Means of Entry

[C] I'm Connor, I'm 20 years old and I play guitar and I do vocals in Means of Entry.

[A] I’m Audrey. I’m 19 years old. I play bass. 
 
[L] I’m Liam, I play the drums.
 
[J] I’m Jonah, I’m 18. I play guitar. 
 
How long has means of entry been established?
 
[C] Technically it was a different project for about two years. It was an on and off thing with a couple of different members and we started Means of Entry because we had a show and the band had just broken up and we didn’t want to stop doing that. So we asked our friend Gage to play bass for us, and then we just kept doing stuff after that. Now we got a different lineup and we’re still doing the thing. Me and Liam have been drumming together since we were in high school so it just kind of felt right to just keep doing what we were doing then. 
 
What made you chose the name Means of Entry?
 
[C] We were looking for different names and I think I looked up doorway on google and doorway wasn’t cool enough so we looked for synonyms for it and one of them was Means of Entry and it was highlighted. I think you and Gage said something about it and the next day none of us hated it so it was good enough. I actually really like it now I think it fits the nature of the music. 
 
How long have you each been playing the instruments you play in the band?
 
[C] I’ve been playing for 6 years now. 
 
[A] I’ve been playing kind of on and off for two years, Connor started teaching me. Just a couple months ago I picked it up again and now I’m in the band. 
 
[L] So I think I’ve been playing for at least 10 years. I got my first drum set, which is actually the same one I have now, from my grandpa when I was ten and I didn’t take any lessons just been messing around with it and having fun. 
 
[J] I’ve been playing on and off for like two years now. 
 
What made you take making music more seriously?
 
[C] So for me I was listening to records that after hearing them I was like I need to be able to do some of this. It was a lot of watching live Smashing Pumpkins concerts, I was like yeah that’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen and I need to be able to do that. 
 
[A] For me, my whole life I wanted to do something with music but I never knew what. Then when Gage, the other bassist, moved to Chicago, Connor and everyone needed a bass player and I was like yeah I’ll do it. 
 
[L] I’ve always really been into drumming since I was little. My dad had a pair of conga drums I would bang on when I was a toddler so you could say I was drumming for almost my whole life. Yeah it’s always been something I’ve really enjoyed doing. 
 
[J] I guess I started picking up guitar again pretty recently because I wanted to be in a band in college and I was lucky enough to meet Connor and get along a lot faster than I thought was possible so it was sweet. 
 
[C] I saw him post about Bowery Electric and like his Jaguar, and I was like yeah that’s more my speed. Need to play it with this guy.  I heard about Jonah from Gage beforehand. Jonah was into the music that I was showing them before they knew it. Like when I was showing them stuff like Slint and shoe gaze and stuff like that they were like oh Jonah knows about this and I was like who’s that and I didn’t know for like a year. 
 
I wouldn’t mind hearing how all your guys’ paths crossed. 
 
[J] Me and Connor we met in high school and Conner wanted to start a band and there was a kid in my drama class and he told me about the band and told me to come over to his house one day. 
 
[C] He showed up with his drum set in his van with his dad and I was like shit do I have room for this, and everyone was super excited and I was like oh shit. We were covering Pink Floyd’s Time and I had no idea what I was doing I don’t think any of us did except for Liam as soon as he started the drum beat I think I just looked at him and I was like this is perfect. the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. 
 
Did you get 500 clocks to simulate the beginning?
 
[C] No, but I played that off of my phone and he did like the heartbeat thing with the kick drum and I started jumping. 
 
[A] For me, my connection was Connor because we’d been dating for two years so that’s how I got into the band. 
 
[J] Met Connor on Instagram, and met everyone else jamming. 
 
What’s been your process for making music so far?
 
[C] Mainly just jamming, for a long time it was just me and Liam just bouncing different drum/riff ideas off each other for a long time, as in in the practice space we would just be doing stuff off the cuff for hours at a time and eventually just kind of wraps around to different ideas that we liked and we were like we should do a song with this and actually solidify it. A lot of these songs have been around for like three years so it took a while for us to like actually know what we were going to do with them. Mainly it’s just kind of fucking around and finding what sounds cool, maybe going off an idea or movie we saw or something. 
 
