Topshelf Records

try-hardzine:

Ok, I am so excited for this interview with one of the biggest emo bands at the moment i’d say. Keeping up to date with the band is drummer Steven. Enjoy. xx

Hello to you, The World is a Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid to Die. How’re you guys doing?

I have a nasty toothache that I hope goes away soon, but I think collectively we’re all doing well… We’ve just recently moved into a new practice space, have been catching up on mailorder, and have been preparing for a pretty massive tour that starts later this week. Oh and our Debut LP is mixed and mastered. Things have been good. 

 

I’m guessing you probably hate this question. However I’m going to proceed and get it out the way earlier rather than later. For people that don’t know, who came up with your band name and why was it chosen?

The name was just a bad joke taken too far. It’s meant to be a rip on post-rock song titles. We’re all stubborn though, so we’ll never shorten it or change it any way.

 

Would you like to explain your line up arrangement? Do you have more people playing on the record than you do at live shows?

Our line-up currently is eight members. 

Derrick Shanholtzer-Dvorak, Katie Shanholtzer-Dvorak, Greg Horbal, Chris Teti, David F Bello, Josh Cyr, Julia Peters, and Steven K Buttery.

We added a lot of extra things to this new record, including cello, and we liked the sound so much that we asked Julia to do the band full time.

We’re trying to sound as much like the record as possible.

 

So, your last full release was in October 2011. That’s a relatively long time ago. However, if you could rejog your memories and explain how the recording process was for that split LP with Deer Leap? Was it an enjoyable experience, very stressful or something else?

As far as I can remember the recording process for the Deer Leap split was a breeze, especially in comparison to this recent recording session. Ryan Stack at Format Audio in Haverhill Massachusetts is an absolute delight to work with. 

 

I can’t imagine song writing to be easy with your band. I’m in a band with 3 people and we find it hard quite a lot! Could you tell me how song writing works for you guys?

The hardest thing about being in this band is coordinating 8 schedules for a rehearsal time. But we try and do one night a week, and sometimes two. As for the writing process, we just play riffs together and make structures for songs. It really is a group based writing process, instead of having one main song writer. 

 

Do you have any plans for a new release any time soon? I know that myself as well as many others are hoping the answer is yes.

We have a four way split coming out soon through Topshelf Records and Run For Cover Records. The other bands on this split are Code Orange Kids, Tigers Jaw, and Self Defense Family. We also have our debut LP coming out this summer, also through Topshelf Records. We have more releases planned for this year, and have started writing LP2.

 

You’ve been playing shows with Hostage Calm and Turnover recently how has that been? Any brilliant/funny stories to share & any other great shows you’ve played/stories to share?

We’ve been fortunate enough to play with a lot of bands that we love… Hostage Calm and Turnover are great people, and great bands… I’m really looking forward to touring with them in April, I’m sure a lot of great memories will be made.

 

Ok, Topshelf Records in the last couple of days put up pretty much every record on their bandcamp for free download. Your split with Deep Leap was one of them! What’s your opinion on them doing that and has it brought you a lot of new fans to the table?

Letting most of their discography go for free was a brilliant idea, and I’m sure that because of it more physical records were sold in the aftermath of it. I’m sure a decent amount of people decided to check us out based on the free download, and that’s great, thanks!

 

We’ve talked a little about Topshelf Records in the last question, but we’re not done, I have never heard a bad thing said about them, ever. Do you enjoy being signed to the label and are they as great as they seem?

Kevin and Seth at Topshelf Records are the nicest people on the planet. The other really cool thing about Topshelf is that their releases are consistently good, they’re starting to get a very devoted fan base that will try out any new band signed to it, based solely on the Topshelf name. 

 

There’s one thing I love about Formlessness and the Deer Leap split one after the other is the link between “Victim Kin Seek Suit” and “Bread For Brett” with the lyrics “Where are you? And where have you run to?”. Can you explain why you made the link between the two releases in this way?

