, Shawn’s still unofficially in the band. (Laughs)

S: I’ve been in a bunch of bands from Boston that you may know.  That’s about it.  I used to play in a band called Early Arms.  When I first moved here, I lived with this girl on Newbury Street, so I hadn’t really played and I started getting bored.  She looked in the paper and found this band called Dump Truck that was looking for a drummer, and I auditioned for them and I stayed with them for seven years, roughly.  After that, I was in a band called Helium for a bit, and then I stopped playing for a while.  I was very fortunate growing up around Boston and being able to listen to all these bands, because there was an extremely vibrant musical scene at the time.

M: I’m Magen!  I’ve been in Boston for about eight years and I moved here after college.  I’ve been with St. Helena for about two and a half years.  Before that, I was kind of doing the singer/songwriter thing on my own.  I’m a pianist, originally, and I found these guys – one of the things I was really excited about with St. Helena was that Patrick plays guitar and keys, so he writes songs that incorporate both really well.  I was looking for a band that played rock and I wanted to sing, and I really liked Patrick’s piano-based songs.

K: That’s how I felt, too.  When St. Helena came about for me I was singing in Bang! Camaro and I really wanted to play an instrument again, and I came across the St. Helena mySpace and I was like, “This is the band I’ve been looking to play with for ten years.”

Is everyone and their mother in Bang! Camaro at some point?

K: Yes. (Laughs)

P: Also, Shawn and I are in a bad boyfriend-girlfriend type relationship.  It’s a co-dependent thing.  Like, he could’ve left a long time ago.

You don’t know how to quit Shawn, basically?

P: I DON’T KNOW HOW TO QUIT YOU, SHAWN.

S: (Laughs) Well, let’s put it this way: We can be in a rehearsal and I get chills sometimes because the music sounds so fuckin’ good.  Back in the other bands, it was kind of party time for me and it’s all kind of blurry and I took it all for granted.  I don’t want to do that anymore, but I did do that, and part of the job description back then was getting fucked up out of your mind and going to play for people.  I don’t know how the fuck I did it, but I did.  Now, it’s different.  Everybody in this band actually wants to practice and wants to be professional and they want to make the music good.

P: We’re not a band with a huge following yet.  St. Helena has been around for a long time, and it would be great if we had that, but part of me doesn’t care because it’s like, we spend so much time that there’s drama in the band and our lives outside the band, and essentially we go and we write the songs and we play them live and we really try to make an art out of making those songs better.  There’s a lot of camaraderie in St. Helena, and there’s a lot of integrity when it comes to improving our music.  We’re not a band that’s gonna jump in a van and go, like, around the country right now, you know what I mean?  We’re not really at that level and I don’t know if that’s possible, but we have a really, really good time with each other being ambitious and making harmonies and talking songs to death.  There’s a lot of integrity in this band.

C: I feel like most of the people who have heard of our band are usually musicians because I guess we put a lot of thought into our music, and it takes to people who really get the work behind our stuff.  I feel like nowadays people want to make instantly gratifying music and they just want to blow their musical load in thirty seconds, so to speak.

P: I’d feel better if it took someone three times to listen to the song in order for them to like it.

S: It means a lot when someone who’s never heard of you comes to see you because you’re opening for someone else, and they come up to you afterwards and tell you that you kicked some ass.   That’s happened with us a lot. My thing is that I think that I may have more experience playing on some stages, but I think that if you were to put St. Helena onstage, that audience ain’t gonna fuckin’ boo us, that’s for sure.  Once we get the basic song down, we start breaking it apart and everyone is open-minded and it’s awesome.  All of us are willing to say, “Fuck it, I’ll play this part a different way” if one of us think that the song can improve.  A full room makes us play better, and we want to win them over.

C: There are no egos in St. Helena, which is great.

M: To speak to the Boston music scene right now, when you’re talking about just more intellectual rock, I think that actually both things are true.  The Boston music scene is kind of struggling right now, but there’s a lot of that kind of rock happening, which I like.  A lot of musicians are going out and listening to each other’s stuff, and that’s pretty exciting.  It may seem like a kind of insular thing where you’re going to hear someone else’s band and in turn they come to see your band, but you’re really actually into each other’s music and I find it to be very energizing.

S: I’m kind of older and out of the loop so I don’t know a lot of new stuff, but I want to see that happening, too.

That’s what we’re most interested in when it comes to the Boston music scene, this idea about a thriving community that’s built amongst friends.

M: Yeah!

S: I would play other cities with Dump Truck and people would follow us back to Boston.  Now, I see the whole scene as being on the down low right now.  I think people are honing their skills and that the scene is going to explode again, but I’m not seeing the kind of scene that I saw back in the day.  Anytime you went by the Middle East or TT’s or any club, every show would be sold out on any given night.  You could go any place and just see something really good every night of the fuckin’ week.

Do you think that the difference in the Boston music scene now has more to do with the bands or that the fans aren’t as present anymore?

S: I think a lot of it has to do with the Internet, to be honest.  No one even buys whole records anymore!  You can put out a single song and put your video on YouTube and you could be huge after that.  I think that keeps a lot of people in their houses.  They don’t have to; they’re watching your videos on YouTube, you know?  I know that good show still exist here, but for me, I used to play for a fair amount of people and one of my first gigs with Patrick was at PA’s Lounge and four people showed up and those four people were our friggin’ girlfriends.  I’m starting from scratch again, you know?  I didn’t want to use my clout to get into another band.  It just worked out that way.  I’ve seen St. Helena grow, and I think that we have a lot of talent here and that our sound is actually unique.

When it comes to the songs of St. Helena, you guys had mentioned that Patrick does the majority of the writing.  Can you take us through St. Helena’s creative process?

P: It’s been changing recently, but it’s pretty much that I come in with the bones of a song and then we see what we can do with it.  We have a really great chemistry where songs get laid down fast with us, and the songs I’ve written the fastest have turned out to be some of our best songs.  Recently, members have started to bring in their own songs, and the tone of the songwriting has changed in that each individual is open to bring in stuff they’re working on.  It’s great to take a little bit of a backseat and for me to take a side approach with someone else’s song and build it up from there.

S: As far as people that I’ve worked with and liked in Boston, I guess I’m thankful that Patrick is not this stuck-up asshole who demands we play songs a certain way.

P: Yeah, I’m just a regular asshole.

S: (Laughs) You’re extremely open-minded, though!  He’ll sit there and he’ll be willing to give anything a try.

M: Patrick’s very open to whatever people feel like adding to the songs he brings in, too.

P: For songwriting, it wasn’t always that way, but if you come in and you’re so fundamental about your songs being a certain way, you may as well be playing by yourself in a room.  St. Helena was kind of a leap from the start.  I was a drummer in a band, and then I got kicked out, and I started writing songs because I wanted to give it a try.  St. Helena isn’t just about my songs; it’s a collection of five people with chemistry, and I just bring in the bare bones of a song.

C: I think that’s what’s good about us.  At first, I felt like I was joining this pre-established band and that I’d just help with some guitar parts.  We use all this genius floating around in the room between these five people and we utilize all of it as opposed to just using portions of it.

P: People are more inclined to pay space rent when they have the opportunity to do what they want to do.  (Laughs)

M: St. Helena’s been around for quite awhile, but this incarnation of the band is still on the newer side and right now we’re hitting this stride where we’re making new stuff and it’s exciting.  All this new stuff that we just can’t stop playing, it’s because we’ve all written our own parts on it.

P: We’ve been together, all of us, for about a year now.  Chaeten joined last October and is the most recent member; Shawn’s my second drummer; Keith’s like, my fourth bassist.

K: I thought that Patrick was gonna be like, the indie version of Axl! (Laughs)

P: A lot of that is about chemistry and it gives us free reign, musically.  It’s not fun to be the bassist in the band and have to play what someone else wants and put on a demo.

C: We’re definitely not afraid to tear songs totally down to the foundation in order to start over with it, either.  I feel like most bands aren’t willing to do that.  This is an involved band, which is nice.  It’s really nice to be with a band that cares so much and to be with musicians who want to get to practice on time because it means that we get to spend every minute together making music and every discussion about it makes a difference in this efficient unit.

P: Take practice, for example: We rehearsed on Wednesday night and I had an awful day at work on Wednesday.  When we started playing, my bad day was forgotten.  It’s like yoga or something.  It’s not so much work.  We just have a really good time playing together.

M: We practice a lot, too.  We steadily do practice about two times a week.  I think for all five of us, once we get to the space we leave much more energized.

P: I mean, we all have shitty jobs, we all have health insurance problems and money problems and relationship problems, but if you have something creative going on, it gives you juice.  Yeah, there are days that you want to quit if some drama comes up or something like that, but what am I gonna do, go fucking hiking or something?  I’d rather still be in a band than go on a hike! (Laughs)

Are there any songs in the St. Helena catalog that you feel especially connected to?

C: I feel like it ebbs and flows, really: We’ll be really into this new song and if you fast-forward to a couple of months down the line, we’re ready to give that same song a rest because we’ve played it so much.

M: There’s a new song called “Vertigo” that we started a month or two ago.  I’m really excited about that one.  Every time we play it live I get really happy about it.  I’m excited to play “California”, which is a new one that we’ll be doing live at the Cantab Lounge CD Release show.

K: Yeah!  I like “Vertigo.”

C: I feel like our sound has definitely evolved.  We’re more serious and less safe.

P: We’re never really poor on songs; we always have songs going on.  “California”, “Vertigo”, we have a new one coming up that they’re all, they basically happen spontaneously.  I’ll come in with just an idea and collectively it’ll come together in one rehearsal.  The new songs, to me, are the best ones because they’re pretty much written on the spot by all five of us.

S: I love “Vertigo” because I just recently found out what the definition of vertigo is!  I thought it was the opposite of what it actually means!  I like that song a lot.

C: One cool thing about that song is that the ending is quite ambitious.  It just has this giant swell to it that builds and builds and it just abruptly stops.  It would’ve been easy to just give up on it, as it was hard for us to get, but after we got it, it was like, “Oh, so that’s what ‘Vertigo’ sounds like.”

K: In that new song in “California” there’s a part towards the end where Shawn and I lock in on his crashes.  I’ve always played in hard rock bands, so I tend to do ridiculous stuff like throw my bass in the air and pound on shit and jump around, and for me, that part of that song, I love playing it.  I love the awesome rock elements in a lot of our songs.

P: When Shawn was playing in Helium, I was a huge Helium fan.  I was playing drums then, and I would play along to Shawn’s drumming.  I would listen to his music and try to play catch up.  That band heavily influences a lot of the songs that I’ve written for St. Helena.

M: That’s one of the challenges of a five-piece, too; I think it’s fun that we spend so much time these days on the arrangement of a song.  We’ll all be playing at the same time, and it’s like, “Okay, Shawn, what if you drop out now, and then Chaeten, you play a little less now?”  That’s what we spend most of our time on now.

What about other Boston bands?  In terms of people who are currently here right now, what bands are you following from here, currently?

C: I just played a show with Mellow Bravo.  They’re one of the greatest bands of all time, I must say!  It’s a super group, really.  A bunch of great musicians came together and there’s a lot of no bullshit rock and roll coming from them, you know?  I just think they’re really nice people who make great, great music.  Every person in that band is a strong player in their own right.

K: There are a lot of great bands around here!  Taxpayer, Hooray for Earth, Township, The Motion Sick… there are so many solid Boston bands.

P: The Motion Sick are an exceptionally helpful band to a lot of other bands, as well.

M: I love a lot of the girl-fronted rock happening right now, like Apple Betty and Sarah RabDAU.

P: I feel like in Boston we’re all trying to collectively tread water rather than compete with each other.

How do you feel about Boston bands paying their dues here?  We hear the expression “cutting teeth” thrown around a lot.  How has that gone for St. Helena?

P: I’ve been playing in bands in Boston since ’97 and you have to be smart about paying your dues.  You have to have a lot of resources to keep paying your dues, too.  You can play a great show on a Thursday, but if you do it once and then don’t play another show for three months, it’s not gonna work.  You have to be consistent with paying them I guess.

In terms of favorite Boston venues, where do you like to play the best?

P: Great Scott.

C: Great Scott has the best sound, too!  I love The Middle East, Upstairs, too.

K: I actually miss the Abbey Lounge.  I LOVED playing there.  I used to have so much fun there with Saturday shows.

C: I like the Cantab Lounge, too; it’s a lot of fun to play, but I don’t get a big vibe from there.  I’d like to see more people come out to Cantab shows.

M: I like the Paradise Rock Club quite a bit, but I really miss the Paradise Lounge a lot.  It kind of breaks my heart that the Paradise Lounge is no longer around.  The sound in both those rooms were great!

P: With St. Helena, it’s always felt like we’re kind of biding our time: I think that if you stay around Boston long enough you do get to play for bigger audiences, so we’re kind of in our basement getting our shit together in the next year or so.

S: I think that it’s key for us to keep our morale up too.  You can easily burn out.  As long as we’ve got new material coming and we’ve got songs that have us keep wanting to go to practice, I think we’ll be okay.

So, what’s next for St. Helena?  After the upcoming show at the Cantab Lounge, what do you have planned for the next couple of months?

P: We put out an EP in 2006 and it got a lot of airplay and we put the whole thing on mySpace and all that, and it was a good stepping-stone for us and established us.  We’ll probably start recording again in the late fall.  We might do some pre-production on a full length.  We have enough material for it, and we haven’t done one yet, so that’s the next step for us I think.  We want to record it differently than how we recorded the last EP because that was a shit show.

M: It just took us forever!  We were trying to save money.  Next time, we want to do it all at once.

C: I’m excited because I joined the band after the last stitch was sewn on the last record, so I’m looking forward to the next one too.

When I think about the Boston music scene, I think of a big, boisterous group of people who support local music by going to each other’s shows, who promote the releases and events being put on by friends of theirs who also happen to be in local bands, and who can play the “Oh, you know ___? I know ____!” game better than anyone else. There are a few characters that stick out amongst the brooding lyricists, groomed hipsters and big melody-hungry musicians in this crowd, and one such character is John Powhida. Having come here in hot pursuit of his favorite bands after making the rounds in Albany’s independent music community, John has set up shop in Boston while making a name for himself as one of the least predictable and most entertaining performers on stages found on both sides of the river. With a penchant for epic, octave jumping solos, some of the most ridiculous lyrics you’ve ever heard and a wardrobe boasting numerous hats, shades and sparkly shirts that elicits a head-scratch or two, John is known just as well for his eccentricities as he is for his soaring voice and incomparable stage presence.

Gab, Jessie and I found ourselves in the basement of Toad on Sunday evening sitting across from Mr. Powhida, who was comfortably nestled in an arm chair that went along with the green room’s mismatched décor. I had plopped down on a well-worn leather sofa, and Jessie and Gab were dangling their legs over the edge of a gigantic trunk pushed up against the pistachio-hued wall.  This was the third week of John’s August residency at Toad, and his Sunday night slot was more of a musical variety show than a showcase for the Boston musician as he happily shared the stage with some of his talented friends.  We’ve had the pleasure of catching John onstage with John Powhida International Airport at Greenfest, and we were up front and center for his blink-and-you’ll-miss-it performance in Boston Band Crush’s epic One Night Band event.  August and John’s residency at Toad may be over, but after hanging out with Mr. Powhida and checking out his stellar show in town we’re sure that this won’t be the last time we’ll be seeing him.  Read on for a word-by-word retelling of the hilarious conversation that ensued in Toad’s basement, complete with musings on the MFA, his love for Mike Gent and his cat, Martin.

-Hilary Hughes

OPENING ACT: JOHN POWHIDA AND THE TEAPARTY TEN

What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

It’s been a long time! Cap’N Crunch, though it tears the roof of your mouth a lot.

Who would you rather punch in the face: Long Duk Dong from “Sixteen Candles”, or Mouth from “The Goonies”?

I’d punch ‘em both. At the SAME TIME.

If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be?

I would be a bottle opener.

You go to bed, wake up, walk into the bathroom to brush your teeth, and you look in the mirror and you realize that you’ve turned into one of Jim Henson’s Muppets overnight.  Which Muppet are you?

I’ve always related to Ernie.  I really have. You know, the glass is always half full with Ernie.

Say you have a crazy night, you black out, and you wake up feeling like crap the next morning and you realize… you got a tattoo.  What’d you get inked?

A blue and white checkerboard on my face.  That just came to me. I always thought I would get a tattoo of Tatu from “Fantasy Island.”  Isn’t that funny?

Would you rather be a rodeo clown or a sumo wrestler?

Sumo wrestler.  You know, there’s a whole correlation between sumo wrestling and rock and roll.  It’s the ritual, and the fans, and rock and roll, c’mon!  Then, I wouldn’t have to worry about eating too many BLTs.  I could eat as many as I like!

If you were a particular style of facial hair, what would you be?

I like to trim my eyebrows because they tend to get a little unruly, so I would like to be just a nicely trimmed eyebrow.  Just one.

If you were a type of cheese, which cheese would you be?