I know we’ve talked about films a good amount, do you think that inspires, or has that inspired any songs of yours?
 
[C] Not directly, I’m like a huge movie nerd so I try to make the music sound cinematic or like a soundtrack almost because. I feel like movies kind of capture some beautiful moments and to make that come across through audio is a totally different thing but I got into the idea of like trying to draw my emotions from seeing something in my head. 
 
[L] Instinct I guess is what I go off of. 
 
Are there any specific drummers that you appreciate their style?
 
[L] I like the drummer from Battles, I don’t know I really don’t look to specific drummers too much I guess. 
 
How would you guys describe the sound of the music you make?
 
[C] Loud. There’s a lot of influence from post rock bands and post punk bands from the 90s and early 2000s. I know Liam got me into Swans and I was really into how they could create these giant landscapes. I got into Mogouis a lot that’s how I got Audrey into playing bass, a lot of shoe gaze, stuff like MBV and LSD and the Search for God, but you know a lot of that stuff has been done in infinite different directions so it’s more or less just trying to take those concepts and trying to create something new with it. 
 
[L] I think we all really like very emotional music or music that has a lot of feeling to it, whatever emotion that is. 
 
[A] I feel like our music can bring you emotions, whether it’s happy, sad, scared. I feel like it’s not solely based on emotions but can definitely give you certain emotions. 
 
[C] It’s not necessarily about technically how we make music it’s more just trying to generate an emotion through a sound which is also why it’s so loud, to make it a physical thing because emotions are physical too, not just one aspect of your brain or whatever. A lot of it’s catharsis in general but that can form in a lot of ways, a lot of its very melancholy like it’s kind of expressing anguish but doing it in a joyful manner, like I’m not super sad on stage I’m not trying to return to those kinds of things its more like touching on it and trying to convey that you’ve moved past it instead of like divulging yourself in it. 
 
[L] You could maybe say the ending in The Spectator is our loudest or most intense right now, but not sure what emotion that is either, it’s kind of a combination. 
 
[J] I would say, definitely a lot of melancholic darker emotions come through but I also think there’s a lot of pretty parts where we kind of quiet down and you can tell there’s an atmosphere in the room. 
 
I feel like if you don’t know them already you’d like One With the Riverbed. 
 
[C] Yeah, One with the Riverbed’s awesome. They are a lot heavier than us but they definitely have that cool aspect of toeing the line between playing quiet and really loud. I always aim for being the quietest and the loudest band at wherever we’re playing which is a weird thing to do but One With the Riverbed kicks ass at that. I love what they do with the bows and their vocalist is incredible. It’s very cathartic music. I like when music can be more than just cool or sad. I like trying to make it both beautiful and kind of abrasive to challenge what people hear as music. 
 
Is there any specific influences that you guitar playing off of?
 
[C] For a while it was Billy Korgan just like a lot of the Siamese Dream Era stuff because because I loved the crazy layering, it was incredible I hadn’t heard fuzzy music like that, a lot of the Cure influenced my concept of atmosphere but then when I heard bands like Mogwais and Godspeed you Black Emperor it was like kind of a perfect combination of those two things, and it totally changed how I played guitar, like after that I was done focusing on trying to learn scales or something like that it was how far can I push whatever crazy noise is coming out of my instrument. 
 
[L] I think some influence for me comes from electronic music actually, I find I really enjoy playing over electronic music. I’m not sure if it really comes across but as far as bands, I’m not sure it really comes across but yeah. As far as bands, it’s kind of all over the place but I got into Bjork for a long time, Beach House, Death Grips, Swans. I like ambient music as well, Tim Hecker. 
 
[J] I guess I really like walls of sound and louder music. An obvious influence for me is Kevin Shields, I think he’s really cool. 
 
[A] One of my biggest influences is Poppy. She’s amazing. 
 