The re-use of lyrics extends deeper than those two examples. The new LP references a lot of earlier work, and even references itself at points. It’s really just a way to have our discography feel like a complete singular work, instead of a series of releases. 

 

Who would you say your biggest influences are?

The 8 of us in TWIABP have a very wide span of influences, based on what we grew up listening to. I grew up listening to weird noise, Josh likes J-Pop a lot, Chris was into metalcore, and I think Greg still only listens to Ska and Mr. Bungle. Recently I’ve been into the Microphones (and Mount Eerie) and Gonjasufi.

 

Do you have anything big planned for 2013 that we might like to know about?

Current plans are a short tour with Finch in March, a tour with Hostage Calm and Turnover in April, a full US in May / June, hopefully Europe in the early fall, and then an east coast thing down to Fest in Florida in October.

 

Where would you like to see TWIABP&IANLATD by the end of 2013?

Winning a grammy.

 

This is the part of this where you recommend to the readers any bands/labels/artists/zines that you might want to share…

Listen to Deer Leap, The Act Of Estimating As Worthless, Do Make Say Think, and Mr. Bungle.

 

Ok, so! Last question. If you could tour with any 4 bands to any 4 locations; who would it be, where would you go and why?

We would love to tour with mewithoutYou, Mount Eerie, Arab on Radar, and Mr. Bungle. The only location appropriate for that line-up would be space.

 

Thanks for this guys! I hope you all the best in your future endevours. xx

Thanks!

 

Check out TWIABP&IANLATD at:

Bandcamp, Facebook & Tumblr

Mega Steve.

try-hardzine:

Ok, so Prawn. An amazing band from the States. A great interview for you guys.

 

Would you like to introduce yourselves and what each of you does in the band?

Unfortunately not all of us could do this interview for a variety of reasons, but my name is Tony and I play guitar and sing in Prawn. Then there is Jamie who plays drums, Kyle who plays bass, and Andrew who plays guitar.

 

One of your newest releases “Ships” came out September last year. Can you take us through the writing and recording process for it?

Sure. We wrote Ships in the fall of 2011 and early winter of 2012. We had just put out of first full length and wanted to write a follow up EP. We worked really hard on the 6 six songs that appear on Ships and continually tweaked them throughout the writing process. We had really wanted Ships to come out before our first European tour, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. We recorded Ships actually at my parents house in New Jersey. The drums were recorded in the living room, guitars in the garage, and vocals in a bedroom. We bought a keg for the week of recording so needless to say we were pretty inebriated throughout the whole process, which made it all the more fun. After we finished recording we sent it to our friend Greg Dunn who did a marvelous job mixing and mastering it.

 

Your debut full length “You Can Just Leave It Here” came out a while back now! How do you feel you’ve progressed up to and since that record came out?

I think we’ve just grown a lot as songwriters since YCJLIA. Not even that, we’ve all started to listen to different music and our influences have trained drastically. Some of the main influences on the full length were The Get Up Kids, American Football, and Explosions in the Sky. Now all we listen to is The National and Bombay Bicycle Club. We still have a very similar way of going about writing, and I think we’ve really honed in a sound we all think describes us well. So in short, we’ve changed a lot as a band in regards to how we write music, but still have the same essential approach as we did since False Institutions.

 

I noticed you’ve put up “Short Stay, Long Road” also recently. Can you talk to us about that release?

Yes. That was a release that was supposed to appear on a split with our friends For Hours and Ours. We recorded that in my garage with the same guy who did YCJLIA. However, the whole writing/recording process of the two songs was extremely rushed and I think the end result shows that. The split actually never ended up happening and we never officially released those two songs. Jamie and I came up with the idea driving into New York one night to give away all our music, including unreleased stuff, as a thank you to everyone that has helped us out along the way. It seems like people really enjoyed it and we may have even made a few new friends.

 

You toured with Calculator last summer! How did you find that? Do you have any great tour stories? Or does a gentlemen never tell?