I would be that nasty, awful vegan cheese.  What’s that cheese that smells like jizz? It’s HORRIBLE!  I don’t know what cheese I’d be, but I wouldn’t be the cheese that smells like jizz.

What’s your quintessential “I’M GONNA DANCE AROUND MY APARTMENT IN MY SKIVVIES AND LOVE LIFE!” song?

“Inner Revolution” by Adrien Balou.

What’s your favorite word?

Powhida.  No, I can’t say that.  I’ll say Martin.  That’s my cat’s name.

THE MAIN EVENT: THE JOHN POWHIDA TPB INTERVIEW

So! John!  We go through three phases in our interview, pretty much-

John:  Do you need  a urine sample?

…Not yet.

J:  Okay.  I’m going to put my sunglasses on.

Okay.  What’s a short bio look like for John Powhida?

J:  I’m from Albany, New York, originally.  I moved here in 2000.  I got on the cover of the Albany version of The Phoenix, and I thought, “What the hell do I do now?  I gotta get out of town.”  I moved here, because Boston bands used to pass through Albany, like the Gravel Pit and the Gentlemen, and my band would open for them when they’d come through town.  I thought, “well, I can move to New York City, or I could move to Boston…” Boston always seemed to have a good communal bands building up each other, really supportive scene, and that’s proven itself time and time again.  I also moved to Boston because some of my favorite bands are from Boston, and I wanted to be able to see them more often.  They are Mike Gent and the Gentlemen, the Neighborhoods and the Upper Crust.  Do you know the Upper Crust?  Oh my God!  They dress as 18^th century aristocracy with the powdered wigs and the pantaloons and all they do is sings about being rich and they sound like ACDC and they’re AMAZING.  They opened for Aerosmith at the garden a few years ago.  They’ve been on Conan.  They’re so funny and so rocking.  Genius!  Those are great.  Get hip to the Crust.  You’ll love them.  I’m glad I moved out here.  Sure enough, I moved here in 2000, the first year was rough and I couldn’t get much happening, but after about a year, Mike Gent from the Gentlemen basically showcased my band and me in front of all his fans, and my band at the time was called the Rudds, and from there it’s just been one cool thing after another.  Just when I think it’s getting to the point where it feels like Albany and that I’ve settled into every little thing, something else cool happens that sorta keeps me here.  I guess the coolest thing that’s happened with me now is that I’m recording with Paul Kolderie who did Radiohead’s The Bends and Dinosaur Jr and Warren Zevon.  He’s been recording me and putting the music on his website at Campstreetstudio.com releasing these digital EPs, and that’s been fun.  I’ve just been super busy.  I keep writing and finding people to play with, and when the Rudds broke up I was like, “Oh God! What happens now?” but you find people to play with and you keep moving and growing and changing and it’s just all a wonderful dream.

Where did “John Powhida International Airport” come from?

J: I think I had heard that Ronald Reagan and John Lennon had airports named after them, and I thought, “I want an airport!”  I don’t have a driver’s license, but I do have an airport named after me.  And, you know, the Rudds? That was such a terrible name!  We were named after ACDC’s drummer, Phil Rudd, but then like, Paul Rudd became a famous actor, and there was this guy Roswell Rudd, and I just think it’s a way cooler name.  Anything I do from now on will fall under John Powhida International Airport.

Let’s talk influences.  Who does John Powhida look to for inspiration, creatively?

J:  This ties into the residency thing, because my main influences are people from the 70s and 80s, like Prince and Ty Rundgren and Cheap Trick and Daryl Hall and John Oates and Joni Mitchell and all kinds of people.  My 90s, I was like, relying on those influences for a long time.  When grunge hit, I didn’t really know how to relate to any of those bands because they weren’t melodic enough and stuff, but there were two bands that I absolutely loved that really changed the way I look at music, and life and everything, and it was the Figgs, another band of Mike Gent’s, and Urge Overkill from Chicago.  Nash Kato from Urge Overkill actually played the first night of my residency.  You may know Urge Overkill from “Pulp Fiction”, in that scene where Uma Thurman’s about to overdose and she puts in that CD and “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon” comes on? That was Urge’s version of a Neil Diamond song, but their own music is just phenomenal.  Years and years later, I’m in Boston and I’m playing with both of those people, with Nash and with Mike.  Now, I’m always finding new people who blow my mind.  There’s a woman named Nelly Makai who I absolutely love.  She’s like a 27 year-old piano player that’s terrific. I love all kinds of music: I love soul music and R&B music and Stevie Wonder and stuff, oh my God, I have a huge record collection!

Can you take us through the songwriting process of John Powhida? Do you collaborate with anyone, or do you write alone?

J:  I’ve never been particularly comfortable writing and working with other people.  I usually get the ideas myself, and then flesh ‘em out, and then I bring them to the band.  I don’t know why that is, but I’m more comfortable being a lone wolf creatively that way.  I just can’t seem to get free enough or let go enough when I’m working with another person.  I get kind of stifled and I can’t really let go and be me.  I always like music that’s not just one thing: I don’t like just country or just rock or just soul.  I think rock and roll is that great hybrid of lots of different influences, so I like music that’s a synthesis of different styles.  I think that’s way more interesting than just the purest…

You can definitely hear that in your music.

J: Thank you!  There’s soul in so many different types of music.  To just get joy or limit your expression to rock is just, to me, is just kind of boring.  I love to rock and I think at heart I’m a rocker, but I love R&B music too and rap and I just like mixing it all together.  I’m just a channel with my creative process, man!  (Laughs) I’m just kidding.  I don’t know.  I don’t really understand it fully.  I’m always glad when another song comes, and they keep coming.  At my job, I’m a security guard at the Museum of Fine Arts, a gallery guard, and basically you’re just left alone with your thoughts all day.  I’m able to think about music and work on music and work on stage banter and most people work at their job and they have to work for a boss that’s bearing down on them, and they maybe don’t have time and the creative thing gets sublimated.  At my job, I’m able to think about it all the time.

Does it help being surrounded by beautiful things all day?

J:  I think it does.  It does influence you, even if it’s subconsciously.  How could it not?

Just out of curiosity, which gallery do you work in?  Does your assignment change?

J:  It changes every day.  Sometimes I’m at the door, and I’m taking tickets and all that sort of thing, but that’s the most exciting part of the day to just see where you are.  It’s all downhill from there.

Do you have a favorite part of the museum?

J:  That’s a good question.  Every gallery has its own little vibe and some galleries have amazing art in them but the days just drag and drag and drag.  Like the Dutch gallery, where the Rembrandt stuff is?  That stuff’s amazing, but man, that makes for the longest day, whereas say, the days pass quickly in the Asian sculpture gallery!  I don’t know why.

In terms of what we have to look forward to from you in the coming months, are there any projects we should look out for?

J:  I’m excited because I have a new version of the Airport.  I lost two members, a married couple, and they moved away and I was really bummed out because I love those guys.  They played with me last week in a kind of Airport vs. Airport thing, where we had the old Airport versus the new Airport.  What do we have over the next couple of months? Let’s see. Well, you know what’s fun is the Rudds are reuniting at the end of this month, and the Rudds are awesome.  I really don’t know what the hell will be going on in the next couple of months.  Things keep happening.  The phone will ring and I’m like, “Okay, I’ll do that.  No, I’m not gonna do that.”  That’s my whole thing: People never know what to expect, so they’re like, “Oh, there he is, always surprising us with these wacky antics!”

Why did you choose to do a residency at Toad?

Billy Beard asked, and he thought it would be a good idea so he offered me Sundays continually, like, I’ll be the Sunday guy, but I’ve found that I don’t need to play that often and that we’ve got a great groovy thing going on here in August.  At the end of August, I told him I don’t want to be playing; I feel like I’m taking my eye off the International Airport ball.  We’re not rehearsing enough.  I’m always thinking, “What am I gonna be doing next year?” and I make every week different here, which is cool, because residencies can get pretty stale.  I’m flattered that he asked me to take over Sundays, but I said no.  It’s absolutely impossible to have a bad gig at the Lizard Lounge, too.  The Lizard Lounge is a magic venue.  I absolutely love it.

What do you especially love about the Lizard Lounge that makes it the space that it is?

I don’t know if it’s dark, and the three or four single occupancy bathrooms… I don’t know what combines that makes it the magic it is, but I’ve just never had a bad gig there.  It seems like it hosts this communal consciousness where people want to listen to music and have a good time and they’re rooting for you, and it just seems like every time you play there, everyone gets drunk, and there’s that sharing of energy that sometimes happens and sometimes doesn’t at other venues, but it seems to always happen at the Lizard Lounge, where even here at Toad there can be a hit or miss.  If they were to ask me to do a residency at Lizard, I’d do it.

What do you like about playing Toad?

I like the wait staff here a lot, actually: Greg, Jeremy and Josh are all awesome guys.  I like the BLT, that’s yummy.  You know what’s cool about Toad?  Musicians hang out here.  If you’re playing, Sarah Borges will get up and sing with you, the guys from The Click Five are in the audience and you can get them to come up and play… it’s just like a musician hang, you know?  Peter Wolf will come in, Paul Ahlstrand will play sax.  I mean, you can really take that for granted, but when it happens it’s like, “Oh shit! What a special thing!” I like that about this place.

Are there any other venues that have that similar quality of Toad’s, that act as unofficial haunts for musicians in Boston?

I like Johnny D’s because they pay the best.  I like the sound… where do I like the sound? TT’s, the sound is always questionable.  Atwood’s has a similar vibe to Toad, but what needs to happen more is the Atwood’s community- see, this is me tooting my own horn- I somehow bridge the gap between a lot of different scenes and normally the Peter Wolf/Session Americana scene doesn’t always interact with the original music scene that plays the Middle East and TT’s.  Because of all the synthesizing of different styles, it’s like, “Well, John does this, but he also does a bit of this and that.” It would be nice if the Atwood’s people could move over this way and we could intermingle a little bit more.

Yeah!  It’s cool when you can somehow fall under the same umbrella but retain your originality in your own right.

The Session Americana guys are good with that.  They’ve had the Everyday Visuals play with them, and they’re getting friendly with people they wouldn’t associate with normally and making fans and what not.  Since there isn’t one overriding sound or scene right now, I like it when everybody gets to know everybody else.

We talked about why you came to Boston, but we haven’t touched on why you want to stay here.  Do you see yourself settling here permanently, or do you think you’ll be moving on to another city soon with John Powhida International Airport?

I would move onto another city if there were a musical opportunity that I couldn’t say no to.  I don’t really have a lot of roots that I couldn’t up and split.  I moved here for the music scene, not because I was in love with Boston, per se, but I’ve definitely fallen in love with Boston and I have no intentions of leaving.  I moved here completely for the musical opportunities because there were more clubs and more musicians and more opportunities to record with people like Paul Kolgary.  I’ll stay here, but when things start to get too comfortable I do get antsy.  Even being asked to do the residency, I was like, “Am I turning into this local, staple guy?” That always makes me a little nervous, because I like to keep moving like a shark.

Absolutely.  We can understand how you’d want to keep it fresh in order to keep the element of surprise going.

And that’s what this residency has been all about!  It hasn’t just been me playing the same set for five weeks.  The first week, we had Nash Kater from Urge Overkill and that, although it was kind of a train wreck, was really fun because we all got our jam heated.  There was a beautiful, wonderful vibe that night.  The second week was Airport vs. Airport, so there were two completely different sets with two different bands, all original music.  Then, we have Mike Gent playing, who’s a fantastic, great songwriter and one of my heroes.  After that, it’ll just be trio a trio and me kind of playing all kinds of different things, and then the last week is The Rudds.  Every week is completely different.  It keeps people from becoming very familiar with everything.  They have it listed as the John Powhida Project, but it’s supposed to be the John Powhida Show: It’s just like a TV show, and every week there’s a different story.

Are there any particular songs in your catalog that you feel particularly connected to?

Right now I feel connected to “Bridgefield Punk”.  It’s my “Strawberry Fields”.

For those who have been dropping by Toad on Monday nights to see the Tim Gearan Band do their blueey, country-flavored set, a change is in store: A couple of weeks ago, Tim let it be known that his residency at this bohemian hangout and respected music spot would be phased out over the month of September in order to start a new residency up in Inman Square’s Atwood’s Tavern.  At fifteen years and counting, Gearan is ready to move on from his weekly gig at the popular Cambridge venue.  His admiration and respect for the folks over at Toad and his loyal fan base is unwavering, and with their support he’s opting for a new spot for his band to call home at another local venue that’s become a haunt and hangout for local musicians.  Though Toad and Gearan have had a long and happy run together, Tim’s transition to Atwood’s seems a logical one to make: The bar is already playing some of Tim’s records on heavy rotation during their popular Pub Quiz nights, and with a regular lineup boasting intimate sets from members of Boston’s best folk and blues acts, his rowdy repertoire infused with a bit of Deep South soul will fit right in on the Atwood’s roster.

While we were trying to arrange for time to sit down and have a formal interview over a pint, Tim literally had to count the free hours between gigs that were scheduled for six consecutive days.  Between playing the last few nights of the Toad residency, joining his band for an early evening show at The Burren and playing on the regular alongside Christian McNeill, Jesse Dee and the rest of The Sea Monsters any given Sunday at Precinct, Tim is constantly singing, constantly strummin’ his guitar and constantly making music with his friends and fellow Cambridge/Somerville singer/songwriters.  Read on to learn about where Gearan picked up his guitar, the limitless songwriting inspiration he derives from his family and what we can look forward to in the coming months from one of Boston’s best performers.

-Hilary Hughes

THE MAIN EVENT: THE TIM GEARAN TPB INTERVIEW

What’s your back-story, Tim Gearan?

I’m a North Eastern kid. I was born and raised in New England, or in New York, specifically.  I’ve always been interested in music.  Our family stayed in New York but we’ve always been running around a lot, and my brother and sister and I were just always involved in the arts somehow.  We’re all doomed artists from the beginning, just because we needed something to sink our teeth into when the upheaval of our family occurred, with all the changes that go along with a 70s family and all that goes around with it.  In terms of a musical background, I’ve always been playing and writing.  Once I left home, I did the classic sort of 20s bop around the country/vagabonding thing, playing the couch circuit as it were, you know.  I moved out to California for a while and kind of soaked up the commercialism out there, and it started out in a negative sort of fashion, as I don’t really adhere to the LA scene so much.  I met somebody out there from Lafayette, Louisiana, and I moved to Louisiana for a year and a half or so.  That was more my speed, kind of soaking up the blues and zydeco and gospel and country music that happens down there.  I was lucky enough to be close enough to New Orleans so that I could take trips down there all the time and play music.  That’s where the idea of residencies kind of occurred to me, too: A lot of the people that live down there are sort of set in their ways and the Southern attitude is very much a casual one, and you have a lot of older folks who have lived with their music for a long time.  They don’t necessarily tour, and that’s sort of something ideal for me, the idea of a blues man in a chair in a corner.  That’s my idea of success, as opposed to that of my friends who I left reaching for the stars in LA.  I just wanted to play all the time.  So, I did that, and just played all the time, and of course was destitute and ran out of money at some point, and I ended up back here and my brother was painting houses up here and he got me back on my feet a little bit.  That was in 1988, and I’ve been here since, just picking up gigs and playing and just doing my thing.

And you’ve always been in Cambridge and Somerville?

Pretty much, man.  I’ve been in the Davis Square area for 18 years.  It’s just the convenience of it all.

Can you put your creative process into words for us?  How’s songwriting go for Tim Gearan?

There’s no real process.  I’m not one of those writers who sits down and gets a day job and goes to work everyday, but with that being said there’s always a guitar laying around, so if I don’t have anything else in my hands a guitar will be there, usually.  I can just soak up whatever I hear at any point in the day, whether I’m reading the paper or eavesdropping on a conversation or whether it’s my five-year-old daughter and whatever’s coming out of her mouth and running through her mind.

She must be a great source of inspiration for you.

She’s a GREAT source of inspiration!  My wife, too; She’s a social worker and she comes home with all these amazing stories of other people’s lives.  I spent a lot of time on the road in the 80s and 90s, but I’ve kind of settled down since I have a family, so I take it where I can get it, you know?  I got piles of composition notebooks laying around the house, and I just write down whether it’s a whole song coming out at once or little ideas, I fill notebooks with ideas and when I get the time to myself after everyone’s gone to bed I sit down and see what I can collect.  That might happen every day for a week and it might not happen for weeks at a time, it’s totally random.  Listening’s a big part of it: Listening to all my favorite players, listening to my friends’ songs as well as my favorite artists.

Who are some of those favorite artists?  Who would you say influences you?

