THE KRELBOYNES
[T] Our project is The Krelboynes. We've been around since 2017. My name's Trey Marks. My pronouns are he/him and I'm 30 years old.
[S] My name's Spanky. I play the drums. He/him. I'm old. We'll just say that.
[B] I'm Brett. I play guitar. Leave it at that.
[T] Yeah, they don't have to say they're age. Just know that they're all older than me.
[J] I'm 43. I'm 43 yesterday it was my birthday.
[T] He almost shares a birthday with Grimace.
[B] What's your name?
[T] Grimace's birthday today.
[J] Oh, Joe. I play this saxophone. I was in the Krelboyne's a long time ago.
[S] Before Brett.
[J] Yeah. Playing the synthesizer, but then...
[T] You ghosted us for a couple weeks. We were like...
[J] I didn't have a whole lot of energy back then. As much as I loved doing it, it was hard to keep up.
[T] Yeah, well, we didn't really know what we were doing. Because originally it was just Spanky in me. We were in a band called Arrakis together. I was a replacement bassist for that band, our guitarist, it was him and his wife and Spanky and then when she had time to play music again, he stopped the band to start a new band with her. He could've just kicked me out because I was her replacement, but he just kicked Spanky and I out.
[S] Actually, just so we could have that name.
[T] Yeah!
[B] The question is, what is your name?
[T] Well, I thought we were talking about...
Yeah, it's good. We could let it roll
[J] Well, yeah, just to finish, I'm in the band. I know I said I used to be in the band but I'm in the band again.
[T] You were the original third member before Brett.
You guys said you started around 2017?
[T] I think so. I know that we released our first album in March of 2018. So, 17 sounds about right.
And how did you guys meet each other?
[T] Well, the Spanky stuff, I met him through Arrakis and then when that broke up, we decided to keep playing music together and I was like, well, I could probably sing, because I had never really sang in a project before I always just played bass, but I was feeling pretty cocky and I was like, yeah, I could do that. It's easy. And then Joe I've known forever. We used to work at Jimmy John's together really long time ago and Joe and I are also in another band together called Quantum Fleek that hasn't played a show in three years, besides two weddings. We played two weddings and no other shows. And then Brett.
[J] Well, Covid killed us.
[T] Yeah, we were going to be the next big thing.
[B] The next string cheese.
[T] Yeah, we're really...Yeah.
[J] One of the things I put in the fridge is smoked string cheese.
[T] That's pretty good. When I was in middle school, I put some string cheese on top of a vending machine to see if the janitor would ever
[J] Eat it?
[T] Yeah, eat it, and then Brett lived next door to me.
[B] Yeah, I had just moved here.
[T] Yeah, he had just moved here and I met him at a bonfire and realized he was my neighbor and so I would always see him outside and then found out that he played guitar. And so that was when Spanky and I were just messing around together.
[S] We actually were going to go record as a two piece and had to push recording back because we added Brett.
[T] Yeah.
[S] And then it changed. We were a completely different band once Brett came in. We were more like They Might be Giants and like weird shit compared to what we are now.
[T] And then Joe got added recently because the new album that we're putting out this year just needed some saxophone really bad so we asked Joe if he wanted to play on the new album. And then we were like you can just play on all the songs. It doesn't really matter. You can just keep playing.
How long have you guys been playing what you play in the band?
[T] I've been playing bass since I was 15. I like picked it up in high school. I had friends that were guitarists. And I had a bass at my house because my uncle left it there when he moved to Arizona. So I was like well if he'd teach me how to play this we can start a band. And then my brother learned to play drums. So my brother and I just learned instruments in order to be in a band. So I've been doing that since I was 15.
Cool.
[S] I think I got my first drum kit 20 years ago, like this year. I pierced a kid and his buddy for like a three-piercing beach and got a drum kit. And I've been playing ever since.
[T] He's not a murderer. He doesn't like stab people. He's a piercer.
[B] Yeah, I think about, at the same as you, since I was like probably 13 or 14.
[J] 33 years. I started playing saxophone in middle school band. And then when I was going to high school I was like I don't like band. I don't want to do it.And my mom pushed me to continue to play. And she was like just do it one year for me. And I was like okay, but then like I played through high school
[T] I did marching band my freshman year high school because I didn't realize all my friends dropped out of band after middle school.So, and I stayed at it and I had an infected toe so I couldn't march. My toe kept getting infected. So I had to stand on the sideline. If you cut your toe and it all wrong, it'll just grow into, I have really fat toes. So it just grew into the side of my foot. That's why I have part of my toenail permanently removed through surgery.
Oh, right.
[T] It doesn't grow back.
[B] Your big toe?
[T] Yeah. I got to march like once maybe, I don't know. I was playing the marching french horn and I just stood on the sideline. I also did not have an instrument because they were like, do you want to play marching french horn? I was like sure, I usually play trumpet. They were like, it'll get here in a couple weeks. And that was like, we were at band camp like rehearsal before school. So I didn't learn any of the marching songs because I didn't have an instrument.
[J] I got to march and we wanted ton of competitions. We like, traveled and we were like a traveling marching band. It was actually kind of cool.
[T] Yeah well, a girl with a glass eye gave me my first kiss and marching band. So top that.
