[E] My name is Esden Stafne. I am 23 years old. I go by he/him. I am a bass player and a singer. 
 
[M] I’m Mitch. I’m 22, he/him and I play guitar and sometimes if I’m lucky I get a microphone that I can yell into.
 
[G] My name is Gabe, my pronouns are he/him. I play the drums and I be singing too. I’m 22 years old. 
 
[E] I’m from Marcellus which is like 30 minutes south of here and then I went to high school in Three Rivers, so pretty much Kalamazoo. 
 
[M] I’m not a native Kalamazooian, I’m from Holly Michigan. Shout out Greet Death. 
 
[G] I’m from Ann Arbor and I went to Skyline High School
 
How did you guys end up here?
 
[G] College. For me it was Western and the MAT degree and then I dropped out but it was fun while it lasted. 
 
[E] Same here. 
 
How did you stumble upon the Kalamazoo music scene?
 
[M] My buddy Dustin was like you should come to this house show then I was just in some basement listening to some band I never heard of and it was pretty cool and I just kind of kept going to them. 
 
Do you remember what bands were playing or anything?
 
[M] No. I was not sober, but he’s told me that I’ve seen some pretty cool bands. Apparently I saw like Greet Death and Mover Shaker and Niiice before I knew who they were. I just remember it being cool and really loud and there was some dude with a spaghetti strainer asking for money. 
 
[G] My experience was through jazz combo through Western because the only way I could play drums on campus was to be part of a jazz program so I did that and then I met this buddy Levi and I fucking love Hippocampus and that’s what we bonded over at first because he was like oh shit, I knew them I went to school with them. Then we went to Mute City and Candy Cane Lane while those were still a thing. It was pretty sick, I saw Lush. I know, it’s crazy. I didn’t know who they were or anything I was just like oh he’s pretty good. 
 
[E] I was in a video class with Matt Jett in Nothing New and we just sat next to each other and one day I looked at a sticker on his phone and it was like Nothing New. I was just starting to learn to play music at the time and I was like Nothing New would be a cool band name, like I wonder if that’s taken, and then I looked it up and found his band, then I found that his band was playing and I went to Mute City which was the Nothing New venue at the time and like from there I went to like two shows a week until 2020 like I just couldn’t get enough of going to shows. It was awesome. 
 
[G] Was he like a hero to you that you couldn’t ask him?
 
[E] I told him a week later, like hey I found your band and he was like, cool. Then I’d come up to him at shows like every show I’d be like hey our band was really good and he’d be like yeah thanks man and then we’d talk but he never knew my name. At one point he learned my name but it took a long time. 
 
[M] Just another fan. 
 
[E] Yeah I didn’t have a lot of friends so it was really cool to like come into that and be a part of it. 
 
Matt Jett talked about that in the Nothing New interview, specifically about a time you came up to him after a set and was just like, ‘I want to make a band,'
 
[E] Yeah. For me Nothing New was a huge inspiration because I was like if this dude can do it, like and these guys are so good and they’re local and they’re just playing these local shows and then I can join a band and I can learn how to sing if I want to. They were like a huge inspiration for me, I love their band so much. Getting to later play shows with them was like a full circle moment for me. 
 
Did you guys all find the scene to be pretty welcoming or was it kind of weird at first?
 
[M] I personally think it’s really welcoming like I’ve never seen anybody be turned away from a house show like regardless of age or anything just like come on dude, rock out. 
 
[G] I’ve played a lot of shows at Ann Arbor and I think that Kalamazoo’s is way more welcoming. There’s no pretentiousness in the air. 
 
[M] They have dress codes in Ann Arbor.
 
[G] Yeah you have to wear boat shows at all the house venues. 
 
You have to wear boat-

[G] Boat shoes. 

[E] Boat shows. Boat shows at the house shoes. 
 
So you guys all met each other through…
 
[M] Dustin Kellerman. Shout out. 
 
[G] I literally knew none of them before Dustin and then like I was in a music class with Dustin and I like complimented his pants once and he was chill and shit so he was like yo you wanna come live with me? I was like oh I’d rather live with him than in the dorms again so I said yes and then I met Mitch for the first time when he pulled up at my family’s doorstep to like pick me up. 
 
[M] No, I met you before that very briefly at some party that Dustin took me to and it was like all MAT kids and he was like yo this is Gabe he’s going to be living with us and you’re like oh what’s up dude and I was like man he’s like a frat guy?
 