We first met Calculator a few summers ago while both of us were on separate tours. We ended up playing 2 or 3 shows and becoming buddies. Last summer we were primarily focused on our first European tour and hadn’t thought much of touring the states when we get back. Ramez from Calculator shot me a message asking if we’d want to tour with them for 2-3 weeks and it seemed like a no brainer. There were some good tour stories, totally. A lot of things went wrong for us on that tour actually. So I’d say the most quintessential tour story is our transmission dying on a bridge on our way into Montreal. We all almost died trying to get to the side of the road and nearly missed the show. It took a week or so to get our van fixed and we missed half of the tour.

 

You’re signed to/work with Topshelf Records, right? How does it feel being where many bands are aiming to be? How are they to work with?

Topshelf is great. Kevin and Seth are very relaxed most of the time, but when something needs to get done they’re on top of it. It’s been a very easy relationship. It seems like Topshelf is on its way up pretty fast to be honest. When we started working with them in 2011 they were a well-known label, working with a variety of bands. But since then, they’ve signed a bunch of new bands that seem to be doing really well. It’s great to be part of a community where everyone helps each other out as much as possible. We just got lucky.

 

What would you guys say that your main influences are musically?

Our main influences fluctuate all the time. Kyle went through a pretty big Parliament Funk stage, which is great but extremely odd. Luckily none of that really came out in our songs. I really couldn’t say our biggest influences are. Recently I’ve been loving Bombay and Lucy Rose.

 

Do you have any plans for future releases/tours/other stuff during 2013?

We have some stuff planned for 2013. We have a split coming out with Joie De Vivre hopefully sooner than later. We’ve been talking to some other bands to get some more splits out by the summer. We’re also hitting the road in March with our good friends Gates for about 10 days around the East Coast. We’re also playing a few festivals in April and May. Other than that, we’re planning on writings our 2^nd full length this summer. (which we’re all really, really, excited for.) We haven’t been home in 3 or 4 summers because we’ve always toured around that time. Jamie and I only recently graduated college, which means the freedom to really tour when we want. Also, we’ve only written music in the fall/winter months, so I’m personally excited to write in the summer when its warm and happy. Expect a very happy 2^nd LP from us, barring any unforeseen circumstances.

 

Where would you like to be at the end of 2013?

It would be great to end 2013 with our 2^nd LP coming out. Kyle graduates next Fall semester, December 2013, so I’d like to be going out on tour. If all goes according to plan, I think we’re going to push this band as far as we can once all of us are done with school. So hopefully 2014 will be non-stop touring and writings.

 

It’s your time to recommend some great bands/labels/artists/zines that you guys love…

This is always tough because I don’t want to leave anyone out.

All the artists on Topshelf and Count Your Lucky Stars. Local friends would be Gates, Caravela, This Old Ghost, Arrows in Her, and Au Revoir. The only zines I really know are Manual Dexterity and Zine and Not Heard. Sorry I’m bad at this!

 

Last question! If you could tour with 4 bands to any 4 places… Who, Where and Why?

Lucy Rose in Paris so I can try to seduce her with some delicious French wine.

Explosions in the Sky in Texas.

Bombay Bicycle Club at a Bombay Bicycle Club Resturant in London.

Anddd The National in Brooklyn.

 

Thanks so much for this! I wish you all the best in your future endevours.

Facebook & Bandcamp

tallchips:

“The 405 caught up with Kevin Duquette, co-founder and one half of Topshelf, to discuss how the label came to be, on striving to release vinyl splits and special presses and why Topshelf is a pioneer of new music.”

I had the pleasure of interviewing the head of my favourite record label Topshelf Records for The 405 and this is what he told me.

Really really proud of this one, and would love if you all had a read and shared it around, and also listen to the many amazing bands on the Topshelf roster.

Thanks, Will. I think this turned out great!

“We don’t take out expensive ads in magazines or whatever. Instead we try and focus on the product itself - the music, the artist, the quality of packaging and shirts we print on - the bells and whistles that can get overlooked sometimes. I take pride in that stuff. I realize it’s easier now than it’s ever been to just download a record for free and move on, so when you have someone willing to support the label and the band and actually pay for it — I want them to know & feel like that means a fucking ton to me - because it truly does.”

