Photo by Katie Hovland

Chicago’s Big Science has been together since 2007 and formed after the demise of a band that featured singer/guitarist Jason Hendrix and bassist Jason Richards. Over the years they’ve undergone several lineup changes, though their current arrangement is solidified by guitarist Bob Buckstaff and drummer Marcin Sulewski. Big Science has so far issued two EPs and in May they will release their debut full-length, Difficulty. We spoke with the band and discussed how the new album was recorded, what some of its songs are about, the record’s overall sound and more.

Bill – Where did you record the new album and what was your experience in the studio like?

Jason R. – We recorded this record ourselves in our own studio. Recording a record on your own is rewarding in lots of ways. We were never pressed for time, so we could do things like move microphones and mess with tones and mixes as much as we wanted. We tried different techniques to get the tones and textures we were looking for, like putting a contact mic on the piano or sequencing midi and sending it back out to synths to try out sounds. Doing the record this way also got us all to know our studio in a way we didn’t before. We feel more comfortable in it as a result.

Bill – What’s the meaning behind your new record’s title?

Jason H. – Difficulty is the title of a poem, from a book of the same name by William Logan. It is the first book of poetry that ever had an impact on me. If you have never read it, I hope you will now.

Bill – In what ways would you say the music on Difficulty is different than your previous material?

Jason R. – It’s an extension of what we’ve done previously, but I think it’s more patient and relaxed, or at least that’s the feeling I get from it. We sort of allowed the songs to build themselves and we let them go in directions that we might not have allowed them to go to in the past. It’s a lot more electronic both in sound and in the way we used the computer as a sketch pad, but it’s more organic in the way the songs all came to be.

Bill – Tell me about the decision to self-release the album and how you plan on making it available.

Jason R. – Our friend, Sean, had talked to us long ago about wanting to help us release the record on vinyl, so it’ll be available through us and through him. (It’s available now for pre-order, just email Sean at s2wal@hotmail.com). His new label is called So Say We All. It’ll also be available digitally. The decision to skip trying to get a pre-existing label involved came simply out of a need for immediacy. At a point we decided that we just needed to get this one off our plate. It’s been stewing and it’s actually been done for some time now. We love this record but there’s plenty more in the hopper.

Bill – “All the Heat Has Escaped” is rather subdued and mellow for an opening track. What made you guys choose that song to start the record?

Jason R. – We talked a lot with our roommate Matt Woodward about the track order. In addition to being a fantastic visual artist, (http://mattwoodwardart.com/) he’s also one of the more well-read and thoughtful individuals we know. He talked about the songs corresponding to events in the recent past and so we went for it.

Jason H. – It also is a different kind of way to start a record, everyone always comes out ‘guns blazing’ on the first track. We thought it would be interesting to start with a subdued, haunting melody and then move into something more upbeat.

Bill – The version of “Loose Change Century” that appears on this album is noticeably different than the demo version of the song that was released last year. What sort of things happened that led to the song evolving in such a manner?

Jason R. – That song is slightly different but it’s actually much the same. We changed the mix a little bit. We got an actual hardware mix-bus compressor after we did that original mix. It required us to revisit the song to make it fit more with the rest of the mixes in terms of overall sonics and level balances.

Bill – “Subliminal” is one of the more rock-oriented songs on the record and also one of my favorites. What inspired the writing of this song?

Jason H. – This is one of the only songs in our catalog that was pretty much fully formed and structured in a demo version. Usually, each one of our songs starts off with us all playing in a room together and jamming things out. It started out as a basic little guitar line, then a simple demo version with just vocals and guitar was recorded. From there we just built the song up, with everyone figuring out their parts and layering on ideas. By the end of it, this simple little song had grown into a behemoth. We are really proud of how it turned out.

Bill – Would you say there’s an overall lyrical theme that’s present throughout Difficulty?

Jason H. – The lyrics deal with the overarching themes of our lives in the last year. I would like to say they are about partying and hanging out on a yacht, or living in Paris, or something glamorous like that, but that is not the case. They deal heavily with loss, longing, desire, poverty, exhaustion, love, betrayal, death, city living, and a general sense of alienation and confusion that seems to be all around. It casts a pretty large net, but that is just how I write. If people want slice of life shit then listen to Garrison Keillor, but I don’t have much room for small talk in my lyrics. I guess I just don’t have the same desire to be clever or cute as other songwriters do. If someone wants to play a ukulele and sing songs about birds and sweaters then so be it, I just have no interest in that kind of hunky-dory escapist fantasy. I consider myself a pretty happy person and most people will tell you that if my lips are moving, I am probably making some kind of joke. For whatever reason, my lyrics usually come out pretty dark.

Bill – On your band’s website, you describe your sound as “Here to give thanks to the sounds of the past, action to the sounds of the present, and shape to the sounds of the future.” How did you come up with that description and can you elaborate a bit more on what you think Big Science sounds like?

Jason H. – We were having a real tough time writing our bio, I think all bands do. No matter what you do, at this point in time there have been countless band bios written, so like band photos, whatever you do has been done a million times over. They are unfortunately necessary for press and promoting shows. So, after trying a bunch of different approaches, I just started writing stream of consciousness, like I would if I was just generating ideas for lyrics or a narrative and that sentence just popped up. As for our sound, we are the sum of our influences just like everyone else. One of my main pet peeves are bands or artists that pretend like they formed a totally original idea out of thin air, like they grew up in a bubble somewhere under the sea. I think it is an absurdly pretentious idea to think that you can somehow escape the culture you grew up in. Everything comes from somewhere, originality is an unrealistic fairytale and all art is just an experiment combining different influences. It would take forever to list all the music that brought us to this point, but some key influences would be: Bowie, Eno, Talking Heads, Can, Archers Of Loaf, The Clash, Suicide, Big Country, U2, Laurie Anderson, Joy Division, Aphex Twin, Mogwai, Tears for Fears, Gang of Four, New Order…the list goes on and on.

Bill – In the past year or so you guys have gone through several lineup changes. What kind of things transpired that led to those changes and what do you like best about your current arrangement?

Jason R. – Yeah, we’ve gone through some changes internally. Most of it stems from people having different expectations of the band and of each other. It’s always a bummer, but this lineup has an underlying sense of excitement about the future that is great to be involved with. We’re all excited for new songs and shows.

Bill – What sort of plans does the band have for the rest of 2012?

Jason R. – We have some touring on the horizon. We’ll be playing locally as well of course, but we’re really excited to hit the road. And we’re always writing, recording and working on our live set. It never stops, but that’s a good thing.

Bill – Compared to other bands in Chicago’s music scene, what sets Big Science apart?

Jason H. – We are not a genre exercise. Too many bands, in Chicago and elsewhere, just write music to fit within a specific style of music, usually because it is easier for a potential audience to digest. I understand that a lot of times people just want something they can depend on, no curve balls, etc., but I find that kind of artistic limitation stifling. Too many albums now are all the same tone or atmosphere. They just don’t take any risks. My father has always told me that good art has to have an irritant, something that makes it a little hard to swallow the first time around, something that makes it stick in your mind. In my experience, he is dead on: all of my favorite records had to grow on me. If I like it from the first listen, chances are, I won’t be listening to it 15 years down the road.

On 40 Miler, his fifth solo album and first for Chunksaah, Tim Barry sounds nothing if not confident. The music, which features a stronger country influence than in the past, complements the lyrics in a way that simply enhances the overall storytelling. His words often speak of economic hardships or passing trends in the music scene, but Barry injects enough humor into such topics that it keeps things from getting too serious. He’s also not afraid to look inwards and poke fun at himself, thereby adding to the authenticity of his already genuine songwriting. An example of this would be the song “Bankers Dilemma”, as it examines the brighter side of being unemployed. Barry talks about getting laid off, abandoning the mortgage and celebrating impending foreclosure with a “lingering sense of relief and a crap-ton of empty bottles.” In “Fine Foods Market”, he describes a line for lottery tickets as three blocks long and also depicts a segment of the crowd as “hipsters with ironic mustaches, who most definitely once were punk and now wear flannel.” He then proceeds to scrutinize his own musical upbringings and influences, as well as discuss his indifference to such fads. The title track reaffirms Barry’s devotion to his craft and emphasizes the importance of integrity. He says, “I’d rather stay broke and play fake-ass shows, move with heart, sing from your soul. If you can’t play then dance instead. Music should sound like escape not rent.” On the whole, 40 Miler is a positive record that finds Barry growing and benefitting from his life experiences. It represents some of his best solo material yet and is heads above the vast majority of his musical peers. Take a listen to the song “40 Miler” below and see why.