[G] Dude! 
 
[E] You were wearing the boat shoes. 
 
[G] I didn’t even know that was fucking you. 
 
[M] That was me. 
 
[G] I remember being intimidated. 
 
[M] It was in like in some kitchen, real dim lighting. 
 
[G] No, I remember exactly what it was. 
 
[E] I mean me and Mitch were in the band at the time. 
 
[M] Yeah.
 
[G] Were you there?
 
[E] I might have been there, I don’t know. 
 
[M] You’d know if you were at this party man. 
 
[E] That party was crazy. You’d know, you’d know. 
 
[M] I think the first time all three of us were in a room together would have been never better practice, we were in this other band before this, with Dustin. Yeah, with Dustin. I think we only played like one show and we did a live stream thing on YouTube shout out zoo tunes. 
 
[E] Shout out Jack Wentworth. 
 
[M] That was kind of the seed that blossomed into the mighty tree that we are now. 
 
Yeah I do want to know a little bit about your personal backgrounds and the other bands or projects you were in before S@YP. 
 
[M] I was in a metal band in high school. I made it out of that one alive. I’m always telling them we need more screams we need more like sick breakdowns and they’re like dude chill out. 
 
[E] He keeps talking about sub-bass like in backing tracks and were like we don’t have the money for new monitors Mitch. 
 
What was your band called, your metal band?
 
[M] A different perspective. 
 
[E] Wow. 
 
[M] Dude we were sick!
 
[G] I know exactly what you sound like now. 
 
[M] Oh man. 
 
[G] I was in a band for like three years in high school, we were called the Left Lanes. It was like indie, indie pop. So that was my first experience with all that. 
 
How do you think the sound of that project differs from what you’re involved with now?
 
[G] We had a female lead singer and she was very much into pop music and k-pop and all that so she had very poppy catchy lyrics, I feel like I took from that in a way but also in this project my drumming is definitely more me and like in the Left Lanes I was still developing it and also still didn’t really know how to play drums, it wasn’t exactly my style either because I would always play along to like pop punk stuff in my headphones. So this band was like a breath of fresh air and it’s very cool to bring the experience from another band into it. 
 
I mean if you have a metal background and you have a pop background that’s a pretty significant difference. 
 
[G] That’s why we don’t have a genre, all of our songs cut off into something completely different thirty-seconds in. 
 
[M] Because I’m like what if this was a metal song and Gabe’s like, what if this was a KPOP song and then Esden’s like, what if it was neither of those?
 
[G] What if it was ska?
 
[E] Why don’t you guys shut up? We’re making a ska song.
 
[M] It turns to a full blown screaming match sometimes, we fist fought once, and then it’s always a compromise.
 
[E] I had Nick- er. Nick? Your name isn’t Nick.
 
[M] Mike called me Nick! Remember that?
 
[G] Dude what? 
 
[E] Weird. Mitch. I had Mitch like this. 
 
You were choking him out?
 
[E] Yeah choking him out. 
 
[M] No my thigh, he was holding me above his head. Put me down! Put me down!
 
[E] When we were recording the EP I was like- and Mitch was like- 
 
[M] He was like, let me do the slap bass part, let me do the slap bass part!
 
[G] It’s true I was there. 
 
[E] Then Gabe tried to intervene and I was like- then I had them both up in the air and I was like I’m the leader of this band. You guys sit down! That’s what I said. 
 
Creative control. 
 
[G] Then we wrote First of All.
 
[M] Tyler Floyd was like, do you want that on the track? 
 
[E] You know we’re rolling write?
 
It’s an immersive experience. 
 
[M] Yeah, you guys are paying for this. 
 
I guess that tied into a question I had which was what is the songwriting process for you guys?
 
[G] I think at the very beginning it was just throwing out ideas left and right because we didn’t know what we were doing. I mean, we still don’t know what we are doing but now I think we have it down to a process where one of us will come in with a song two/thirds written or an acoustic version written just so we have a direction and we’re not just noodling for an hour and a half trying to figure something out, so we start with that. Then we bring in the old way of our writing which is just throwing ideas at the wall and those two together seem to have a very productive outcome. 
 
[E] I’d say it starts as one of our things and then once we get together with it, it slowly becomes all of ours. 
 
Yeah. 
 
[E] We all contribute to each song in lots of different ways, and everything becomes just a big mash of all of our influences. 
 