Though I try to steer clear of the “Stop listening” shirts as a focus for anything that we do (it’s more of an afterthought novelty thing to me) — If you wanna read about our upcoming releases for 2013, the day-to-day of running a label & who we’ve got touring overseas next year — this is a pretty well written piece from The 405.

try-hardzine:

For me, this interview is insane. I can’t believe I landed this one but alas, here it is, my Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate) interview is here. Enjoy it.

Hello Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate) could you introduce yourselves and state what you do in the band?

My name is Keith, and I play guitar, bass, drums, sing, and whatever else we decide to do.  My wife Cathy also plays guitar, though I can’t seem to convince her to sing anymore.  I think the last time she did it live was like 3 years ago, haha.

Short and simple, how did you all come together to form this band?

I started this as a solo project while recording a band Cathy and I were in called Anna Flyaway.  It broke up, and we decided to make this a full time band.  We already had an entire ep recorded, so it was a nice jumping off point.

What’s the story behind your very unusual but very catchy band name? What attracted you to the idea of having a long name?

Ah, thanks for calling it catchy.  It’s overly wordy, haha.- I admit it.  When I started recording under this moniker it was never meant to be anything more than a solo project, so I felt the freedom to name is something very ornate and elaborate.  It reminds me of the time my friend and I had started a project called “I Shall Strike You Down From Where You Stand”, which was a line from some fantasy book I was reading at the moment.  Empire! Empire! is less ridiculous, but not that much so.  In all honesty, given the chance to rename it, I would.  It’s not that I don’t like it, per se, it is just that it is a nuance.  I hate telling people the band I’m in- it’s bad enough to try and describe the sound after that.  The average person’s responses to my answers are almost always met with glazed eyes, so nowadays I just say “Empire! Empire!” and that I play “indie rock”.

You’re pretty huge right now in the general emo scene, please explain how amazing it is to have kids buying your records and spreading your name even further around.

Well, I don’t know about being huge, but I guess the important clause there is the ‘general emo scene’ bit.  It’s a pretty small scene and most everyone knows everyone- band-wise, at least.  I have honestly sort of lost the perspective of how it has grown past that, because that is what I deal with every day.   But the fact that anyone has ever bought any of our records still blows my mind.  We’ve sold out of at least the first pressings of every release we have done up to this point, and some of those pressings were decent sized numbers.  I can’t thank everybody enough for supporting us, be it through monetary means or word of mouth.  Thank you!

I know we’ve got plenty of your releases to listen to, that’s great and all but is there any news you can share on upcoming releases or anything else exciting?

Sure!  We recorded a batch of songs (nine in total!) late last year/early this year, and they are divvied up as follows: two songs to a split with Rika, two songs to a split with Arrows, two songs for a split with Malegoat,  one song for a four-way split with Driving on City Sidewalks, Mountains for Clouds, and Two Knights, one song for a split off a subscription 7” for Time as a Color Records, and one song for a tape compilation that we have single-handedly help up for like a year.

Besides that, we are now ankle-deep into writing our new full length.  I say ankle-deep when we should be at least knee-deep, but we’ve been so busy with other things that it has been put off for a bit.  We are trying to remedy that!  Expect that in fall.

Do you feel like you’ve progressed as a band since you first started in your little town of Fenton in 2006?

I do- After being a band for almost seven years (wow that feels strange to say aloud), I think you almost have to.  So far, we have managed to mostly avoid the general decries of “Your earlier stuff was better”, etc, though that may change or maybe I just don’t have my ear to the ground.  But I’ve learned to sing better, write more succinct, and hopefully have become a better musician.  We’ve been fortunate to see the entire country and some nice chunks of the world too, so if nothing else, this band has validated my purchasing a passport. 

Obviously you guys most write lyrics about many different topics but what is a main preference of yours while writing?

