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Zach (Pears)
SPB: Who is the best band happening in New Orleans right now?
Zach: The best band happening in Nola right now is a country band called Yes Ma'am. They busk on Royal Street and are planning on touring in the fall if they can get enough money together to buy a limousine. Yes, this is real life. They love Forest Gump. They're good friends of ours. They have a new record out which you can buy here . Great vocal arrangements, great songs, great people.
Jim (Boilerman)
SPB: What’s with the numerical song titles on the EP?
Jim: The deal with the numerical song titles for the 10" is two-fold. First, all the songs on the record deal with really similar subject matter -- they're all more or less about different facets of existential anxiety. I also feel like the songs flow together in such a way that the record is more of a singular piece than it is a sequence of multiple separate pieces, so the numbering is meant to imply the fact that the tunes are smaller parts of the same whole. The cover song obviously threw that whole thing off a bit, but I wanted to keep it anyway. Plus, thinking of song titles is the pits.
Kenny Brown (Loud Boyz-vocals)
SPB: How has your musical taste evolved over the years? Do you think your “high school self” would appreciate the music you make now?
Kenny: I'm pretty much exactly the same! Loud Boyz is derived from the same punk bands we grew up listening to in high school. Before this band I was in a Dinosaur Jr style rock band and then a chillwave band, which was cool, but not something I ever thought I'd be into playing. Loud Boyz is where everything comes full circle for me, it's bringing me back to what I fell in love with when I was 16. Of course over the years I have found influence in a lot of new music, especially since moving to DC when I was 18. I always loved Bad Brains and Minor Threat, but living here has given me a newfound respect for what DC was/is about. Although, I listen to a lot of r&b now so I'm sure that my young self would be confused by that, otherwise I'm pretty much the exact same person, minus the metalcore breakdowns!
Loud Boyz actually played a show earlier this month with Darkest Hour and Dead to Fall, who were two of my favorite bands when I was about 15. Between that show, playing with Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg, and opening for Buzzcocks, I'd say that my high school self wouldn't believe what I'm doing at 28!
Chuck Stern (Stern)
SPB: How do you draw the line between taking influence and mimicking?
Chuck: I think of this as reverential versus referential. Influences are what shape us. They're crucial, but I've never really wanted to cover anyone else's songs or duplicate a specific style. Mimicry falls flat and is often reduced to what it isn't. If you revere something, you can let it ooze out organically, you can weave it into your tapestry and create something larger. But that depends on what you have to say, because if the point of your music is to genre-hop, well, that's lame.
On a side note, I've always been obsessed with clones and rip-offs (whether bands, brands, or movies). I just choose to avoid that approach.