That’s a really long list (laughs).  I really love, recently, it’s gospel music, that’s been a huge inspiration.  The Staples Singers, Blind Willie Johnson, Lightening Hopkins, a lot of the blues and gospel singers.  I kind of like what people like Robbie Roberston and the Band did with those inspirations, they brought sort of a literary bent to it.  It’s not necessarily a church thing or a religious thing; it’s more of a feel thing where you bring in your own stories.  The poetry that was superimposed on top of old gospel music, you know.  After Bob Dylan came along and sort of added this surreal bent to things, all of the rules were broken and you could take a blues tune and say whatever you wanted with it besides “My baby left me!”  I definitely have a traditional history of country music and gospel music, blues and everything that happened with that stuff after the Beatles came along and broke the rules with those traditions.  I couldn’t begin to list it all! I was just listening to Jeff Foucault before I left the house; I met him through Peter Mulvey.  We both sort of belong to the folk circuit that comes out of this area that’s sort of nationwide.  People whose music hasn’t really been generated so much, you know?  Peter Case is another guy.  All the big iconic figures and all the smaller guys running around making songs, I dig into all of it.

Are there any songs in your catalog that you feel particularly connected to?  I know that it’s kind of like asking to choose between children.  Do you have any songs that you look forward to including in your set every performance?

The new ones! The newest things that I’ve written are always the most fun to play live.  It’s not necessarily that I’m the most attached to them, but they’re the most poignant- it’s the thing that I’m relating to now, so that’s the most important thing to me and you know, that’s what I’m clinging to right now, the most recent feelings I have.  You can’t look at the songs you write without feeling sort of nostalgic, and that’s fine, but only a few of those still really make the cut when I play in front of people anymore.  It’s hard to keep them alive.  I think the really strong ones out of the 150 songs or so I’ve recorded, there’s only a small fraction of them that I still feel sort of make the cut.  Having said that, I have a friend who came down to the show the other night, Jen Kimball, and she’s moving to Ireland for a year, so there are some tunes that I’m like, “Well, I’ve got a friend who’s moving away for awhile.  I know I’ve got a song for you!” it was a song called “Moving Day”, so right now I’m thinking of that one.

You’ve mentioned people that you derive inspiration from.  In terms of local acts, you mentioned that local artists inspire you as well.  Who are some Boston bands or Boston artists that you really enjoy?

Yeah!  I like Dennis Brennan a lot.  He’s just one of those guys that, you know, he’s just a constant source of inspiration.  He never drops the ball, you know?  He sings and plays with everything he has no matter what, no matter where he’s playing or who he’s playing for.  He’s also got that thing I was talking about where he’s got a lot of background and knowledge of the roots of American music, and he superimposes poetry, his own writing, on top of that in a way that I find to be really unique and not too writerly or precious or over the top.  You never really forget the tune of the story when you leave.  I think that a lot of writers spend too much time going off on some literary, whimsical thing where it’s all about them and how many words they can get in.  It’s more an exercise in wit, or something.  With him, he keeps it really simple and yet the wit’s still there and the storyline is still there and the melody, he sings it and it’s like, amen.  That’s what I’m always looking for, you know?  I like the guys who are sort of reinventing the soul thing around town right now.  Eli Reed is doing that; Jesse Dee is doing that.  I think Christian McNeill does that like nobody else does it.  He’s taken that sort of hypnotic soul route that’s just really addictive. I get to play with these guys, you know?  I love writing, but I’m sort of a sideman and I love playing guitar, so I’m lucky to have guys in town that I can just be in the background and just add a little something.

Do you have any favorite venues in Boston?  I’ve seen you at Precinct multiple times and obviously you’ve been doing the residency thing at Toad for awhile…

Toad has definitely been there for me.  I’ve been there every Monday night for fifteen years, almost.  I will disclose now that only last week did I let it be known that I’m gonna stop doing that.  I’m gonna phase out my residency at Toad starting in September, and I’m gonna take that band, the whole Monday night crew, and start a residency or continue the residency I’ve had at Atwood’s every Friday.  I’m gonna try to make that the spot.

Why the change of locale?

It’s mostly due to my own need for upheaval and for change.  It takes me awhile to shake it up, I don’t know (laughs).  That’s a big change for me.  It’s emotional and tough for me to even talk about it because it’s such a new idea, but for various reasons, I think it’s good to leave on a high note and it’s been tough trying to fit everyone who wants to come down on a Monday night in the door at Toad because it’s so small, so finding a place that’s got a bit more room to move and to dance- Atwood’s is a place that’s new, and I feel like I’ve got a future I could build on there and the feeling that I’ve got something new started.  The guys down there, they’re there every week and they’re hands on and at my shows all the time.  They want to make it into a listening room and bring a sound guy in.  They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse as well.   Starting in October, I’ll have the Monday night residency guys down at Atwood’s.  I really can’t say enough good things about my residency at Toad, though.  I felt free to do whatever I wanted because there’s no cover so I didn’t feel any pressure.  It’s always been a place for friends, and I get to play with my best friends down there all the time.  What’s happened in the cultivation of that joint is just irreplaceable, you know?  Down the street is the Lizard Lounge and down the street from there is Club Passim.  Once in awhile the Paradise Rock Club will throw me a gig, I’ll get an opening set there every once in awhile.  I’ve been the “under-the-radar residency guy” for the longest time (laughs).  I don’t know what’s compelled me to do residencies.  I’ve moved around so much as a kid, so maybe I’ve just felt compelled to find a spot and hunker down, you know?

How have these residencies affected you, creatively?  How has your residency at Toad been beneficial to you?

We’re basically a band that never rehearses because we all just get together and play.  We’ve never rehearsed a song in the twenty or so years I’ve been playing with these guys.  We just go to the gig and play the same song every week for a few weeks, and by the end of that few week period of time that song’s basically fleshed it’s way out.  It’s kind of the same way with The Sea Monsters, too; I’ve never rehearsed with those guys and we trust each other on and offstage, too.  I mean, a song’s not rocket science.  It’s based on really simple forms.  We sort of rely on the inspiration of the time and we’re not a slave to sort of definite ideas, which is definitely attractive to me, seeing what happens with that every week.  It’s a little different every time.  There’s this bedrock and a foundation and you’ll see that songs are never the same way twice.

Let’s talk about The Sea Monsters for a little bit.  I noticed that you hear distinct differences between your songs, Jesse Dee’s songs and Christian McNeill’s songs.  During Sea Monsters gigs, do you guys kind of trade off leading when you guys are playing together?

That’s how it works!  It’s just basically a round table and we just go down the line.  Christian is a magnanimous individual, you know?  He’ll always spread the wealth and share his spotlight.  He’s got enough material to make The Sea Monsters all about him down there, but he’s really into the communal vibe that happens there and which I really appreciate.  Since Jesse’s kind of got his own thing and is gonna take off, I’ve got my own thing and I do my own thing, Christian has the opportunity to do his own thing on that night and I don’t want to discourage him from inviting his friends to come down to play.  I would like to play on more of his songs.  I like singin’ with that guy and singin’ on his songs, you know?  I’m happy to throw in my two cents and do my part, but I’m always whispering to him, “It’s your show, man!  Do your thing!”  I feel like he’s the centerpiece and he does something down there that gets everybody going.  Having said that, I want to play with Christian as much as possible.

In terms of the collaborative nature of The Sea Monsters, do you feel that being involved with the project has helped with your writing?  Do you bounce ideas off of Christian and Jesse and the other guys?

I think we bounce ideas off each other whether we like it or not because we play together a lot.  There’s only been a few times, less than I can count on one hand, with Christian [to write], usually late, late, late night, we’ll go back to somebody’s apartment and drink and play and come up with some ideas.  I think the inspiration comes – I noticed that a couple of guys in the band were saying, I’ve got these sort of anthemic ballads I’ve been writing lately, and they’re like “Where’s that coming from?! Your stuff is usually a little more opaque!”  And I’m like, “It’s coming from Christian!”  Christian is all about “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus!”  He’s got a million songs where everybody just sings out and everybody knows what to do, and there’s a quality in that that I definitely think I’ve taken from that experience.  You gotta play your dancing numbers when you play with Christian a lot of the time.  I’ll try doing a country number down there and get the hairy eyeball (laughs).

You had mentioned that your residency at Toad is going to be fading into a transition to Atwood’s.  Where else do you see yourself a couple of months down the road from now?

As far as The Sea Monsters are concerned, that all depends on Christian.  That’s entirely up to him.  He’s the captain of that boat.  As long as they’re doing it and they’ll have me, I’ll show up to play!  With that said, we’ve had a member move down to Brooklyn recently and some other guys from The Sea Monsters may move onto other cities too, who knows.  I mean, Boston has zero industry: It’s a great place to cut your teeth.  It’s a great place if you want to play in great clubs for wonderful people all the time, but it’s not like A&R guys are going to come through the door of the bar you’re playing in any minute and go, “You’re just what we’ve been looking for!”  At this point and this stage in the game that doesn’t really happen anymore anyway, because the playing ground is completely level, but I would understand it if people wanted to shake things up a bit by moving to another commercial level.

Well, you’ve lived in plenty of places and you’ve toured extensively.  How does Boston compare with other cities you’ve lived in or played, and how does the crowd differ here from other cities?

I think it takes a little while to warm up to Boston, but once you do it’s irresistible.  I always felt like the city needs to loosen up a little bit and I always felt like it was part of my job to help it loosen up a little bit, and people can count on us to see music you can bop around to, and Boston afforded me the opportunity to do that.  Coming from the South and having grown up in the North East and having experienced the South and the Midwest, you know, Chicago, and New Orleans, it’s wonderful that you can create something up here that people think of as an anomaly.  What I experienced musically in different cities, that was something that was always there and in the dirt, and it takes a little longer to cultivate that in Boston I think.  I think people will attest to that.  People I know who have come from out of town and decided to stay here, people who came up after the flood in New Orleans and decided to stay here, they’ve said, “Yeah, it takes a little while.”  There’s rigidity to Boston that you don’t find in New Orleans or Chicago, where there it’s automatic.  I’m not ragging on Boston, I obviously have an affinity for it and I love it here, and there’s a place, you just kind of have to seek it out here.  You have to find the best-kept secrets.  I’m not quite sure why it’s taken so long for certain acts to be covered in Boston.

I’m personally shocked that The Sea Monsters have been written up yet, frankly.

There’s a game to be played in this town and we don’t play it, you know?  The game is to get your stuff in the right hands.  People like Christian and me are sort of bullheaded about that and also not, um, savvy (laughs).  To be perfectly honest, we’re not success-driven; we’re just really here to play for the moment and I just look forward to the next time we do that.  Having said that, it can be frustrating when you know that you have something there and the people who are in charge of the media aren’t paying attention as they should be.  You sound like your tooting your own horn when you start to talk like this, but after twenty years you don’t –

[Tim’s five-year-old, Maggie, comes bounding in.  BOUNDING.]

Sorry ‘bout that.  This is another residency I’ve been doing for about four years now, here at The Burren.  It’s fun because it’s early and my daughter gets to come down and sing with the band and stuff.

Your daughter will come up and sing with you!?

Absolutely!

That’s great.  How has fatherhood directly affected you as a musician?  You mentioned that your family has had a significant impact on how you write.

You definitely get more of a sense of the bigger picture.  You get out of that little selfish bubble.  You really don’t have to compromise at all, ever.  I’ve always been able to somehow squeak out a living playing music and I’ve only had to deal with my own needs, really, and so this was the best kind of shock I could ever ask for to make you look outside that and see more of the future.  You start taking better care of yourself because you want to be there, you know?

The David Wax Museum will be celebrating the release of their debut of sorts tonight at Club Passim, and due to the band’s popular demand there’ll be a not one but TWO shows for the David Wax Museum CD release as the 7pm show has already sold out.  Alipio and I caught up with David at Diesel for a quick cup of coffee and to talk about Roberto Bolano, plans for his upcoming tour, and what excites him the most about writing music that reflects the places his known.

-Hilary Hughes

OPENING ACT: DAVID WAX AND THE TEAPARTY TEN

What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

Granola.

Who would you rather punch in the face: Long Duk Dong from “Sixteen Candles”, or Mouth from “The Goonies”?

I’d punch them both.

If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be?

A cleaver.

You go to bed, wake up, walk into the bathroom to brush your teeth, and you look in the mirror and you realize that you’ve turned into one of Jim Henson’s Muppets overnight.  Which Muppet are you?

Fozzie!

Say you have a crazy night, you black out, and you wake up feeling like crap the next morning and you realize… you got a tattoo.  What’d you get inked?

“”Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news”

Would you rather be a rodeo clown or a sumo wrestler?

Sumo wrestler.

If you were a particular style of facial hair, what would you be?

I’d be a beard.

If you were a type of cheese, which cheese would you be?

Feta!

What’s your quintessential “I’M GONNA DANCE AROUND MY APARTMENT IN MY SKIVVIES AND LOVE LIFE!” song?

“Chameleon” by Herbie Hancock.

What’s your favorite word?

Meander.

THE MAIN EVENT: THE DAVID WAX TPB INTERVIEW

Tell us about yourself, David!  Where are you from?

I’m from Columbus, Missouri, which is at the foothills of the Ozarks.  Born and raised.  I left when I was 18 to go to college, but definitely… that was definitely my formative experience, growing up in Missouri and growing up listening to bluegrass music and a lot of midwestern rock roots.  Uncle Tupelo had already broken up by the time I really got interested in rock and roll or country rock or alt country, whatever you want to call it-

I’ve heard the term “grass grunge” thrown around a lot, too.

I don’t really identify with that term, but I can understand it’s utility.  So, I grew up with seeing Uncle Tupelo and Wilco live a lot and they were kind of the big figures when it came to finding a group that sounded like a sound I identified with.

You said you left for college.  Where did you go?

For the first two years I went to a small school in California called Deep Springs College.  It’s an all-male very tiny college on a cattle ranch in the Sierras.  It’s just a two-year program, so everyone leaves at the end of it, and I took time off and transferred to Harvard and finished up there, where I studied history and literature with a focus on Latin America.

Did you feel to a particular draw to Boston?  I mean, obviously Harvard is… well, Harvard…

Well, yeah, I came because of school but it’s kind of complicated because I met someone when I was traveling during my year in between schools and we started dating and it happened that she was at Harvard, so it worked out well.

How long ago was this?

I started at Harvard in 2003.  I spent a semester abroad in Santiago, Chile, and then came back to finish at Harvard in ’06.  Then, I got a traveling fellowship after I graduated to return to Mexico to specifically learn how to play Mexican folk music.  I did that for a year and I moved back almost two years ago to Boston.

How has your time in Mexico and abroad impacted you musically?  Do you think it factors into your sound now?

Certainly.  I think that Missouri and Mexico are the two most important parts of what I’m doing musically, being rooted in Missouri but also having a heavy Latin influence that’s really given me a lot of inspiration with the work I’m doing now.  I didn’t really foresee that happening.  I started playing Mexican folk music, and then the natural step for me was – I still hadn’t learned the verses to the songs, and I would sing over the songs in English and I would start writing my own lyrics.  A lot of the stuff on the album is kind of new songs out of that, that are me singing over these Mexican folk songs with new lyrics written in English that have been arranged for a band with a bluegrass instrumentation.

That’s a really interesting mix.

Yeah!  My iPod, in general, is half American roots music and half Mexican folk music, so for me, I don’t make a really clear distinction between the two because I’m swimming in both all the time in my head.  It feels like a natural growth out of that and that’s how the band evolved.

We’ve talked about how place factors into the development of the sound of David Wax Museum, but who are some of the artists from whom you’ve drawn inspiration?

Townes Van Sant, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Tom Waits, Paul Simon, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen… At a certain age, when I was in high school, Whiskey Town and The Old 97s, Jay Hawkes.  For one period in my life all I was listening to were songs by Chris Whitley and his album Dirt Floor, which is one of my favorite albums.

How would you put your creative process into words?

I feel like I’ve developed a good method and routine for song writing.  When I first got back to Boston two years ago I had a little bit of money left over from the fellowship to get me through the first couple of months, so I was just doing music full time.  It was a real luxury, now that I look back on it while I’m scrambling with part-time jobs.  I’m spending a lot of time doing the music business side of things.  At that stage, it was more about getting bands together, and spending a couple of hours of every day writing.  So, a lot of the songs on the new album came out of that first year back and having all that time to write and rewrite.  A lot of those songs are songs that the band was learning at the time.  It’s been harder to find that time every day to write, but I still do it everyday.  It’s easy for other demands in your life to take precedence.  I feel like giving myself an assignment has been really helpful.  I’ve been in school for so long and I love being in school, so it was easy to make myself work and have a deadline.  That first year I would make myself finish a song by Friday afternoon every week.  I’ve written a lot of awful songs as well, but I feel like you have to get those songs out of the way because you have ideas and I get an idea and a vision for what the idea of the song is or what I’m trying to do with it, and it might not be a good idea but I don’t know until the song’s been written.  Sometimes I just have to do it so that it’s not on my list of songs to get to or songs to flesh out.  Some of those have been looming on that list for years.

In terms of fleshing out the musicality of your songs, do you collaborate with anyone or is it just you writing and you bring it to the other members of the David Wax Museum for arrangements and that’s just it?

With David Wax Museum, there’s a lot of feedback from the band, but I’m usually bringing songs that are already complete in terms of the lyrics, melody and chords are all written.  The real work of the band is in the arrangement and often there’s a lot of other feedback that they get.  Often, I’ll have different verses and they’re the first people who will listen to what I’m working on and give me feedback as to what they think, whether they think it doesn’t work or they like certain parts of the song.  They generate a lot of the musical ideas that end up being what people hear.  They contribute an awful lot to the end product, but a lot of that is more in the arrangement of the song.