I write it as a poem and never sacrifice word choice for a better melody or flow.  I try to be as descriptive and specific as possible so the reader/listener can place themselves as though they were there too.  I think in some of my earlier work, my style was more vague and symbolic so the reader had to work to unravel the meaning.  But I have had a complete shift since then, and everything now is literal and plaintive.  I think there is beauty in simplicity, but I find that writing simply is much more of a challenge that writing complex, if that makes sense.

I know you’ve just come back from a tour of bits and bobs of the US, how was it? Do you have any funny stories or not so funny stories from your tour?

Yes, we got back from our first West Coast tour.  I think one of the funnier moments came in California.  We were staying with our friend Mark at his Grandma’s house, and he told us the night before that he had work the next morning, so we had to be out before that.  He left us the electronic gate opener so we could open the gate when we were ready to go.  Right before work, he came to check on us and we weren’t ready to leave, but he had talked to his Grandma and told us just to lock up when we were done.  When we packed up our things and got ready to go, we realized that Mark had taken the gate opener, and we were literally locked in.  We had gotten in late the night before and had not met his Grandma, and after going through our options for a good 15 minutes, we ended up sheepishly knocking on the door and asked her to let us out.  Is this one of these stories that isn’t funny if you weren’t there?  Anyway, the concept of a gate keeping us in instead of out is pretty funny.   We also ate Del Taco that night.

 

You’re touring Canada soon correct? How excited are you about that?

Very excited!  Being from Michigan I’ve been to Canada several times, but never on tour.  I’ve never been as far north as we are going either, so it should be a blast.  The drummer coming with us refuses to believe that they sell milk in bags, and I am looking forward to making him eat his words.

Count Your Lucky Stars is the label you’re signed to, do you feel like they do whatever they can to help you out and do you love being a part of it?

Well, given the fact that we also run the label, I would say that they have done a pretty good job, haha.  Actually, running the label we are on has its real ups and downs.  I spend far more time on the label then I do the band, and if I ever need to cut something- be it time or release-wise, Empire! is first on the chopping block.  But I absolutely wouldn’t trade my label for the world.  All of the bands are my best friends, and the sense of community is astounding.  I feel like they are all my family and we all help each other out as much as we can.  It’s very special. 

What’s your favourite release that you’ve put out so far?

Home After Three Months Away, by far.  In recoding chronology it is the newest release, even though some other releases have come out after it.  It’s the first release I felt like I accomplished everything I set out to do.  The lyrics convey a story and read much more fluently.  I also feel like this is the first release I actually learned how to sing on.  It feels much more natural singing these songs live than any other batch of songs.  The entire work pays homage to my favorite writer, Robert Lowell.  The album title and song titles are all lines taken from his work.  He is my biggest influence when it comes to writing.

Any chance of a UK tour any time soon? I know a lot of my readers would love to see you over here and obviously I would too!

We can now confirm that we will be coming in the fall with the Reptilian!  We will announce more details as they come in. 

Are there any bands/labels/anybody you can think of that you’d like to recommend or thank?

Any label that we have worked with has been excellent, no horror stories!  We would especially not like to thank You Blew It!  Those guys suck. Tell them we said that.  While you are at it, call Tanner “Stephanie”.  HE HATES IT!

Who are your favourite bands to tour with? (But let’s not hurt anybody’s feelings guys)

Not You Blew It!  TWO BURNS IN ONE INTERVIEW?!  YUP.

Last Question, If you could tour with any 4 bands in any 4 locations. When, where and why?

I am going to assume this question can literally be any band, active or not.  I would choose Mineral, Death Cab for Cutie,  Knapsack, andddddd I would put a band behind Andy Merrill- the dude who voices Brak from Space Ghost/The Brak Show.  How awesome would that be? 

I am tempted to say something stupid for the ‘where’ portion, like Dominaria or the U.P., but it would probably be a US tour of some sort. 

As far as ‘when’, it would have to be 1797.  