Photo by Katie Hovland

The Treasure Fleet is a new Chicago band that consists of Isaac Thotz and Dave Merriman of The Arrivals, Neil Hennessy of The Lawrence Arms and Smoking Popes, Eli Caterer of Smoking Popes and Mike Oberlin of Sass Dragons. We spoke with Isaac and Neil and talked in detail about how the band formed, their unique sound, their upcoming album for Recess Records and more.

Bill – When did The Treasure Fleet form?

Isaac – Well, I guess in ‘09 Neil and I started getting together and playing this batch of songs that I had. That’s really when Treasure Fleet started, but before that there was another band. Or, here’s how it happened. There was a punk festival in Chicago in the summer of ‘07, called Mauled By Tigers. The guys from Toys That Kill/Underground Railroad to Candyland were coming into town and they were supposed to stay with me for the weekend. They were all flying in, so I was also acting as their chauffeur while they were here. The fest itself was a really, really awesome lineup, a lot of bands I’d been hearing about but never seen, like Screaming Females, Shellshag and Future Virgins. That was the first time I’d seen URTC. And I was already excited about the scene here in Chicago just then because of Sass Dragons, The Brokedowns, Bust and this whole new batch of punk bands that were coming up and making us feel like what we were doing with The Arrivals wasn’t just a waste of time. So it was a really exciting and awesome weekend for those reasons, and the people and the scene were super positive in general at Mauled By Tigers. Both nights of the fest there ended up being parties at my place and I was living in Pilsen at the time. They weren’t crazy, raging parties, but we partied pretty good, like when I’d wake up in the morning there’d be four other people in my bed and seven others sleeping on the floor, and lots of people who I didn’t know hanging out all night. In between all that, we were driving around Chicago to places those guys wanted to go, like we went to Hot Doug’s for example. Todd C., (from Recess Records, Toys That Kill, URTC) was on a big Syd Barrett and T. Rex kick at that time, so whenever we’d get in the van that’s what he’d put on. By that Sunday, I was just out of my mind from partying and not sleeping, and then the last thing I saw that weekend was a daytime show at Ronny’s. I saw Shellshag and URTC. After that I had to go home, because my wife, who’d gone out of town with our two young kids for the weekend, had come back to town and I had to do my part of watching the kids and making up for the lost weekend. At that time, Ronnie, the drummer from The Arrivals, was living downstairs from us. I remember as soon as I got home from the Candyland show, I sat downstairs and I went on and on to Ronnie about how we were going to start this new band. I had an idea for it and it was going to be kind of psychedelic, ‘60s, mod pop stuff. My mind was just blazing then. I was on fire. Then after a bit of that, I went upstairs and told my wife that I’d take the kids to the park. On the way to the park, I started humming this tune and that would become, essentially, the first Treasure Fleet song. Anyway, so while we were at the park, I was thinking of this song and I was just kind of half watching the kids play. My daughter was three and a half at the time and my son was almost one. My son wasn’t even really walking yet, but he was starting to hold onto things to help himself stand up by that point. And my son, Cyric is his name, he was at the base of a slide and he was leaning on the slide and trying to stand up. He was just toddling around there and I was just hanging out, watching him and my daughter. Then the next thing I know, all of a sudden Cyric is balling his head off. I run over there and I didn’t see it happen, but apparently Cyric had lost his grip on the slide and fallen forward and done a face-plant. So I went over and picked him up, and when I did there was blood everywhere, just streaming out of his mouth, all over him, all over the slide. I was totally freaked out, in shock. These two mothers were there, they saw me and they were terrified. They ran over to help. I remember, one of the mothers had this chubby twelve-year-old boy at the park and she grabbed him and ripped his shirt off and ran over to me. She grabbed Cyric from me because I was just sort of standing there dumbfounded and she started mopping up the blood with this other kid’s shirt. I’m just covered in blood at this point and so is Cyric. My daughter is freaking out and this lady, she doesn’t even speak any English. She’s holding Cyric and I don’t know what to do, but I figure she knows better than me at this point, so I just let her hold him and I phone my wife. I tell her to hurry over, that Cyric was hurt and we might have to go to the hospital. We lived about four blocks away from the park and my wife just ran over on foot. That took, I don’t know, five minutes. She was fast. By the time she got there it was crazy, Cyric went from screaming bloody murder to where he had totally calmed down. And it looked like the bleeding had stopped. I don’t remember if he had any teeth, but anyway, we looked in his mouth and his tongue was there and everything looked okay. I just felt like absolute shit though, like the worst parent in the world. I was kind of walking home with my tail between my legs, feeling guilty because I’d been partying all weekend while my wife was away, and now I’d been watching my children by myself for no more than a half hour and this shit happened. So we went home and it was sort of all’s well that ends well. We didn’t end up going to the doctor’s. My wife called and they were just like, “Yeah, mouth injuries bleed a lot, but if it’s stopped bleeding and he’s not complaining, don’t worry about it.” So we ate dinner and had a bath. That night we were hanging out in the bedroom and my son was acting really squirrely, and we couldn’t figure out what was wrong. We started worrying that maybe it had something to do with his fall, that it was maybe worse than we had first thought, but he was just acting super squirrely. Then my wife saw he was chewing on something, like he was gumming something. He was at an age where everything went straight into his mouth. She just sort of swept her finger through his gums and pulled out this little piece of like rubber plastic something. She looks at it and it has something printed on it. She reads it and looks at me and she’s like, “Adderall.” It was like that plastic coating of a gelcap or whatever, and it must have fallen out of somebody’s pocket when they were sleeping on the bedroom floor. We didn’t know if it was actually the whole gelcap or just the coating, but in any case, we were back on the phone, calling the doctor, calling poison control. It turns out, this wasn’t such a big deal either. Poison control was like, “Well, Adderall is something designed to be put in humans’ bodies. I wouldn’t recommend giving it to a one-year-old, but it’s not like it’s going to kill him. He’s just going to be high for a couple hours.” So basically, I’m the worst dad in the world, again. Everybody goes to bed. I’d been sleeping on the floor and sleeping in my daughter’s bedroom at that point, and always staying up later than everybody else. So I went downstairs and borrowed Ronnie’s 8-track. I had recorded albums in the studio before, but I never had recorded myself on anything before. That night I recorded the tune I’d been humming and I wrote another one right there on the spot and recorded that one too. And with both of them, I wrote harmonies and multiple guitar parts and everything right there in one sitting. Those were “The Girls Who Run Together” and “I’ve Lost My Everything”. Then the next morning I was taking care of my daughter and I wrote another one, lyrics, tune and harmonies, everything, there on the spot. That one was “Nitsa”. Then I showed these first three songs to a few people, just to see whether it was good or whether I just thought it was good because I’d never done anything like this before. And I remember, Todd C. was one of the few people I showed the songs to and he thought I was pulling his leg at first. With the first song I sent him, he thought I’d dug up some obscure Syd Barrett outtake and only after I sent him a couple more tunes he was like, “Oh shit, that really was you!” And the few other people that I showed those songs, they were all very positive about them as well. Then I decided I was going to try and make a whole album’s worth of songs within the next month and I’d show it to Todd by the time I saw him, because The Arrivals and URTC were set to do a tour together that next month. So I recorded twelve songs that month and showed Todd after the show we played with URTC in Minneapolis. Then, a few nights later, we played a show at this tenement in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. I remember it was this building in a pretty shady neighborhood and punks had taken over the entire thing. The stairway was just lined with bicycles and there was a party in every apartment all the way up, and the show was on the top floor and there was a party on the roof as well. We played and then we were drinking and partying and I asked Todd if he wanted to do a band with these songs that I’d written. We’d do some of my songs and some of his I said. He was into it. That was fall of ‘07. In spring of ‘08, Todd came up with the idea to have me join a project he was doing out in L.A. with members of the band Dios Malos. That band was called Bible Children. I went out to stay with Todd in San Pedro that year and Bible Children recorded a demo with four of his songs and four of mine. We played one show. Then a whole year passed and we tried to do it again. I went out there and we played a couple of shows around L.A. and went up to play a show in Santa Barbara. We meant to record, but the tape machine broke right before I got there. So we spent the time building a studio in Todd’s garage and watching the NBA playoffs instead. Then the other Bible Children guys came here to Chicago for Windy City Sound Clash that year, summer of ‘09, and Bible Children played a house show and a show at Beat Kitchen on the Sunday of that weekend. After that, over the next few months, it pretty much became clear that it wasn’t working out to do a long-distance band. Todd’s songs went to his solo stuff and Stoned at Heart, and I asked Neil if he wanted to start Treasure Fleet.