[G] And then having that one thing there to always come back to when we lose inspiration I think helps a lot. Instead of having nothing and just being like, well what are we going to write, but we have a task at hand and we treat it more like that sometimes. 
 
[M] Piggy backing off of what Gabe was saying. 9/10 somebody will show up with half of a song and they’re like yeah I don’t know what to do with this, and because we have different influences and different musical backgrounds or whatever, when we bring it full band and like start to finish it together it always has some kind of weird twist towards the end of the song or like a lot of times it does. That’s one of my favorite parts about the stuff that we write because it has this unpredictability. 
 
[E] Yeah, it will like carry momentum because of that I think. I was only in one band before this and it was the Never Better band, we were called Bummed Out at one point but some band from Ohio, or maybe it was Michigan was also called Bummed Out so we had to change our name, but that was my first band. I didn’t have much experience in music, I’ve only been playing bass since 2018. 
 
[M] There’s another Nothing New now, they just popped up like a month or two ago. They’re from like Oregon or something. They make hardcore music. Something like that, I don’t know, I listened to it and I was like this isn’t Nothing New, but it was. 
 
Do all of you guys bring in something? Like do you pull up with a drum beat?
 
[G] Gabe plays guitar, he’ll show up with guitar parts and stuff. 
 
[G] Usually I’ll write like however little I can play on guitar, I’ll just write that. Even if it’s just like root notes, something so I can have a melody in mind. Then I’ll usually write with that. I’ll like very rarely will have a drum beat that I like come in with and be like, let’s riff on this. We don’t really jam either. 
 
[M] We’re an anti-jamming band. 
 
[G] It’s by choice but I think we’ve all definitely brought songs individually. I think me and Esden tend to have the vocal melodies, but Mitch has the counter melodies with guitars. 
 
[M] They’re like- and I’m like what if it was like- 
 
[E] I would say that Mitch brings just as many too, like Mitch will have a whole guitar part written, then I’ll write vocals over it or you’ll write vocals over it. 
 
[M] I have an amp up in my room and I’ll be playing guitar before I go to bed. I’ll come up with a chord progression or something and be like, oh this is going to be so sick when Esden writes lyrics over it, or like this is going to be so sick when Gabe writes lyrics, like having no idea what those are going to sound like, but like I’ll just show up with that and be like alright do your thing and they’ll write lyrics. 
 
[E] I’ll get a text at like 3 or 4 in the morning and it’s just a video of Mitch playing guitar and I’m like this is really good. I just type out, sick. 
 
How do you guys describe your sound?
 
[M] We don’t like to put ourselves in a box like that. I’m just kidding. 
 
[E] We’ve been saying alternative emo. 
 
[M] But we’re party emo. 
 
[E] Party emo yeah. The alternative called us party emo. I really like that. 
 
[M] We were told by Tyler Floyd that our music has a pop sheen to it, which I kind of agree with and I think that’s Gabe’s fault. It definitely does have that and we kind of straddle the line between more like niche kind of emo sounds and really catchy melodies and stuff. 
 
[E] I would say melodies are the most important part. I think Gabe and I both write this way, and correct me if I’m wrong but we like get the melody first and we write lyrics over it, because the melody is the most important part of the songs. You need to get a catchy melody and then the words will go over it. So like me and Mitch will be writing songs together, and we’ll be like — recording it and being like yeah this is good now we need words. 
 
[M] That piece of paper that’s probably still in the basement somewhere. For our first album we went into the studio with only lyrics for like half of the songs but like one of them we were like, we need lyrics what can we write a song about and it’s this list and it’s like skateboarding, girls, hockey, stuff like that. Aw man, we got to frame that. 
 
How big of a part would you say that lyrics play a part into the songs  you make? 
 
[M] For me almost nothing. I mean the lyrics are awesome but that’s not what I contribute. 
 
[G] I think I struggled for along time to feel confident in my lyrics and to feel like I was truly relating to them and like saying something that should be said instead of something I’m just kind of making up because it sounds good. I think I’m achieving more now this time writing lyrics that like actually mean something from my perspective or like I write specific things out about specific events. That’s like the main growth I’ve noticed is that I can actually recall events and shape them in different ways now. 
 
Do you guys each have your own favorite lyrics that have been written like a favorite line maybe? 
 
[M] I like the Saturdays are the worst for me too line in Eat Me Alive. 
 
[E] I think that’s my favorite line in any of our songs. 
 
[M] That one’s badass. Shoutout Gabe. 
 