[B] I did everything I could not have to be in marching band. I wanted to be in jazz band and so I got them to let me make a documentary about the marching band my freshman or sophomore year and so I still got to be in jazz band.
[S] I was too cool for band. So I did not play in the band.
When you were learning how to play drums then how did you go about doing that?
[S] Just by wanting to play and then going and watching bands. Just like watching other drummers. And then like I had, it was when I started playing, I was like 22, but I had friends that always had drums so I'd just sit down. Actually it was church. They had a live band at the church I went to and I was like, that's when I was like I wanna play drums. And so I sat down behind those drums for the first time. And then yeah, it took me until my 20th actually get it set. I was just watching and listening and just wanting to play.So I just figured it out somehow. Kind of.
I know we talked about it a little bit but I wouldn't mind hearing if there were any other previous projects you guys have been a part of.
[T] I was in a band in high school with my friends and my brother called "cannical fields" which is the word mechanical without the M or the E. And what you would say is because there's no me in band.[laughter]
[B] And why is that so funny?
[T] Because it's stupid.
[T] Yeah, then I was in Arrakis with Spanky. I was in a lot of bands that never did anything that never played any shows because I would just meet up with random people to play and they were weird and they would just fall apart. And then yeah.
[S] Shout out Joys.
[T] Oh, I was in a band called "Joys" that played "Bloodfest". I don't know how the drummer was able to get us into "Bloodfest". He was able to get us in the lineup before we had anything recorded and I think even before I was in the band, like before they had a bass player. That guy was just really good at networking. And then yeah, now I actively, in this band, and "Blood at Ease" and not actively in "Quantum Fleek," but we may return eventually.[laughter] Someone's excited.
[B] I just love ripping on Quantum Fleek sorry
[J] Why?
[B] It's funny. Ripping on jam bands is just... something satisfying about it.
[J] We're not a jam band.
[T] I do think we are a jam band.
[S] It's not not a jam band.
[B] No, I really have nothing against the band.
[T] One time Joe was like, "we're not a jam band." And I was like, "Yes, we are." And we were at a party. And then a hippie appeared out no where and was like, "You guys are in a jam band?" And I was like, "Yes." And he was like, "Do you want to buy some mushrooms from me?" I was like, "We are in a jam band. We just summoned a hippie."
I don't remember that.
[T] You were there.[laughter]
[S] That was a real story.
[T] That was a real story. There was a bounce castle. It was for Sherry's birthday. [laughter] Drugs in the carpet played.
[B] Shout out to Sherry?
[T] Shout out to Sherry and @hoodies.
[S] I was in a bunch of bands that no one's ever heard because we didn't play around here. Well, my first band was the Gospel of Judas and we did play up here, but that was like, '07,'06. I was in This Home at Sydney, not a thing anymore. Arrakis up here. And then I was in Raph's for a second. And that fell apart, then this.
[B] I've been playing in a bunch of bands for a long time in high school in Grand Rapids. I used to play in a punk band called "One Tin Soldier." We were like first generation skeletons band in Grand Rapids and then played in some noise and math rock bands in Chicago. It's a Trap and White People were probably the two most successful ones and then played in a band called "Bone and Arrow" in New Orleans. And I also have my own solo project. It's all sample-based music called "Kifes."
[S] It's with an F.
[B] Yeah, with an F.
[J] I was in the Lance Cruz middle school concert band and then the high school band. And marching band.
Okay.
[T] Were you in a rubber band?
[J] I grew up in Metro Detroit and then moved to Kalamazoo in 2002 to go to Western. Actually one of the guys that was the whole reason why I joined band in middle school, my buddy Nate, I moved in with him and he was playing a band called "Strange Groove." And I joined that band. And it started normal and then it grew, by the end of it, it was like a 13-piece funk band and we had like a four-piece horn section. That was in the early 2000s. That was a lot of fun. People from that band molded into a band called the Weatherly Band. That lasted like four or five years. We played a lot in that band too, like a hundred shows a year. We had a lot of covers and so it was like a bar band.
[B] That's when you said you were making decent money in.
[J]Yeah. And then the singer in that band was getting his doctor at Western psychology and moved out to New York so we had to find something else and we got this way different singer and we became a funktion.
[S] Spelled with a K?
[J] It's like a local funk band. I was in that for a year and then I went to... I had an internship through Western in Brazil where I was gone for a summer and when I got back, it was no longer a band.
[T] I bought my Rick and Bocker from someone in Funktion.
[J] From Neil?
[T] Yeah, yeah.
[J] I was in a band called Gizzard which was like a second generation turkey-fister band. yeah, and then Trey and I started Quantum Fleet. I don't know if we started it but we began the band. Krelboynes. And then what else was next?
[T] You guys should bring back that turkey fister band, because I don't know what that means.
How would you guys describe your sound?
[B] This is always such a hard question. Lo-fi...
[J] So I was talking to a guy at work today and he was like "Oh, I heard you released a song and... I don't know how it came to this but he was talking about the type of music and I was like "I don't know what it is,' And he said it was post-hardcore.
[T] It's not, it's some kind of post-rock probably. I say we're library punk. Someone said we're probably good at math rock.