Bill – How did the rest of The Treasure Fleet’s members come together?

Neil – In ‘08-‘09 I had been filling in on bass for The Arrivals when Paddy couldn’t make it. In mid ‘09, Isaac handed me a demo that had some really cool, really different sounding stuff on it. When we got together to start playing the songs, I found out that Isaac had a bunch more songs that weren’t going to be used for The Arrivals, almost two albums worth. I’ve known Isaac and Dave for a long time actually. I was in a band during high school that played The Arrivals first show ever back in ‘96, but it wasn’t until ‘02 when The Arrivals and The Lawrence Arms toured with D4 that I met them.

Isaac – Lil’ Dave, (from The Arrivals) had played keys with Bible Children at the last show we did at Beat Kitchen in Chicago, and he just continued on with that when we started Treasure Fleet. Originally a friend of Dave’s said he’d play drums for us. He was a regular at the bar that Dave was bartending at and he was heavy into ‘60s mod and soul. He was always turning Dave on to this or that mod record, and he had heard the Bible Children recordings and said he was into doing it. I had been getting together with Neil to learn songs, and then the two of us got together with Dave to practice, and this friend couldn’t make it and couldn’t make it again and again. Then in the meantime, I had booked a show at Beat Kitchen. It was going to be Treasure Fleet’s first show, with Andrew Jackson Jihad and The Gunshy. It was getting close to the date of the show and we’d still never practiced as a full band with a drummer. So finally, just a couple of weeks out from that show, Dave’s friend admitted that he really wasn’t into doing a band. So we were in a pinch. I had known Mike from Sass Dragons and hanging out at shows and stuff, but I’d never actually seen or heard him play drums, (Mike played bass with Sass Dragons). I knew I liked him as a person and always had fun hanging out with him, so I got online to see if I could find any YouTube footage of him playing drums with other bands I knew he’d played for. I never did find anything, but people had told me that he was a great drummer, so I called him anyway. I was just like, “Mike, I have a weird proposition for you” and I told him about the band and the show and how we needed a drummer. He said he would give it a shot. And everyone was right, he’s great!

Neil – Treasure Fleet ended up playing a few shows as a four piece and we realized we needed a lead guitar player. I had shown Eli the demos and he’d seen us play, so I asked him if he’d want to join. He was just as into it as we were, and he has such a great tone and a bunch of pedals he doesn’t get to play with in the Popes.

Bill – Given that the members of The Treasure Fleet also play in some rather established bands, how would you describe your sound compared to some of the other projects you guys are involved with?

Neil – The Treasure Fleet is more about layers and reverb, less about distortion and aggression. Also, the band features Dave Merriman on keyboards, so that’s different.

Isaac – I know with The Arrivals we had this thing for a long time where we wanted to be able to replicate in a live performance whatever we did on the recordings. And similarly, when we’ve recorded with The Arrivals, in terms of the arrangement of songs, it was most often just four guys each playing their instrument at every moment of every song. With Treasure Fleet, really anything goes. On Cocamotion, there are female vocals, handclaps, bongos, acoustic guitar, seven vocal parts going all at once; all kinds of shit we would never hope to replicate live, but that we just decided to do on the recording because we thought it was cool at the time and we thought that’s what the song called for. So that’s a different approach that influences the sound, I think.

Bill – Since none of your other bands have a full-time keyboardist, how does having Dave on keyboards impact the way that you guys write songs?

Isaac – It doesn’t really influence the writing of the songs. Dave writes most of the parts after hearing a demo. Some of the demos have key parts, but most don’t. Usually I’ll come up with the tune and the lyrics and maybe a couple guitar parts, and then everybody writes their own parts.

Bill – Where does the band’s name come from?

Isaac – It came out of my shitty head. It’s nothing. I’m no good at naming bands.

Bill – Where did you record your debut album, Cocamotion, and what was the recording process like?

Neil – Cocamotion wasn’t recorded in a traditional way. Five of the songs are full band. The guitar, bass and drums for those were tracked live to an 8-track Tascam 238 at the Lucky Gator Loft in December of ‘11 by Bob Katovich. We took those tracks to Isaac’s attic where he built a control room, the Blue Room. Throughout the month of January we finished tracking guitars, vocals, keys, percussion, etc.

Isaac – That Tascam, it’s a cassette 8-track. Bob had two of those machines and our original plan was to record to 16 tracks and just mix the record over at Lucky Gator. There’s a separate sync machine that lets the two 8-track machines talk to each other, because otherwise they don’t play at exactly the same rate and some weird shit happens. We recorded onto seven tracks on the one machine and got awesome feels and sounds, and only then did Bob realize that he didn’t have the right cables for the sync machine to work. So we had no vocals or keys and only one guitar, and we had one more track to work with. For about a month there we were just fucked. We had about fifteen different plans for how we were actually going to finish the record. We were going to dump the tracks one by one to digital and line them up, we were going to mix down the tracks and record to that, we were going to say ‘fuck it’ and start over. Somewhere in that month though, I realized we almost certainly weren’t going to finish the record at Lucky Gator and we were going to have to get the tracks onto something else and record somewhere else. So, in case we were going to need another place to record, I started building this room in my attic. After a couple failed attempts, we did end up getting those original seven tracks onto a computer. By that time, the room in the attic was done. Neil came in and had a bunch of suggestions for how to make the room suitable for tracking and mixing, and so the two of us made it sound good up there and then we finished the record in my attic.

Neil – Isaac also had songs that he had tracked on GarageBand back in ‘09 that fit really well. We mixed the record in a couple of days and then took it to Andy Gallas to get mastered.

Isaac – Well, mostly Neil mixed it. I mostly drank beer and kept telling Neil he was doing a good job.

Bill – Tell me about your video for the song “Vice”.

Isaac – My five-year-old son recorded all but about ten seconds of the video, which is why it looks the way it does. When I went to edit it all together, I thought the footage looked sort of like what MTV must have looked to my nine-year-old brain. I remember that stuff as all just half-baked, non sequiturs like, “Oh somebody’s in a devil’s costume/look at that fucking Ferrari/going to prom/Jane Fonda workout time/now there’s a guy playing guitar in a dingy warehouse with a snake around his neck. The song is sort of new-wavey, so I thought it’d be fun to do that sort of ‘80s theme and use some ‘80s footage. And I like that old MTV vibe anyway, because it feels psychedelic, where everything is stimulating, nothing is connected. I guess, if there is any central concept of the “Vice” video, it’s something like that.

Bill – What inspired the lyrics for your song “High on a Bicycle”?