[E] Saturdays are the worst for me too, I’ll do anything to get you out of my room. That’s hardcore, that’s sweet that’s a good line. 
 
[G] I like that song a lot. 
 
[E] Yeah, Gabe did an excellent job, I remember when he wrote it. 

[M] That’s a little self centered man you got to like a different song. 
 
[G] Oh. I actually really like Esden’s lyrics in any song. 
 
[M] All of them are just-
 
[E] Thank you thank you, keep talking. It’s always cloudy in Kalamazoo, Mitch wrote the chorus, I guess I’ll need some time oh you will. Mitch wrote that whole section there and then I wrote the beginning part and the end part but like-
 
[M] Those are like the only lyrics I think I’ve written on like anything that we have
 
[E] You also wrote the melody, that part was your whole part. 
 
[M] I’ll try to write lyrics sometimes and like I just rhyme the same thing over and over and over. Originally that was going to be I guess I’ll be just fine, but it will take some time then they were like, what if it’s like, I guess I’ll need some time, oh you will and like kind of broke it up and stuff. We’re really good at taking criticism from each other too. I don’t think anybody’s ever been offended by an idea getting shot down, and we’ll give everything a shot too. I remember writing Mood Swings and I wrote the chord progression in the beginning and I was like- and I was like this is fucking sick and then I brought it to practice and by the time we finished the song, it had all these different parts. The end of it is just kind of like a mashup of different ideas we had. Looking back on it’s cool and it works really well but right when we wrote it I was like, we fucking ruined it, but now it’s like one of my favorite songs that we have. I’ll remind myself of that sometimes when I like don’t think idea like that is working or something, I’m like alright just like ride it out, see where we end up with it. 
 
[E] When we were in the studio recording Eat Me Alive, I can’t remember what my version of the part was but I swore that Gabe wrote the Saturdays are the worst for me too, like I could have sworn that he wrote that different in the beginning when we first started writing it. We had this argument-
 
[M] Oh about the rhythm of the vocal line. Yeah. 
 
[E] I was like I think the rhythm should be like this and then Gabe’s like no I think it’s like this, like this is how I wrote it, and I’d be like no you didn’t. We had this big argument about it and eventually Mitch and Gabe were like we like it this way, and like I remember that was like one of the first times we were really getting into it. 
 
[M] That was our first fight. 
 
[E] I wouldn’t call it a fight but. 
 
[M] Dude your face was bright red. 
 
[E] I was pissed. 
 
[M] I’m just kidding. 
 
[E] That was right before I picked them both up. 
 
Have you guys always record in studios or did you try your hand at home recording?
 
[M] We’ve recorded demos before we went into the studio before but our EP and our album were recorded at Eureka Records with Tyler Floyd shout out Tyler Floyd again but- 
 
[M] For Tortus. 

[E] Yes. 
 
[G] Oh yeah, we did record that ourselves. 
 
[M] For Tortus was in Esden’s bedroom. 
 
[E] I did that for a school project and like looking back I like how it sounds a lot I think the rawness of the recording is really important to get the feel of that song. At the time everybody I was showing it to was like, put this out like you don’t need to rerecord this like this is perfect, but like looking back it would be cool to get like a really polished recording of that song. I know  it’s Gabe’s song but I do think the rawness of that really reflects that song. 
 
[M] I think it was Al from Nothing New complimented us on the fact that like a professional sound engineer might of — what’s up? 
 
[E] You’re just like tucked in right now. 

[M] Snug as a bug. 
 
[E] I didn’t even notice the pillow. 
 
[G] The whole time. 
 
[E] You’re getting ready for bed. 
 
[M] But he was like a professional song engineer probably would have had this acoustic guitar a lot more tamed and like kind of tucked in the background but it’s a lot more forward in the song. Shout out Alec Craig, go stream Alec Craig. 
 
[G] I think a lot of the reason we wanted to record professionally at a studio, at the risk of sounding pretentious, is that we wanted the art to live as long as it could and not be like hindered by anything like obviously there’s a time and a place to record by yourself, and like it sounds really good in this day and age and it’s really cheap but we didn’t want to look back and be like oh these songs are really good, only is they were recorded better then they would have lasted so much longer, like in theory. I think just going for it and having that ear candy sound to it adds a lot. Especially from like recording music by myself for a long time I would just be like constantly editing it and it would never sound like nearly as good as paying someone which isn’t as DIY but still we pay them ourselves.
 