Do you guys feel like sometimes your music is like an exercise in maximalism?
 
[C] I try not to make it like that but in a sense yeah, like in terms of the volume I do definitely try to push what boundaries there are and stuff like that, just because I think that’s valuable in music but a lot of our stuff is just like two chords like maybe one or two melodies, a lot of it is very sparse even when it gets kind of texturally crazy. I definitely try to draw out an aspect of minimalism too and contrast them because  I think when it’s just maximalism all the time it’s a very niche interest but when you’re able to pair it and build up to it I think it’s a lot more interesting and impactful because you’re not just focusing on like this is just crazy loud the whole time it’s like actually rewarding. 
 
Unconventional influences or guilty pleasures?
 
[C] A lot of 80s pop punk music and post punk music, I listen to it all the time. Stuff like Joy Division, Noy, and Public image limited. There’s a band I got really into called Nice Strong Arm, which is very 80s but it kind of encapsulates a lot of the No was stuff going on at the time and it’s very pretty. I try to listen to all kinds of different music as to expand what you can do with it. I wouldn’t say I guiltily enjoy music, if I love a song I don’t mind putting it on. 
 
[A] Mine is definitely Melanie Martinez because I grew up on her, she raised me. Ash Nico too, I met her, biggest sweetheart. I feel like those two artists are kind of my guilty pleasure, helps me get into a good mood. 
 
[L] I do want to shout out the band Broadcasts, I just to into them recently, I feel like they’re really under-appreciated. They’re kind of like dream pop but they have sort of a 60s sound to them Trish Keeyan. Beautiful vocals, it’s a really cool band. Rest In Peace Trish Keeyan as well.

[J] I wouldn’t say I have any guilty pleasure bands that I listen to or anything. 

[C] There might be one actually now that I think about it. A lot of the slow core bands get dunked on every now and again just  because of their depressing nature but I do love listening to Low or Duster or Codeine or something like that. Weirdly enough I love listening to it when I’m like cooking or doing chores. It makes it very personal. 

Is there a song you’ve written to kind of change your state of mind?
 
[C] Kind of. When I wrote Yellow Ribbon, it was in my room and I won’t get into it but it was a very personally dark moment in my life and I hadn’t touched my Focusrite in a long time and I kept hearing a bunch of these bands who were doing stuff out of their bedrooms or doing it on their own and I’m like, I need to be able to do this and the song’s very different now, but I kind of did it to just get all my depressing energy out into a song so that way I could stop holding it in my chest. Also I was listening to Duster for like 3 months so it sounds a lot like that, like very fuzzy and droney but it’s my favorite one to perform live now. 
 
How big of a part do lyrics play in your music?
 
[C] Small. Very little, a lot of times it’s just kind of coming up with stuff I’m feeling at the exact moment I’m performing it and you know eventually after you’ve recorded them and you listened to it enough times, certain things just kind of stick out and it’s like that does mean something I guess. Sometimes I’ll take the time to write something down but more often then not it takes a long time before I’m ready to commit something to like these are the lyrics and this is what they mean. I just like using vocals as another instrument because I think the human voice is a very valuable thing to have even when the music is so loud and it’s kind of difficult to hear, it still adds like a big aspect of humanity to it I think. 
 
Would you say during the writing process, as the piece is being written and figured out it more forms it’s identity around what it is?
 
[C] 100% a lot of the songs didn’t have like a direct meaning until they were completed in my head anyway, but after that it was kind of easy to assign the kind of emotions I was feeling, because it’s kind of difficult to piece together where it’s coming form when you’re creating the music because when you try to aim for something you’re more often then not off the mark so just kind of letting it come out and assessing how you were feeling later has been a way easier way to do it. 
 
Is there a prime time to write music, is there a physical place you should be or an emotional place you should be?
 