Isaac – A couple of years ago, I was hanging out with The Copyrights guys at Insubordination Fest in Baltimore and I was kind of out of my mind. I went on this rant about space punk and how it was going to be the next movement in punk. We were going to start it and it would be for all of the stoner, weirdo punks who were into freaking themselves out, but not into the folksy, crusty type. And not like hippies. Like a sillier, more colorful, urban, mod, psychedelic alternative to that stuff. I don’t know. It didn’t make any sense then and it still doesn’t make any sense. But after that I knew I had to at least write a song for the space punks, for the new-psych movement. Then, not long after that I went to this promotional thing that the New Belgium Brewery puts on, the people who make Fat Tire beer. It’s like an old time, traveling carnival-type thing. They threw the one in Chicago just a couple blocks from where I live. I went to that and they had all kinds of freak bikes, DIY arts and crafts tents and all kinds of cool stuff. The music wasn’t good, I don’t remember what it was, it was like some hippy stuff, but the scene was really fucking cool. And everybody was just getting drunk and riding bicycles, all kinds of people from all kinds of scenes just hanging out and having fun. I was like, “This is great, this is what space punk should look like.” And then I wrote the song.

Bill – A lot of The Treasure Fleet’s songs don’t follow typical structures and instead focus on establishing different moods and vibes. In short, it’s pretty psychedelic. What brought about this influence?

Isaac – Well, I mean psych has come to be so many things and has gone so many places. Bands that I think of as psych bands these days, I think of droney and jammy stuff, a band like Cave maybe. They really have moved from conventional song structures, and compared to any of that stuff, Treasure Fleet really uses a bunch of conventions. But I’m just meaning to say, “psychedelic” is a label that the genre has sort of claimed as their own, and I don’t want to give anyone the idea that we sound anything like that. But I know what you’re saying. I mean, well, I don’t mean to imply that you are wrong to say that Treasure Fleet is psych, and in fact I’m very happy that you think so and take that as a great complement. So, I think there are two things. One thing that makes the music feels psych is just about tones and scales and stuff like that. Those are just elements that we lifted from classic psych, because we’re fans of that stuff. There was a time in the history of pop and rock in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s where loads of pop songs would get the “psych” treatment as a matter of production, just because that was the mode of the day. Like you could have the cheesiest pop love ballad and some producer would want to put a sitar and tablas on it just because that was the fad. And that trend set a certain palate, where whenever you hear some of those elements you think of classic psych. Early on in that era, probably what helped launch the fad, before psych went mainstream, was all the great classic mod bands that weren’t actually psych bands took a stab at making a psych record. Obviously The Beatles, but the Zombies too with Odessey and Oracle, The Who with Sell Out, The Rolling Stones with Their Satanic Majesties Request, The Kinks, maybe, with Face to Face. I don’t know, that one’s probably a stretch, but Pink Floyd too, obviously. I think with Treasure Fleet, that particular era of music just weighs heavy as an influence. Actually I should say, I love that shit. A lot of those psych conventions that were used in making those records have made their way into Treasure Fleet’s music, just because that’s what we’re into. For me, I know, I didn’t really start getting into contemporary music until like ‘91. Before that, I had a Poison tape, a Huey Lewis and the News tape, a Van Halen tape and that was about it. Before ‘91, if I wanted to listen to music, I listened to my dad’s records. My dad was huge into music when he was a teenager and he had a pretty great record collection. He was born in ‘52, so his teenage stuff was all stuff from ‘64 to ‘69 mostly. When he went to college, he got into the ‘60s folk revival like Dylan and Joan Baez and Phil Ochs, and then folk revival stuff from earlier, like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and the Weavers, so that was another big chunk of his collection. I was into that too, but the bulk of his other stuff is all just classic British invasion stuff. So those were the bands and the records that I grew up on, The Beatles, The Who and The Kinks. I think when I sat down to write these songs off the top of my head, that’s what popped out, that influence. And it was me alone recording, late at night, and I’m singing and doing harmonies all quiet so as not to wake anyone and it turned out real moody. And like I told in the story earlier of how I started writing these songs, that Todd had been playing a bunch of Syd Barrett and T. Rex, so that was just fresh in my psyche right off the bat. Then when we started playing these songs as a band, both with Bible Children and Treasure Fleet, everybody just picked up on that and went with it. Since then, we’ve started making more of a conscious effort to have this classic psych sound consistently in there. We’re doing it more intentionally now I suppose. Then the other thing I think that kind of makes it feel psychedelic is the way the songs come about. It’s something like this, if you ask a thirteen-year-old kid to write you a song, they’re just going to use all the structures that are familiar to them. They’ll probably use a simple or familiar tune and melody and start singing about things in their life and things they’ve probably heard other people sing about before. If you ask a seven-year-old to write a song, it’s probably going to be like some monotone thing about the things they’re experiencing right then, like “There’s a lamp, it’s on, and I hear the cars that are driving by outside.” If you ask a four-year-old to write a song, there’s a good chance they’re just grasping from the edges of the cosmos, anything they’ve ever experienced and couldn’t make sense of can be fit together to make something new. In that case, it’s going to turn out pretty fucking cool by my reckoning. When I started making those first demos, I was just forcing myself to sit down with an eight-track machine and spit a song out. I had gotten really burned out writing for The Arrivals, where I could come up with a concept for a song and take a year to figure out where the tune and the lyrics and everything could work. So, I just wanted to try something new by trying to be more spontaneous and using, whatever, the first thing that popped into my head. That’s the way I did it for the first twelve songs I wrote, before Bible Children was a band, before Treasure Fleet. Then later it got harder to do it that way, because I knew there was this band I was writing for, and I’d just have this tendency to want to write lyrics in a certain way, but I still tried to force myself to keep it more spontaneous. And that’s the process, don’t think about it. Don’t think about anything. Or at least don’t over-think it. Just go with the first thing that comes to you. You need to get back to your four-year-old brain. Like I think that’s where we’re all trying to get to when we’re doing drugs, we want to get to a place where the world is new and it’s more about sensation and stimulation than ideas. The universe is all right there in front of you, but nothing is connected in any pre-constructed way. It can be connected any way you like, any way you want to connect it. And that’s good for music, because so much in music is just purely physical, just sound waves hitting your eardrums, hitting your body. You don’t really need the ideas, you can put them in there later so that it’s intellectually entertaining, but it’s not what’s essential. And that’s good for art, because a lot of art is just putting things together that haven’t been put together before. I think that’s how the way I’ve been talking about, that’s how Treasure Fleet is kind of psych too, like you said, the mood, the vibes, that’s what’s turning you on, more than a story or more than ideas. And then there’s the fact that we have a lot of drug-themed songs, and in fact, with Cocamotion, it’s a whole drug-themed record. That probably makes it feel psych too.

Bill – Why did you choose to team with Recess Records for the release of this album?

Isaac – Well, there was never any question with this release. Todd said he wanted to put the record out before we even had a record. The one we did at Atlas, which we actually recorded before we recorded Cocamotion, won’t come out until later. We did honestly consider for a minute having someone besides Todd put the record out, I think in part because, well, I guess it’s kind of embarrassing to admit this out loud, but we were just worried that people who are into punk and only punk wouldn’t like Treasure Fleet. But we got over that, and anyway, Todd puts out stuff that’s all over the map and what we’re doing actually fits really well with URTC and Lenguas Largas, and even other stuff that Todd’s put out recently like Landlord and Big Kitty. The new ‘69 is going to be way better than the last one.

Bill – What are you most looking forward to regarding your upcoming tour with Andrew Jackson Jihad and Joyce Manor?

Neil – Playing for the kids. AJJ and Joyce Manor have a great younger fan base and we’re excited to play for them. The teenage years are the best when it comes to experiencing underground shows. You’re at an age when the world starts to open up and finding a community at a punk show is something that can change your life.

Isaac – Yeah, that goes double for me. I just hope they’re not all rolling their eyes at us every night.