Check out Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate) here:

http://empireempire.bandcamp.com/

 Buy their merch and music here:

http://www.cylsrecords.com/

Follow: http://try-hardzine.tumblr.com

propertyofzack:

You Blew It! released their great new album via Topshelf Records a few weeks ago, and PropertyOfZack is now very happy to be doing a Track-By-Track feature with the band to take fans behind the meaning of the songs on their record.  Check out what the band had to say about the songs on Grow Up, Dude below!

Grow Up, Dude
This song has like 4 lyrics. They’re pretty self-explanatory. Also artsy. Way, way artsy. RESPECT ME AS AN ARTIST YOU GUYS.

Pinball House
The lyrics to this song were actually written by our old bassist, Marc Ispass. He was on a trip through Tennessee with an old friend, but after he had to leave the band, we kind of changed the lyrics to reflect our feelings about going on tour. The title comes from the name of a house we played in Virginia Beach, VA on our second tour. It was the first time we ever saw a good physical reaction from a crowd. 

The One With David
This song was written after a pretty long, frustrating back-and-forth between “the muse” and I. We met at her apartment to go to lunch, but then we more or less ended up sitting in her room and pointing fingers at each other. The next couple days were spent going back and forth between blaming myself and then subsequently blaming her for everything that had happened. I’d take different routes to class and neglect entire sections of campus that I had seen her at. Man, I’ve been to the bookstore like twice in the past year and a half, and I have a free coffee coupon for it. It’s terrible. 

Terry v. Tori
This song is one of our favorite stories to tell, I think, but you’ve got to know a couple things about us first. Red beard and all, Tim is the most Irish human on the face of the Earth. His birthday is even on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s ridiculous. Him and I also live in a house called The Buffalo, named after Terry, a gigantic fake buffalo head that we keep mounted in the living room. On his birthday in 2011, we threw a pretty nutty party at our place. Our friends showed up with their friends, who showed up with their friends, who showed up with their friends. By that second or third degree, you’re dealing with total strangers, but they’re drinking your beer so like, that means they’re friends or something. I don’t know. I also feel like it should be noted that I’m a total square and think parties generally suck, so I spent the entire night a sober dad. Around 1am, I was sitting outside with Tim talking about nothing, when a friend of a friend of a friend stormed out of the house. I caught the door and walked inside to Terry lying on the floor. Tim and I mounted him back on the wall, and the party pretty much dispersed. The next morning, we come to find out that friend of a friend of a friend is named Tori, so I put some words about the incident over a song we had written. I was real mad.

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propertyofzack:

PropertyOfZack spoke with the members of Pianos Become The Teeth over a month ago at one of their select dates with Converge for a great interview. The band and I discussed the success of their second album, past tours with Touché Amoré and Xerxes, Topshelf Records, their recent tour with Coheed And Cambria, and the future. Check it all out below!

For the record, could you state your names and roles in Pianos?
Mike: I’m Mike, I play guitar.
Kyle: I’m Kyle, I sing.
David: I’m David, I play drums.
Chad: Chad. I play guitar.
Zac: I’m Zac, I play bass. 

So this is your second of three shows with Converge. How was the first one? I guess this tour is really rad to be a part of at all.
David: I’m really stoked. Converge has been one of my favorite bands for so long.
Chad: Yeah they’re all one of our favorite bands.
David: First show was in Richmond. This is only our second show. It was awesome. Just the excitement of being on a show with Converge. Playing right before them it’s like, “Okay. Now I’m really nervous.”
Kyle: It’s cool too because I feel like the lineup is… I mean it works, but it’s also a little bit diverse, which I think is really cool. 

Were fans receptive the other night?
Zac: Richmond is hard to gauge. Our reception every night is kind of hard to gauge.
Chad: I definitely saw people singing along and getting into it, but there wasn’t people like stage diving and stuff, you know?
Zac: People stand with arms crossed and either sing along or look very confused.
David: We feel awkward all of the time.
Mike: I think one of the best comments somebody every said was, “Well, that was interesting.”
Zac: We were planning on opening all three shows. That’s what we thought was happening. We thought we were the opening band. Then we got there and found out that we were playing right before converge.
Kyle: Which is weird because we’re not really on the tour.
Mike: It’s incredible it’s just very weird room.
Kyle: Makes us more nervous.
Mike: Especially when you walk into a venue like this and it’s like, “Oh.. Right. Well.. Two floors, huh?” 