Are there songs in the David Wax Museum catalog that you feel particularly connected to, or are there any songs you’re especially excited to share at your CD release?

There’s a song that I don’t play as often as I used to because I think it’s more of a one guy and his guitar singer/songwriter sort of song, and it’s called “The Road to Puerto Encino.”  I wrote it when I was first living in Mexico, and I was in an old village and working there.  I think it was a big step for me as a songwriter in terms of writing a song on a different level of maturity in comparison with the stuff I wrote in high school.  The song sticks out and I’ll play it when I play gigs by myself, but it’s not really a part of the David Wax Museum repertoire anymore.  For a while, that was kind of my song: If I had to play one song for someone that was the song that I played.  That’s not the case anymore, although there’s a song from the last album called “The Great Unawakening” and I feel like that song has kind of taken the place of “The Road to Puerto Encino” in that it’s the one song that if I had to do one song that one is my go-to.  It’s not necessarily an emotional experience.  A friend of mine recently described the song as “relentlessly buoyant”, but it’s a really different side of me and there’s a certain type of persona one falls into when you’re writing in that folk tradition.  The singer/songwriter folk tradition, specifically, it gets a little morose or it has this “poor me!” kind of – my cousin called it the “sad bastard” song.  Mexican folk music has allowed me to get out of that “sad bastard” kind of song and write a song that was a lot more joyful and exuberant, so those songs have a different kind of energy and a different underlying sentiment.

Do you have any crazy stories for us from your time on tour with David Wax Museum?

Well this upcoming tour for us is our first serious tour and our first big push.  We have a couple of shows right before the CD release, but September 18^th is our official release and our tour kickoff.  We’ll be on the road for a month and that’s the first time that this band will be on a lengthy tour.  We did a week on tour opening for the Avett Brothers, and then we put in a couple of extra shows on nights we weren’t playing with them, and it went really smoothly and really well.  This upcoming tour isn’t going to be really comparable with that: We were opening for them and we were in these beautiful theaters and the best places you can imagine playing if you’re playing in a large place at all these gorgeous venues.  The sold out shows had nothing to do with us, but their success is built on a lot of years of relentless touring and hard work, and when you see someone who’s really worked for that and kind of what- and that’s not the case for a lot of people who’ve worked really hard, but it was really exciting for us to get a glimpse of artists who appreciate that kind of an opportunity.  You don’t know what’s going on when a band explodes, and it’s hard to know about all the trials and tribulations that they’ve been to to get where they are.  Even if it looks like an instant success story, it’s hard for me to believe that that’s all it was, you know?  There’s power, luck and talent.  A former bandmate described musician’s purgatory, which was specifically about what happens when you get concerned about other people’s success and you’re thinking about the success of the other people doing what you’re doing and comparing yourself to them instead of just being appreciative and excited for them, and also feeling like it’s a good thing, if they’re writing good music and making a living… I don’t know.  On my better days, I try to be encouraged by that.

I think that’s healthy!  In terms of this album coming out, how do you feel that this material is a departure from other songs you’ve written before?

This album is a continuation of the mix of Mexican and American folk music.  The last album was done in three days in a home studio with my best friend and a very good friend of ours and it was kind of a spontaneous creation that happened.  A lot of things came together in the right way in a short span of time, but it was also done with the people I had grown up playing music with, but not with the people I play music with now.  This CD is really the first CD for this band.  It’s recorded a lot more meticulously for better or worse.  You lose something in that because we spent so much time deliberating so many parts of it and overdubbing with horn sections or adding accordion and piano, which we don’t normally have in the band, but it’s the people who have been playing with David Wax Museum for the past two years – the CD represents this band that people have come out to see in town for the past two years.  A lot of people, really, it’ll be the first CD of David Wax Museum.  These people have really been a part of the creation of all these songs.  The last album was a lot sparser: we would arrange a couple of the songs and add some instruments, but there’s a good number of stuff that’s just very, you know, just two guitars and a voice.  This one’s a lot more built up, like a full production.

Let’s talk about the band for a second.  Can you tell me how you came to play with the other members of the David Wax Museum?

Sure!  I started to play- the person I first connected with that’s still in the band is a guy named Jiro Kokubu who’s a Japanese dobro and mandolin player from Osaka.  He’s an active member of the bluegrass scene and he plays at the Cantab Lounge every Tuesday night, so that’s where I first heard him.  Then, I got his contact information from the guy who runs the open mics at the Cantab, so I shot him an email asking what he was up to and if he’d be interested in playing together, and he said it sounded good to him, so he was just finishing up at Berklee.  He’s been playing bluegrass for over twenty years, I think.  Shortly after I started playing with Jiro, through a mutual friend of mine I met Suz, the fiddle player, and a mutual friend of ours had gone to school with me, so when I moved back to town I started asking if people knew other musicians in town for me to play with and that’s how I met her.  I met her within a couple of months of moving back.  She was in an old time group called the Mill Pond Nine, and Greg Glassman was playing guitar and singing in Mill Pond Nine.  We became friends and I later learned that he was a drummer, and he sat in with us at a gig once and was great.  He’s got a wonderful voice, so it’s great to be able to do these wonderful two-part harmonies.  I think a lot of people who come out to see the band regularly, that’s what really jumps out and grabs people, those harmonies, and that’s really all the work of Susan and Greg.  I have no talent for that sort of thing, and they have wonderful voices.  We recorded the album with an old friend of mine, Jack McGrath; he plays bass on the album and plays at a few of our shows, but he’s now in New York, and our drummer just moved to New York as well.

Let’s launch into the discussion about your fans and friends in Boston.  Are there any Boston bands that you’re currently following?

I’m really good friends with and really like the music of Avi and Celia.  We’ve done a number of shows with them.  I really like the music of a singer/songwriter named Jenee Halstead.  She’s a recent arrival as well; I think she’s been here for about three years.  I really like her music a lot.  I really like The Sacred Shakers.  Our drummer plays with that band as well. I really like Dave Godowsky.  Those are the ones that come off the top of my head of Boston musicians I love in town.  I also love Miss Tess and the bands that she’s in.  Alex Spiegelman plays clarinet with The Sweet and Lowdown, and he plays sax with us as well.

In terms of Boston venues you like, are there any that stick out amongst the spots you’ve played?  You’re having your CD release at Club Passim.  Why did you choose it as the place for your release party?

I really love playing at Club Passim, just because it’s the one place that’s a true listening room.  I think it suits what we’re doing really well.  Also, it’s the place that’s been the most supportive of the David Wax Museum, whether that’s, you know, initially including is in the Camp Fire thing that they do.  Passim’s been a great venue for us.  It’s a place where I also like to go hear music.  I don’t know, I think it also serves its role as a community of people.  I feel like more than any other Boston venue, it serves a special role in the folk community.  We also really love playing at Toad and that’s become a really wonderful venue for us as well.  We’ve made a lot of friends and fans there just because it’s free, so it’s got a built in audience and people just end up at Toad because of its intimacy.  It gets loud in there at times, but never that loud.  We love playing Lizard Lounge, too. We play at Johnny D’s and the Plough and Stars and we really enjoy those venues as well.  Those are the main ones.  I haven’t played Atwood’s or Precinct, but those are both places that would be fun to play.

In terms of your fans in Boston, I mean, you’ve been here awhile.  Let’s talk about the rapport you’ve built with your Boston fans.

The nice thing having lived here before I started playing music here is that we had a lot of friends to rely on when we were first getting started, which is really crucial when it comes to getting people out to a show when you’re a band that’s not very good when you’re first starting out (laughs).  We started at a point where most of the people who were coming out to our shows were friends and they’d bring their friends, which is a really comfortable way to start out.  You don’t have to win every single person in the beginning.  Most people are already on your side.  Over time, I think we’ve made a lot of fans by paying at Camp Fire, it was great to have a new audience hear us; the Sunday night gigs at Toad were great for the last six months, they were really great for us.  Any time we play an outdoor musical in town it’s always a good time.  We’ve met a lot of really great people who consistently come out to the shows, and the ones who come out on a regular basis are friends of ours and people I’ll go see shows with.  It doesn’t feel like there’s a line between who’s a performer and who’s a fan.  I think that the line should be crossed.  That seems pretty silly to me.  I think there are enough good venues where – I think especially at Toad, it’s always hard to hang out and talk to people on a night I’m playing there, but often I’ll go on another night and the same people will be there so then I’ll have a chance to meet them.  Boston has been really good to us.  I think we’ve felt like we fill a niche in terms of what we’re doing.  There are a lot of groups that are playing great Americana, but having something that’s a little different, with our Latin elements in our music, I think it’s something people have connected with and it’s something – our fiddle player also plays the donkey jaw bone, or the quijada, and that’s something people really like a lot.  The music’s fun, and I think it’s easy for people to instantly hear and get into.  I heard a very experimental jazz/punk group last night, and that was music that really challenges you.  It’s almost daring you to not like it.  It’s confronting you, you know?  We’re not trying to make music that confronts anybody.  We’re about this idea that music is appreciative and can also be joyful.

So, what’s next for the David Wax Museum after the CD release?  Where do you see the David Wax Museum in the not-so-distant future?

I have the songs – this album almost took a whole year to do, and part of it was there were financial constraints and we didn’t really have the money to do it right all at once.  So, the ideal for me would be for me to get back in the studio with the songs I’ve written over the last year and I still have some songs that I wrote when I was back in Mexico six months ago, so it’d be great to get together and record those new songs and just record it all over a week or a few days.  Of course, it’s kind of not really financially feasible to imagine that right now, so I’ll have to kind of assess where things are for the tour and how CD sales are going and if anyone is interested in financing a project like that.  I don’t really know.  I feel like I’m at a point where things could go in a lot of different directions, and I could kind of do as much work as possible to get the promotion ready for the album and to send the CD out to as many people as I can think of and to work as hard as I can to book the tour and play the shows as well as I can every night.  At some point, it’s out of my hands when it comes to how people will receive the album, but the side of people that make more of the decision to have the money and the labels, I cant worry about it too much because we only put out what we put out and we want to be happy with that.  I’m at that stage right now, and I don’t know.  I think sometimes it’s stressful and it feels like this huge, overwhelming void, and often it’s exciting.  Anything could happen, and the ideal – I think I felt like a little bit like I’ve reached a plateau in terms of the amount of money I could make doing what I’m doing in Boston playing as often as I’m playing, and the next step for the band is to be touring more, so hopefully we’ll kind of be getting more serious about touring more frequently.  It’s kind of a real trial run for us, this month-long tour.  You can fantasize about touring and all the romantic ideas you can have about it, but then to be on the road for a month and actually do it for a month away from the people you love and just living out of a car and sleeping in a different place every night, we’re just like, we’ll see how it goes and build an ideal tour for a band at the stage we’re at, so it’s hard to see what six months from now will look like.  It might be a point where it’s not sustainable, but I’ll figure out what that means for me.  Every month, it’s gotten a little easier and I’m hopeful that I’ll figure out a way to make it work.

As they took the stage of the Comcast Center on Friday night, the Followill boys, known to the world as explosive rock powerhouse Kings of Leon, ambled from the wings to the solemn, soaring crescendoes of “Lacrimosa” from Mozart’s Requiem.  The shadows remained as the Kings grabbed their guitars and swung the straps over their lanky shoulders, but within seconds the Mozart was cut and the crowd was blasted with a wall of sound and light as the family act from Tennessee  growled, wailed, beat and ferociously strummed the mortal strings of their electric guitars underneath jarring washes of blue and red.  Kings of Leon are a band whose look is as distinct as their sound: Sure, you can thank their genetic makeup for the brooding good looks that have teenage girls and their mothers alike lusting after the four Followills, but the intensity with which Kings of Leon approach their music is apparent in their set jaws and fierce, steady gaze.  Looking at Kings of Leon frontman Caleb is like taking in a rock and roll interpretation of American Gothic: Focused, unfazed and with instrument firmly in hand, you wonder what’s happening behind this famous face when he belts these lyrics, which are being chanted back at him by thousands of people, as his family plays by his side.

Before they had thousands of screaming, soaking wet fans singing along with their VMA-nominated, radio-standard hits in Mansfield that night, we somehow found ourselves backstage in a warmup room sitting across from Jared Followill, who had taken a seat behind a practice drum kit.  He seemed exhausted and worn from the non-stop touring schedule that Kings of Leon have been subject to since the release of last year’s Only By The Night, but it didn’t stop him from gushing about the special connection KoL has with their Boston fan base and the songs he looks forward to playing each night.  As he nervously fiddled with a pair of drumsticks and a guitar pick left on the table in the makeshift practice space, Jared caught us up with what Kings of Leon have been listening to on tour, what the future looks like for one of America’s hottest bands at the moment, and what the hell he plans on wearing to the VMAs tonight if Kings of Leon wind up showing up at all.

-Hilary Hughes

Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

So!  Hi, Jared!

Hi!

You stayin’ dry?

(Laughs) Yeah, absolutely.

Let’s just jump right into this.  How’s this tour going?  This is the second time Boston has seen Kings of Leon in the past couple of months, huh?

Yeah.  We’ve been – it’s hard for me to remember really. It just kind of gets jumbled up into my memory.  We did the first half of the tour on the West Coast and Canada, and we did that with the Whigs.  Then we went to the UK and played festivals in Reading and Leeds, and now we’re doing the East Coast leg with Glasvegas and White Lies.  It’s been great.

Sounds like you’ve been all over the place.  How does it feel to be back in Boston?

It’s great.  I love Boston.  It’s a really fun city.  I mean, we played here when we were just a small band and we played the Avalon.  We have a great fan base here.  The shows are always crazy and people are always enthusiastic.

Got any crazy stories from the Kings of Leon tour bus for us, Jared?

Not really (laughs).  We don’t even have a bus anymore.

I know that you’ve got a lot of plans and releases coming out over the next couple of months.  Which future projects for Kings of Leon are you most excited about?

The remix album is really awesome.  We’ve got a lot of cool, good bands doing things for us like M83 and CSS and Lykke Li and the Presets, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell… it’s really, really cool.  It’s a different take on the same songs that people have heard before, and it’s interesting to hear our music with an electronic side to it.

Jared Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

How does it feel to have other notable artists expressing interest for your music through their own interpretations of it?  It must be pretty surreal.

I love it.  I’ve always been into electronic-based music and I was very excited about the whole idea.  It started with a few people making some remixes for us.  We talked about maybe just doing a five song EP, but then everybody else started sending in their remixes and cuts of our songs so we just decided to make a record.

Let’s talk about the creative process of Kings of Leon.  How do you guys work together when it comes to your songwriting, and how does that process change once you hit the studio?

It depends, honestly.  Sometimes Caleb will have a guitar part and a vocal idea ready; sometimes he’ll just have a guitar part or I’ll have a bass part.  Each and every song always starts from one musical part.  We all just get the music together first, and I’ll play my bass part and Caleb will play his guitar part and Nathan will come in with a drum beat.  Then, we just write around that musical idea during sound checks until we get the musical idea first.  Then, once we have the basic musical arrangement done, Caleb starts to think up a vocal melody.  Sometimes that comes naturally and quickly while we’re writing the music, and sometimes it takes a little bit longer.  When it comes down to it, the steps of our creative process are music, vocal melody and then lyrics.

Are there any songs in the Kings of Leon catalog that stick out to you, especially?  What’s your favorite song of yours?

There are tons that are favorites.  My favorites are usually not necessarily the ones that come from me.  I feel connected to the ones that came from an idea I came up with, but there are a few that I like, like “Crawl.”  I like “Manhattan.”  I like a lot of the songs that aren’t big songs, like “Seventeen”.  The songs that people aren’t necessarily fans of tend to be my favorites.

Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

Does the writing continue when Kings of Leon heads out on tour?

We stopped sound checking for two or three tours because we just really didn’t need to, and that’s where we wrote most of the stuff.  We just started sound checking again, and we’ve been coming up with new songs every day now.

How is this new material a departure from previous songs we’ve heard from Kings of Leon?

It’s more of a continuation.  Everything sounds completely different from when we first start writing it to where the song ends up, because you over-think things.  That’s why we like to record things quickly and early into the process: Songs tend to get a little too polished when you over-think them, and we like the ideas to be more raw and off-the-cuff.

What are you listening to right now?  If we were to swipe your iPod and look at your “Recently Added” or “Recently Played” playlists, what would we find?

I’ve been listening to this song called “Sweet Disposition” by Temper Trap a lot.  I’ve been listening to a song called “Velvet” by The Big Pink, too.  I like Crystals Castles. I’m a big song guy; I don’t have that much faith in too many albums.  I like listening to Glasvegas and The White Lies and I especially love listening to the bands we tour with.

So, at the beginning of the summer you played the MTV Movie Awards, and now Kings of Leon are one of the nominees to look out for at the VMAs.  How does it feel?  Did you ever think in your wildest dreams that you’d be up for a Moonman?

