Features / One Question Interviews

Ikka (Hook)

SPB: What are your favorite venues to play in Finland right now?

Ikka: I like Lepakkomies in Helsinki. That´s a cool little place with very nice atmosphere.

Nick Bitikofer (Heavy Weather)

SPB: How much space in your home is dedicated to music storage (either media or instruments)?

Bitikofer: I'm fortunate enough to have a pretty good sized basement, which acts as a music room and hang out space. I'd say about half of the space is set up for band rehearsal with drums, amps, guitars, and PA …

Trevor (Hopper – guitar/vocals)

SPB: What is the best (or worst) reunion show you’ve seen?

Trevor: By far, the best reunion show I've seen was Jawbox. They did not fuck around with their musical legacy. They clearly put the work into living inside their material after years away and it enabled them to perform those intricate songs masterfully. Their presence …

Coen (Harsh Realms)

SPB: If you had to introduce someone to good music, which five records would be included in the homework assignment you'd give them?

Coen: Something new, something old?

We've been listening a lot to the new record by fellow Dutch punkrockers Antillectual. Their new album Together has been well worth the 7 year wait and sounds really …

Ben Coleman (Hunting Lions – vocals)

SPB: You’ve played with many musicians in your career. In this band, whose songwriting process or stage mannerisms were the biggest adjustment for you to adapt to?

Coleman: Between the spark of an idea and the realization of 2 or 3 minutes of music, can be moments, months or even years. 

Not to go …

Jeff Dean (Heavy Seas – vocals/guitar)

SPB: What venue has the best food (for touring bands)?

Dean: Honestly, I think Beat Kitchen in Chicago has the best food for a music venue. I used to live down the street from there and I would just go there, whether I was playing a show or not, to eat. Also really wonderful staff, …

Hex Records

SPB: How do you typically find the bands you sign to the label?

Hex: There’s a secret cabal of labels that select bands through an ancient ritual and lots of blood… wait, I just gave too much away. Honestly though, it’s a mix of keeping up with what my friends and bands I’ve worked with in the past …

Tim Smolens (High Castle Teleorkestra – bass/co-producer) 
 
SPB: What stands out to you the most, today, when you listen to your first record?

Smolens: My first album was with a band we called Don Salsa which was my high school band. The album was called Koolaide Moustache in Jonestown. Some of the members of Don Salsa went onto form the …

(Heavy Mantle – vocals/guitar)

What type of guitar do you play and how did you choose it?

Billy Thompson: I have a ridiculous amount of guitars and play them all. Out of the 24 I own, I usually play my Rickenbacker 360 and 330 or an old Gibson SG. Sometimes I play my Gibson Les Paul Custom or Studios or …

Fred Gunn (Hiram-Maxim – vocals)

SPB: From when you were starting out to now, what parts of your setup have really helped voice your sound over the years?

Gunn: Prior to forming HIRAM-MAXIM, I performed exclusively in punk bands. The extent of my gear was nothing of my own. I’d just show up and use the club’s microphone. Aside from …

Brian Nicewander (Han Gan)

SPB: What is the strangest place you’ve slept while on tour?

Nicewander: I think one of my most interesting tour crash experiences was in the back of a 1985 Chevy van during a tornado warning on a lonely road in Kansas. 

A storm had made it impossible to see where we were going, so we stopped …

Mike Novak (Holler House – drums)

SPB: You released the split earlier this year. How different is it to release new music but not play live shows (do you expect the new songs to feel fresh when live music resumes)?

Novak: Yes, we did release a split earlier this year. It was an odd roll-out of an album... We technically released …

John Payne (Heart & Lung-bass/vocals)

SPB:I hear you work closely with Karamu House. Tell us a bit about how you got involved and what it means to you, personally.

Payne: Karamu House is the oldest Black theater in the country, and virtually no one in Cleveland has ever heard of it! I most definitely hadn’t until I started teaching …

Chris (Hey Colossus – guitar)

SPB: You’ve dubbed your backline “The Pirate Ship.” Care to tell us why? (And how you put it together?) 

Chris: The simple answer is: "Have you seen it?".

When we played Glastonbury we had to set all our gear up behind the stage on ramps so the crew could put it all in place …

Ian Vanek (Howardian)

SPB: Walk our readers through your kit and offer insight as to how you arrived at your sizes (shells and cymbals).

Vanek: Howardian play on a 1963 Rogers "bread and butter" crushed oyster kit. It's stylized with the rack tom and cymbal stand coming off the bass drum. It consists of a 20-inch bass drum, 12-inch tom and a 16-inch floor tom. I …

Francis (Hope Drone – drums)

SPB: Was the mic’ing of your kit in the studio fairly straight forward, or were there some things you and the engineer did to find the right mics or experiment with sounds? 

Francis: Personally I wanted to go for a natural, organic Albini-esge drum sound. I put my faith in our engineer Christopher Brownbill who we …

Danny Sher (Horse Torso)

SPB: Do you think it’s easier or harder for an instrumental band to find an audience today than it was 10 years ago?

Danny: I personally think it is one million times easier for a band to find their target audience in 2018 than it was in 2008. The invention of the smartphone combined with the …

Terry Orlando (Hellkeeper)

SPB: If you had the choice, which song of yours would you want to hear covered by another artist? By whom? 

Orlando: First off I'd like to say that this was a really hard question for us because we all have fairly different ears for our own music and that caused a lot of hilarious answers to …

Jason Navarro  (Hellmouth, Suicide Machines)

SPB: You’ve released a trilogy of records. How has your original vision changed over the years it took for the releases to come to fruition?

Navarro: Well, I never thought the trilogy would end on a more positive note. Which partially through the record it became personal and became a positive change in the way …

Andrea (Hakan)

SPB: How did you come to work with Jeff Burke on II?

Andrea: Not a very special story. We love Marked Men and Radioactivity and when we find out he was touring Europe we simply asked him if he would like to come record us, and he said "Yes."