You guys have toured pretty extensively since the release of the record with the Touché tour and then the Xerxes tour. Have you noticed a steady increase in interest from fans?
Mike: I feel like in some places, yes. I feel like we would have never done as well in some of the major cities in Canada if it wasn’t for that Touché tour. We did a show in Toronto that was incredible. I don’t think it would have been that cool if we hadn’t done that Touché tour or touring behind the record. I feel like it’s a slow increase, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
Kyle: Very slowly, but it’s always been an increase but it works out.
Zac: It’s hard to gauge that too, because a lot of places that we’ve played, especially in america going in and out of Canada in places we’ve never played before, I haven’t played in a long time. It’s kind of hard to tell. 

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THE WORLD IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE & I AM NO LONGER AFRAID TO DIE INTERVIEW - 1/9/11

Questions by
-Mike Ward

Answers by
-Greg Horbal

Alright. First let me say how much I love everything that you have done. The subtleness to your songs is really amazing. Almost an Explosions in the Sky esque to them. When you write songs, do you ever compare your works to other groups that you are influenced by as if to say ” does this sound enough like…” ? (If so, who are some of those groups?)

I don’t think we ever approach anything from the standpoint of “does this sound ENOUGH like…”. There have definitely been moments while writing where we finish a part and are like: “Oh man, this sounds like ‘Band X’” or “this sounds like ‘Band Y’.” If it feels too close to ripping off another band we tend to try and change the part. We’re more interested in developing our own sound than trying to follow in the footsteps of anyone in particular.

On the cover of your latest record, there are about ten guys laid face down on the ground. Was this some sort of metaphoric shot saying that you all died doing something that you truly loved (playing music) or was this just a cover you guys thought would be clever?

Honestly, we all just kind of thought it looked good! We had been discussing that image for months before we took the picture. We wanted to take a photo of everyone in our band and everyone in Deer Leap together and had originally been intending to include all of our gear out on the lawn. We kept running into issues, though. For one, Deer Leap live in New Hampshire and we’re all in Connecticut so we don’t get together too often. And then when we were finally all together and got ready to take the photo, the skies turned black and it looked like it was going to rain at any minute. We grabbed our less precious gear, threw it on the lawn and took the shot moments before it started to downpour.

So on the record Mixed Signals Comp, there is a song that is a bit different from most of your other works. Is there a reason behind why you guys chose the song ” To the Janitor, To the King” as your single as opposed to some more of your abrasive tracks?

We had intended to use a song called ‘Getting Sodas’ for the comp, but as the recording date approached we just didn’t have the song done. Parts kept changing, vocals and lyrics were not completed and it started to get really stressful. We had sat in Derrick’s room a few nights before we were supposed to go record and Tom showed us the first verse of “To the Janitor, To the King.” I remember all of us getting excited. We worked through a very rough version of what the song would end up being in the following hour, and made the call to place that song on the comp instead. We were all really stoked how it came out. I think we’re going to be using a very similar styled song for a single we’re going to be doing for Run For Cover next year as well.

Listening to your albums from the beginning of your discography, is there any one song that you are most proud of writing?

Honestly what I’m most proud of right now are all of the new songs we’ve been writing for our LP next year. I feel like we’ve finally started to reach our potential as a group. I have to have something like 15 demos on my iPod and they are all I’ve been listening to. I cannot wait to show this record to everyone.

The song ” Blank #6” sounds like a deep song that simply did not require anything more done to it to make it better. Was there an event in any of your lives that brought about the abyss that lies within the guitar riffs?

I don’t think there was an exact event that inspired the song, but that song and all the songs we write reflect what’s going on in all of our lives at the time.