No!  Not at all.  It actually makes me feel really nervous (laughs).

Do you have an outfit picked out?

No, I have no idea!  I’ll probably just wear a leather jacket or something… I’m trying to talk the guys into going.  They don’t want to go, even though it’s already been announced that we’ll be there.  I think Paramore is going to win the category we’re in anyway because of Twilight, but I’d like a Moonman.  I think it’d be cool.  I’m more nervous about the red carpet.  It’s nerve-wracking.

Matthew Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009.
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

So after the VMAs, what’s up next for Kings of Leon?  Where do you see yourself a couple of months down the line?

Probably on the beach somewhere.  I might go to Mexico for a little while or something.  Six months from now?  I don’t know.  I don’t know where we’ll be.  We could be writing the new record at that point, so we’ll see.

Are you gonna record the next record in Nashville?

I don’t know where we’re gonna do the next one, actually.  There are a couple of ideas floating around, and we were thinking of maybe going to an island somewhere and do it.  I’d rather do it in Nashville or LA or somewhere familiar, you know?

That’s interesting, because I wanted to talk to you about place and how it’s affected you as an artist.  We spend a lot of time talking with Boston bands about how our city has treated them or played some part in the cultivation of their creativity.  How have your surroundings or the cities you’ve called home impacted you as a musician?  Has where you come from really made a difference in your sound?

Possibly.  We don’t really feel at home anywhere; Nashville never really accepted us, which is totally fine because we never really accepted them.  As far as the Nashville music scene goes, they hate us, so we don’t feel connected to Nashville at all which is totally cool with us. Well, the thing is, our fans in Nashville are great and they treat us as though we’re from Nashville, but the whole music scene there is really fickle.  If you don’t play certain bars for five nights a week, you’re not a Nashville band.  We literally formed in Nashville and started playing in a garage there.  We don’t really feel like we’re connected to any particular spot and we don’t really have a home base.  No matter where we are, we never really feel like we’re playing at home.

Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center in Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009.
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

Caleb Followill, Nathan Followill of Kings of Leon at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA – September 11 2009.
Photo: Gabrielle Petraglia

Before watching them belt, shimmy and kick their skinny jean-clad legs on stage at TT’s, Jessie and I got the dirt on who Bo and Jen are listening to, what we can expect from MEandJOANCOLLINS in the coming months, and why the hell all of their catchiest songs have such dirty, dirty names.  They’ll be headlining Upstairs at the Middle East on Saturday, September 12, and the bill boasts several other notable Boston bands so be sure to clear your schedule.

–Hilary Hughes

Can we get names, ages and where you guys are from for the record?

Bo: Oh my God, really?

Jen: We don’t do ages. (Laughs)

B: I’m Bo Barringer and I’m from Cambridge.

J: Jen, and I live in Somerville now but I’m from upstate New York.

B: Me too, actually.  Originally, anyway.

What brought you to Boston?

J: It’s a cool town.  Bo was a Berklee guy.

B: No I wasn’t.  I got in but I didn’t go.

Did you guys know each other before you came to Boston, or did you meet here?

B: No, we did not, actually.

How did you meet and how did MEandJOANCOLLINS come about?

B: This little thing called “Craiglist.org.”  It’s kind of amazing.

J: He had some Brit/Glam pop ad up or something, and I was looking for a project, and we met up at Charlie’s Kitchen for a drink.

B: We had both kind of broken up with our previous bands.  She was in the Steel Ponies; I was in The Collisions.  Jen was like “Oh, whatever, at least if [the band] doesn’t work out I have a new drinking buddy.”  And that worked out, too, that part of the partnership.

Drinking buddies, huh?  What’s your poison?

B: I tend to drink a lot of Miller Lite.

J: My girlfriend. (Laughs)

Take us through the creative process behind the music of MEandJOANCOLLINS.  Do you collaborate when it comes to writing, or do you work independently of each other and then bring your songs to the band?

B: We kind of write independently.  I mean, God, I’ve written so many fuckin’ songs that’ll never see the light of day. I write at home and I’ll write to whatever idea comes in my head.  I’ll work out the rough skeleton of a song and then I’ll bring it to these guys and it becomes something a lot more.  We try to keep it from a stiff, rigid structure because so many good things come when you start playing with each other and the song evolves and becomes more.

Same thing with you, Jen?

J: I haven’t been writing lately, but usually it’s major, life-changing moments when I write.

B: See, I write about going to the bathroom.  (Laughs) Yeah.  One of our new songs which is also one of our more sensitive ballads is called “My Aim Is Terrible” and it came from… (laughs) I don’t know.  I was in the bathroom at home, and I was just like, thinking about something else, and then I realized that my aim is terrible.  I actually ended up writing a pretty tender, heartfelt song from that.  That was the genesis of the idea.  It happened that way.

How does your creative process change once you hit the studio?

B: The first album we kind of played it by our own book in that we just fleshed it out the best we could.

J: We took advantage of the chance to make it perfect [in the studio].

Do you guys tend to record live or do you track it?

B: It’s pretty live.  The next album is going to be full of some ridiculous stuff, just to give you fair warning.

Did you guys record the last MEandJOANCOLLINS record in Massachusetts?

B: We did! We recorded it at Woolly Mammoth in Waltham.

Do you plan on recording your forthcoming material in Massachusetts?

B: Yeah!  There are so many good studios around here.  Why leave?

J: Unless somebody else wants to pay for it.  In that case, we’ll go anywhere (laughs).

Are there any other songs that you feel particularly connected to in the MEandJOANCOLLINS catalog?

J: “A Little Too Much” is getting a lot of radio play.

B: Yeah, that one’s really fun.  That one’s fun to play, too.  We don’t really play it live anymore.  We’re really trying to push “Crime Of The Century” but that doesn’t have anything dirty in the title…

Do you find that your more popular songs tend to have slightly more, uh, “profane” titles?

B: I just wrote a song called “Cock Tease”, actually.  I tend to write whatever and anything can spark a song, but this song was a sort of assignment. My drummer said, “These other songs are getting all this attention!  You gotta write something new.”  And I said, “Alright, I will.”  He goes, “What are you gonna call it?” and I said, “Ah, I’ll call it ‘Cock Tease’.” (Laughs) I wrote it about this girl named Tracey, and there’s another song written about her called “Maybe You Can Breathe Underwater”.  I sat down and wrote that song based on something she said, and that song was done in ten minutes.  The same with “Cock Tease”, actually.

J: We’re debuting a song called “Central Square” tonight.”

B: It’s our favorite place.

When it comes to touring, do you guys have any crazy stories for us from the MEandJOANCOLLINS tour bus?

J: Yeah, totally. (Laughs)

B: We’re not sharing them!  We’re married to each other.  Did you know that?

No…?

B: Yes.  But we’re both allowed to see other women.  (Jen’s girlfriend, Kathleen, winks.) We got married onstage at The Abbey Lounge, actually.  She wore the tux, I wore the dress.

J: RIP, Abbey Lounge.  What a great place.

Well, this is a great point to start talking about your favorite Boston venues, then.  You mentioned that you like the [former] Abbey Lounge, but what other Boston venues do you enjoy seeing a show at or playing a show at?

J: TT the Bear’s Place, of course.

B: The Middle East, Great Scott, too…  They’re all pretty good.

Did TT’s or the Middle East factor into your Central Square song?

B: Yeah, I mean, it’s part of the whole ambience of Central Square.  Central Square has a nice vibe to it.  I don’t do a lot of name-checking.  I’m not gonna start talking about the Cantab Lounge.

J: Even though we love the Cantab Lounge… (laughs)

In terms of people you’re listening to from here, are there any Boston bands or artists that you particularly enjoy?

B: Yeah, definitely.  I’ve really come to love Magic Magic.  Ketman is one of our favorite bands here and we recently played with them.  They’re really great.  Hoag, too, we really love them.

In terms of your connection with your Boston fans, how has your experience been playing for the crowds in Boston?

J: Boston’s pretty loyal.  I feel like they’re really good fans.  They’re really supportive and they actually go out and listen to other local bands, and it’s an all-around good time.

B: I feel like Boston music fans tend to have good taste in music, too.

What defines “good taste” for you?

B: … Stuff that I like… (laughs).  It’s a very hip city when it comes to music and everybody’s kind of educated here.  People are smart in Boston. I got to other cities, and I’m like, “Man, they’re not as sharp here as they are in Boston.”

What about your experience with fans in other cities?  Are there other cities that you love playing, besides Boston?

J: London!

B: … We haven’t actually been to Europe.  We’re planning on it.  One place that I thought was amazing was Morgantown, West Virginia.  Yeah!  It’s the college town of UWV, and it’s kind of, like, this Cambridge set in the sticks.  It’s this redneck yet educated sort of constituency.  People there really know how to have fun.  I love West Virginia.

What are you guys listening to?  If we were to steal the iPods of MEandJOANCOLLINS and look up your “Recently Added” or “Recently Played” Playlists, what would we find?

B: For the last two years my favorite band has been Deerhunter.  That guy, Bradford Cox, is pretty ridiculous.  He’s put out EPs and albums every six months.  He’s got this side project, Atlas Sound, which I’m also pretty into.  He’s great.  He kind of runs the gamut from dreamy, atmospheric stuff to just aggressive… he touches on everything.

J: I use my iPod as a jump drive.  I don’t have any music on it.  I don’t even have EARBUDS for it.

B: She doesn’t listen to music until she gets to practice.   She listens to music there. (Laughs)

Who are some of your favorite artists, then, Jen?

J: I like our music. (Laughs)

B: I told you! (Laughs) We’re the only band she likes.

Who would you say has influenced you as artists?  Give us the laundry list.

B: Oh, shit…

J: I’ve got some college professors.   I hate talking about bands.

B: I LOVE talking about bands.  My first love was Hall and Oates.  The more I play and the older I get, it’s like, shit.  I went through ten years of not listening to Hall and Oates and then I come back and I’m like, “All these fuckin’ hooks come from Hall and Oates!  Or Prince…” I used to be into hair metal, too, especially Motley Crüe.

What about Poison?

B: Meh, Poison is okay.

You’re not a “Rock of Love” fan, then?

B: FUCK no.

It’s not about the connection for you?

B: If Tommy Lee had been on “Rock of Love”, I would’ve watched it.  But, yeah, I’d say Hall and Oates, Prince and then some hair metal bands.

So, what’s next for MEandJOANCOLLINS?  What are you working on now?

B: We’re going to be recording, actually.  We’ll be playing a lot of new songs in our set, and it’s been that way since we released the last record…

J: I know!  We kind of move backwards from a release party: We play new songs instead of playing songs from the album.

B: So, yeah, that’s kind of next.  We’re hoping to get something out by the spring.

That’s great.  My next question for you was actually going to be where you see yourself in the coming months-

B: Mexico.  I see myself in Mexico in a couple of months. (Laughs) Really, though, we want to get back on the road.

Back in June, I found myself sitting underneath the vast ceiling of the Armory Center of the Arts in Somerville completely and utterly intoxicated with the swells and soaring of Nicole Nelson and Dwight Richter’s voices.  As Dwight and Nicole played to the sounds of each other’s resounding heartbeats during the first Somerville Jazz & Blues Festival, I and the rest of the audience could sense that the connection between the dynamic “rock and soul” duo was one that can only exist between two people whose incredible talents are matched by their deep appreciation, creatively and affectionately, for each other.  Dwight and Nicole have been playing with each other for years, but the couple onstage and off haven’t always been rocking out to the minimalist drive behind their guitar and tambourine driven side by side: Both musicians met while holding residencies at various jazz and blues bars in Boston, and both credit Boston as being the city in which they honed their craft and built their fan base.

Since moving to New York a few years ago and exploring the multitude of musical opportunities provided by Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs, Dwight and Nicole have recently left the Big Apple for Boston (Brookline, to be precise) in order to record a follow-up to 2007’s self-titled album.  They’ve been playing some of their favorite haunts in the city throughout the summer as well, including Precinct, the Lizard Lounge and numerous festivals and venues along the North Shore while billing with assorted artists/friends in the area including Jesse Dee, the Mieka Canon and the Sea Monsters.  With tambourine and Flying-V guitar in hand, Dwight and Nicole will continue to appease their fans from their stomping ground until the finishing touches are put on their forthcoming disc, so be sure to catch them in action at the most intimate acoustic, blues and jazz spots in Somerville and Cambridge while you can.

-Hilary Hughes

OPENING ACT: DWIGHT AND NICOLE AND THE TEAPARTY TEN

What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

Dwight: Honey Smax, or Large Frosted Mini Wheats.

Nicole: Captain Crunch with Crunchberries.

Who would you rather punch in the face: Long Duk Dong from “Sixteen Candles” or Mouth from “The Goonies?”

N: Mouth.

D: Yeah, Mouth.  I like the Cyndi Lauper song from that movie.

If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be?

D: Toaster oven.

N: I’d be a standing mixer.  Those things are AWESOME.

You go to bed, you wake up, you go to brush your teeth… and you realize that you’ve morphed into one of Jim Henson’s Muppets overnight.  Which Muppet are you?

D: Animal!

N: I don’t know! I love Miss Piggy.  She was probably the first Muppet I wanted to be as a kid.  I love them all, though.

After a raucous night out, you wake up at some point the next day and you realize that in your fit of crazy you got inked.  What tattoo did you wake up with?

N: Some big ridiculous rainbow and clouds.  Something astral.  I have a tattoo with stars already.

D: I’d probably have “Nicole” on my neck or something.

N: [Gasps] We’re getting you drunk!  Drink up!  (Laughs)

Would you rather be a rodeo clown or a sumo wrestler?

N: Sumo wrestler.  I like the thong. (Laughs)

D: Sumo wrestler.  The rodeo clowns are brave, but…

If you were a particular kind of cheese, what kind of cheese would you be?

N: Oh, they’re all good!  I’ve never met a cheese I don’t like.  I’d be Brie.

D: Pepperjack.

If you were a particular style of facial hair, what style facial hair would you be?

N: I would definitely be mutton chops.

D: I’d probably be a goatee, I wear one every once in awhile.  Not a great answer, either.

What’s your quintessential “I’M GONNA DANCE AROUND MY APARTMENT IN MY UNDERWEAR AND LOVE LIFE!” song?

N: “Borderline” by Madonna!

D: “Hungry Heart”, by Bruce Springsteen.

What’s your favorite word?

N: Raw.

D: Breathing.  Probably breathing, right now.

THE MAIN EVENT: THE DWIGHT AND NICOLE TPB INTERVIEW

So, tell us the back-story of Dwight and Nicole.

Dwight: All right!  We lived in Boston.  I lived here for four years and Nicole lived here for about the same around nine years ago, and we each had bands in town, the Dwight Richards Band and the Nicole Nelson Band, and we each had a residency here.  Her’s was at the Times Pub.

Nicole: I played a lot of blues; he played a lot of original stuff.  I played mostly blues; it was a blues jam.  He used to come and sit in on my shows, and some of the people who were here tonight, like John Aruda, he’d come down a lot.  Afterwards there were lots of dance parties in the streets outside of the Cantab [Lounge] and after-parties. (Laughs)

D: I was working construction at the time, and then I’d get off a work gig, then we’d go see her, we’d eat dinner and then we’d go to my gig later.  The first time we sang together was on a tune called “Move Right” which I wrote ages ago, she came up and sang with me, and we just always had a really good chemistry together.

N: Yeah, it’s very familial.  He felt like a long-lost boy from kindergarten and we loved each other and lost each other and found each other again.  It’s a really beautiful thing.  We both moved to New York around the same time and we started playing a little bit together, but mostly we each had our own gigs.  We’d just sit in, because it was like, “Oh! Dwight from Boston’s here!  Get up and sing with me!” Or I’d get up and sing with him, and then that turned into a thing.  People were like, “Do you have a CD of the two of you, together? Because these harmonies…” and we were like “Oh, no! But you can buy each of our albums-“ and they were like “Wait. No.”

Liiiike maybe something should happen.

N: (laughs) Yeah!

D: So, we’re in Brooklyn where she grew up, incidentally, and I grew up in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and we were low on money, so we decided to book a few shows and we got some gigs as a duo, and Nicole’s on the tambourine –

N: -I had never played tambourine before-

D: -And it just caught on.  We both feel the beat the same way.  We both sort of- I guess you’d say we compliment each other, and we just had a thing that really took on.

N: It did.

D: We recorded an EP at Club 39 in Sudbury a few years ago.

N: One day we just went in and played the songs, and we just sat down and made a five song CD in five hours.   We kind of just had to talk what we got, but we wanted to make something really beautiful.  We got lucky.  Phil, who played guitar tonight, he has a beautiful studio in Brookline and it’s called Rear Window Studio and it’s UNBELIEVABLE.  So, he was just like, “Come stay at my house and record.”

D: I think he recorded Godsmack’s record.  Phil basically dug a pit in his basement and the ceilings are twenty feet high, almost 10,000 pounds suspended by spring, so when music hits it the whole room gives.