[B] That was a good one. lo-fi rock...
[T] Yeah.
[B] Basement show rock.
[T] It's like Pavement. Pavement meets Built to Spill.
Do you listen to Dinosaur Jr.?
[B] Yeah we get that a lot.
[S]I've heard like old Weezer...
[T] No someone was just calling you an old geezer.
Aw.
[S] I feel sometimes like Modest Mouse, old Modest Mouse vibes.
[B] I definitely grew up listening to Old Modest Mouse and Built to Spill a lot.
[S] We're all 90s kids besides this guy so
[T] I was born in the 90s
[S] But you're not a nineties kid, you didn't grow up in the 90s
[T] If you're not old enough to stop 9/11, like Mark Walberg wanted to, you're not a 90s kid.
How old does someone have to be to stop 9/11?
[T] I think you have to have been at least...
[J] probably at least 12
[T] Well, then I would... I was 9, so I guess...How tall do you have to be to stop 9/11? You have to be like King Kong-sized to swap down that plane. We're 9/11 post-rock. We're post-9/11 rock.
Let's talk about some of those influences.
[T] 9/11
right.
[B] Alex Jones, grace Ventura
[T] Influences. Gotta give a shout out to my man. Doug Marx from "Built the Spill" for influencing me to listen to his music after we had already started being a band, and someone said we sound like "Built to Spill" and I go, "I don't know what that is."
[S] You didn't know where they were...
[T] No before Brett. Brett says "Built the Spill."
[B] Yeah, they're huge influence for me, guitar wise. That and maybe like... Captain Jazz or like a lot of like Chicago... Mathy stuff. And we all listen to like... Doomey, Stonery stuff sleep is like a huge one for us,
[T] Yeah. I think we're all a little different. Joe probably has the least in common with a lot of our interests.
[S] I come from a metal background too a lot of metal and stuff.
[T] I listen to a lot of folk growing up.
[S] 90 years alternative.
[T] When I was in middle school, I only listened to John Denver in "Weird Al."
[B] That explains the look.
[S] I know you're not lying either that's the fucked up part.
[T] I was really into prog-rock when I was in high school, but I don't listen to that much anymore. There's was a band called "Fang Island"that put out a self-titled album that's the only type of music I ever wanted to make for a really long time. They had like five guitarists in their band. I just thought it was really cool.
[B] Most of what I actually listened to is hip hop and soul and stuff. I don't think that's really bled into this very much.
[T] I'm mainly listen to like slowcore. I really like codeine.
[B] Yeah
[T] that's a big one. low.
[B] I think a lot of us have like influences between two of us that are in common as far as like a big... We're all like talking heads fans.
[T] Yeah, talking heads is my favorite band. They might be giants is another huge, that's like what we originally were going to make this project sound like
[S] I definitely think the doom definitely bled into it, and then put in my like metal side so.
[T] Yeah, the new album is a little heavier. Well, I mean some of it is.
[S] And then throw in saxophone it's nice.
[J] Yeah, what I play in this project is very different than I would have ever played any other band I've been in. It reminds me more of like being in concert band.
[T] We also like make you wear a cummerbund or a metal inside.
[J] I never had to do that in any band.
[T] Time to start.
[J] My influences, that's like impossible. I don't know.I think that's a really weird question.
[T] Yeah, how dare you.
W[J] ell, like it reminds me of like people who are like, I really look up to this person and I'm like, what does that mean? Well, my mom.
[T] Your mom's your biggest.
[J] Well, I'm just saying she's the one that pushed me. She influenced me and continued to play music when I didn't want to.And I think had I stopped, like when I really wanted to and not listened to her, like I probably would have never picked up my saxophone.
[T] Well, to be fair, your mom is Beyonce.So she is a lot of people's influence.
[J] I saw this band called Galactic. They're from New Orleans, Jazzy.
[B] Like brass bands.
[J] Yeah, and they have like a brass section sometimes with them... I saw them play, it was like 2005 at Bonneroo.
[B] Have we talk about this before? They played at my club down there one time.
[J] And I remember like listening to them and being like, this is sweet and this is what I want to sound like. There's no room in this project, I think, for that. Which is fineIt's nice to play in different styles.
[T] That's always fun.
[J] It teaches you a lot.
[T] Yeah, because like when I was in Arrakis, I had never really listened to anything doomy, or sludgy stoner-rock stuff. I had never listened to sleep before being in Arrakis.
[S] I've never really repeated genres. every band I've been in it's been slightly different, if not fully different.
[T] Yeah, and we don't change our sound that much, but we try to keep it fresh.
[S] We just evolve, we age.
Well, maybe we can talk a little bit about your songwriting process.
[T] Yeah, I usually sequester myself in the West Wing, and I have a nice chai tea. Our songs usually just come out of jamming. Lots of times we're waiting for Brett to tune his guitar. So I start playing some stupid shit on the bass, and then Spakey joins in. And then it sounds really dumb, but then Brett will start playing something cool over it. And we're like, "Oh, that's actually kind of cool."And then I'll just sing "Jiberish" for like six months.
[B] So when I first joined the band, a lot of the songs were songs that Trey had written over the years. And then we kind of changed those songs a little bit, style-wise, and kind of got comfortable with each other playing those songs. And then after that it was like more came together as a group.