[C] There’s definitely an aspect to like where I’m writing the music. A friend of mine who lives in Colorado now got me into the idea of playing guitar in different outdoor locations just to put yourself in a different mindset because 95% of the time it’s like in a boxed room that you’re comfortable with. More often than not I think the best stuff comes out spontaneously, like because our schedules are so tough, practice usually happens on one specific day, sometimes you’re just not really feeling it and it’s not really a day where creativity flows so it’s kind of a random thing but when its there I guess you try to take a lot of action from that opportunity. 
 
[L] I would agree with that I do think writing music based on environment is something I want to do in the future. 
 
Do you guys remember the first show you played as Means of Entry?
 
[C] It was a very spontaneous show. The first actual show we played was at a dog training facility and I kind of felt bad for them because it was loud. It was very strange. The dogs were barking during the quieter parts, I was like fuck, but they were very cute and they were great, it was a very surreal energy, but Trixies it was a bar, when you’re trying to play kind of confrontational music playing at a bar is a really difficult thing I don’t think they were quite ready for it, but I thought it kicked ass. It felt really good to step into another project, just wanting to have fun with it. It was the only showed we got to play with Gage before he moved too. Shout out to Gage, he kicks ass. 
 
Vape talk. 
 
[A] I feel like during the whole interview you’re going to hear-
 
[C] It’s like a signifier of the generation that it’s in, it’s like sepia or there’s VHS lines or you can hear that in the background. 
 
Do the rest of you guys have any good show memories?
 
[J] I played my first show pretty recently I remember dropping my pick mid-song and like freaking out, but it worked out. 
 
[C] It was in a kitchen, it was really cool. 
 
[A] Tonight’s my first show, kind of nervous but I’m excited. 
 
[L] You got this. There was a show recently at the Runoff in Kalamazoo where I broke through a wall of anxiety while I was playing and I felt a real difference in my playing like I was so much more comfortable and it just flowed so much better so that’s been something I’ve been trying to get into at every show. I think it’s been getting better
 
[C] Shout out to Kalamazoo and the Runoff as well that whole scene has been very kind to us and there’s a live set on their Patreon that you should subscribe to, you can find that live set and I think it’s the best one we’ve done so far. 
 
What made that feel like it was the best one you’ve done?
 
[C] It was kick ass, it just flowed out very naturally and I didn’t have to think about it at all. It was intense and very somber. My favorite thing about performing Yellow Ribbon is it’s mostly a silent song until the end but that was the first time we done it and nobody moved, or were talking or walked out of the room or whatever and that was awesome. It’s a really cool thing when you can play really intense music like that and still kind of get people hypnotized in a way. 

Do you have a favorite song to perform?
 
[C] My favorite is Yellow Ribbon because of that aspect. It’s a very sparse song and then it kind of explodes at the end. It’s cool to feel the energy change in the room at that moment, throughout it you’re kind of holding this pin on a string and when it drops it explodes everywhere.
 
[A] Although I haven’t performed I think gun shy is really fun to play. 
 
[L] Maybe Serenity is very fun, maybe Spark as well. 
 
[J] I really like to play Gun Shy there’s a lot of energy in that song and it’s really fun to just let it all out.
 
We’ve talked a little about stage anxiety so I was wondering do you experience it, to what extent, how do you remedy it?
 
[C] Yeah, a lot of it. I’ve been on stages since I was a little kid but especially before a show, even like right now thinking about it like it puts a weird pit in my stomach and I have to walk around the venue, I’ll do laps around the venue like 30 times just thinking about it, but especially recently with the crowds that we’ve had like people who are appreciative of music once I get on the stage and I feel the guitar coming out of the amp, it just kind of feels like flying, like you just kind of jump off. 
 
[A] Although I haven’t played a show yet, I was a dancer, an actor in my life and I kind of get the same anxiety now that I had back then but I definitely feel like once you’re on stage and doing it, it kind of eases down. 
 
[L] I think it’s something Im still trying to work through it and I’ve had a few breakthrough moments. It’s just something that’s ever evolving. I struggle with anxiety in general as well so I think it’s kind of improved as my anxiety in general improves. 
 
