The Honeyrunners - Dan Dwoskin

See what Dan Dwoskin of The Honeyrunners had to say about the band's music and get your copy of their Ep 2 from iTunes now.

What first got you interested in music?

Dan Dwoskin: Music mainly came from my parents, I'm sure it's probably the exact thing you've heard from all the other guys but every time I would drive to school in the morning, my dad would play classical music or, like, Neil Young and - I hated Neil Young when I was younger; I came around on it, because I guess I just never really understood it - and the big influence was them. I mean, I would listen to the radio in the '90's and you would hear some stuff that was good but you'd also hear stuff that was just terrible and you'd sit there and you'd think, like, I could definitely write better music than this and then you say that and then you gotta follow it up. So, for the last ten years I've been following it up; trying to get on the radio.

Which musicians are you most inspired by when working on new songs?

Mostly, we take a big page out of the soul book. We're actually really big fans of - and it's funny because you don't really hear of good soul work - but we take a big page out of James Brown and, like, a lot of The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Black Crowes: just guys who are kind of real heavy players who've been doing this for a long time and we look up to them. I mean, I'm a huge fan of Ray Charles, with how he played keys and put everything together.

What type of tracks have you got playing on your iPod now?

You wanna know right now? I'll try to be as honest as I can be.. Bob Marley with Mc Lyte "Jammin'" Remix - that's pretty good. And then there's, I guess, Raphael Saadiq "Radio" and Ed Sheeran "Sing", so not a bad mix.

What would you say the theme of the album is?

Escape. Escape, loneliness, death... The front of the album is a maze and it's a maze because a lot of the songs on the album have to do with either being in a big city or escaping a big city. So, we thought the maze is a good representation of looking at a big city like Toronto from above with its mazes and its back allies and all its little stories. A lot of the songs on it kind of are like.. for example, "Bones" is kind of your ideal 'get out of the bar and walk home super drunk and then having all these stories happen to you' and we don't really lay it out there one hundred percent, we want to leave a little bit to the imagination, but for the most part, that's kind of the [album's] story.

Is there a track that you're most satisfied with on this album?

I gotta say "Muse", the last track on the album, came out far better than I had expected it to. Like, I loved it, but I wasn't finding it to be the strongest track and in the studio we totally flipped it on its head and it's such a hard packed rock song right now so, I'm super happy with the album.

What makes for a great live show?

You've gotta have a whole lotta energy and you have to connect with your band, no matter what city you're in or how many people are actually in the room, you've gotta give her the same way every night.

Have you had any memorable fan interactions?

We had two girls come down from North Bay.. We went up to North Bay to play a university up there and at our CD release party two girls came, like, four/five hour drive to just come see our show and I was like 'well, we've never had that before' where someone has travelled that far to come see [us]. You know, it's happening more and more often now so it actually feels really good because it feels like you're actually building a fan base.

You've already released two EPs; have you got any plans for a full length album?

Yeah. The other guys would probably say no but I've been, you know, for the next thing we do, I would love to do a full ten/eleven song album.

Why would they say no?

We like the EP idea. You know, we came up with it because we realize that, right now, it's very much a singles market for music; people tend to buy one song off iTunes or Bandcamp or whatever instead of a full length album and we're very much, like, we're album guys, so we figure an EP is a good way to go. People get five, basically, singles for four or five dollars and I find that the songs on an EP, they all tend to go together, because you're not trying to cram it. You're not trying to fill the base, you're actually putting on songs that you feel are good and are very complimentary for each other.

How would you describe your music to someone who had never heard it?

We like to call it soul drenched rock and roll. It's very much inspired by bands like Alabama Shakes or Vintage Trouble and it just tends to be like the stage show is very wild and sweaty and people tend to lose their shit and dance and have fun and kind of just escape their everyday lives and the band actually has a lot of fun up stage too so I would say it's pretty good branding for us.

What do you most want people to take away from your music or the band's performances?

I want them to relate to it. I want them to be able to listen to the story telling we're doing and then, beyond that, to just feel the soul of the music, like the underlying rhythm section and the every part of it. You know, I remember when I first heard songs like "Rolling In The Deep" or, ah god, there's so many songs.. You hear that song on the radio and you just go crazy and you play it and play it and play it. I remember there was one by Jet called "Cold Hard Bitch" and I listened to that for, like, probably a year until I had to take it off because I was so sick of it, but that's what I really want. I want people to become obsessed with it because it just feels good, you know?

Is there anything you want to add or say to your fans?

The first single from the album is "Under Control" and we're going to put out a music video end of September and, right now, we're working on an American tour so that should be happening the first two and a half weeks of November and, beyond that, just enjoy the new album and thanks for everything.  

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Young Braves

Shropshire indie band Young Braves took the time to answer some questions; see what they had to say about their music below.

How did you meet?

Ollie: Well, me and Elliot are brothers and we used to play at open mic night where Jakob used to play as well. We used to be kind of almost rivals and one time me, Elliot, and our dad played this version of "Get Back" and Jakob just wanted us after that. He wanted us to meet and he called us up and asked us to come play with him. And then we called up our drum teacher and got Dan and that's it really.

You had already started to build a name for yourselves as Arcade Parade; why change the name to Young Braves?

Dan: Well, I don't know.. I joined the band afterwards and they were already, there were three people and they came up with Arcade Parade on their own. I mean, we carried on as Arcade Parade for a while and then I was learning about the American West in history and my history teacher said about how young braves were a tribe of Indians and I just thought that was a really good name. I put it to the other guys and they liked it.