[T] Now we don't usually sit down and write stuff on our own. Every now and then I'll have some idea that I came up with a different band practice for a different band. And bbe like, "I actually think this would be better for the Krelboynes
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[S] Yeah, if anyone brings up the table it's you.
[T] Yeah, well it's easier that way, because I could just have a catchy bass melody and we could build up that. And then I could figure out what to sing over it. But I don't really put much effort into my lyrics once it's time to say "Writing" them in the studio.Like what if I could say for six months? How do I make this coherent? Like right before recording vocals.
[B] I mean a lot of times, we won't hear the words until we're recording.
[T] Yeah, you guys don't know what I'm saying.
[B] I think a lot of, like, musically it's us trying to sound like... We play with dynamics a lot. Still trying to get from really small to as big of a sound as we can possibly make with three or four people or whatever.
[S] Quiet, loud, quiet.
[T] Yeah, I do think that dynamics are more important than almost anything else when you're in a band. It's just like you gotta have your quiet parts quiet.Your loud parts loud. Because I have not sung in a project before this, I've been trying to be a little bit more complicated with my vocal melodies and a little less complicated with my bass melodies.
[B] Yeah. If you listen to that first record, most of the songs you're singing the same melody that you play. And that doesn't happen anymore.
[T] Yeah. I took songwriting lessons from Lou Broderick who she's some of the main artists behind the project "Diners".
[B] Which was like the funniest fucking show. It might have been the first show I went to with Trey. Really early.
[T] And "Diners" is one of my favorite projects ever. And I took the Zoom lessons over the pandemic from blue.And she was really helpful.I don't know what to do with this vocal melody. She's like, "Could you play something? Can you play it?"I'm like, "I don't...It doesn't have anything." She's like, "Don't lie to me.You can play it on guitar. You can sing it."Then you can work on it.So I've tried to be less lazy with my singing. Which is tough because I like being lazy.
Going back to the lyrics, do You feel like because you put into the short amount of spurting time that you end up resonating with it over the long term?
[T] Yeah, because I don't always know what it's about. And then I'll be singing it like years later.And it'll have a new meaning to me. And it'll be very upsetting.I'm like, "I don't like this."It means something.Yeah, sometimes I'll assign meaning later. I don't really like when fans are like, "This is a song about this." It's like, "Well, I would rather assign my own meaning to that song.You wrote it forward."So I do that for myself too. I don't assign much meaning to it until it naturally comes into my head.
So you guys released a single this year. What can you tell me about the new project that's following, right?
[T] Yep, the new album is... I don't know what we're releasing it. It's been done for a long time.But we have an album release show at Bells on September 16th. So we're going to wait to release it until it's closer to that time. But we did release a song from... It's a self-titled track called "Boyne Again." And yeah, it's just a song. It's fun. It's the cheery song on the record.
[S] The shortest song.
[T] Yeah. Well, yeah, kind of.
[S] It is...
[B] The record is basically three songs with some interlude stuff .And the first song is like, "It's like 15-something minutes long. "The second one is like, "3 minutes long."
[T] It's 420.
[B] 420.
[T] And then the last one is 12 minutes.
[B] Yeah, so there's like two really long ones.
[T] Yeah, and then a couple interludes. And so it's more of... It's like an EP, but it's over a 30-minute song. So it's an album.I think it's definitely feels the most like an album of...
[B] Yeah, it's the most cohesive.
Yeah.
[T] Because it's a concept album.
[S] Loosely based concept album.
[T] Yeah, it's about...It's about dinosaurs coming to life and killing all the humans. That's about it
[B] We've heard everything so far with at Ray Gun's studios. Like all of our stuff with Chris Brinkhauser and he's like a friend. They've known him while you might have, but it's just a big part of recording for us.
[T] Yeah. We record live.
[B] Yeah, we don't track anything out. We always play in the room at the same time
[T] We'll go back in with saxophone, vocals and Bret it all way down some extra guitar. But, you know, spread spanky and I will always go in and just record live. It's just, that's more organic for us. And, um...
[S] We started writing the first song during the pandemic.
[T] Yeah, this album's been, we've been working on these songs for a while. Because two of the songs are very long.There was a lot of changes that went into them.And, just like getting them to where we felt comfortable recording them. It's also tough because I have to like yell and scream on this album. Which is not something I do in my day-to-day life for other music. So, it is like, been very painful on my vocal cords.And I have to like, practice them more especially before this show coming up. In September, otherwise I'm gonna get Laryngitis again. We're always working on new stuff. By the time, like by the time we release this album, we're probably gonna be ready to record another album. So, we're usually sick of whatever we were releasing. By the time we release it.
Yeah, we started writing this stuff after we recorded the second album.
[T] Yeah, the second album we did in release for almost a year.We just like sit on stuff for a while. Until it's feel right. Just when people forget about us.
[B] I think it's different every time. This one is because of your release show date. We probably would have put it out already probably should put it out soon.