[J] Yeah I definitely get a lot of stage fright but it’s really helpful having really talented musicians behind me to fall back on, I don’t think I could do it without them. 
 
Has there been a moment where maybe you were making stuff up where it all kind of clicked and you guys are looking at each other like this is the group of people, this feels good to play?
 
[C] Those are my favorite moments performing live when you’re all locked in onto something and then you all look up at a certain moment and you realize you’re all looking at each other because that was the same idea you had and it just really really hits. The first song that we played with Audrey and Jonah was When the Sun Hits by Slowdive and that was the first time I had another full lineup of likeminded people. If you’ve heard that song it kind of does the Pixies quiet loud thing but when those guitars come in I just couldn’t stop myself smiling just looking at everybody, it’s a fantastic feeling. 
 
[L] The sun hit. 
 
[C] Yeah the sun did hit. 
 
[A] When we were practicing for the first time with the whole band and we all new sun hit  and everything it was just like wow, this is a band. 
 
[L] Yeah definitely had lot’s of moments like that, I know there was one recently with Yellow Ribbon when we were practicing actually where I really started to feel the emotion more than I ever had with that song and I think I was almost in tears, it was really intense yeah it was really, really cool.
 
[J] I can’t really put it into words but it’s like that feeling of locking on and everyone is playing the right frequency and it all just works it’s really cool. 
 
[L] I think it really goes to show how much subtlety there is music and how much your own state influences it. 
 
[C] Where you’re at in your head. 
 
[L] There’s so many subtle nuances that happen when you’re feeling right. I like to try and study that in my mind. It’s sort of an interesting subject for me.
 
[C] There totally is something to that like the psychological aspect of not just the music itself or how it feels to put your fingers on the string that day or how it feels to move around, like sometimes it’s not there but when all those little subtleties link up with each other and you’re just in the right place to let out your emotion it’s like why I play music, it’s the best thing ever. 
 
What’s the best aspect of performing?
 
[C] Probably just getting it out for me, like  I’m always happy when it’s reaching ears that aren’t mine. I try not to look outwards because it makes me anxious but when I do look out through the hair that’s in my face or whatever and see that everyone’s looking at you or nodding their head in unison it’s really cool to see music connect people like that so probably the community aspect of it is my favorite part. 
 
[L] Recently it’s been a fun challenge to try and reach that spot where you’re really feeling it and everything feels right. Thinking about time and the present moment as you’re playing music, it kind of helps with anxiety too coming into the present moment, really just trying to feel the moment. It’s just interesting how a song occupies time especially when you’re doing it live. 
 
[J] I really enjoy pretty much every aspect of it but dealing with OCD, it really kind of ramps up leading up to a show, so kind of the release of finally getting up there and everything is okay, and it’s going to go well it’s kind of. It’s a very nice release and it’s very freeing. 
 
Does that affect how much you practice for a show?
 
[J] Yeah I mean I really try to practice as much as possible, but being busy with everything  it gets a little stressful sometimes but coming over to the barn and practicing is really nice. It makes me feel like we’re all a part of a big family and we’re all doing it together. 
 
I really wanted to talk about gear.
 
[C] Look out for the Means of Entry MS Paint Gear Post in a couple days, when Jonah finishes it. 
 
Gonna post it on the forums?
 
[C] Yeah, but you know, I can’t take it too seriously or I’ll feel like a goon, but I just got a Fender Deville, going for amps that have a decent amount of headroom. Jonah uses a twin reverb which sounds incredible. A lot of it though is just accruing pedals over time that I wanted to use, or that I just happened upon. A lot of it’s like just kind of standard, like a big muff or a delay. The canyon is the best delay pedal ever made. There’s a couple of pedals that I always have in my back pocket with whatever board I have but the MXR microamp just to push it so you can get feedback even like a clean sound so it responds more to what you’re doing. There’s a dark side pedal by Keeley instruments that has a 70s big muff in one side and a bunch of weird modulations on the other which is super useful and then the Canyon delay for pretty much anything ambient I want to do has pretty much limitless possibilities. Then I put a hum bucker in my guitar, in my Stratocaster, so it gives it a little bit more of a bassier end to it. 
 