Questions by
-Mike Ward

Responses by
-Keith Galvin (Deer Leap)

I like the way that you guys kicked off your Demo record with that simple subtle track. By seemingly doing so little you’ve accomplished so much. Was that song more of a slow jam, or was there an even that inspired a song like that?

Originally there was a song we used to play for the Intro at our shows. We planned for that song to be on the demo but never got around to recording it. I did however, record bits of it on my loop station and wound up with that short intro that is on the demo. It had a lot of mood and it fit really well as the opener to the demo. We wanted something soft and ambient to lull your senses before the beginning of Hazle came booming in.

When you guys described your musical genre on Topshelfrecords.com, you wrote, “Three friends that make rock music”. This being the case, who are some of your influences?

That description was kind of our take on the long winded bios you see a lot of bands write about themselves. We just wanted it to be short and to the point. But influence wise we’ve all got a lot that we share and some that are unique to each of us. We’re all very influenced by American Football, Appleseed Cast, and Jimmy Eat World. So we bring a lot of that to the table when we practice together. I’m also a big fan of Mogwai, Radiohead, and Circa Survive, so I think a lot of how I write guitar-wise can be traced back to all those bands in some way or another.

This is one thing I just can’t go without asking, where is Sha- Booms? Did it have enough of an influence on you that you guys had to have a song about it, or is it simply a song name?

A lot of our song names come from books, television, and movies. That name comes from the show Eastbound and Down. We all love it and really wanted to name a song after it. We have difficulty coming up with names and referencing pop culture is always a fun thing for me. Like when I notice a band references something I like I get a little excited, which is kind of lame but fun. As we continue writing, however, I think we’re going to steer clear from the references.

I love when bands cross genres in albums. Sigur Ros did this when he released his album Takk. You guys have such a mix in song variety whether it’s writing an instrumental piece or one that’s slow and subtle or its something loud and abrasive. Do you find it difficult to write a cohesive album with so many possibilities available to you?

Absolutely. Our writing process is all over the place. We never really sit down and think about writing a song. Usually our songs evolve from improvised jams we have at practices. So as for writing a cohesive batch of songs, we haven’t really aimed to yet, we just write songs as they come to us and hope it all fits within whatever our sound has become. But I think since writing the songs for our split with The World Is… we understand what “our sound” is, which is something that we didn’t know when we started the band. That’s why the songs on the Demo are all over the place, we were just writing songs, which I think is the case when any band starts out. We never really sat down and said “This is what we should sound like”, it just happens naturally over time as you play and write together.

Lastly, are you guys working on any more albums? Are you focusing more so on touring now-a-days?

We have a handful of new songs that we are hoping to record asap. We’d really like to record and then focus on some touring, we are just all extremely busy all the time and it makes focusing on the band very difficult. But we do have some new songs that we are extremely excited to play and record. 

All of our recordings (the demo and our split with The World Is…) are on our bandcamp. You can also get the split at http://tsr-store.com.

thesaddestlandscape:

Andy was interviewed about record store day (obviously our favorite national holiday):

http://www.hevypetal.com/interviews/123/record-store-day-interview-with-the-saddest-landscape

anthonyglaser:

I love these dudes, and had the wonderful opportunity to interview them for the second time last week. Check it out.

After going on a European tour along with now disbanded twinkly punk act Grown Ups in 2009, however, he returned home only to find his employer went out of business. Faced with option to either find a new job or go back on tour, he chose to hit the road and stay there as long as possible.

junnnktankforever:

Good music on JUNNNKTANK

http://junnnktank.com/thesaddestlandscape
http://junnnktank.com/thesaddestlandscape
http://junnnktank.com/thesaddestlandscape
http://junnnktank.com/thesaddestlandscape

nosilencezine:

I went to a show last night and Bob was there so I interviewed him real quick about some stuff. Check it out!

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No Silence Zine!: State your name and what you do in Native.

Bobby Markos/Native: I’m Bobby Markos and I play bass and do vocals in Native.

NS:…