Bill – Do you guys have anything planned in terms of a record release show?

Isaac – Yes, we’re definitely going to do one. Likely in May, when we get home from this tour.

Bill – What else does the band have going on this year?

Isaac – After this spring tour, we’re going to do a short stint out west, maybe just in California, sometime this summer, probably June. We’re going to record a seven-inch at Todd’s while we’re out there. Then hopefully put that record we recorded at Atlas out this fall. I expect we’ll tour once that’s out. Lots of stuff to do, we just don’t know when yet.

Bill – How do you view The Treasure Fleet? Is it more of a side project or is it fair to say that this band is currently everyone’s primary focus?

Neil – Treasure Fleet is not a side project. We’re busy people, but Treasure Fleet is something we all believe in and want to take around the world.

Isaac – I’m with that.

Photo by Katie Hovland

The Menzingers recently issued their debut album for Epitaph, titled On the Impossible Past. The Scranton, Pennsylvania band has toured extensively over the last several years, releasing a significant amount of quality music along the way, and as a result have become one of the most popular bands in independent punk rock. Their new record features improved musicianship and experimentation with different genres, yet simultaneously encompasses all the things that fans have come to love about the band. We spoke with singer/guitarist Greg Barnett and discussed the group’s new label, what recording the album was like and what some of its songs are about. We also talked about their recent shows in Australia, the various tours that they have scheduled later this year and more.

Bill – What sort of things transpired that led to you guys signing with Epitaph?

Greg – I wouldn’t say that we were going out of our way to find a new label, but we were definitely entertaining the idea. They were obviously our first choice out of all the labels that we wanted. They were interested and we sent them some demos and they liked them for some reason, (laughs). They wanted to do a record with us, so it was great. We flew out, met them and hung out. We decided it was a good fit and just kind of went from there. They let us do whatever we wanted, so we got to go back and record with Matt Allison again. It was awesome.

Bill – What are you most looking forward to regarding your partnership with them?

Greg – It’s pretty much just having more at our disposal. You go in there and there’s like twenty people working. You say, “Oh, what do you do?” and they’re like, “Oh, I do tour promotion.” That’s someone’s entire job, just that one aspect, which is crazy in this day and age of music. They’re so dedicated, everybody that works there, at making sure that every part of your band is successful. It’s something that would’ve never happened before that’s really great. They have a presence all around the world too. Our friend from Tokyo just bought our record at a record store over there, which is nuts. Things like that are so much different than anything we’ve ever experienced before. And Brett has been great too, (Epitaph owner Brett Gurewitz). He’s super helpful and the very first day he gave us his phone number and said if we ever needed anything to just give him a call. He’s been helpful with every little thing, he has great advice and he’s been doing it forever. He’s always there and it’s great that someone who’s so busy can take time out of their day for our little questions.

Bill – This is the second album that you’ve made with Matt Allison at Atlas Studios. In what ways was recording with him different this time around?

Greg – We had more time. We had three weeks for this one and we did our last album, Chamberlain Waits, in ten days. That was probably the biggest thing. It was also that Matt knew us. We’re going in already being friends with Matt, as opposed to just meeting him and he’s learning who we are and who we are as musicians. So, I think he knew a lot when we were coming in and he had a lot of ideas. He was really, really hands-on and we took so much time with everything. Everything was really thought-out and crafted-out. I think that was the biggest change, that we just experimented a lot more with him.

Bill – What aspects of the recording do you like best?

Greg – I think the drum sound is incredible. I think Joe and Matt killed it. It’s going to be corny to say that I like everything, but I don’t like one thing more than the other. I’m really, really stoked on the vocals and I think Tom did a great job. I’m not going to say anything about myself, but Tom did a fabulous job. Eric’s bass tone is also unbelievable. I feel that a lot of times it’s hard to get good bass tones on recordings, but I think Eric and Matt did a really good job there too. Eric used a lot of different pedals and he got a really deep and dark tone. We didn’t record the album live, but we kind of approached everything like we did. We did a lot of preproduction for it. We didn’t build the songs while we were recording them, they were written live and then we put them all together. It definitely has a raw, live feel to it and we wanted that emphasis of it being a live record. That’s what we are, we’re a live band. We wanted to make sure we could do everything that’s on the record in a live setting and not throw in ten guitars or something like that. It’s pretty straightforward in that sense; we wanted it to sound like a live album. I think it all came out great and I have a nice glockenspiel solo in “Gates.” I think I killed it on the glockenspiel, (laughs).

Bill – What kind of instrument is that exactly?

Greg – They’re like chimes. They’re kind of like a keyboard or a xylophone. I just hit one note in that song.

Bill – Speaking of the song “Gates”, it’s a bit more mature than some of your previous work, but still retains a lot of the signature characteristics that Menzingers fans have come to expect. What inspired this song?

Greg – Man, that’s tough. I kind of went into it wanting to write in my head what would be the perfect song about me at 18 years old. I thought about all that and I just threw everything I could in, like my best memory or whatever, and that’s what it was. It was just kind of the basic kid growing up in a small, shitty town. It’s a pretty average story, but I think that sometimes when you get a really average story it’s kind of like super-relatable. I think it means a lot more when you have things like that.

Bill – “The Obituaries” seemingly talks about the pressure that you guys are facing lately, given that you’re now playing to larger audiences and your music is reaching more people. Would you say this is a fair assessment of what the song deals with?

Greg – Sure, it’s basically like you’re about to sign to Epitaph and it’s kind of a pessimistic way of looking at the music industry and our personal role in that. There are so many bands now, it’s insane, and everyone’s putting out a record every year or so. You have to constantly stay current. It’s kind of depressing that music has become that way and people’s attention span is so quick now. It’s like we can do whatever, we can work our ass off and write what we think is the best possible record we can do, but in the end there’s going to be another record that comes out next week. It’s this pessimistic way of looking at it, like we can put everything into it, but in the end there’s just so much out there. How do you compete with everything that’s going on? The song is saying like, “Fuck it. Why look at it that way? It is what it is.” If it doesn’t live up to expectations or if in ten years people don’t like it, then they don’t like it, but we love it.

Bill – Both “Gates” and “The Obituaries” have somewhat of an introspective tone. Is this a theme that’s present throughout the album?

Greg – Yeah, absolutely. It’s definitely a nostalgic record in a sense. I think once you write one or two songs like that the others just kind of continue down that path. It’s like starting a book and you’re on the first chapter and you just keep going. It’s hard to do something different at that point. I don’t want to call it concept record, but it’s kind of like an accidental concept or a trend.

Bill – “Mexican Guitars” is one of the more personal songs on the record. It speaks of an old friend and a desire to get away from a bad situation. What motivated you to write this song?

Greg – It’s that exact thing. I don’t want to give away too much, I like to keep some of it open for interpretation, but it’s more kind of that I wanted to mix multiple people into one. It’s not just one person that the song is about, it’s about two or three people actually. I think it builds a better story that way. But yeah, it’s the same thing where you get yourself in shitty situations and sometimes you see your friends go different ways that kind of bum you out. That’s what the song’s kind of about.

Bill – You guys recently played a show here in Chicago where you opened for Rise Against at the UIC Pavilion. What was that experience like?

Greg – It was absurd. There were like 8,700 people there. It was the biggest show we’ve ever played, obviously, and I think it was about 100 people shy of selling out, which is nuts. It was awesome, it was just unbelievable. We had all our Chicago friends in town and got to hang out with them. It was cool to see Rise Against with their hometown crowd too, because it was absolutely crazy. It was a really fun show and my personal highlight of the tour. The first couple days of touring with them was definitely nerve-wracking, being up there in front of so many people, but then you kind of get in the groove and know what to expect a little bit. I don’t want to say that you get used to it, because you still look out and there’s a fuckin’ scoreboard in the background. You never get used to that, but you do feel a little bit more comfortable at least.

Bill – What was the most fun part about your recent tour in Australia?