[A] Right now I’m borrowing a Big Muff and I’m using an overdrive but that’s about all when it comes to me. 
 
[L] For me, gear has never been a huge thing I don’t know if it should be more. I’ve had the same drum kit since I was 10-12. It just keeps on working and I keep on using it. 
 
[J] I think a lot of the reason I got a guitar and wanted to start playing was seeing all the big pedal boards that shoe gaze bands use and I feel like hat’s always been a part of what I like to play. One thing I found though is the more pedals you get, the harder it is to control all of them so I kind of found that I spend more time just dealing with the pedals and tuning them and figuring out which ones to leave on, which ones to turn off than actually practicing guitar. 
 
[C] I’ve had the same board that just keeps getting additional things stacked onto it for like four years and it totally is a different aspect playing with them or playing without them, which seems pretty obvious but like a lot of times it’s just like, this one makes it louder, this one makes it spacier and I’m just going to play a riff over it that I would have done without it anyway but I think a huge aspect of it is just using those tools as an aspect of your creation rather than just an afterthought or an augmentation. 
 
I always feel like sometimes you can get a pedal or just change something about your rig in some way and it could be like really simple and minor but it could totally change your perspective on what you’re writing or how you’re using effects in that moment. 
 
[C] 100 percent, a lot of why I got specific things it was because I wanted to create a certain sound but then after I got it, one, I can’t get it to sound like that and two. They can be so much more versatile than that. I kind of understand when people say do you play acoustic or electric now because like especially with the kind of music I make, it’s not technical in terms of like what we’re doing it’s more just using those kinds of things to create music that’s different I guess. 
 
Is there anything that you want people to know about the music you make?
 
[C] You should give it a shot. You should give all kinds of different music a shot but especially in certain venues our music has been pretty devisive in terms of like the audience reception of it because sometimes people have certain expectations of what it should sound like or what a band is or whatever. I don’t know, I think people should let go of their expectations and just try and find something else to expand your horizons a bit. I think people don’t realize how bored they are with their media consumption a lot of the time. 
 
[A] We’re recording in May so you should keep your eye out for that. 
 
[C] Yeah you should listen to that record when it comes out sometime in the summer. 
 
[L] I think a lot of our songs live can be sort of improv, not exactly improv but some of the sections of our songs don’t always go the same length and we look to each other a lot. We’re kind of doing stuff on the fly in a sense. I think that’s part of what makes it cool. 
 
[C] Kind of experimental in a way. 
 
[J] If you ever see us live or you’re going to, be ready, it’s going to be loud, it’s going to be cool.
 
[C] Bring earplugs, please protect your hearing. I didn’t do that and I have serious hearing loss and that doesn’t mean I’m turning it down, so you should protect your hearing. 
 
Is there anything you thought about trying for the next batch of stuff that you make?
 
[C] Yes, bigger instrumentation and longer songs. When I heard the Pink Floyd record animals and I heard Dogs for the first time and I was like, that’s like a thing that you can do? Kind of going back to like the cinematic aspect of it, just creating a whole story out of a song but also we wanted to experiment with other kinds of instruments and musicians kind of outside that range to make it seem like it’s more. There’s a couple people from Kalamazoo that we are going to be working with, there’s this guy named Grayson who’s going to play a saxophone on one of our older songs, which we’re really excited for and there’s like this singer in a band called Witches Wedding who plays cello and she’s going to play on one of our songs too, which is cool because I’ve wanted a cello on it for a long time. 
 
[L] I personally want to try adding vocals myself, we’ll see how that goes. 

[C] You should, you will!
 
