Catie Callaghan
07/29/04, 07:24 PM
So, someone told you there was still talent left in Jersey. It's true. And believe me, this is not a statement I'd readily make for anyone now a days. As boring as this whole talk of scene and what it has been producing is, these kids are what one can only hope will be what we are to hear, now that Fred Durst caught on to the fact that scream-o sells.
Yeah, they were thrown together, for all intensive purposes, on a whim, and yeah, they're latest and freshman CD was written and put together in less time then it takes for your new issue of the Alternative Press to come in, but if my only complaint is that I hope the vocals stray further from their TBS stylings, (that have now become a little too current in the music industry for my liking) and if this recording is any inclination as to where they could be going, we have quite a bout of considerable listening coming our way.
Ap.net: How and when did you guys get together?
Treebo: We originally started as My Cousin Ray, which was a pretty popular pop-punk band around here and it was me Nick and Kerry. We left the band to further get away from the pop-punk and towards a more quality song writing. And we recorded a couple of demos and gave them to Anthony and Anthony picked us up and we didn't even have a band, like a name or anything. Then we found Tim through the guys at Maverick. He was a really good guitar player so we tried him out and the first day we knew we wanted him in the band, then we went in to record the album. And then we needed to play shows so we needed a second guitar player. Frank was just going to fill in for the one show and after the second practice we asked him if he wanted to play with us and that's how the band basically formed.
Ap.net: What's been your best experience as a band?
Nick: We've had some pretty good shows. We've been progressing as a band a lot, as opposed to, you know, we don't suck anymore. We got a lot tighter, our songs overall are getting a lot better. We learn how each other's styles all mix together. We're actually making some very beautiful music lately.
Treebo: I like making friends and these guys are my friends now. That's my favorite part.
Ap.net: How long have you guys been together?
Royden (collectively): Six months about.
Ap.net: What's been the worst part?
Tim: Recording that fucking album.
Kerry: I'm going to second with Tim here; that being the worst experience because we were rushed as hell and we had to go in the studio and record this record. We had a basic idea of what the songs were gonna be. We didn't have any lyrics at that time- at all. Tim came along and he made up parts and stuff. We wrote Murder of an Albatross like a day before we went into the studio. That was incredibly stressful I must say.
Treebo: I think another bad thing, since we didn't really have a full band and we didn't have a chance to push ourselves before we recorded. It was just like we were a new band with a new CD, out of nowhere. That was kind of stressful too. We didn't know if we were going to take off or if anyone was going to like it.
Ap.net: What are your overall feelings on the recording, how it came out, the product itself?
Nick: We're really happy about the way the CD came out. Again, we did rush through it and we didn't have as much time as we would have liked to spend on it, but for what we did we're very happy with it. Everyone's been pretty responsive to it. We're most excited about all the new stuff we've been doing because we just know each other a lot better and the writing is getting a lot better.
Treebo: The CD came out really good in the amount of time we did it in. We wrote it and recorded it in two or three weeks, which is astronomical if you think about it. It's kinda really weird, people don't do that. It's usually a three or four month process for that kind of stuff and we just rushed ourselves into it. I think we came out with a really good product. Some of the songs, we changed them up a little bit when we left but I think it's pretty good, I'm pretty down with it.
Ap.net: You guys were talking about writing, is there any specific aspect of your music you are focusing on to progress with?
Royden: -Rhythm. - Integrating different styles together. -And really pushing for good lyrics on every single song, not just throwing stuff together about girls and stuff, actually putting meaning in our songs. –Songs about things. –Yeah like robots and ninjas. –Space shuttle crashes. –That's not funny. –Haunted houses and girls committing suicide. –That's some interesting shit man: space shuttle crashes, haunted houses and dead girls. –Then it continues, Made in Lies is an anti-war song, nobody even knows that, they think it's about a girl but if you really listen to the lyrics it's an anti-war song. The Doolittle Raids is about a bomb raid in Iraq seen threw the eyes of a little kid, which is pretty intense if you think about it.
Ap.net: You guys definitely have a distinctive sound, from what influences do you draw it from?