[M] Are we DIY? I feel like the booking aspect is the only DIY thing about us at this point. 
 
[E] I wouldn’t call us DIY. 
 
[G] I wasn’t sure about bringing that up.
 
[E] We play in basements so we count as DIY but we don’t record our own music and like Gabe was just saying when we first started. I came into this band from an outsiders perspective, we had our punk band then we broke up and they formed a little group and invited me to come play bass and I was like these guys are really talented we can do something with this. I was like we need to schedule time in the studio, I know we don’t have things written, like our album wasn’t fully written when we were scheduling time to record it but I was like we need to do this and we need to get something professional and like have that listenability. That was something we talked about a lot.
 
[M] It’s all about listenability and that ear candy that Gabe was saying.
 
What do you think gives it that effect. 
 
[E] The listenability? 
 
[G] The Hi-fi. 
 
[M] There’s tambourine on like half of our EP. We weren’t gonna let that out ever, but if you really listen you might hear a little bit of—
 
[E] There’s also acoustic guitar on every song. 
 
[M] Yeah just for texture, and like just little ideas like that that we wouldn’t have had ourselves but somebody who spends like fifty or sixty hours a week recording music definitely would have those ideas. 
 
[E] Also it was Tyler Floyd’s idea in Eat Me Alive the big like group shots like the —— that was all Tyler’s idea, he said there should be some huge yells here. 
 
[M] And then it was Gabe’s idea to go, leave that mic on and then go—— and that’s real low in the mix but it’s in there. Right where it’s like— 
 
[G] Yeah it sounds like you’re cocking a gun. 
 
[M] Whoa! When it sounds you’re like stomping your feet. 
 
[G] Okay. 

[E] Saturdays is a pro-gun band now. We all own guns, lots of them. 

[M] We have them on us, right now. 
 
[E] Always armed. 
 
You guys want to call HR first before you get political?
 
[M] We gotta run this past Chris. 
 
[G] We already got the donation so. 
 
I want to talk a little about your guys’ set up.
 
[M] Let’s make Esden go first, he recently had a rig change. 
 
[E] I have a bass rig its an orange 4x10 cabinet and then it was an Ampeg PF500 which is a solid state bass amp, pretty nice but not reliable. It just got blown up on tour. I backlined my bass amp and one of the local bands plugged two bass amps into one cab without turning mine off so like it blew up my amp, but I just got a new bass amp it’s a Dark Glass. 
 
[M] It left a crater when it blew up. 
 
[G] Fire everywhere. Why you got to say it like that?
 
[E] It did, it blew up. 
 
What bass are you playing through that, is that your baby?
 
[E] My baby is a Reverend, it’s called a decision bass, it’s got P bass pickups and jazz bass pickups but I only ever use the P bass pickups, unless I’m slapping. I mean the pickups on that bass, like Tyler Floyd has said he hasn’t heard a bass that sounds like that, the pickups are sweet, they are dual rails or hot rails or something pickups, like that style. 
 
[M] You’re making that up. 
 
[G] He doesn’t know. 
 
[E] I don’t. On the recordings it’s all a basement 65 that’s been modded out by Tyler’s dad. Then I have a pedal like I have a pedal that I use for overdrive. 
 
[M] Tell them about the double fuzz. 
 
[E] Sometimes I’ll do double fuzz, like if the sound guy’s especially mean. I’ll just kick on my double fuzz in the middle of the set. Just like—
 
[M] We good? We Good?
 
[E] I’ll look at him and be like, what’s going on?
 
[M] Esden’s made a couple sound guys cry before. 
 
[E] Yeah, if they’re mean at sound check it’s game on. No, I have a couple pedals that I use and like I’m really excited for my new amp but yeah that bass guitar and cabinet are the most important part of my sound. 
 
[M] For me, I play through a Fender Deville Hot Rod, one of those things, bought it off of Chase from Worry Club. Total bargain, Chase hooked me up. I’m working on covering it in stickers so I could use all the stickers I can get, I put pink knobs on the top because I think that’s badass. My pedalboard, I recently got into making pedals so like a couple of them I’ve made myself. So I’m like really getting into that, making pedals a lot so I’m swapping stuff out a lot but I really like soft clipping like overdrives into a chorus, I have a chorus pedal that’s like on all the time. Then I also play a reverend because we’re like begging to get sponsored. 
 
[E] We’re sending so many emails. 
 