[T] I want to put it out. But, yeah, I mean, we'll put it out. We want people to come to this show really bad. We're not gonna play very, we have like one other show this summer. Because Brett works all summer, like really long hours, so we don't play a lot of shows.So we just want to make sure that a lot of people come out so we want to, we're just trying to get hype.Yeah, and it's easier to do when you release the album closer to the show date. That's the only reason we're sitting on it. Bell's couldn't get us in any sooner.
What do you want people to know about the music that you made?
[T] You don't have to take it very seriously.
[S] Because we don't.
[T] And our songs don't have much of a message to them. We're just very laid back. And fun!
[J] Definitely the most relaxed, well relaxed product that I've ever been on.And like, least amount of... It's weird because it's probably the most structured band I've been, been, I've been in it in a while, but also it's like...it's very democratic.
Yeah.
[T] Yeah, we're all like, all of our opinions are equally important.
[J] So that's what you should take from it.
[B] Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think that it's like definitely...To me, it's...Yeah, we don't take it super seriously, but it is like, Playing music is a really important thing to all this.
[S] Yeah, it's very genuine.
Yeah, it's a very valuable thing.
[T] We're putting, we are like putting a lot, we're like making our music with love.
[B] Yeah, for sure.
[T] This is the only project that I have where I... am Like, writing lyrics. And even though I do like do things at last second, I do think about...You know, like, I am trying my best. We're all just trying our best.
[B] Trey and I both do like, visual art, design and stuff. I used to have a screen printing business I was running, so like... All of our artwork we do, always, I used to print all of our merch.
[B] There's a lot of like,
[T] video stuff, like, we both, that I do a lot of video stuff for work and...
[S] Yeah, we make a lot of stickers.
[T] We're just kind of like, sticker merchants.
Yeah, we're gonna ask about like, the album art and stuff.
[T] Yeah, it's usually Brett. I help.
[B] Yeah, for sure.
[T] Yeah. I usually do like, typography stuff.
[B] Yeah. Like, for the, for the single we just put out, I was trying to like...I've been really into like, rotoscoping, like animation stuff in fucking around with that.Had this like, cartoonized version of Trey.That I realized would look really good in like a 70's sci-fi movie poster style thing. So I was trying to rip off...Logan's Run. Logan's Run poster. And I couldn't do the font right. SO Trey did that.
[T] Yeah. I made a new logo for us. It's on the artwork for the single and also like our profile pictures on social media right now and the Bell's poster, it has like a picture of all of us like cartoons, and yeah, Brett, Brett does a lot of that.
[J] Oh, I'm a cartoon in that?
[T] Well, your rotoscoped.
Yeah.
[S] Have you not seen it?
[J] I've seen it. I just thought it was just a normal picture of me.
[B] When I look at you normally...
[J] I appear in rotoscope?
Yeah.
[S] I was like, what's wrong with my face?
[J] Oh yeah. I used AI on Spanky for that. Like it's called stable diffusion, but it's like whatever. But I took like one of the prompts I used was to look at it and look like a villain.So it just kind of like made your forehead a little lumpy and a handlebar mustache.
[S] Hanging down and like brown not even my real hair color.
[B] Yeah.
[T] And I'm just wearing a tracksuit
[B] because he had a Sopranos birthday party.
[T] I had a surprise with the birthday party, so I was wearing a tracksuit a lot.
Do you have any fun show memories together or memories from creating something together?
[T] We went to Waffle House once.
[B] Trey was fucking wasted.
[S] Oh, that was, was that Tennessee?
[T] Yeah, we played a garage in Nashville to like five people, and then I got really drunk.
[B] He was almost crying because he loved biscuits and gravy so much.
[T] That's the best moment of my life.
[S] Or later that day when he almost fucking pooped your pants because of Nashville hot chicken. Barely made it to the Speedway.
[T] Yeah.
[S] We got to play the Built to Spill album Keep it Like a Secret at the Pyramid Scheme like the tribute years for 1999. That's like one of my proudest moments with these guys.
[T] That was fun.
[S] Because we played the whole fucking, except one song and no one even noticed it.
[T] Yeah, but we played 99% of the album.
[S] It was my proudest moment for you today.
[T] It was fun because there's a lot of people there. It's cool to play the music that people actually like.That like people were like singing a song.I was like, "This is cool."
[B] Yeah, that was really fun.
[T] It's hard to see those songs for me too. It was like really had to push myself to sing that.
[B] Yep and for guitar wise, they've been one of their events since I was teenager. And I have a tattoo from one of their songs from like way back in the day. That album, I know that he wrote as like a three-piece band, guitar, bass, and drums. But if you listen to Keep it Like a Secret there's like ten guitars on every track, so trying to like, for me, condense all that into one guitar was really fun.
[T] Also the bass is so low in the mix.It was really hard to figure out what I was supposed to do.
[S] The drums were too.I had to watch a bunch of live videos. I put more effort than I've ever had with any music.
[T] Yeah, it was really stressful.
[S] It caught me a lot and I became way better drummer.
[B] The cover bands that night were Fiona Apple, Rage Against Machine, Built to Spill and American Football. And all the other bands had gone all out with printed huge banners.
[T] the American Football guy brought a different guitar for each track on that album.
[B] Yeah, and that's like, you know, that band's famous for like crazy tunings and stuff.They did a great job. But we were like, definitely the least professional there. And we, I think we ended up like writing, going to spill on a piece of notebook paper and sticking it in a little bit to be our banner.