Treebo: My influences mainly, are the world around me. I write from my feelings I don't want to write songs that are cliché. I don't want to write about girls and missing girls and stuff like that. Even though I do sometimes and it's gay.
Tim: I just try to keep an open mind about what I play and if something sounds good whether it's latin or funk or whatever, I just try to play it out and see what I can develop from it.
Kerry: Me, I don't know, I'm influenced by all kinds of stuff. I guess mostly modern music, post-punk rock. But there's this bassist I definitely take a lot of hints from, this may sound cheesy, but definitely the Police. Sting was the man back in the day. Now, I'm not so sure. He's kinda freaky on account of that whole Fields of Gold bullshit.
Frank: I'd say my main influences would probably be smokin' some weed, some Guns 'N' Roses and some Greenday, that about sums it up for me-and a gee-tar.
Nick: I have a lot of influences. I like jazz, I like rock, I like a lot of classic rock, dance music, a lot of drum and bass, jungle stuff, a lot of nineties grunge I like, Pink Floyd and Led Zepplin, fuckin' jam rock.
Ap.net: What do you guys think separates your music from the music that's out there right now?
Treebo: I'd say what separates us from other people's music right now is that we're not trying to have a certain sound. We're trying to just have a mesh of everything all in one and really make just rockin' music.
Tim: Even though we have general influences and stuff we still don't try to sound like anybody, we try to sound like ourselves, kinda.
Kerry: We wanna innovate not imitate. We just want to do something new and exciting- shit people still haven't heard. Bring fuckin' rock 'n' roll back. Bring the skill back in rock 'n' roll. Cause you hear that shit on KROQ, like those new-metal bands. –Yeah like Puddle of Mudd and smackin' asses and shit...
Ap.net: Who do you think the most over-hyped band is right now.
Royden: I don't know if we want to make any enemies right now. – Yeah, we're not answering that.
Treebo: The most over-hyped band right now, I'd have to say is Good Charlotte. I mean, for what they're doing they're good.
Royden: There's a lot of bands out there-you know who you are.
Ap.net: In a life or death situation where you could only choose one, would you rather have fame or fortune?
Treebo: It really doesn't matter to me. I don't care if I have either. I'd rather have people like us for our music and not think that we sold out.
Kerry: That would be famous.
Treebo: Well I guess I wouldn't want to sell out.
Kerry: You'd rather be well respected.
Treebo: Yeah, that's true I'd rather be well respected than have either fame or fortune. But in a life or death situation I'd take fortune.
Tim: Yeah, I'm down with fortune too. Fuck fame, I could really use some money.
Now came story time. They were not privy to tell us their particular experiences with alcohol or jumping off decks with umbrellas but Treebo informed us that they like to do crazy things when they go out such as trashing Anthony's (their label man) car, preceded by kicking him and pouring liquor on the nice young man.
Treebo: I mean our shows are pretty intense to begin with. We played with Hidden In Plain View and I just kind of just dove through the drum set and got surface burns on my back from the lights in the back and broke two of the drums. It just really hurt.
Kerry: And frank smashed a guitar on my fucking elbow. I ripped holes in my pants and bruised my fucking knee.
Frank: We've fallen a whole bunch.
Treebo: Last show I took a spill mighty hard. When we play we're out of control and I'm surprised we play so good.
Royden: It's not our intent to hurt the band.
Treebo: Exactly, but sometimes it happens. Sometimes we get hit in the face with microphones and stuff. And you know you go over afterwards and you apologize to their bleeding eye.
Nick: But we like to have a lot of fun when we play. Even if there's five people there we still rock out. We still try to play our best all the time.
Treebo: We get emails from kids who are scared to come up to us and they’re like, 'We're too shy to come and meet you.' And I'm just like dude, 'We're real nice personable people. We're not mean, we're not going to rip your head off and like spit down your throat.'
Tim: We're not like rock stars or anything.
Treebo: Yeah, exactly. It's because our live shows are so intense they're afraid to come up to us; that we're going to punch them in the face or something.
Kerry: We should just start punching everyone in the face.
Treebo: After our shows we look so dead. We're puking and bleeding and almost about to pass out. And I guess kids are scared to come up to us and be like, 'Good show.,' cause we just look like hell.