N: We’re thinking of doing our record release at the Somerville Theatre, because we’ve got a good thing going in Somerville, but this place [the Armory] is awesome!

D: Yeah, it’s a very cool room.

N: So, yeah, that’s how we got our thing together.  Just sort of organically playing duos.

D: I’d play guitar and she’d play tambourine and we’ve developed this really cool thing as a duo, and now we’re gonna go and play with a band, a larger group.

N: Not to sound strange, but performing is a very spiritual thing for me.  It feeds me.  That conversation between the audience and us is this thing that bounces back and forth.

You can absolutely say that.  And I’m gonna blow up your spot a little bit: When we were watching you earlier, we were like, “That girl can work a tambourine like nobody we’ve ever seen before!”  The connection between you two was very strong in the sense that you were playing to her heartbeat.  That absolutely comes across to your audience.

D: We’ve been friends for about ten years and we’ve been together for almost five, and it’s so nice to be able to reaffirm that onstage a lot.  It’s cool to be able to go onstage and do our thing.

Can you take us through the creative process behind Dwight and Nicole’s music?

D: We both bring songs to the table, so it’s very collaborative.

N: I have to be in a clear-minded state in order to be creative.  When things get jumbled because of stress or confusion, I have to try to clear my head in order to feel that thing where you’re focused and creative.  It’s not easy for me at all.  I’m always critical of what’s around me.  I want it to be perfect and I want it to be very precise, I want it to have that great point, so I tend to throw things out before they’re done.  He’s the complete opposite; he’s like, “Keep going! Keep going!” and I’ll be working on a song all day, and he’s like “Work on it all year! It’s a rough draft, keep drafting!”  He’s constantly writing and coming up with ideas and riffs and tunes.  For me, it’s always been hard but it’s getting easier and I’m learning my triggers.  I know how to just clear my mind and go for a walk and sit and do that kind of thing so I can be creative.  Dwight has taught me how to get through all that stuff.

D: Thank you!  Going back ten years the Aruda brothers and I had a group that would go around town playing all over the place and that’s actually how those guys got into the original scene.  We built in a big following.  So Johnston, who plays with Club D’Elf, we released two records together, and I got going with the creative stuff with that project and just kept up with that.  This project is so cool because we’re together, she can write songs, and I can write songs, and I can talk to …. So, yeah, this thing is like a, we have a creative house that we can bring stuff into and write stuff together and do whatever, and it’s like, all under our little roof and it’s cool, you know?  The original music thing, writing tunes has always been my passion, it’s my thing, and then with her, we’re doing it.  It’s really cool.  We’re very lucky to be where we are right now.

N: And he can rap, too! (Laughs) He can freestyle.  Every little thing he can pull inspiration from!  He can start talking about your scarf and your eyes and he can turn everything into a rhyme.

Can you give us one about those Donutties on the table over there, on the spot?

D: No!  I wish I… if I ate all of those I’d have a heart attack with that round one, in a black stack of, lovely powdered sugar treats, what would be great with a whole table of eats, would be luscious donutties, perhaps some ice cream and cereal, too, but more than anything, I’d like to share… a donuttie with you.

That was great.

D: See, it’s just things to make her laugh and make our life fun.  It’s just funny ridiculousness.  So, yeah, we like to write songs.  Our influences would be EVERYTHING.  We love Michael Jackson, we love Dolly Parton, we love the Beach Boys, we love Van Halen, we love Nirvana, Black Sabbath, B.B. King, Patsy Cline, Merle Travis, Ricky Lee Jones, Solomon Burke, Sam Cooke, Jimmy Smith, Bill Hailley and the Comets, the Rolling Stones…

What about Boston bands, maybe some current local acts?

D: We like The Sea Monsters, Mieka Pauley-

N: Yeah!  She’s like my favorite singer.  You know Eva Cassidy?

Yeah.

N: If Eva Cassidy was like, rock n’ roll like Joan Jett, she’d be Mieka Pauley.  She’s amazing and writes songs and plays guitar, she’s also one of our dear friends.

D: Yeah, and Jesse Dee.  Jesse Dee’s our BOY!

[Editor’s Note: Jesse happened to be walking through the backstage area in the basement of the Armory just as he was mentioned.  Dee, upon hearing this, beamed.]

D: That’s my guy!  I love his music, I love his painting, and I love his spirit.  He’s another one of our favorites around town.  We also love Ryan Montbleu, he’s a great guy.  There are so many original songwriters here that are good.  When we moved to New York, and we’ve been there for about four or five years, I came back here and there was an unbelievable singer/songwriter scene.  Jesse, and Christian McNeill, and Danielle Miraglia… and Four Piece Suit, too!

N: Yeah!  They did all the music for Sex and the City for the first three years.  I’m gonna segue into the whole Boston thing.  The Boston music scene is very family-like:  It’s a lot of friends getting together, there are a lot of late night jams and stuff.  New York has this really ridiculous level that comes there and just any night of the week you go out in New York, any little whole in the wall, you can go and see some music.  I mean, first of all, Eric Clapton might walk in, that kind of stuff happens all the time.  The other thing is somebody just flew in, like the hottest band from Belgium or something, and they’re playing there for like, a bucket or something.

D: James Hudger!  I saw James Hudger’s first show in America.  Do you know him?

The name sounds vaguely familiar. I would probably recognize his stuff if you pla-

[Dwight and Nicole then break into song, on the couch, Nicole’s clapping and they’re both harmonizing and I’m sitting on my chair with my mouth gaping open like a four-year-old with a chronic sweet tooth who just walked into a candy store.]

D: I mean, Norah Jones, even, everyone’s out on the scene and around.  The people who are famous, Moby and those people, they hang in the scene and proliferate the buzz or whatever it is.  And everything is made up of slots, so you’ll have five bands a night- Like, we’ll take the Lower East Side, there’s like ten clubs, which means five slots each on any given night.  You could see fifty shows a night.  Here, people can actually have two or three hours to themselves to develop something like The Sea Monsters, to develop a project.  It’s not like showcases for labels, necessarily, and New York is much more a Mecca for that, and there’s a million great artists there, too, but Boston, I mean, it’s more relaxed in that area and can give someone who would be overwhelmed by New York a chance to develop their sound and their maturity as an artist, and the community here is amazing,

N: That’s what I love about here, besides the fact that it’s just gorgeous, too, it’s a beautiful city.  It’s a beautiful place to exist in with all this water and these parks and the river and all that.  There is a family kind of vibe here.  We’ll hang out with friends, like all these guys, and we’ll all jam for five or ten in the morning.  There are a lot of clubs that support that kind of thing, and they’re dwindling and it’s sad, especially the blues scene, because we came up in that and all those clubs are gone.  The House of Blues in Cambridge is gone-

D: The Yard Rock-

N: We both loved it here.  I came up in this town.

D: I love Boston, I love the musicians here, and I love people like you guys who are fiends for music.

N: And the school scene here drives that so much.  I think that so many young people are hungry for creative energy.

D: Christian [McNeill] was saying that he started out playing Matt Murphy’s or something, and just getting people interested at a little place like that.  Same thing with Tim Gearan at Toad, people get sucked in.  To bring back the blues thing we were talking about, we saw the last movement of that.  I’m talking The Yard Rock, the original House of Blues, the Cantab Lounge was like, the most unbelievable place ten years ago.  When I moved here, it was old, old cats doing their tunes, and it was absolutely insane.  You’d have every type of person there singing songs.

You have a really special place on that stretch of Mass Ave in Central Square, between the Cantab Lounge and TT’s and the Middle East…

N: Yeah!  I love the Boston scene for having those heavy roots in the blues and jazz scene.  Everything came out of that stuff, and there’s a great rock scene, too.  Boston has just all these great music scenes where you can just hang.  You can hang in New York, too, but everybody’s working all night in these spots all over the place.

I think that the fact that there aren’t really 18+ venues in Boston is a problem, too – you have a lot more of those in New York.

D: Yeah, I don’t like that at all.

N: That’s awful!  When you have a good college following that cuts your audience way down.

D: For the amount of revenue it would generate, you should be able to find a staff that’s trained well enough to card people.

N: Plus, going out at that age was huge.  Going to see people when you’re in those formative stages of creativity, that’s how you learn!  You don’t learn from reading a book about music.

D: Yeah, that’s so true.  Those are defining years.

N: A show like tonight, for example, it was 18+.  I’m like, “Hey, why can’t it be 16+?”

We haven’t touched on challenges you guys have faced, either creatively speaking or even about the transition between here and New York.  How is it for you guys, being a couple that also happens to make music together? I’m sure it comes with a whole set of difficulties!

N: It does, but we’re surprisingly well-suited for it.  We have a really, really good thing.  For me, we wear all these different hats, and sometimes we’re business, and sometimes we’re lovers, and sometimes we’re friends, and sometimes we’re maniacs who are trying to kill each other!  Well, not maniacs (laughs).  We’re like, in business mode half the time, and the challenge from that, while we do work really well together in all the different areas, we’re still always together, so we’ll be in business mode at home and dates happen less and less when we get busier-

D: I take you out on dates!  You’re crazy!  We went out dancing last week!

N: (Laughs) I know!  That’s true.  So, that’s where we found the biggest challenge, to keep all these things growing all the time and healthy and moving forward.  The New York/Boston thing?  They both have their challenges.  Down falls and great things about them?  I think our feelings about both cities are pretty positive, and they’re just different.

D: We suffered the financial thing by doing original music.

N: Yeah, but it’s worth it!  When we switched into doing original stuff, all of a sudden I switched and was doing solo stuff with a guitar, and people were used to seeing me with a big band and horns and a gown, and people were like, “What’s this? What happened?”  It’s worth it, to get to what it is that I really have to say.  Everything that Etta James already did, I’m not going to do it better, so I need to do my thing!  I guess that’s a challenge.

D: It’s a challenge going into Club Passim with a full-length beard and not scaring the crowd away! (Laughs)

So, what’s next for you guys?  You mentioned that you’ve been recording your album and that you’re excited to play in front of people again.  What was your performance tonight like, how did it feel?

D: It was so great to be with you guys.  It was fucking awesome.  It’s been a long time.  It feels so good to go back playing gigs.  We’ve worked so hard on this record and when the record comes out, we’re gonna do that whole push that everyone talks about doing with a new record.  We’ve built up a very good thing, and then we’re gonna do the thing and hit the road.  The great Boston musician Marty Blue is going to be hitting the road with us too, he plays with Dennis Brennan sometimes.  Dennis Brennan, too, he’s one of the greatest people.

N: Very rarely do I feel the whole, you know, “I don’t wanna follow that!”  But going on after Dennis Brennan?  His band is ridiculous, and I’ve definitely felt that when we’ve played with him before.

D: Yeah, the song that made us feel that way was Charles Browns “Fool’s Paradise”.  That was the tune.  Dennis is awesome.

Can we talk about the songs on the new record?  How is this a departure from previous material we’ve heard from Dwight and Nicole?

N: I think it dives a lot deeper.  With the blues and jazz and folk stuff, we were in the ten-foot deep section before, and now we’re like, in the center of the earth.  Everything is just a direct connection between what we’re hearing.  We’re so psyched.

Is that “My Hell is Burnin’ for You” song on the new record?

D: Yeah!

Yeah, that song really hit us.  Hard.

N: It stands out?  It does for me too!  I wish we could play you some new stuff…

D: (Looking around the room) Does anybody have a guitar?  Seriously?

N: We can after-hang, maybe!

(Editor’s note: This is when I became smitten with Dwight and Nicole, and wanted to become best friends with them.)

What kind of journey has it taken to get to this point, lyrically and musically, for these delving deeper new songs you’re doing?

D: Production wise, too, we’re doing a lot of different sounds and a lot of different styles.  We have this tune that we did as a duo, a song that she wrote for her grandma, and now it sounds orchestral.  It sounds bigger, and fuller, and the potential of the song has come out more because there’s more people involved musically, more musicians, more production things-

N: When I say that this record goes deeper, too, I mean that we are diving deeper into what it is that, pulling out every little influence. For me, I’ve always been like, “Well, I’m singing blues, so I’m going to sing blues”, but I think of the blues style of singing or jazz standards, and that’s changed since I’ve gotten older and that’s what I’ve been looking for.  The reason why I never did a record is because I felt, before, that I had nothing to say that hadn’t already been said.  It’s cool for me to say something new.  If you’re going to say something, say something new; Otherwise, it’s just noise.  We’ve been diving into all of those things, so you’ll hear a little Sheena Easton in there, and you’ll hear all this other stuff, and that’s all part of me so you have to dive in and get it and let it come out and get your own voice that way.  For me, that’s what it is: Not trying to sing a certain style or try to do a song justice, which is what I used to kind of do, but now, I’m not gonna think about anything and whatever comes out comes out.

Let’s talk about the Boston crowd and Dwight and Nicole’s Boston fans.  How is your relationship with them different than your audiences in other cities?  Does it go back to the familial nature of the singer/songwriter scene in Boston?

N: I feel like that the people who are working in New York and living in New York are doing really well, and it’s ridiculous to try to exist there as a musician professionally and that’s all you do, so the guys who are on a really high level are all the musicians who are on Saturday Night Live and the Letterman Band and they’re totally like that, too.  New York has this influx of all these other people all the time, so you get this sense of, “Holy Shit.”

D: Boston is our highest drawing city, so we do big publicity pushes for our shows here.  Every show counts and it doesn’t make a difference, but in New York, we’re smaller, so it’s cool to have more people in Boston and it makes our shows here bigger events.

N: I feel like there’s another difference too where I feel like Boston- like, in New York, people want new stuff, and that changed me for the better as an artist, because when I got there people didn’t want to hear covers of somebody else’s stuff at all.  They wanted us to just be ourselves.  In Boston I feel that there’s such an appreciation for the roots of the scene here, where people want to hear the jazz tradition and they like the tradition and want to hear standards.  The city, to me, feels very heavy with a lot of tradition, and people take it very seriously and respect it.  If you play old blues, people love it.

As the fog rolled in off of Narragansett Bay and onto the main stage of the Newport Folk Festival, Jessie and I found ourselves scurrying up one of the hills contained within the walls of Fort Adams in hot pursuit of Deer Tick and the Ice Cream Man. We met Matt Allen, the big -haired smiley guy responsible for doling out free treats across the country as the host of Bablegum’s Road Trippin’ with the Ice Cream Man video series, when he parked his truck next to the media tent for the duration of the Newport Folk Festival.  Seeing as Jessie and I can’t resist frozen deliciousness, let alone free frozen deliciousness, we knew that we’d become fast friends with the man with the sugar, and the dude’s likability factor only increased when he invited Jessie and I to tag along with the Ice Cream Man crew as they explored Fort Adams with Deer Tick to shoot an exclusive one-song performance on the festival’s second day.

I won’t go into details here as Deer Tick’s impromptu jam is definitely Matt’s story to tell [which he does, here], but the whole point of sharing this little anecdote is just to say this: Jessie and I were thrilled to witness the work of the raw, uninhibited talent on display at George Wein’s 50^th Newport Folk Festival.  Our experience, both as music lovers and aspiring arts & entertainment journalists, was one made up of remarkable little moments, onstage and off, that really drove home the fact that the Newport Folk Festival is a time-honored tradition where some of the most respectable musicians and folk artists in the country come to this gorgeous stretch of seaside to make the most of their time together onstage.

Whether we were chatting up Matt about what kind of ice cream Neko Case opted to snack on or tearing up in the photo pit of the main stage as nearly every act on the bill joined Pete Seeger for the best sing-along ever, we encountered a slew of passionate, pleasant professionals who were as elated to be there for this fiftieth year of celebrating American singers and songwriters as we were.  We’ve compiled a list of our favorite moments at Folk Festival 50, divided up between events which occurred on Saturday, August 1, and Sunday, August 2: They include our jaunt with the Ice Cream Man and Deer Tick in fuller detail, as well as conversations with the timelessly gorgeous Judy Collins, the giddy Josh Ritter and even a heartfelt hug from Seth Avett of the Avett Brothers.  Folk Festival 50 had one of the most exciting indie/folk lineups in the festival’s 50-years-and-counting run, so even though we’re only giving you our favorite few, trust us when we say that each and every minute of our two days spent in Newport was filled with throaty yells, haunting refrains, hearty hooks, melodies chock full o’ raw emotion and a chance to catch generations of this country’s most promising talent in action.

-Hilary Hughes

(and hey! after your done reading up on our Folk Festival 50: Day 1, check out our writeup of Day 2.)

Day 1 of the Newport Folk Festival – August 1, 2009

The Low Anthem Play to High Numbers,  12:40pm

Jessie had her first unpleasant interaction as a concert photographer during The Low Anthem’s set: Shortly after they took the Waterside stage on Saturday afternoon, Jessie tried [politely, I may add] to make her way to the front so that she could score some sick shots… and an uppity fan was essentially really snippy with her.  Pro:  Ben, Jeff and Jocie of The Low Anthem are just as talented as they were the night we saw them play selections from their album, Oh My God Charlie Darwin,  at the Brattle, and clearly they’ve got some die-hard fans who were really looking forward to their performance at Newport.  Con: This woman was just mean for no reason.  She’s gotta take some pictures, lady.  Chill out and she’ll get out of your way in two seconds, geez.  On a more positive note, we were able to catch up with Jeff and pick his brains about becoming one of the newest members of the Newport Folk Festival legacy.