[M] Yeah they haven’t read a single one I don’t think. 
 
[E] They’re just ignoring us. 
 
[M] We started doing handwriting letters too but they keep showing up back at the door. I play a Reverend, it’s got P90 pickups in it if that’s your thing. Cables too, I have cables that I use to connect everything.

Do you have any specific pedals that you love?
 
[E] The Plumes?
 
[M] Yeah I really love the Plumes, shoutout Earthquake’s devices, my chorus is MXR. I also throw a little bit of compression on there just to spice it up a little bit, or spice it down depending on how you perceive compression. I also think compression definitely changes the character of the distortions a little bit. I do my plumes into a hard clipping distortion after for when I really want to piss these guys off.
 
[E] Cut it out. 
 
[M] Turn it down. 
 
[E] He can’t hear us, he’s just looking at the guitar and we’re like stop playing.
 
[M] Tell them about your pedal board Gabe. 
 
[G] Yeah, my rig is sick. That drum kit, the one I play right now, has been in my procession for like seven years. It’s like the only drumset I’ve had. It’s like a Ludwig, I’ve got a new snare 

[M] New cymbals every time you forget them at home. 
 
[G] Yeah, okay but my cymbals I actually do care about. I have a whole set of Istanbul cymbals, they’re like the Agpop series they sound so nice, they’re like super thin. Kieth Hall put me onto them because he sold me one for like 20 bucks and he was my jazz combo teacher. I really love the thin huge washy cymbals. I just recently got a k custom dart crash and it’s really good but its almost too much metal cymbal, too much sheet metal sound to it so I really like the wavy thin not meant for punk rock cymbals and they have to be huge. Like 22 minimum. Those are my preferences. 
 
[E] Tell them about how you do your sticks sometimes. Don’t you use 5Bs in practice sometimes and at shows you use 5As.
 
[G] Uh my sticks, oh yeah sometimes. That’s for working out, like when I’m doing my chop workouts.
 
[M] Gabe’s ripped. 
 
[G] I use 2B sticks, they’re like massive and then I play with 5Bs and so they’re like way smaller and I feel like Dash from The Incredibles. 
 
[M] You kind of look like him. 
 
[G] Yeah I know. 
 
[E] It’s hard to keep up with him. 
 
[G] I used to run on water. 
 
Are you a nylon or wood tip?
 
[G] Wood tip, I played with nylon for a while, but something about it is just too much. I love the wood tip sos much and I love using the tip and the side all as one hit motion sometimes so like with a nylon it’s just super loud, you know what I’m saying?
 
[M] Yeah, I definitely feel that. When you started talking about nylon I was like yeah. 
 
[E] I love classical guitars. 
 
[G] I think nylon would be really useful for house shows, but I already slam my drums really hard I don’t think I need them exactly. 
 
[M] Yeah Gabe only plays rim shots. 
 
[G] That’s me. 
 
[E] That’s all he does. 
 
I want to hear about some of your guys’ biggest influences. 
 
[M] Gabe influences my music a lot that I write. 
 
[G] Hippocampus. 
 
[M] Esden you go now.
 
[E] Modern Baseball for me is a big one, Prince Daddy and the Hyena, Oso Oso
 
[G] I like Destroy Lonely. 
 
[E] Greet Death, Sealholm. 
 
[M] Definitely Seaholm. 
 
[E] Seaholm’s a big one.
 
[M] I’ve been getting into this band called Dry Jacket and this band called Good Sleepy and they have good twinkly kind of riffs where they’re like really busy and stuff but also they flow really well so I’m also trying to write more stuff like that. Nirvana for me. 
 
[E] Mover Shaker. Mover shaker was big. Yeah Rest In Peace, Long Live the Gays, but yeah Mover Shaker was big. That was a big band. 
 
What elements from those influences kind of shine through?
 
[G] I think a lot of the drums that I write for the music is heavily inspired by everything I listen to, like the classic, I’m going to expose myself here, but Twenty One Pilots, and then Panic at the Disco, and Fall Out Boy those were like all the bands when I was learning drums so I really like those drummers so I think a lot of my influence comes from them. Then also like branching from the Left Lanes, kind of also taking a backseat role I think just learning how to play drums in a band is the main thing I took away from those projects. I think more recently vocals have started to come through like Pine Grove has super matter of fact like this is what I’m saying right now, just talking in a sentence kind of lyrics. I really like those, and I really like how they don’t rhyme, like they don’t rhyme all the time and sometimes they never rhyme. I think that’s a major part of my songwriting as well. 
 