Ap.net: If you could tour with anyone who would it be?
Royden: The Muse. –Yeah, definitely. –But if we could tour with anyone it would definitely be The Who. –The Who of 1969 though. –Yeah, when they were beating people up. –When they were driving cars into swimming pools. –And fucking dying and smashing instruments. –And running over their friends.
Royden: Or At The Drive In, I'd love to tour with them. –Too bad they're gone forever. –I'd take a tour with The Mars Volta.-Them and Nada Surf, I'd definitely take a tour with Nada Surf, those guys are sick. -Coheed would be cool. –Or Hidden In Plain View cause they're all really close friends. It would be really cool to go out on a tour with people you're really good friends with. – Right now that's who we want to tour with the most.
Ap.net: What's your favorite place to play?
Royden: New Jersey! Except for the kids in the scene. It depends on where you play in New Jersey. It depends on where you play and when you play because a lot of times you get the scenster kids who just go to the show to hang out and why spend ten dollars to go hang out when you can spend ten dollars and listen to music. When I was fifteen, sixteen years old, it would just be out of control. You'd walk into a place and there'd be no name bands there and there'd be like a hundred kids there just going out of control.
Ap.net: When are you guys going to have the new stuff finished up for the full length?
Treebo: Septemberish. I don't know if we're going to put out a full-legnth, we'll probably put out another ep and save a bunch of songs for comps and stuff like that.
Ap.net: Who writes most of the music?
Treebo: We have five people writing like every single part because most of us can play of almost every single instrument, except for drums, Nick is the drum master so we don't have to do anything. Most the time it's us writing collectively.
Fun Royden facts:
-Royden is named after J. Royden Stork whom was shot down in the Doolittle Raids of WWII.
-Albanian guys with thick accents can't say Steve-O.
-They can't say blow-job either.
-God rides in white golf carts.
Ap.net also owes a very special thank you to Ricky Campos for contributing his questions, time, and driving passenger patience to the making of this interview.
Check out Royden at www.Roydenmusic.com (http://www.Roydenmusic.com) and www.purevolume.com/royden (http://www.purevolume.com/royden) . And if you have a chance to see these guys live, I do believe it will be money well spent.
Yeah, they were thrown together, for all intensive purposes, on a whim, and yeah, they're latest and freshman CD was written and put together in less time then it takes for your new issue of the Alternative Press to come in, but if my only complaint is that I hope the vocals stray further from their TBS stylings, (that have now become a little too current in the music industry for my liking) and if this recording is any inclination as to where they could be going, we have quite a bout of considerable listening coming our way.
Ap.net: How and when did you guys get together?
Treebo: We originally started as My Cousin Ray, which was a pretty popular pop-punk band around here and it was me Nick and Kerry. We left the band to further get away from the pop-punk and towards a more quality song writing. And we recorded a couple of demos and gave them to Anthony and Anthony picked us up and we didn't even have a band, like a name or anything. Then we found Tim through the guys at Maverick. He was a really good guitar player so we tried him out and the first day we knew we wanted him in the band, then we went in to record the album. And then we needed to play shows so we needed a second guitar player. Frank was just going to fill in for the one show and after the second practice we asked him if he wanted to play with us and that's how the band basically formed.
Ap.net: What's been your best experience as a band?
Nick: We've had some pretty good shows. We've been progressing as a band a lot, as opposed to, you know, we don't suck anymore. We got a lot tighter, our songs overall are getting a lot better. We learn how each other's styles all mix together. We're actually making some very beautiful music lately.
Treebo: I like making friends and these guys are my friends now. That's my favorite part.
Ap.net: How long have you guys been together?
Royden (collectively): Six months about.
Ap.net: What's been the worst part?
Tim: Recording that fucking album.
Kerry: I'm going to second with Tim here; that being the worst experience because we were rushed as hell and we had to go in the studio and record this record. We had a basic idea of what the songs were gonna be. We didn't have any lyrics at that time- at all. Tim came along and he made up parts and stuff. We wrote Murder of an Albatross like a day before we went into the studio. That was incredibly stressful I must say.