Greg – We had so much fun there. I think just having Toby with us, (Red Scare Industries owner Tobias Jeg) made everything so great. We had seven days off while we were there, so we went to the beach a lot and got to see all the cities. We did fun, touristy sightseeing things and that was a blast. And the festivals, they just cater to you so well. You just hang around and they’d have endless booze and food, and you’d watch all the bands all day. Out of all the bands that we played with at these festivals, Marilyn Manson was probably the most fun to watch, he was unbelievable. He’s an entertainer and a frontman for sure. You go to punk shows and you don’t see that. The crowd had no idea what to do and they weren’t applauding at the end of his songs, because he was just blackout drunk and fucked up on pills. He was falling over and blowing out his voice. He had his personal assistant running back and forth, bringing him water, and right away he’d throw it on the ground and ask for another one. He was a mess, but it was awesome in the most ridiculous kind of way.

Bill – What else do you guys have planned in terms of touring this year?

Greg – We start a tour next Thursday in Pittsburgh and then we play Chicago on Saturday at the Beat Kitchen. It’s our first-ever proper headlining tour and we’re super excited for it. We’re a little nervous, but not really in the end because we’re just going out to have fun. We’re taking Cheap Girls and The Sidekicks with us, and that’s going to be great. I love both of their new albums so much. Then we go to Europe with The Bouncing Souls and we’re going to play Groezrock festival in Belgium. Then we come back and go up to Canada for Pouzza Fest. We’re doing two more dates with The Bouncing Souls as well, and then we go out on a summer tour that I can’t fully announce yet. We’ve never toured with The Bouncing Souls before, but we’ve played a couple shows with them and we’ve become really close. They’re great and their manager Kate Hiltz is one of our best friends. She’s just like the most wonderful person.

Bill – When you think about the future of The Menzingers, where do you hope to see your band five to ten years from now?

Greg – I guess just still happy and still wanting to do it. That’s what it comes down to. Whatever happens is going to happen, but as long as you’re having fun doing it then that’s all that matters to me. I don’t care if we’re still playing in front of the same amount of people, that’s fine with me as long as we can look over and we’re all not just doing it to get by or because we don’t know what else to do.

Photo by Katie Hovland

Dead Ending is a punk rock supergroup of sorts, featuring bassist Joe Principe, (Rise Against) drummer Derek Grant, (Alkaline Trio) guitarist Jeff Dean, (The Bomb, Noise By Numbers, All Eyes West) and singer Vic Bondi, (Articles of Faith). We spoke with Grant, who kindly agreed to the band’s first-ever interview, and discussed how the group got together, what they sound like and where their name comes from. We also talked about recording at Million Yen Studios, their newly formed partnership with Alternative Tentacles and some of Dead Ending’s future plans.

Bill – How exactly did the band form?

Derek – Jeff Dean was really kind of the pioneer and spearheaded the whole project. One of his bands had done a tour with one of Vic’s bands quite a few years ago and it seems like they hit it off then. They were talking about their love of older, early ‘80s punk and hardcore. I think at the time they had discussed maybe doing something together in the future. Jeff had worked on some Articles of Faith recordings, engineering them, because he engineers at Million Yen Studios. So, again he touched base with Vic and I think that kind of further fueled the project. Then sometime last year, Jeff, who I’ve known for probably 15 or 16 years, asked me to record drums for some songs he had written. He didn’t specify what the songs were for; as far as I was concerned I was just helping a friend out with getting some song ideas down. We recorded five songs, just drums and guitar, and a few days later he called me up and said, “Hey, I think we can actually get a band together kind of based around these songs. Vic is interested in singing and Joe from Rise Against is interested in playing bass.” With the exception of Vic, who I’d never met, it’s all people that I knew had common interests in musical tastes and whatnot. We’d all spent a lot of time playing in bands and traveling around, so it just seemed to make sense. It became something that we all got kind of excited about, but it remained a bit of a disjointed process for a while. Vic, who lives on the West Coast, came in and recorded vocals, and Joe came in and recorded bass on these songs that Jeff and I had already recorded. That became the EP that Alternative Tentacles is going to release. That was recorded in a bit of a backwards fashion, but we immediately jumped into rehearsing and writing songs together. Since then I think we’ve written another 14 songs. It wasn’t the most organic beginning to a band, as far as how everything was pieced together, but it made a lot of sense and since then it’s developed into a really cool working relationship between all four members.

Bill – Describe the sound of Dead Ending.

Derek – It’s definitely a throwback. You’ve got Vic, who was a very integral part of the early ‘80s punk scene, so you’ve got him bringing his experience and his tastes. Then you’ve got Jeff, Joe and me, who were all kind of raised on that era of punk and hardcore. We all appreciate the whole genre, but we each have sort of our favorite bands or our favorite aspects of punk rock. As we’re writing songs, because each member is contributing songs, there are a lot of different influences coming in. The sound overall, it’s not reflected so much on the EP that’s coming out, because those were all songs that Jeff wrote before everybody else was involved. But it’s a lot of different styles being pulled from different places; Circle Jerks, Bad Brains, early New York hardcore influences, it’s kind of like anything goes. The trick now is trying to figure out how to make it cohesive and make it all blend together. It’s hardcore in the sense that I would consider Black Flag to be a hardcore band. It’s hardcore in that sense, as opposed to newer or metal-influenced hardcore. It’s definitely steeped in early punk rock; really fast, short songs with Vic’s sociopolitical lyrics. It’s a lot of fun for me and it’s been a long time since I’ve been involved in a project like this.

Bill – Where does the band’s name come from?

Derek – It was a song that we had written after the initial five songs. It was like the third or fourth song that we wrote after that. The process, because Vic is the only one who lives in a different state, the writing process has primarily been Joe, Jeff and me getting together and working on our song ideas. Then we send rough recordings to Vic who puts lyrics to them. One day a song came back and it was titled “Dead Ending.” We had been throwing around a bunch of different band name ideas, which is a very daunting task. It’s been awhile since I’ve had to name a new project. There’s just so much out there and anybody can come up with a name for a band, make a Facebook page and essentially they have rights to it. It was hard to come up with a name that we really couldn’t find any trace of anybody else online using. Ironically my very first band, which was essentially like a Misfits/Black Flag cover band when I was 12, was called Dead End. That was my only hesitation when we came up with the name, it being too similar, but it’s kind of cool at the same time.

Bill – Would you say there’s a common lyrical theme with the songs that Dead Ending has written so far?

Derek – I would hate to speak for Vic, especially because I haven’t had a lot of time to spend with him. I would say at least a handful of the lyrics are pretty pissed. There’s a lot of fight in the lyrics, which is cool. It gets you fired up, it’s motivational. I’ve been playing with Alkaline Trio for a long time and Alkaline Trio is not a political band at all. Not to say that Vic only writes about politics or this or that, but it’s definitely cool to be involved in something where the message is a little bit more politically-charged.

Bill – Once everyone got together, was there anything that surprised you as far as how you guys interacted as musicians?

Derek – Not really. Jeff and I had played music together, just doing cover songs and stuff like that, so I knew what to expect playing with him. Joe, as long as I’ve known Joe and our bands have toured together in the past, we’ve never actually jammed or whatever. There was a bit of an adjustment, I’m so used to playing with Dan from Alkaline Trio and being locked in with his style, that there was a slight, maybe one or two rehearsals where we were trying to find a groove. Once you kind of figure it out, Jeff’s a great guitar player and Joe’s a great bass player, so it’s not difficult. It makes my job easy and everything just kind of fell in place.

Bill – What do you enjoy most about playing with the other members in this band?

Derek – First off, playing fast, short songs is fun. Secondly, the writing process has been really enjoyable, because there’s zero pressure in terms of what we’re trying to achieve. We’re basically just writing songs and trying to write cool parts, fun parts to play and not really over-think it. It’s not uncommon for us to get together to rehearse and at the end of rehearsal have three new songs. It’s been very refreshing and totally different than what I’ve been used to for the past 11 or 12 years.