[M] For me, 90 plus percent of my contributions are just guitar parts. We just put our EP out so we’re trying to write some new stuff for our next release whenever that might be but I’m like really paying close attention to guitar parts so I try and find unconventional things. One of the big things I like to incorporate into mine are unconventional chords or like weird chord voicings which Gabe is really good at this which I think part of it is because—
 
[G] It’s because I don’t know how to play guitar. 
 
[M] Yeah because he doesn’t really know a ton about guitar and I’ll listen to him writing stuff sometimes and he’ll be playing chords and then one of them sounds sick and he’s like aw I’m going to use that one and  I’ll play that game too sometimes. I know a little bit more than Gabe about chord voicings and chord structures and stuff but I don’t know a ton about theory. So it’s cool to just find chords and honestly a lot of the times I don’t know what the hell I’m playing half the time but I know that it sounds cool and I know that if a certain chord has a certain flavor to it then I want this kind of sound in the next one, and it’s all kind of like abstract and hard to put into words because I don’t know theory, but I have sounds in my head that I try and go for and like one of the big things is having chord changes feel directional and they have purpose instead of your common major chords or power chords and stuff. 
 
How much theory do the rest of you guys even know? Nothing?

[M] Almost nothing. 
 
[G] I know that there’s minor scales. 
 
[M] I couldn’t tell you what key most of our songs are in. 
 
[E] When we have to tell our engineer we call Al, we’re like hey Al what key is this song in? We don’t know. 
 
[G] We had to ask Tyler to help us. He’s like-
 
[M] We’re not musicians.
 
[G] A lot of the shit I write on guitar it’s just like oh that sounds good, that sounds good. Obviously I have a basic concept of how to write a song but like a lot of it is what sounds good. 
 
[M] Gabe wrote the chord progression for the beginning of future, and when he taught that to me, there’s two chord shapes in there I’ve literally never seen before, like in the context of the song they work really well and they sound cool, but it would take me a couple minutes to write out all the notes and figure out what actual chords they actually are, but yeah. Knowledge is a hinderance, it gets in the way of writing cool stuff. Don’t learn theory. 
 
[E] I was telling these guys on tour, I don’t really consider myself a musician, like in the way of like I don’t know what I’m playing a lot of the times, like I know what notes I’m playing, but it takes me a second to play what sounds good. I was having a conversation with a lady at work and she’s like, ive been trying to jam its just so hard, and I was like jamming is really hard. For me it’s very hard.
 
[M] It’s intimidating with other people. Like I get nervous with other people because they’re like key of C, 1,3,5, and I’m like can I watch for a minute?
 
[E] That’s how I am I’m always looking at Mitch’s guitar trying to figure out what exactly the root note of what he’s playing because that’s all I do is just follow the root note but yeah just like trusting your gut and finding what sounds good is more important than anything. If something that’s you write feels good and you’re like this sounds good to me and you show it to somebody else and they’re like yeah that sounds good, that’s all that matters. 
 
[G] Yeah like when you’re playing it and you like feel it like you’re merging into the guitar, that’s when you know you got it. 
 
[M] You got to become one with the instrument. 
 
[E] You don’t need to know theory to play music it’s literally just pick up the instrument start learning covers and then go from there. 
 
[G] Just copy the covers. 
 
[M] A wise man, Mike from Summer Bruise told me that good art is borrowed, great art is stolen. 
 
[E] That’s true, yeah shout out Mike from Summer Bruise. 
 
[G] And that’s why we make great art. 
 
Do you have any weird music that you’re into. 
 
[E] I really like Oliver Tree and Getter. 
 
[G] I don’t even know how you describe it, it’s like Soundcloud shoe gaze rap and it’s just like people who don’t really know what they’re doing but if you just smash enough shit into the song it will sound good at the end of it.  It’s just like ethereal trap or something
 
[M] I didn’t know that existed.
 
[G] Ethereal noise rap. 
 
[M] Gabe you got to send me some links. 
 
[G] I’ll send it, and the vocals are super low down and crunched up but it still sounds so good, also Baby Boys, that is a really good project. I really like them, they have a lot of crazy production and the part of the song writing for them is the production which I think is really cool and that definitely the whole reason I listen to them. My favorite song by them is Kleenex. Very distinct A and B sections, kind of like what our songs are and at the beginning it’s kind of like lo-fi but also still hi-fi, like everything recorded in hi-fi but then like the production aspect of it is making it  sound like it was thrown together and I think that’s really cool. Their vocals always have like forty layers on them and I think at the end the drums are sick and the sheer space of the mix is really awesome because you can tell there’s so much going on but its still manageable to listen to and I think that’s admirable. 
 