Treebo: I think another bad thing, since we didn't really have a full band and we didn't have a chance to push ourselves before we recorded. It was just like we were a new band with a new CD, out of nowhere. That was kind of stressful too. We didn't know if we were going to take off or if anyone was going to like it.
Ap.net: What are your overall feelings on the recording, how it came out, the product itself?
Nick: We're really happy about the way the CD came out. Again, we did rush through it and we didn't have as much time as we would have liked to spend on it, but for what we did we're very happy with it. Everyone's been pretty responsive to it. We're most excited about all the new stuff we've been doing because we just know each other a lot better and the writing is getting a lot better.
Treebo: The CD came out really good in the amount of time we did it in. We wrote it and recorded it in two or three weeks, which is astronomical if you think about it. It's kinda really weird, people don't do that. It's usually a three or four month process for that kind of stuff and we just rushed ourselves into it. I think we came out with a really good product. Some of the songs, we changed them up a little bit when we left but I think it's pretty good, I'm pretty down with it.
Ap.net: You guys were talking about writing, is there any specific aspect of your music you are focusing on to progress with?
Royden: -Rhythm. - Integrating different styles together. -And really pushing for good lyrics on every single song, not just throwing stuff together about girls and stuff, actually putting meaning in our songs. –Songs about things. –Yeah like robots and ninjas. –Space shuttle crashes. –That's not funny. –Haunted houses and girls committing suicide. –That's some interesting shit man: space shuttle crashes, haunted houses and dead girls. –Then it continues, Made in Lies is an anti-war song, nobody even knows that, they think it's about a girl but if you really listen to the lyrics it's an anti-war song. The Doolittle Raids is about a bomb raid in Iraq seen threw the eyes of a little kid, which is pretty intense if you think about it.
Ap.net: You guys definitely have a distinctive sound, from what influences do you draw it from?
Treebo: My influences mainly, are the world around me. I write from my feelings I don't want to write songs that are cliché. I don't want to write about girls and missing girls and stuff like that. Even though I do sometimes and it's gay.
Tim: I just try to keep an open mind about what I play and if something sounds good whether it's latin or funk or whatever, I just try to play it out and see what I can develop from it.
Kerry: Me, I don't know, I'm influenced by all kinds of stuff. I guess mostly modern music, post-punk rock. But there's this bassist I definitely take a lot of hints from, this may sound cheesy, but definitely the Police. Sting was the man back in the day. Now, I'm not so sure. He's kinda freaky on account of that whole Fields of Gold bullshit.
Frank: I'd say my main influences would probably be smokin' some weed, some Guns 'N' Roses and some Greenday, that about sums it up for me-and a gee-tar.
Nick: I have a lot of influences. I like jazz, I like rock, I like a lot of classic rock, dance music, a lot of drum and bass, jungle stuff, a lot of nineties grunge I like, Pink Floyd and Led Zepplin, fuckin' jam rock.
Ap.net: What do you guys think separates your music from the music that's out there right now?
Treebo: I'd say what separates us from other people's music right now is that we're not trying to have a certain sound. We're trying to just have a mesh of everything all in one and really make just rockin' music.
Tim: Even though we have general influences and stuff we still don't try to sound like anybody, we try to sound like ourselves, kinda.
Kerry: We wanna innovate not imitate. We just want to do something new and exciting- shit people still haven't heard. Bring fuckin' rock 'n' roll back. Bring the skill back in rock 'n' roll. Cause you hear that shit on KROQ, like those new-metal bands. –Yeah like Puddle of Mudd and smackin' asses and shit...
Ap.net: Who do you think the most over-hyped band is right now.
Royden: I don't know if we want to make any enemies right now. – Yeah, we're not answering that.
Treebo: The most over-hyped band right now, I'd have to say is Good Charlotte. I mean, for what they're doing they're good.
Royden: There's a lot of bands out there-you know who you are.
Ap.net: In a life or death situation where you could only choose one, would you rather have fame or fortune?
Treebo: It really doesn't matter to me. I don't care if I have either. I'd rather have people like us for our music and not think that we sold out.
Kerry: That would be famous.