Bill – Tell me about Dead Ending’s recording sessions at Million Yen Studios.

Derek – Well, the initial one like I said was a little disjointed because it was just Jeff and I tracking five songs. Then Joe and Vic came in and overdubbed their stuff. It lacked that kind of live vibe that I always strive for in the studio. The second recording session was basically just demoing the 14 or 15 songs that we’ve written since. The idea was just to get the stuff down and get a feel for how it sounded in the studio, and to give Vic a little bit better material to work from when it comes to writing his lyrics. We’re hoping to get back in the studio sometime this summer to actually do a full-length.

Bill – So just to confirm, the first five songs that you recorded are going to be the EP that comes out in May, and then you’re going to record an album later this year?

Derek – Yeah, the second session that we did at Million Yen will just serve as demos.

Bill – Cool. How’d you guys end up partnering with Alternative Tentacles?

Derek – Vic had a good relationship with them. They had rereleased the Articles of Faith catalog and had worked with him with his other band. We kind of shopped it around a little bit to get a feel from some of our friends that have labels, just kind of seeing where they stood on it. But it just felt right to do this first project with Alternative Tentacles. They were great to work with and I’d be lying if I didn’t say that putting something out on Alternative Tentacles, at least for Joe, Jeff and myself, is a pretty big deal and a pretty big honor. To be able to have something released on this label that housed all these bands that we grew up listening to is awesome.

Bill – Does Dead Ending have any shows booked in the near future?

Derek – Right now the only show that’s booked is Punk Rock Bowling in May in Vegas. We’re trying to arrange to do a Chicago show prior to that, maybe sometime in April, but we haven’t booked anything yet. We’re kind of right on the verge of figuring that stuff out.

Bill – What else does the band have planned for this year?

Derek – Well, like I said, we’d like to do a full-length this summer. Our schedules are pretty busy as individuals, but if we could make it happen I think we’d all love to do at least some short tours, maybe just some regional tours. We’re still trying to figure things out. Honestly, at this point we haven’t all four been in a room playing music together, so there’s a few things that need to happen before we get to the point of touring. But everybody’s really excited about the project and the songwriting has been a lot of fun. We’re just going to keep writing and rehearsing and doing what we’re doing until something happens.

Township’s name comes from both owners wanting something simple, as well as a title that represents community. It’s also derived from the fact that before Chicago’s borders were completely defined, the area west of Western Ave. and north of Armitage Ave. was known as Jefferson Township. Besides agreeing on what to call their business, Peterson and Haiderali also concurred that being located in the Logan Square neighborhood provided numerous benefits. “I have been involved in the area for 20 years or so and there are a lot of musicians, artists, foodies and likeminded folks that live in the area. We feel fortunate to have been able to do this at this time, in this location,” Peterson said. Haiderali added, “The clientele from my former restaurant were mainly residents of Logan Square. Brian and I are both entrenched in the Logan Square community and have participated in many events, like the farmer’s market and the Milwaukee Arts Festival.” When asked about why he’d want to start his own venue after years of promoting shows at different clubs, Peterson responded “I wanted to be able to have more control and be able to invest the money made from concessions into the future of the room, the shows and the overall quality of what we are doing. That tends to get lost when going into bars or venues where the owner is disconnected from what is actually going on. It can be a negative thing and reflects poorly on the work we are doing.”

This January, Township hosted the annual event known as Ian’s Party. It spanned three days and featured bands such as: The Brokedowns, Vacation Bible School, The Treasure Fleet, Lord, Sweet Cobra and more. Ian’s Party served as somewhat of an unofficial kickoff celebration for Township, and also introduced lots of music fans to the venue. “It was fun and a welcomed event for us since January tends to be a slow month,” Peterson said. “It was wonderful to have a ton of people who supported us while it was Pancho’s come out and see what we were doing and how things were changing. I felt we were able to give folks a glimpse of things to come and there seemed to be a lot of excitement about the changes.” In terms of what he likes best about the live music room at Township, Peterson said “The simplicity of it. We are trying to avoid all the bells and whistles of a rock club, avoiding the clutter, posters and random junk attached to every surface. I feel the bands should be the focus and the room lends itself to that, and will so even more as we progress and tweak the sound, stage and layout.”

Compared to other similar-sized venues in Chicago, Township aims to differentiate itself by keeping things simple and focusing on touring bands. They hope to provide quality while still offering low prices, and strive to someday be associated with noteworthy Chicago venues like Prodigal Son, Schubas and The Hideout. When speaking about what sets Township apart, Haiderali said “Township has a coffee bar, beer bar, specialty cocktails and quality food. One can enjoy a concert in the music venue area or enjoy it from our café counter. The experience at Township can be made to whatever one wants it to be and is not dictated by the layout of the premises.” According to Peterson and Haiderali, combining a restaurant with a music venue was something they always intended to do. “Tamiz and I have been friends for 15 years or so. He was friends with my wife, they worked together, and now he babysits our kids and comes to family functions. I loved Treat and we always talked about doing something bigger,” Peterson said. He continued, “I think with today’s economy you need to diversify and find ways to make a music venue all encompassing: food, drink, community, art, culture, family, punk rock – there is room for all of that here.”

Similar to Peterson, Haiderali also has two decades worth of experience in his respective industry. He’s worked in a variety of restaurants, from Jewish delis to high-end bistros, performing all functions and learning various techniques along the way. Eventually he would open his own eatery, a small Indian bistro that was praised by critics and the general public alike. “Treat was an Indian fusion restaurant in Humboldt Park that was around for five years. It was featured on Check Please and Hungry Hound, and with that came much popularity. We eventually outgrew the space and the restaurant was ultimately sold in April of 2011,” Haiderali said. “I brought some of Treat’s dishes to Township; however, the menu at Township is not Indian-influenced in its entirety, though some subtle Indian notes are prevalent in certain dishes.” When detailing Township’s menu further, Haiderali explained “Township’s brunch is like no other in the city. Along with standard brunch fare and omelets, the menu has specialty benedicts, pancakes and scrambles. The dinner menu currently is limited to a dozen or so items and mainly consists of sandwiches, but additions like rice bowls, seafood and flatbread options are in the works.”

Looking ahead, Peterson and Haiderali hope to see Township grow naturally and be embraced by the surrounding community. They also wish that patrons define Township for themselves, and thereby enjoy the space in a multitude of ways. “We want people to figure out what it means to them, we don’t want to label ourselves really. I feel that for some people we will be a coffee shop, for some a bar, for some a music venue and for some a café. It’s all good and eventually we’re hoping for more crossover, where music fans are coming to brunch and morning coffee folks are coming out to shows,” Peterson said. Haiderali expressed similar desires for the future, adding “We expect Township to grow organically. We want to be the premier breakfast/lunch place in the neighborhood, serving brunch items throughout the day, along with a proper coffee shop. Then, we will expand our dinners and late night menus. We also will have good wine selections, draft beer options and liquor from local and craft distilleries.” Peterson concluded the discussion of upcoming plans by hinting at additional expansion. He said, “We are hoping to buy the building eventually and create something even more unique, incorporating lodging, a rooftop patio/garden and a green space. But right now it’s all about slow, organic growth and reinvestment into small things that had been neglected for so many years with the old owner. We operate on very thin margins, but both Tamiz and I are creative, and we have a lot of support and help from friends and the community.”

Bill – What was it like recording your new album with Tom Gabel at his studio?

Ian – It was good. It was the first album he recorded there, so we were kind of breaking the place in. Everything worked really well and it was fun. It was in the middle of nowhere, so we were somewhat isolated, but it was cool being that secluded. The town where the studio is located is called Elkton and it’s about 15 miles outside of St. Augustine. The building used to be an old post office, but it doesn’t look like a post office inside anymore. There are only a few buildings in the whole town; there’s the studio, a restaurant, a car repair place and a Christian bookstore. It’s a pretty basic brick building that he just kind of gutted the inside of and transformed into a studio. We were there for about three weeks and really had a good time. It was cool because I feel like we were able to collaborate more with each other compared to on our other albums. We tried a few different things with the vocals and different guitar tones. We did some more stuff with multiple vocal tracks and stuff like that this time around. We were a little more adventurous I guess. I think we’re all pretty happy with how it turned out. Granted it’s still pretty new and fresh, but I think it’s kind of exactly what we intended to do.