[S]We were the most stripped down. Like Fiona had more like eight people on stage.It was awesome.And yeah, we went up and everyone wanted to hear.Like, it was, then Rage Against Machine was, they went all out too. But yeah, everyone loved it. They were just like, one of the dudes were writing Against Machine was like, just, he was like, just go up and play. They just want to hear the songs, don't be nervous to play it.
[T] We haven't done anything else, cool.
[B] we've run on a few tours and, you know, play to mostly small to no crowds.
[T] We played at that place itself that where Pete Buttigieg at his wedding.
[B] No, it was his like campaign announcement.
[T] Oh, really?
[B] Yeah,
[T] at Langlab?
[B] Yeah.
That was cool.
[T] We played in South Bend a lot. We have friends in South Bend, so we play there more than Kalamazoo.
[B] Yeah.
[T] It's a fun town.
[S] It's always fun like going out and playing with these guys. They're all silly bastards so, there's always something funny that happened. So, everything's always a little bit memorable.
[T] We eat a lot of hot dogs.
[J] We should do more van rides. I wasn't a part of any of those memories.
[T] We could do another tour. It's just Brett works a lot. Yeah, we have to do a fall tour and I hate booking tours. It sucks.
Why create music together?
[T] I think it clicked right away when Brad joined. Like, I felt like that first practice we were like, "Okay, just keep coming back."
[S] Me and Trey in Arrakis, we just kind of clicked when the other guy wasn't playing. We would just play when the guitar player wasn't ready to play another song and we just got along.
[T] Yeah, this just feels very comfortable. We jam well together, and we are good at listening to each other. Everyone is bringing something to the table that is complementary to each other, so it just feels right, and there's no reason to stop doing it.
[B] We've never really hit a wall with her stagnated ideas, which has been...
Yeah,
[B] maybe if we do hit that, we will...
[T] We always have some new songs in the works.
[S] There's no ego we're all just chill.
[B] That is a thing I was very proud of about this band. It's not an ego thing for any of us. It's very much like...
[S] No one wants to do famous.
[B] I would rather play hidden away from...
[T] I would sell these guys out in a heartbeat to be famous.
[J] I feel like I'm still finding my place in the Krelboynes.
[T] Yeah, we still haze him.
[J] I came to a lot of your shows, and it was always one of my favorites, not only supporting them because Trey is one of my best friends. They were always one of my favorite bands to go see live.I've gone to almost all their shows in Kalamazoo at least
[T] Joe's been to most every one of our performances so knew a lot of the songs.
[J] I would always like to kick myself for not, sticking it out with the keyboards.And then now, we're kind of really getting back into it. It made me really happy, especially since our other band is kind of
[B] Shitty
[T] I love playing music with Joe, so I'm glad he's here.
[J] It's weird still for me. I think the music, what I'm playing in this band, probably sounds a lot less complicated than any other band that was in it, but it's actually way more difficult for me to play if that makes sense
[T] I think it probably has a lot to do with the way that Brett approaches guitar playing, because I think you guys have to play off of each other so much.That goes back to the thing where everyone has to be doing something complementary, and you do keep our music kind of sparse, especially in our recordings...
[J] There's a lot of dissonant sounds and when things sound a little off, I'm like, "Oh, what's that?" But then it was cool, it was like going and listening to the recording,and listening back to it, and I feel like that actually sounds good,
[T] Because you guys don't always play the same thing.
[T] Me and Joe might be the only ones that are doing this a lot, but it's improvisational, but not in like a...Like, not for the sake of being improvisational, like the chord structure is always the same,
but how things are played and stuff is different almost every time.
[T] So I play the same thing on bass, but I do a lot of improvisational singing. I'll be like, "Scoot up the boobop, the boobopopopopop!" We are always... we like to put puns in our band, in like our song names and stuff,and we like to help jokes on stage.
[S] You like to tell jokes. I like to laugh.
[T] Yeah, our last album was called "To Krell a Mocking Boyne. And what did we just call that song that we were trying to talk about with a dumb name for a song today? And we called it...
[J] Craisin Arizona.
[T] Now it's just Raisin Arizona, but the movie Raising Arizona but just Raisin. It's a comma, so it's like a town named Raisin, Arizona.
[B] Shitty grape.
[T] Yeah.
[B] Fuck Raisins, I hate raisins. I also hated our band name so much. Just because like the one rule for me for having a name for a project is always like... It just has to be something. It doesn't matter what it is that you don't feel stupid saying, or that people ask you what you just said when you say it.
[T] Yeah.
[B] This band name is like the worst for both of those.
[J] I've never been in a band where I felt comfortable saying the band name. I always thought it sounded stupid.
[T] Quantum Fleek is a good name though.
[B] I came up with that name and when everyone was like, "Yeah, that's the one." I was like, "Damn it."
[T] Yeah, we try to be as unaccessible as possible. We have a hard name for people to remember. And we put our first album out in DVD cases, so it couldn't fit all the CD rack.
[S] It was bigger artwork, it was the same price, so we just said fuck it.
[T] Yeah.
[S] But all our albums have been plays on our name. Or the first album was the wrong ways people said our band name.