[L] Also we want synths 
 
[C] Synthesizers for sure, I love the aspect of digital music, computer music, electronic music and everything and as far as you can take guitar sounding like synthesizers sounding like something else there’s a quality to it that’s wholy unique to itself but it’s hard finding synth players. A lot of synth work that I really appreciate is stuff like Pink Floyd obviously but Liam got me into Beach House whose synths are incredibly dreamy and huge, Slowdive started using them later but a lot of stuff like Boards of Canada and Brian Eno just kind of creating these huge otherworldly atmospheres. It kind of takes away from like the individuality of playing your instrument, because it’s something that’s being born elsewhere, other than you just hitting something physical if that makes sense. 
 
[J] Yeah I think it would be cool if as we go forward we also start incorporating some more ethereal, dreamy kind of atmospheres which we’ve already been doing but I think it would be cool to go back almost to a more classic shoe gaze sound as well in a few tracks 
 
[C] Yeah, kind of take away from the aggression. 
 
[A] I think it would be fun to scream in a song, I don’t know it just sounds fun. 
 
What is success for you in terms of this project?
 
[C] That’s a great question. I honestly would say we’ve already had what I think of as success, but connecting with other people and having others hear your music and be like wow, you’re doing something here, and I appreciate what you’re doing and I think it sounds cool. Not necessarily like a fan base but just, I’m okay with like 15 people enjoying out music but I love doing it so much that just to reach the largest amount of people possible, but I’m not necessarily concerned with playing on bigger stages or something like that I think changing someones life in a basement is my ultimate goal. 
 
Was music all of your guys’ first form of self-expression or did it start someplace else?
 
[C] Kind of, I was a choir boy for like age 6 onward so like a lot of school choral performances, I did a lot of drama and acting.
 
[A] Mine was not always music, but I did acting, dance was a huge form of expression with me, as well as doing makeup, it was just super expressive. 
 
[L] Music has been the main one for me, the most fruitful I guess, but I’ve always liked to draw. When I was little I was really into dancing and I didn’t do it in front of anybody, I would put on some Primus and just bounce around as a little 8 year old. I think my moves have gone down. It was like my own thing, it was fun. 
 
[J] Music has always been my way of expressing myself, I tried drawing and a bunch of other things but I really sucked at it so music stuck. 
 
What is it about music as a medium that makes it easier to express yourself. 
 
[C] I think it’s the most moving to me, there’s so many different aspects of art that can be expressed through cinema or paintings, or dancing or anything like that but I think music just kind of encapsulates human emotion the most and art is supposed to be an expression of that or whatever. So I think music, it’s a way of communicating that you don’t need to understand cultural roots or you don’t need to know how to read or you don’t need to know different techniques of cinema you can just hear it and feel something.
 
Where do you lay when you sleep, are you a side, back or stomach sleeper? Defend your position. 
 
[C] I sleep on my back when I’m not feeling good, and I sleep on my right side with my right arm under my body when I’m feeling good. 
 
[A] I sleep on my left side because we have a box fan and I always need to be facing the box fan so it’ the most comfy. 
 
[L] I though I usually switch sides, I’ll occasionally sleep on my back but I find that for some reason that feels more vulnerable. Also the habit has been ingrained in me to always keep my body covered in sheets but I leave my face open just a little bit, I think that comes from me having sleep paralysis when I was little and I was just deathly afraid of shadow figures.
 
[J] I’ve always slept on the side I always will, I heard on TikTok that if you do it, you’ll have joint issues when you’re older but I already have them so I’m okay with that. 
 
We talked about you guys are recording next month…
 
[C] Yeah, recording with analog time machine and Addison from Tiny Tree who you should also go listen to because they’re fantastic. 
 
Is that a DIY recording set up or?
 
[C] Kind of, he’s been doing it for 20 years but he just built it in his basement out in this ranch house in Muskegon and we performed with them at the Runoff and they were fantastic, so I listened to their records later and they sounded fantastic and I found out he ran a recording studio so I was like yeah that’s what we need and Blake from Bronson Arm is going to be mastering it as well and he’s a big noise guy so yeah he’s going to understand the assignment. 
 
Anything else you want to share, any final thoughts?
 
[ALL] Shout out to Gage, we miss you homie. We love you all.