Bill – Cheap Girls spent most of last year on tour and pretty much wrote all of your new record on the road. You were also able to test a lot of the material in front of live audiences. In what ways do you think this helped the songwriting process for Giant Orange?

Ian – Well, we always write and learn our songs at home. Since we never really have that long of a break, we’ll get a few songs done and then go back on tour. We’ll typically try one or two new ones on each tour. I don’t think it necessarily determined what went on the record this time around; they weren’t really tested in that sense, but this was the first time where we cut songs from the record. We recorded more than we actually put on there and were able to pick certain ones. These songs had been played a lot more, just in general, whether that was at practice or on tour. Where before, there’d always be one or two at the very last minute that were learned very quickly, sometimes even minutes before we started recording them. Every song on this one, we went into recording it and pretty much knew and were really comfortable with the structure of each song.

Bill – What’s the meaning of your new album’s title?

Ian – Oh, it’s just a punch line to an inside joke from a couple years ago. It’s a really long joke, but the name kind of stuck. It actually works well as like a standalone title and it sounds alright, so we just went with it.

Bill – How would you say the new record differs from your previous material?

Ian – I think it’s more thought-out. Even though we recorded more songs than we put on it, I think we knew a little more of what we wanted it to be in general. We wanted to have a little diversity between the songs, but also establish some common themes with the music. I think the record is a little longer than our previous ones, but I don’t think it’s like a long, slow record or anything. Overall, I would say the songs are a little more deliberate and more detailed.

Bill – Tell me about the album’s first single, “Ruby.” How was it written and what do its lyrics deal with?

Ian – Lyrically, it’s a little confusing. I’m not sure if it’s all that cut and dry. It’s a song that we wrote last winter and one that we kind of knew from the beginning was going to be one of our favorites. I know we were all really excited when we finished it. It felt good and it felt like we achieved what we were going for. We actually just made a video for that song with Travis Dopp from Small Brown Bike. He’s wanted to make a video with us for a long time and he kind of came up with everything. He wrote the story and filmed a lot of it in this antique shop in Marshall, Michigan. We just showed up for an evening and that was it.

Bill – Giant Orange is your first release for Rise Records. What do you like best about your band’s partnership with the label?

Ian – They’re very easygoing and they let us make whatever record we were going to make. They didn’t really ask to hear it or anything until we were done, like entirely done with it and mastered and everything. They put a lot of trust in us. They had heard demos of course back when we started talking to them about putting out the record in general. They were pretty trusting, so that was nice. They let us make a record and we just handed it in and they were totally cool with it.

Bill – What’s the music scene like in your hometown of Lansing, Michigan?

Ian – It’s calm, there’s not a lot of venues. They’ve got about two or three, if that. There’s like one main venue, this bar where we play all the time. Then there are always one or two others that are new or kind of changing. There are lots of bands and a lot of bands within bands. There’s a core group of musicians and they just kind of have a bunch of different bands. As far as bands that tour a lot, there’s not really too much of that.

Bill – Last fall you guys played Riot Fest in Chicago and opened for The Descendents and The Suicide Machines. What’s your favorite memory from that show?

Ian – That was a fun day in general. We had a lot of friends on that show, like The Flatliners and The Menzingers. We’ve known both of those bands for as long as we’ve been a band, if not longer. It was a cool day though. We played early and we all had a really good time playing. It sounded really good too. The day just got better from there. We got to see The Menzingers and The Flatliners play, and hang out with them and have drinks. I think the Rise Records people flew in for the show, so we hung out with them a bit. With The Suicide Machines being a Michigan band, we had grown up seeing them a lot, so it was great to see them and of course The Descendents too. It was a pretty unique, standout day. It was like the better parts of playing a three-day festival, but it was all focused in on one day. It was pretty cool.

Bill – What are some of the things that you’re looking forward to regarding your upcoming tour with The Sidekicks?

Ian – Well again, they’re really close friends and we just extended the tour. I think we’re going to go out for about six weeks now. It’s exciting to be headed out with people that we’re already really good friends with. I’m really excited just to be playing the East Coast. It’s kind of like a new start in a sense when you have a lot more songs to choose from. That way it’s never stale. You can play some new songs when you have a new record out, we’ve always typically done that, but it’s a lot different when the new record has been out for a little bit. That way people might actually be as much or more excited to hear the new ones as they are the old stuff. It’s like with each record the pool of songs to choose from just gets larger. It’s fun to have more to choose from that aren’t just fun for you, but for the audience as well.

Bill – What else do you guys have planned for the remainder of the year?

Ian – Well, we’re doing a full U.S. tour with The Sidekicks and after that we’ll probably head out west again. We’re on our way to a show right now. We’re actually playing with Smoking Popes tonight and were just talking about what else we might do this year. I’m sure we’ll play some more shows in the U.S. with some other bands. I think this is our first record that officially comes out worldwide. We went to Europe last summer and we’ve played there before, but I think we’ll probably go back before the end of the year. Hopefully we’ll play a few new places too and that should be exciting. I want us to stay busy in the sense of doing new things, rather than being on tour for the sake of being on tour. After a while it becomes pretty easy to do. You can usually hop on a tour and be gone all the time if you want to be. I think we’re more curious to see what kind of different tours we might be able to do. We naturally get offered a lot of tours that are pretty punk rock-focused, because a lot of our peers are all kind of punk bands, but I think we’re just curious to see what different bands we can tour with. We’re open to different music crowds and things like that, so we’ll be curious to see what that does.

Billy + Joe is comprised of Smoke or Fire singer/guitarist Joe McMahon and Vancouver-based singer/songwriter Billy the Kid. The recently formed duo began 2012 by covering one song per day for the month of January. They created both a Facebook and a YouTube page to document their work, and have since covered songs from bands such as: The Descendents, Rancid, Jawbreaker, Face to Face, Hot Water Music, Samiam and more. The pair has also written some original material and played a few shows, and plans to continue doing so in the future. Take a look at one of their videos above, a cover of Billy Bragg’s “To Have and To Have Not.”

Classics of Love started in 2008 and is of course fronted by former Operation Ivy vocalist Jesse Michaels. The band’s lineup is rounded out by the members of a group called Hard Girls and this debut full-length is their first release since a 2009 EP called Walking in Shadows. What’s evident after only a few listens of the new album is how much Classics of Love has developed over the last three years. The music and lyrics flow together seamlessly, showcasing four individuals that have grown quite adept at playing together. There’s also a definite and genuine sense of urgency found throughout the record, which is something that simply can’t be manufactured. It’s reminiscent of one of the characteristics that made Operation Ivy so great, but make no mistake, Classics of Love is indeed a unique band with its own distinct sound. Their influences include ‘80s West Coast hardcore, ska/punk and frenzied, fast-paced rock, but perhaps most impressive is the band’s ability to frame these various genres into one cohesive style. The production, courtesy of Jack Shirley, is raw and energy-packed, and really complements the songs. The lyrics speak of disenchantment, corruption of power and an opposition to various injustices, all of which are things that most can likely relate to nowadays. By all accounts, Classics of Love has made a comprehensive and highly impressive introductory album. Its songs are passionate and to the point, and in the best possible way, they leave the listener wanting more. Check out one of them below, called “Dissolve.”

Dead Ending is a new project from Jeff Dean, (All Eyes West, The Bomb) Vic Bondi, (Articles of Faith) Derek Grant, (Alkaline Trio, Suicide Machines) and Joe Principe, (Rise Against).

Photos by Katie Hovland at Million Yen Studios in Chicago.