[T] Yeah, because we called our first album Crab Loins and Quail Bones, because I think we got called Crab Loins once, the Crab Loins. We've got called the Quail Bones once. People don't know what we're saying when we say the Krelboynes.
[B] It's a reference to Malcolm in the middle, the TV show, and in Malcolm in the Middle, that's like the gifted kids nerd class that Malcolm is in and that name is a reference to the Little Shop of Horrors.
[T] Yeah, Seymore Krelboyne
Yeah,
[T] so it's a Malcolm in the middle, Little Shop of Horrors reference.
[S] It was Trey's idea.
[T] Yeah. And Malcolm in the middle, like one of my favorite shows, and They Might Be Giants do the theme song. So it's like three of my favorite things, Little Shop of Horrors, Malcolm in the Middle, They Might Be Giants.
What are some of the goals that you have for this project?
[T] We just had to release more music. Probably go on tour again.
[S] Keep writing.
[T] Yeah. Get more than... More than ten monthly listeners on Spotify.
[B] Turn that less than a thousand carrot the other way.
[T] We want one song to get more than a thousand listens.
[S] I want the album release show to be fucking cool.
[T] Yeah, I really want that Bell's to show the go well. It's with our friends GlassGod, which are the members from Arrakis, as well as the guy that recorded us, Chris Frankhauser
[B] And Charles the Osprey.
Charles the Osprey.
Well, I'd probably... or at least like some, I think, are one of our favorite.
[T] Yeah, I've been seeing him since I was in high school. One of my favorites is such a good math rock band from Grand Rapids. Yeah, we just like to play with cool bands that's usually our goal is to like...
Have fun.
[T] Yeah, have fun. We like to go on tour and just like go to try new food in towns. We talk about food a lot at our practices. Spanky will like bring me like candy bacon, or whatever, you make something and I'll be like, oh, that's really good. Here's some leftovers soup I made.
[B] I think what I wanted to do in this band forever...
[J] Is a soup exchange?
[B] Yeah... I would love to have a visual component to our live shows. I do a lot of like projection, art and stuff.And hopefully I can get something before Bell's. That's a goal.
[T] Are we going to release a music video?
[B] Yeah, I've get time to edit it. I've been like working on it.
Cool.
Yeah.
[T] We might have a music video. That has AI in it. We just really want to replace all of ourselves with AI.
[S] I want to play Pyramid Scheme as the Krelboynes and not as Built to Spill.
[J] Trey played the Pyramid Scheme as They Might be Giants.
[T] That's true. We did a They might be Giants tribute. I did it Joe Jackson's tribute too.
That was cool.
[T] The only times I've ever played at the Pyramid Scheme are tribute shows. They won't let me play my own music.
So, is music all your guys' first form of self-expression or did it start somewhere else?
[T] I used to do stop motion animation videos when I was like in middle school. I always wanted to get into comedy and now I never want to do that.I like music more. I can tell my jokes in between songs. I used to make movies. It took film class in high school and I worked on an independent movie. I used to take my video camera with me to show and film all the bands. I had hours and hours of footage that I never did anything with.I always looked like that creepy dude that was all the show's filming people.
[B] Looked like...
[T] Looked like I wasn't. I was cool.
[S] I mean I always drew and painted and stuff as a kid. Not well, but I just like to do that. I always wanted to play music as a kid. My parents wouldn't buy me a drum set so guitar I got a guitar when I was 15 and I sucked at it. I guess listening to music is really what got me to play music.
[T] I do graphic design for a living so I don't do a lot of creative design as much as I used to because I'm just not in the mood for it when I get out of work.I think cooking is maybe my other biggest self-expression I just really like to cook. That's more rewarding than anything else I've ever done, because it tastes good. I think if I wasn't playing music I would just be cooking more.
[B] I've always done a lot of art. My job is to do theater stuff for a living. I've never been a theater person for enjoyment as much. Music is always as far as personal art stuff. Definitely.
[T] It honestly feels easier when you're in a band. I can't sit there and write that much music on my own. I won't ever finish a song. But when you have other people who hold you accountable and help, you don't have to do all of it yourself. It's just very easy to create art when you have a group of people with you. It's very fulfilling to have something come together when you're working as a team.
[J] I was always a builder and a tinkerer I think when I was a kid I was with my thing. I enjoy writing. I think that I was proud of my first formal self-expression was like writing stuff down and writing stories, I'm also a storyteller. I did a lot of crocheting, and cooking a lot of baking. But one thing I noticed when I don't have music, there's been spans of like a couple years whereI wouldn't have a music project an I'd always find myself being very angry and not because I was thinking, "Oh, I'm not playing music I'm angry." It's just because that release or that outlet wasn't there. So I always get extra cranky.
[S] If I don't practice for a couple weeks. I can feel it. I feel a little edgy.
[T] Well, I was really glad that we practiced last week because I had my gall bladder taken off the week before and I missed two shows with my other band. Like I missed a show of bells and I missed a show in Goshen, Indiana.I was like trying to go to the Goshen show even though I just got out of the hospital.I wanted to go so bad but I could like barely stand up. I was just like, it just sucks.That sucks when you like miss shows or miss practice. So, yeah, it's very therapeutic. I think it's just because music is such a unique concept. You can get emotions out of your music that are hard to express in other art forms. It's just easier to communicate in music.Some things that I have in hard time saying and expressing otherwise. It's like sometimes helps me process things in my life better than talking to other people about them. It's just like keeping a diary.