Would you say having that technical ability but also catchiness is big in your guys’ sound or-
 
[E] I think catchiness is really important, like if it gets stuck in my head then it will get stuck in other people’s heads that’s something I think about a lot when I’m writing. 
 
[G] A lot of the catchiness from mine is just like straight up influences, I listen to pop music compared to you guys. 
 
[E] Yeah, I listen to mostly emo. When I’m writing like if I’m listening to this band or this person then that’s what I’m writing like. Oliver tree the Cowboy Tears album is really good, it’s really cool to me and its basic pop because like they’re so good at just writing catchy melodies like it gets stuck in your head and of course they play it over and over in each song but it’s just this melody and that’s straight ear worm. A weird one for me is Dan Deacon, it’s an electronic music artist and it’s an exercise in maximalism like it’s just tons of synthesizers and modular synths and stuff like that where these noises that keep building and building and building and it just gets huge. That helps me when we’re in the studio and like producing our music, adding stuff to our recordings to make it sound good. We can just keep adding stuff and as long as we have a good engineer, which we do, it can sound good. 
 
[G] Yeah that is another reason I really wanted to go with Tyler.
 
[E] Big Brain. 
 
Is there a place or space you feel most creative in?
 
[G] Hmm… that’s a good question. 
 
[E] Emotionally yes. I have to be pretty down to write music. Like I have to get knocked down pretty hard. 
 
[M] But you get up again. 
 
[E] Yeah, that’s how I get up. 
 
[M] That was a Chumba Wumba joke. 
 
[E] Oh that’s pretty good. This basement makes me feel pretty creative but sometimes we have days where we’re like alright let’s write a song and we’re like nothings working. 
 
[M] And we don’t even remember what we came up with because none of it really stuck. 
 
[G] For me the inspiration just comes and if I don’t capture it when it’s there then I don’t get it until the next time like it really is just like that for like the whole time I’ve been writing songs. It’s like I can sit down and sometimes it just won’t happen but sometimes it will happen and if I get up and go do some other shit it’s gone and I have to get it right there when the iron’s hot and like that will be a good song a good song. Like later on I can come back to it but I have to just shit out all the creativeness when I have it. You can’t wait for motivation to do things in life but that thing I have to wait for that. Or like I could start a song but I won’t get the thing that really hits in the song until it just happens, and I don’t know how to control that. I’ve been trying to control it forever, but it also does happen when I get really depressed. That’s a really good way to make music, just be really sad. 
 
[E] I like get exactly what you’re saying there. 
 
[G] And it’s like, not a new concept, like everyone says that, but it’s so true. 
 
[E] Yeah it has to come to you. Tarot cards, how long did it take to write it, like months. We didn’t even have it fully written until the day before we recorded it in the studio. I was still missing a second verse and I wrote the I fucking hate this I’ll hide in the basement, like right before we recorded it. It just has to come to you, you can’t force it, it’s kind of stressful. 
 
[M] We write one good song and we’re like let’s book studio time. 
 
[E] Yeah and then we get in the studio and we’re like, we got to finish these quick. 
 
[M] Yeah the verse on Always Cloudy you wrote like the day you recorded it right?
 
[E] Yeah, the first part. Some talk shit, I can take it. 
 
[M] He wrote that because we were talking shit. 
 
[E] Yeah you guys were talking shit to me, I was pissed. I was like these guys aren’t listening to me, they work for me. 
 
[E] Alright cool it. 
 
How did you come up with the band name?
 
[G] I just wrote down like 100 different names that was like ‘band names’ and then we just went over them all and we almost named it desk van because it was supposed to be like a hit metaphor about like you put your vape on your desk and it travels from your desk to your mouth. 
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[M] It was going to be so sick. 
 
[G] Yeah that’s how we named it.
 
[E] That was just a song. 
 
[G] That’s kind of bullshit. Saturdays at Your Place sounds way cooler and it like has meaning, like we didn’t necessarily have a meaning behind it when we came up with it but as we were going it’s really easy to play off of like Saturdays are the worst for me too and like
 
[M] Contemplate a Saturday.