Treebo: Well I guess I wouldn't want to sell out.
Kerry: You'd rather be well respected.
Treebo: Yeah, that's true I'd rather be well respected than have either fame or fortune. But in a life or death situation I'd take fortune.
Tim: Yeah, I'm down with fortune too. Fuck fame, I could really use some money.
Now came story time. They were not privy to tell us their particular experiences with alcohol or jumping off decks with umbrellas but Treebo informed us that they like to do crazy things when they go out such as trashing Anthony's (their label man) car, preceded by kicking him and pouring liquor on the nice young man.
Treebo: I mean our shows are pretty intense to begin with. We played with Hidden In Plain View and I just kind of just dove through the drum set and got surface burns on my back from the lights in the back and broke two of the drums. It just really hurt.
Kerry: And frank smashed a guitar on my fucking elbow. I ripped holes in my pants and bruised my fucking knee.
Frank: We've fallen a whole bunch.
Treebo: Last show I took a spill mighty hard. When we play we're out of control and I'm surprised we play so good.
Royden: It's not our intent to hurt the band.
Treebo: Exactly, but sometimes it happens. Sometimes we get hit in the face with microphones and stuff. And you know you go over afterwards and you apologize to their bleeding eye.
Nick: But we like to have a lot of fun when we play. Even if there's five people there we still rock out. We still try to play our best all the time.
Treebo: We get emails from kids who are scared to come up to us and they’re like, 'We're too shy to come and meet you.' And I'm just like dude, 'We're real nice personable people. We're not mean, we're not going to rip your head off and like spit down your throat.'
Tim: We're not like rock stars or anything.
Treebo: Yeah, exactly. It's because our live shows are so intense they're afraid to come up to us; that we're going to punch them in the face or something.
Kerry: We should just start punching everyone in the face.
Treebo: After our shows we look so dead. We're puking and bleeding and almost about to pass out. And I guess kids are scared to come up to us and be like, 'Good show.,' cause we just look like hell.
Ap.net: If you could tour with anyone who would it be?
Royden: The Muse. –Yeah, definitely. –But if we could tour with anyone it would definitely be The Who. –The Who of 1969 though. –Yeah, when they were beating people up. –When they were driving cars into swimming pools. –And fucking dying and smashing instruments. –And running over their friends.
Royden: Or At The Drive In, I'd love to tour with them. –Too bad they're gone forever. –I'd take a tour with The Mars Volta.-Them and Nada Surf, I'd definitely take a tour with Nada Surf, those guys are sick. -Coheed would be cool. –Or Hidden In Plain View cause they're all really close friends. It would be really cool to go out on a tour with people you're really good friends with. – Right now that's who we want to tour with the most.
Ap.net: What's your favorite place to play?
Royden: New Jersey! Except for the kids in the scene. It depends on where you play in New Jersey. It depends on where you play and when you play because a lot of times you get the scenster kids who just go to the show to hang out and why spend ten dollars to go hang out when you can spend ten dollars and listen to music. When I was fifteen, sixteen years old, it would just be out of control. You'd walk into a place and there'd be no name bands there and there'd be like a hundred kids there just going out of control.
Ap.net: When are you guys going to have the new stuff finished up for the full length?
Treebo: Septemberish. I don't know if we're going to put out a full-legnth, we'll probably put out another ep and save a bunch of songs for comps and stuff like that.
Ap.net: Who writes most of the music?
Treebo: We have five people writing like every single part because most of us can play of almost every single instrument, except for drums, Nick is the drum master so we don't have to do anything. Most the time it's us writing collectively.
Fun Royden facts:
-Royden is named after J. Royden Stork whom was shot down in the Doolittle Raids of WWII.
-Albanian guys with thick accents can't say Steve-O.
-They can't say blow-job either.
-God rides in white golf carts.
Ap.net also owes a very special thank you to Ricky Campos for contributing his questions, time, and driving passenger patience to the making of this interview.
Check out Royden at www.Roydenmusic.com (http://www.Roydenmusic.com) and www.purevolume.com/royden (http://www.purevolume.com/royden) . And if you have a chance to see these guys live, I do believe it will be money well spent.