[S] For me, playing the drums is definitely good getting aggression out. We don't play aggressive music, but it's just letting out like that release. The other outlet besides body piercing that I have creatively is cooking, but I don't feel like I should throw my anger into those. This one I can fucking throw my anger into it and feel so much better ten minutes later and just playing in front of people and having people enjoy what I'm doing just lifts me up. It's a dopamine thing.
[T] Performing is such a rush. Even if it's a small crowd, if you can get one or two people to enjoy your set, which is usually what we have going on for us, it feels nice to have someone come up and be really excited about your set. I know that's like when I was younger and I would go to shows, there were like a handful of bands that I really looked up to and they were really nice to me. I was like when I get older, I'm going to be like them and try to be nice. When people like your music, it can be tough for someone to come up and say I really like that because not everyone feels comfortable sharing those types of feelings.
[T] I don't think music is necessarily more fulfilling for me anything else than the other kind of art, but it's the one I've been doing for the longest.
[J] With crocheting, it's very meditative and I'm creating something and I really enjoy it and I can become very addicted to it. I think writing, I can be more expressive than I can with music, but I think music is just a lot easier than writing. I'm kind of a perfectionist. When I write something, it's got to be perfect. It's also something that I'm know I'm not always going to put out my writing. I'm not going to write something and have everybody read it. With music, you don't really have a choice because it's created with other people. It's just easier form for me because I've been playing my saxophone for so long it's kind of a part of me where I just pick it up and do it and happens, there's not a lot of thinking involved.
What gear do you use to achieve your sound?
[T] I have a Rickenbacker bass guitar that I bought about 10 years ago and I haven't really needed to buy any other bass because it's already the coolest bass in town.
[B] We get more compliments about Trey's bass than anything.
[T] I got some pedals, just like fuzz, and octave and clones. When Brett start playing with us he had three equalizer pedals on his board and nothing else.
[B] I still do but I just added other shit.
[T] Thought that was funny. Brett's pedals are more interesting than mine.
[B] I play mostly Fender, actually I play Fender Deville, like a Tube amp with a lot of reverb on it and I have a Fender Strat, which most of our stuff was written on and then maybe 2 years ago or so I got this crazy baritone telecaster that somebody heavily modified before I bought it. I think the newer stuff is a lot heavier because of that, there's a lot more low end, so it's been really fun.
​
[T] Yeah it's good to double up on the low end, I like the sound of the baritone guitar a lot.
[B] Then yeah, EQ, shaping the sound to me is a lot more important in this project than manipulating it so there's not a lot of crazy effects that do a lot of things, like modulate the tone or anything but it's just about filling in the gabs sonically.
[S] I play on a Mayplex. The first brand new drum kit I ever bought when I was in Arrakis, it's been the best thousand dollars I ever spent, it records awesome looks cool, sounds cool. But for the new album I recorded on a John Bottom reissued acrylic Ludwig set that had like a 20 inch bass drum and a bunch of big ass drums, just for a bigger sound for the album.
[J] I played a Yamaha student. Model alto saxophone for 30 some years, almost exactly a year ago I bought what I play now, it's also a Yahama but it's a fancy something, it's a intermediate, closer to a professional model saxophone. It's weird I thought it would be like a guitar like if you played a really shitty guitar for a long as time, like with bad action and then you pick up one that's really well tuned and nice and be like oh I'm a professional now. But it's not like that at all, it's actually really hard.
[T] Do you still use a shoelace for your strap? You lost your shoelace!
[J] It was like 15 years ago, I lost my strap, it fell between the stage and some speakers and I'm like I'm never getting that back, so I just started using a shoelace. I think it fucked up my neck, I actually think there's a diet in my neck now from it, but I was too cheap. One of the first things I crocheted was I wanted a new neck strap, I though it would be so cool.
[T] September 16th with Glass God and Charles the Osprey. To celebrate our new album Boyne Again, at Bell's I mean definitely check us out online all of our music is on all the streaming services
[S] Two albums, an EP and a Christmas single
[T] We have a Christmas single called Power Bottom Santa
[S] We also have a toy that goes along with it.
[T] Yeah we have a toy version of Santa you can see that picture on Spotify or instagram. We have a youtube, we have a linktr.ee/krelboynes, you can hear our new song Boyne Again
[S] Bandcamp
[T] Yeah if you wanna buy any of our music it's on Bandcamp. Sometimes we have merch
[S] We should have a lot of cool merchandise for the album release.
[T] Check out Haus House, we don't do a lot of shows here because I have to live here but we practice here too so if youre in the neighborhood just put your ear up to the window.
[B] I don't actually hate Quantum Fleek, I just want to be clear about that.
[T] You don't the Quantum Fleek fans to come after you
[S] You don't want the Fleek Heads coming after you.
[T] We performed two weddings, we have dedicated fans.
[B] Plenty of shitty bands play weddings.
[T] Nice.
Alright.