So, how did it feel, playing on the waterfront for hundreds of people?

J: We didn’t know what to expect because there are three stages here and we were booked on the smallest one, so we thought, “Oh, no one’s gonna see us, especially because we’re playing at the same time slot as Gillian Welch!  Man, WE want to go to Gillian Welch, and we’d choose Gillian over us!”  (Laughs) We thought that we wouldn’t see anybody, but we were happy that so many of our friends and people we knew from Providence could come out, and I think that the music was well received, so I can say on record, don’t worry if you get booked on the small stage, it’s still great!

Being a Rhode Island band, how does it feel to be reppin’ the state at such a significant festival with such a fantastic history?

J: We’ve been living in Providence for eight years and we love Providence, but our connection is more to that city.  Since we didn’t grow up here and spend our time traveling around outside the city, we do a lot of playing and working within the city, and not so much on the state level.  To play this festival, from our perspective, what’s great is that so many of our friends from Providence could come and see us here, whereas usually if we’re playing a major festival in Chicago or New York, they can’t make the trip.  I think it’s great.  And hey, maybe one of these days Boston can have a major festival!

How does it feel to be a part of the Newport Folk Festival’s legacy?  You guys seem pretty thrilled to be here, especially during Pete Seeger’s sing-along when everyone was up onstage.

J: I’d like to believe that this means that we’re accepted into the community.  It probably does in some way, but really, the relationships build from artists knowing each other and telling each other that so-and-so is a good musician.  Like, the old times, it’s by word of mouth and recommendations.  It’s a little weird; I was standing next to, say, Gillian Welch, and I don’t know Gillian Welch, and I wish I did, and maybe in the coming years I’ll get to meet her and we’ll become friends, but it was kind of forced because it was kind of like, “Hey! Everyone come up here.”  I’ve never met Pete Seeger, so it was like, I can’t say, “Yes!  The initiation is complete!”-

You don’t feel like you’re varsity folk yet, basically.

J: (Laughs) Yeah!  But it was an amazing experience, and I think that in the years to come I’ll look back on it fondly and I’ll be like, “Remember that time I was standing next to these great musicians and I was so nervous?”  It was a big deal for my father because he grew up listening to Pete Seeger, and when he saw me up there standing next to him it was a very emotional experience for him.

On the topic of initiation and meeting new artists within your musical community that you respect, do you think that your performance at the Newport Folk Festival is a kind of a new beginning for The Low Anthem?

J:  When we were booked it was definitely a significant event.  It was the same day we were booked at Bonnaroo, too, so can you imagine that day? (Laughs)  When that happened and we knew that some people were enjoying our music and gonna take a chance on us, it was great.  It was like a minor league baseball player getting a chance to play in the big leagues: Maybe he gets an at-bat in the big leagues and he’s sitting on the bench next to Manny Ramirez and Big Papi, and he’s still a rookie, but he gets his chance and he gets his cuts, that’s kind of how we feel right now.  We’re finally getting the chance to take a few cuts, and it feels good.

An Intimate Harborstage Serenade with Iron & Wine, 4:55pm

An enraptured audience swayed from side to side and sang along and half the bands on Day 1’s roster, including Ben Kweller and Tom Morello, looked to the stage as the voice of Samuel Beam, aka Iron & Wine, soared over the chorus of his cover of the Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights”.  Though each and every one of the performances seen at the Newport Folk Festival this year had their intimate, heartfelt instances of beauty in song, it was Sam who delivered a sincerely touching set that had many a festival-goer wiping tears from their eyes before its conclusion.

[Editor’s note: Naturally, I couldn’t just sit in awe like the rest of the crowd at the Harbor Stage and enjoy the music of Iron & Wine, no way.  I was standing backstage and away from the tent’s protection and I had the distinct pleasure of having one of the dudes from Fleet Foxes tell me that a seagull had chosen a most inopportune moment to relieve itself on my arm.  And leather purse.  And sunglasses.  So much for sentimentality, Mr. Seagull.]

A Spinning Bass and Stomping Feet from the Avett Brothers,  1:20pm:

Between their heel-hammering/banjo-strumming/bass-thumping/octave-soaring/tight harmonizing/chord-picking skills and the resonating melancholy of their poetic lyrics, the Avett Brothers were a tough act to follow on the first day of the Newport Folk Festival.  They played a few fan favorites from their 2007 hit, Emotionalism, as well as material from their highly anticipated I And Love And You, which is scheduled for a September 29^th release.  [Editor’s note: Of all the acts on the bill for Folk Festival 50, the Avett Brothers were the band to beat for me: Emotionalism and Four Thieves Gone are two of my favorite albums of all time and “The Ballad of Love and Hate” is the only song that can move me to tears.] The Avett Brothers will be hitting Boston on October 18^th touring in support of I And Love And You, and if the roar of the crowd in Newport that day was any indication of the  imminent success of the Avett Brothers, you’ll want to suck it up and pay the LiveNation service fee now to secure your spot at the House of Blues.

The Decemberists and their Reenactment of Bob Dylan Going Electric, approx. 6pm

The Decemberists have been good to New England this summer in that they’ve shown up in and around Boston multiple times since Memorial Day.  With that said, they blew Newport out of the water on August 1, and it surely was due in part to the fact that they were thrilled to be performing with a little help from their friends (like Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond).  Starting off the set with “The Crane Wife III” [which also happens to be my favorite song of theirs, original, I know], The Decemberists plowed through some favorites in addition to entertaining the crowd with a hilarious theatrical interpretation of a moment at the Newport Folk Festival fifty years ago when Bob Dylan plugged in his guitar and shocked the crowd.  The audience ate it up, and it’s no wonder why as the Decemberists offered up one of the most enthusiastic sets of the day.

The Most Epic of Folk/Rock/American Music Sing-Alongs led by the One and Only PETE SEEGER!, 7pm

The sun was sinking into the bay in the background, the crowd was on their feet, and the stage was chock full of the most influential folk artists along with some indie, folk and rock acts who were directly influenced by their work, and TeaParty Boston was there to see it all.  Pete Seeger, who recently celebrated his ninetieth birthday, led the festival-wide sing-along with his grandson, Tao Seeger, and had thousands of people belting out the chorus of “This Land Is Your Land”, “If I Had a Hammer” and “This Little Light Of Mine.”   What more could any music lover ask for, honestly?  We were standing in the photo pit gazing up at Ben Kweller, the Fleet Foxes, Elvis Perkins in Dearland, the Low Anthem, Gillian Welch, and nearly every other artist on the bill for Newport’s Folk Festival 50, and George Wein, the man who’s responsible for creating such a monumental musical tradition, was in the wings and singing along as well.  You can’t blame us for getting a little misty-eyed during this one.  With guitar-wielding artists across the country raising their voices today because men like Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie and women like Judy Collins and Joan Baez took  a stand through the use of their lyrics and steel strings, it was nothing short of amazing to see some of the most influential and innovative musicians on the scene sharing the stage with the artists who are partially responsible for the cultivation of their creativity.  The fiftieth incarnation of George Wein’s Newport Folk Festival was an event that celebrated the excitement of new talent while honoring the timeless, classic music of American singers and songwriters, and there wasn’t one person, onstage or off, in Newport that day who didn’t leave Fort Adams feeling as though they were the part of something much, much bigger than themselves.

We first heard of Annie and the Beekeepers from the list of local favorites given to us by Rhode Island-based experimental folk upstarts The Low Anthem during an interview and after their subsequent awe-inspiring Brattle Theater performance, we absolutely trusted their opinion when it came to quality musicianship. So, when Annie Lynch, Ken Woodward and Alexandra Spalding came through Boston in support of their latest EP, The Squid Hell Sessions, recorded locally in Jamaica Plain, we jumped at the chance to check them out.

We chatted with Annie and Ken in the tiny band room in the basement of a local acoustic hotspot that shall remain nameless (for legal reasons we don’t quite understand) about the trio’s genesis at Berklee, recording their latest release and their impending move to Brooklyn.

–Jessie Rogers

Annie and the Beekeepers, tells us about yourselves.

K: My name is Ken Woodward. I play bass. And sing. Sometimes stomp on the floor. I’m from Charlottesville, Virginia.

A: I’m Annie Lynch and I’m from Cape Cod. I sing play guitar and banjo and write songs. Alex is from northern California and she plays cello and viola.

So what’s the back-story on Annie and the Beekeepers?

A: Ken and I met first and I was kind of trying to learn how to play bluegrass music and just wanted to play with people. Ken was like, “I’ll play with you…but this is not bluegrass.” [laughs] One of the first times were played together was in Harvard Square. We were busking and we were really unsuccessful.

Busking?

A: Playing on the street for money…but we were sort of just, like, playing on the street for whoever would listen.

K: For experience.

A: And then we randomly played together for a bit and when I wanted to make and EP I asked Ken if he would play and he introduced me to Alex.

K: Because you were always talking about loving cello. Like, “I looooooove cello.”

A: It was great—wanting a cello and Ken knowing somebody. So then Alex came on and we did the EP and it went well. We didn’t end up releasing anything but we decided at that point to plan recording a full album at a studio in Rhode Island called Lakewest Studio. We just kept playing in preparation for that, started getting gigs and it just felt like there was constant momentum, which gave us enough motivation to keep plugging away. And the music felt really good.

K: We didn’t really plan to do the record, we just started getting gigs and one thing lead to another. It was really natural. It just kind of happened.

Where were this gigs that you were doing?

K: They were all over Boston.

A: We played at All Asia to start with and Revolution Rock Club—which was really funny because it was all these people in their business suits in the Financial District getting out of work and wanting to get dooown.

K: Some guy asked Alex if we covered any Red Hot Chili Peppers tunes. She was sitting with her cello. She didn’t even know what to say. She was like “Ah….no?”

So…have you covered any Red Hot Chili Peppers since?

[Laughs]

A: We’ve covered Aretha Franklin.

K: We’ve covered the Beatles. Gillian Welch.

A: Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, they’re big inspirations to us. We covered a Tom Waits song, which is always risky business because he’s, you know, Tom Waits.

You’ve covered a lot of people…but can you take us through your own songwriting process?

A: I think what the final product ends up being is a total collaborative effort, but what happens is, typically, I’ll write the skeleton of the song—the lyrics and chord progression—and then I’ll bring it to Ken and Alex and they’ll help me smooth out the rough edges and then we gradually just put the meat on the bones with arrangements. As a group we just sit and play through the song. We just did this one song… we just sat in my apartment for five hours and played this one song and that was the ideal situation for us to be able to arrange a song. To sit there with an unlimited amount of time as a group and really create the emotion of the song. So that ends up being what the audience hears in the live show or the recording—just each person putting their heart and soul into the song. We make it satisfying for each individual as well as to the band as a whole.

What do you like about recording together? How was the experience recording your last album?

K: It’s so many different things because we recorded it at Squid Hell in Jamaica Plain and it was sort of a last minute thing that was kind of, you know, a friend who was kind of doing a project for school and at the same time we wanted to do a new EP and we just went out there with no expectations and just busted it out. It was such a great experience. There is a certain magic that happens when you’re recording and you really nail a song, you really find the spirit of the song…it’s just so hard to duplicated. It’s sometimes the best time for that song, ever.

A: It’s like, “Like A Dog” on that EP.  We seriously went into the studio and, like Ken said, we had no expectations. We just thought, “Oh maybe we can use some of this stuff and put out an EP.” But really like whatever happens, happens. We did one sing that we didn’t even end up putting on the EP and then we sat down to do “Like A Dog” which is the first track on the EP and one of our favorite songs. The tape we ended up using for the recording was the first take, totally live. Everything single thing that you hear is live. And then there’s other songs that we worked on for an entire day and couldn’t even use anything. There’s so many factors to what makes the recording amazing and it’s just kind of really magical that we were all in the perfect space to be putting ourselves into that moment.

K: Recording is really kind of dangerous when you think about it. It’s risky, and that’s what’s exciting about it.

A: Yeah. There’s something permanent about it.

K: That’s what gives it it’s juice. It’s like… this podcast we were doing today. I had this adrenaline rushing because there we were being videotaped and recorded and we were just…doing it.

A: Very vulnerable.

K: It’s different when you play live. You have…people feel you and that goes a long way. They see you and that goes a long way. And it’s not recorded and you can’t rewind, and that goes a long way too.  It’s just a lot more intense when you’re recording.

A: I think it can be kind of the same as a live show. If you’re there in the moment– It’s all about being there in the moment. Which is the beauty of what we’re doing. I think artists in general tend to be sensitive people, but I think we in particular are really sensitive people and when we sit down to play together, anything that’s going on in our lives, any minute fragment of energy that’s going on between Ken and I or Alex and I or Alex and Ken, it’s so feeds into that moment. So whether it’s recording or in a live setting it matters. That’s what makes the difference. I think that we’re more likely to take risks in a live show because it’s not permanent. It’s something in the moment and you’re feeding off of people in the audience which a whole other ballpark. It’s not just about the musicians and then engineers it’s about everybody in the audience and when you have a group of your friends in the audience singing your songs, you’re more likely to just rock out.

When you sit down and write a song, do you think about the live performance or the recording or how those things will be different?

A: I think that when I’m sitting down and writing a song I’m not thinking about anything except what I want to express and it’s really hard even to sit down and say, “I’m going to write this kind of song.” Which is hard because everyone is like “You need more up-tempo songs!” And I sit down and I think, “I don’t really feel up-tempo…” I think that the process of arranging the song as a group is where we determine how we want it to impact the people who are listening to it. This goes back to saying that it’s truly a collaborative effort. We all decide what we want the emotional path to be for the audience and for us.

How is Squid Hell Sessions a departure from previous stuff you guys have done?

K: It feels more mature to me.

A: Totally.

K: It feels like your voice has come much more into its own. It feels… I think we did less over-dubs on the EP.

A: Way less. It feels more live. More eclectic and what a live show feels like. In terms of the songs as a whole, the album has a lot of ebb and flow and variety…

K: It’s dynamic.

A: …Whereas the EP, I feel like the variety and ebb and flow is concentrated in each song. Each song is very intense and sort of like a high concentration of what we do as opposed to a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Like, “These are ourselves. We are emotional.” [Laughs]

Do you guys have any songs that you are particularly connected to?

A: I’d say off of the old album, “Sad Boy” is a song that we’ve constantly been evolving and we always like to play live… well, I always like to play live…

K: Yeah speak for yourself…

A: … And my favorite song of ours, and I think has a lot to do with the recording experience, is “Like A Dog.”

K: Definitely.

A: I don’t think I’d be able to say that we have that experience with anything. Also, we’re doing these songs where I’m playing banjo and Alex is playing viola and Ken is starting to sing more and those newer ones are starting to feel like the baby, you know?

K: The newest ones, the favorite ones.  And I really like “Again And Again.” Something about that one always kind of hits me. “The Wine Song” is always fun, always a crowd-pleaser.

So you’re going to be promoting this album for a bit…what’s next for you guys after that?

A: For the next two months we’re going to be touring, until the end of September. And then Ken’s going to be moving to New York from Boston and we’re going to spend some time re-rooting ourselves. We all started playing in Boston and now Alex and I live in New York and Ken’s moving to New York, we just want to find a sense of community there and further develop what we have going on in the northeast and create and write more as a trio because this is really the first time in our lives that we can really put a lot of energy into this as a band because we’ve all been students and lived in different cities for a year. We’re all really looking forward to just having that creative time. We also just had a transition because we played with another bandmate for two and a half years and he was a really important part of our band and our sound and we valued him so much and so now is sort of a time when we’re starting to find ourselves again. It’s a transitional time, but there is so much positivity surrounding that transition.

How does it feel differently playing in Boston than playing in New York?

K: Well it’s venue-specific. We have our favorite venues and the atmosphere makes a tremendous difference in terms of how I feel onstage which has an impact on how we sound. I feel more relaxed in Boston, this is where the band was formed. But at the same time we have a lot of friend who have moved to New York and they come out to all our shows. Honestly, though, it’s just more comfortable playing at home.

A: We want to start to dig into New York and find a similar comfort there but nothing compares to your own backyard. Boston’s been very good to us. We just started discovering the whole Cambridge scene, like the Lizard Lounge and Passim. I just discovered it a year ago right before I moved to New York so we’ve been really loving it here and the whole community surrounding this neighborhood. I think that we will feel something similar in New York but nothing will ever really compare to where you have your roots.

So you’ll be back?

A+K: Oh yeah.

What is it about the Boston crowd that makes it special?

A: There’s something a little rough around the edges about Boston. People are more apt to just roll out to your show in Boston in whatever they’ve been wearing all day and sit down to have a beer with their buddies and just hang out. There’s a little bit more of that homey sort of vibe. There is that sort of vibe in a lot of places in New York but it’s definitely… it’s NEW YORRRRRK [jazz hands]. You just get a little bit more of that…

K: Snazz Fest.

A: There’s a little bit more snazz in New York. You feel a little bit more like…”Alright, I’m in New York.” That’s the best way I can explain it.

What are some of your other favorite venues?

A: We really like doing sort of barn shows, house shows. We’ve been seeking out more places like that to play. We you really feel…it’s not just being in a bar, you’re being brought into a part of a community.

K: The places we like to play are the places where you can hear the silence in the music. That’s where it’s the most powerful.

A: When you’re playing in a house or barn, people who come out are often people around our parents’ age, younger people who have that appreciation for going out and just sitting and listening to a live show. That’s the best.When you play in a place that’s all different ages…people are giving you baked goods [laughs]…it gives you that sense of really being in a community as opposed to being…

K: At your job?

A: Yeah. I think that our goal as a band is to sort of penetrate into each community we come across.

So New York is the next frontier of that?

A: I think that’s begun but there’s still a lot of work to do. Mainly because it’s a huge diverse city and people are doing everything there… you can’t conquer New York City.

K: New York City conquers you, or you just sort of make do with it.

A: So we’ll see what ends up happening.

Hallelujah the Hills. Photo: Jessie Rogers

On May 22^nd, Hallelujah the Hills took the stage Downstairs at the Middle East in front of a rowdy crowd… at 12:30 in the morning.  Though the five bands on the bill that night were collectively responsible for filling the floor of the basement venue, the fact that the fans of You Can Be A Wesley, the Bon Savants, Cymbals Eat Guitars and Magic Magic all stuck around to see the set of the reputable headlining act speaks volumes about the appeal of Hallelujah the Hills and the nature of their city’s independent music scene in which they’ve maintained a popular status over the course of the past year.  Jessie, Gab and I were all present for that fantastic night of music, and we knew that we were witnessing something special when we saw five bands, four of them local, fit together seamlessly on a bill that had had every Boston indie music nut falling all over themselves in anticipation.

After that crazy night in May, Jessie and I had the distinct pleasure of meeting up with Ryan, Brian and Joe of Hallelujah the Hills for a comfortable chat on a spot of well-manicured grass belonging to Harvard, and the following is the conversation that ensued.  Hallelujah the Hills will be releasing their second album, Colonial Drones, on September 22^nd and will be playing select shows in the Greater Boston Area through the fall, so be sure to give them a listen and keep a heads-up to their goings-on by checking back here every once in awhile as we’re addicted to their sound and will most definitely be keeping tabs on them.

-Hilary Hughes

OPENING ACT:  THE TEAPARTY 10

What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

Joe: Instant oatmeal with honey.  No, no, fuck that – my new favorite cereal is whatever’s in the pantry, but with orange juice instead of milk.

That sounds like an accident.

J: No!  It’s really good!  It’s all freshness and crunch.

Ryan: I like Life cereal.

Brian: I’ve been kind of lame and on the oatmeal kick for a while.

Who would you rather punch in the face: Long Duk Dong from “Sixteen Candles” or Mouth from “The Goonies”?

R: Mouth is hilarious.  I just want to hug him.

J: I want to be friends with them both!

B: I’m just not a violent person!  I can’t imagine punching someone!

If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be?

R: BLENDER.  Hallelujah the Hills would be a blender.

You go to bed, wake up the next morning, go to brush your teeth… and you realize that you’ve morphed into one of Jim Henson’s Muppets overnight.  Which Muppet are you?

J: DOCTOR TEETH.

R: I’d be Waldorf, the old heckler.  I’d be the guy with the jowls.

B: I’ve always liked Fozzie.  He’s chill.

After a raucous night out, you wake up at some point the next day and you realize that in your fit of crazy you got inked.  What tattoo did you wake up with?

B: A handlebar mustache on my finger so I can do THIS. (Brian then holds up his index finger underneath nose to simulate mustache.)

R: I had an uncle who had hinges tattooed on his inner arm so he looked part machine.  I’d do that.

J: I think I’d get LIVE EVIL on my knuckles for Miles Davis’ live 70s fusion album.

Would you rather be a rodeo clown or a sumo wrestler?

J: Rodeo clown.

R: Rodeo clown.

B: Rodeo clown.  Don’t they get the shit kicked out of them, though?

J: Yeah, but you also get to have a ton of fun.

R: I think it fits.  I have a theory that all rock n’ roll is embarrassing: When we go into a show, whether we’re seeing or playing it, we kind of make this agreement with ourselves that “THIS IS SO RIDICULOUS! But this is so wonderful!” So, I think rodeo clown fits for us.

J: Yeah, I think the ceremony behind the sumo match and the pedestal you’re put on in sumo culture, it’s great and I’m happy for them.  But I think I’d be very uncomfortable.

If you had to be a kind of cheese, which cheese would you be?

R: I’d like to defer to Erik, our guitar player, for this one.  He works at Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge.  He’s a professional.

If you were a style of facial hair, what style facial hair would you be?

J: Forgetful scruff.  Accidental beard.  I had a dream where I had a dream where I was old enough to have hair growing out of my ears.  It’s an aspiration.

R: A little bit of nasal hair.

B: I’d do the Amish style heavy beard with no mustache.

What’s your quintessential “I’M GONNA DANCE AROUND MY APARTMENT IN MY UNDERWEAR AND LOVE LIFE!” song?

R: “Hair of the Dog” by Nazareth.

J: “Pants off” by Evergreen.

B: Some ska song I’m sure from the Slackers, or something.  I think that’s probably my pick.

What’s your favorite word?

B: ASSHAT!

R: Preemptive.

J: I think my favorite word would be whatever word Elio DeLuca’s using the most.  I like Elio DeLuca’s jive.  Wait, Jive! That’s my favorite word.

Hallelujah the Hills. Photo: Jessie Rogers

THE MAIN EVENT: THE HALLELUJAH THE HILLS TEAPARTY BOSTON INTERVIEW

Give us the mini-bio for Hallelujah the Hills.  How did you guys come to make music together?

R: Well, I got started in recording music in a weird way.  The Stairs were a community outreach program.  No one really knew that we existed in Boston, for several years, until the summer we announced we were packing up and playing a few final shows.  A week later Eric and I drafted musician friends into something new called Hallelujah The Hills.  We rehearsed late 2005 and really started playing shows in 2006.  We just finished our second full-length album.  It’s called Colonial Drones and is out in September.  Then…more music!

So, where’d the name come from?

R: The name is from a movie called “Hallelujah the Hills”.  It came out in 1963, and I saw it while I was at film school at BU.  I liked the movie; the name kind of stuck with me.  It was on a list when we were creating the band.  It sounded good, so we just picked it.

Can you take us through the creative process for Hallelujah the Hills?

R: I write songs on an acoustic guitar or piano.  Get the words in place, chords, the vocal melody.  Record a demo.  Send it to the band.  Then we all work on it together and create an arrangement.  Everyone brings something to the table.  It’s fun.

Influences:  Can we talk about which bands or artists you’re listening to?  What band T-shirts do you have hanging in your closets?

B: I don’t have any more band t-shirts; this is actually one of my few remaining Neptune shirts.

R: I think another beautiful thing is that I think we’re sort of impervious to ever sounding like something else.  I don’t think you could ever say, “Well, that’s this.”

R: Eric’s bringing jazz, Joe’s bringing Iggy Pop and Rocky Erickson, so I think we cover a lot of ground.

J: Our favorite records that’d be like, “That’s the record that made me want to play music!” would all be in different sections of the record store.

What are some of those favorite records?

J: I CAN’T TELL YOU.

(Ryan and Brian crack up.)

J: I don’t know.  Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation.

If your house was burning and you could only save three records, which records would you save?

J: I have a 7” of this band from Northern Kentucky called Evergreen.  I remember I thought it was so cool because my older sister was friends with the guys in the band.  I was like, “Wow, this blows my fucking mind!  This sounds like how music should always sounds like!”  I listened to that record a couple of times a week until I was 15.  If you ever find a 7” inch by Evergreen, “Queen Song” and “Pants Off” are – I could act it out in an interpretive dance and probably paint a picture of it.  I would save that record, that Evergreen 7”, three times: I’d bring it out and then go back to the wreckage to double check to make sure I didn’t leave it behind.

We haven’t really talked about the Hallelujah the Hills songs that you guys love playing live or the songs you feel especially connected to.  What’re your favorites that are by you?

R: Starting out we felt a real obligation to play the song that says the band name, because it is sort of a, “We’re here! This is our song!” kind of thing.

J: “We exist!  We really exist!”

R: “We do! And I don’t have to say the band name after this song because I just sang it!”  In the last year, I think we’ve avoided that song-

B: We did, we did a little bit, yeah-

R: -Because I think it’s the one we played the most.  Now, when we come back to it like we did the other night, it’s fun to play.

J: Yeah, it’s in a new light.

B: There’s a bit of that that happens, that songs you play a fair amount. “What can we do to change it up a little bit?”

R: Playing live is a big part of making the record.

B: Yeah.  There are songs on the new album that we haven’t really played live, so the next step is to figure out how to play them. I think that when I first started recording with other bands, I got this idea in my head that you shouldn’t record something that you can’t play.

J: Yeah, I used to think that too!

B: That all the instruments and notes that are played live need to be the same on the record and vice versa-

R: And in a sense, we make an effort because that’s why we have a sampler –

B: Right.  One of the things I really love about this band and playing live is just how much energy there is that just happens as part of a live show:  There’s the energy the band is giving, and there’s the energy from the audience, and there’s just the visual component of it that’s lacking or not there on a recording.  On a recording, that energy needs to come from somewhere else, with other layers, whether it’s other instruments or harmonies.  You just can’t play your instrument twice.  A bigger sound happens because you’re playing live.

R: There’s the spooky path of trying to figure out which songs people like to hear of ours live.  Once in a blue moon someone will shout a title, but we don’t get a ton of feedback in that category.  All you have to judge that is the applause, so we end up playing the songs we like anyway!

B: I don’t know.  There are songs that I’ve been skeptical of that I’ve eventually come around to.  It changes I think, what songs you have an affection for.

J: To add to what Brian was saying about what fun you can have in a studio versus what kind of fun you can have live, I used to have the same feeling.  You should be able to record on a shitty jam box and make it great.  Recording, you have so much fun with cooking up these things and these whole little worlds.  Some of my favorite songs I hear myself as a human being the least in, you know?  The whole of it sounds like this whole universe.  Live, it’s like, six people bangin’ away at their instruments and that’s what’s awesome about that, but recording I think is this kind of other thing that exists outside of it.

R: There’s also that old idea of, well, if you can’t play it one person alone on a guitar, then it’s not really a song, or it’s not really a good song.  I go back and forth on believing that; I’m not sure if it’s true.

J: Yeah.  I don’t think that’s true.

B: A lot of Ryan’s songs do pass that test.

R: I thought of an example, that Radiohead song “Kid A”?  That’s not a song!  But I saw last year that John Mayer had covered it acoustically.

We’ve been talking to a lot of bands from here and it’s come across that there’s not an expectation for Boston bands to express loyalty to our city, but that there’s definitely an interesting connection between bands here and Boston that you don’t see in other cities with thriving music scenes.

J: As far as bands we’re friends with and enjoy and like, yeah, enjoy their music and stuff, you know, I feel like people here are a little more – I don’t know, maybe this is a little idealistic, but they’re a little more natural, a little more down to earth, you know?  I’m sure there are bands here that aren’t like this, but we’re not really friends with bands who are going to like… you know, a band may be like, “We’re gonna make it!  We’re gonna go to New York City, and we’re gonna look the look, and we’re gonna go to all this kind of band’s shows” – not because they’re excited and making friends, but to “make it” with big stars in their eyes.  I don’t feel like Boston’s that kind of town.

B: I like how a lot of the music I listen to and a lot of the shows I go see here are local shows with local bands.  I don’t really go out to see bigger national bands as a personal preference.  There are a lot of great bands here, and a show can just be good local bands and it’ll fill up, and there are a lot of great venues for it.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be some ringer national band to really make a show, and the way shows are put together, too, some band wants to play a show somewhere so they talk to other bands and to clubs and a bill just emerges.  Chances are, the headlining band put it together, like when we had our CD release, we were like, “Oh, hey, let’s ask these bands we like [to play] and hopefully they’ll say yes, and if we don’t here are these other bands we like!” Then, it ends up being a cohesive bill.  In other cities I’m sure the same thing happens as it does in Boston, but when we’ve played other cities, we’ve seen that it’s less cohesive and that there’s less camaraderie amongst the bands.  You show up, you play your set, people come to see you and they go their way, whereas in Boston it feels more like a whole night and there’s more of a reason to see the whole thing.

R: It’s a real treat to be able see a band you really like twelve times in one year for no more than $5 each time.  It’s an exciting thing.

B: Because I think that there are great local bands that can put shows on, it makes it great for bands from out of town to come in and have a good show.  It’s like the first time they play in Boston they’re playing on a pretty strong local bill so they get some exposure.  I feel like that’s one of the best ways to try to get a foothold in new cities: Find out who are the popular local bands, who makes sense to play with, what kind of bill can you put together that you fit onto that way.  It seems to work to build camaraderie.

What about the crowd in Boston?  Being from here, it’s probably inherently different for you, but we’ve heard that Boston is a lot more laid back and kind of – not laid back in the sense of “blah”, but laid back in the sense of there’s not so much people for the scene, people are here to enjoy music.

B: Yeah.  I think there’s a really good core of people who are just music fans.  I feel like the lines between musicians and fans of music are so nebulous and porous here.  We go to each other’s shows.  Even people who aren’t in bands, most of their friends are in bands, so it’s just this community of friends and people who sort of support each other in different ways.

R: I can’t be certain, I don’t know if that’s special to Boston.

B: I’m just talking about what I like and what I consistently see here.  There’s a lot of great stuff that happens here. We only get one night in another city to see shows when we’re touring, maybe it’s a great show, maybe it’s not, who knows if it’s any sort of representation of what things are actually like in that city.  It’s hard to compare cities that way because we only really know Boston.

R: If we were live music anthropologists- (laughs)

B: I don’t know.  I think it’s easier to focus on what’s great about how things happen here because there’s a lot of great stuff.

Are there any other bands that you’ve seen or really enjoy watching that exemplify what we’re talking about?

J: Yeah!

B: Yeah, all of our friends – Hoag Kepman, Keys and Streets of Fear, we’re just mentioning bands that all of us are in at this point, but I mean, Bon Savants, Neptune-

R: The sadly defunct Night Rally.

J: The sadly defunct Tunnel of Love.

R: You know what Boston does have that we can be sure of?  The CD release show is the band’s final show. (Laughs) That’s a legitimate curse that’s been happening in Boston for the last five years, where the band holds it together to get that CD out, and then they’re like, “Well, you can buy it!  But this is the last show.”

B: Yup, Harris; Clickers was like that…

Do you have any favorite venues in Boston?  Do you love them for different reasons, in that you love playing one but you love seeing shows at another?

R: We’re lucky: There’s a lot to pick and choose from, and whether it’s your first show or you’re starting to do well there’s a lot of choices.  In my experience, the booking agents are just like, they’re using their power for the people.

B: I get the sense of the way Ryan talks about this process in that a band and a promoter or a booking agent at a club will work together to put a bill together.  The Downstairs show, not the past one with the Fiery Furnaces, the one with Magic Magic, I think that’s such a great example of a band putting the night together with a bill of bands that just worked together really well, and everyone had a whole lot of fun.  It’s one of those situations where there wasn’t one band that everyone had come to see: Everybody was there to see all the bands and a ton of people stayed through the whole night until 1:30 when we finished up, and it was just really great to see.

R: One of the guys from Magic Magic said afterwards that he was just blown away, that there were five bands on the bill and he didn’t meet one asshole.  You know, when we booked that show, I said to Kevin at the Middle East, “I have no idea if we have any business booking Downstairs at the Middle East on a Friday night, but hey, wanna have fun?”

B: It was probably one of the most rewarding shows I’ve ever been a part of.  We had a good time as a band playing, but just being a part of that whole show was pretty amazing.

There’s a new album coming out, but besides that, what else do you have to look forward to in the coming months?  What are you most looking forward to regarding future projects and the indefinite future for Hallelujah the Hills?

R: Right now it’s all about sitting on this album we’ve made.

B: The album comes out September 22^nd and then we’ll be touring after that.

That’ll bring you to Christmas pretty much, right?

B: Yeah!  Right now it’s sort of hard to see into 2010 and think of what we might be doing.  I hope we’re touring a lot and getting to do all sorts of amazing things together, but right now, we’re focused on what’s next immediately.

R: Corey at our label has said it a few times: “You can’t re-release an album.”  He wants to get it right, and he really believes in us.  It’s a humbling thing because he’s such a great guy and he’s put out so many great records.  He wants as many people as possible to hear our album, and we want to be proud of it.  Someday, if we could play music and make that our living that would be amazing.  I think that many bands would say that.  You just gotta keep it one step at a time and keep it fun and it’s all rewarding.

Hallelujah the Hills. Photo: Jessie Rogers