Are you planning on using any of Arcade Parade's tracks on forthcoming albums?

Ollie: We're writing lots of new songs as Young Braves; we only recorded four songs as Arcade Parade so I don't know.. Possibly, but we've got more songs in the moment as Young Braves so it's probably likely that we won't use those songs again. We're looking to get some more, we've already recorded two songs as Young Braves, four songs even, and we're looking to do some more songs too, to put for an EP.

Jakob: We're not really looking for an EP before Christmas and then I think we're going back in to the studio to do a couple more singles. We're looking to release one track mid September.

If not music, what would you be doing?

Ollie: Um, I don't know. I mean, me and Elliot are still in school. I don't know about you guys.. Jakob goes to Uni.. What would you do Dan?

Dan: I would sleep in a ditch. [Laughter]

Do you have any stories from live performances you want to share?

Elliot: We played with Little Comets; they were nice. They took us to their dressing room and showed us around. There haven't been any really crazy stories but, yeah.. We talked to members of The Wombats at this festival that we played at.

Jakob: Elliot fell off a treadmill.

Dan: Yes! Elliot fell off a treadmill!

Ollie: We put it on the highest speed and then we told him to jump on it; we thought he'd jump and carry on running but he just jumped and went flying.

Dan: He went back against the wall.. Poor guy.

Is there a venue or festival that you aspire to perform at?

Ollie: Glastonbury would be a good festival.

Dan: I'd like to play at Rotherham festival.

Have you got any plans for a US tour?

Jakob: We'd love to but we need to get the money together.

Elliot: We have school still at the moment so maybe when we're older.

Have you got any favorite tracks you can't stop listening to?

Elliot: Oh, goodness gracious.. I like Additive.

Ollie: I'm liking "Where's My Mind" by The Pixies.

Dan: I listen to a bit of Fleetwood Mac and a bit of everything.

Jakob: I'd probably have to say something by The Talking Heads maybe "Psycho Killer" or "The Great Curve"; that's the stuff.

Is there anything you want to add or say to your fans?

Ollie: I didn't know we had any [laughter].. Just thank you. Thank you for taking an interest in our music.

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Butcher Knives - Ethan Cohen

Find out what banjo player Ethan Cohen has to say about Butcher Knives' multi-cultural sound 

What first got you interested in making music?

Ethan Cohen: I saw a huge cardboard cutout of Elvis in front of a guitar store when I was walking down Bleecker Street in Manhattan with my mom and I thought it was cool and started asking my parents for a guitar. I was eight so that was what started me playing music.

You've got a pretty large group of artists; how did you all meet and decide to make music?

I actually found them on the internet. They were looking for a banjo player who also plays guitar, lives in New York, and was interested in playing punk and world music; I don't think there's another instrument player who meets those criteria.

What words would you use to describe Butcher Knives' sound?

Eclectic, International, Raucous.

Have you got a favorite track to perform live?

Probably "Drunken Down"; I think it's a great song and we do an extended version of it when we play it live. It has, like, a kind of a fiddle break type melody, I guess I would call it a break down, that is a lot of fun to play. There's an audience participation part of it that everyone seems to always get into so it's one of the high energy ones; we go out into the crowd and stuff and I always enjoy doing it.

The music video for "Tell Me Why" is great; how did you come up with the idea for a short suspense film versus a regular music video?

Well, our singer/percussionist, Nacho, is a film maker - that's how he pays his rent - so he's always been very interested in film noir and he wanted to make a music video that was a film noir type; sort of somewhere in between film noir and Reservoir Dogs and that's how he wanted to do the video and we all thought it was a cool idea so  that's how he did it. That was shot and edited by him; the parts that have him in it were shot by his brother, but for the most part he did all the shooting: he certainly did all the editing and post production.

How does the album writing process work with so many different artists?

There's kind of a distinction in the creative process between the recorded product and the live show. The way that we play the song live is actually quite different from the way they are on the album. It's still in the same style, but they're tweaked differently. The songs are written, primarily, by Nacho and Nikko, who's the guitarist, and Nikko has a recording studio and they bring a relatively finished product to the band and then we, you know, obviously they don't play banjo, they don't play keyboard, they don't play drums, so they do everything on the computer and then bring it to the band and we finish it off like that. But the core of the songwriting is done by Nacho and Nikko.

So how are the tracks different live?

They are more punky and louder. For example, "Butcher Knives Unite" has kind of a pop vibe in the recording and it's actually programmed drums on that but, when we do that live, it's very much a ska song with rapping in various languages over it; there's also a bunch of singing in French and Arabic. Our drummer, Amine, his singing isn't on the album, but he does all of that live: in "Butcher Knives Unite" there's a long section with Amine doing Middle Eastern singing that did not make it onto the album or the extended part in "Drunken Down".

You know, we build in a bunch of stages for audience participation and, in general, we're not playing acoustic instruments, except for the accordion and the upright bass when we're on stage, just because it's not practical in those night clubs that we're playing. So, I would be playing an electric banjo instead of an acoustic banjo and using a distortion pedal so the net result is that everything is louder and more aggressive.

What would you be doing if you weren't in music?

Sleeping in a gutter [Laughs]. I play in a few bands and, if I wasn't doing that, I would be insane.

Have you got any new tracks in the works?

We do. We have a bunch of new material and we are going to be putting out a music video in the near future for "American Dream"; we just finished the third of three shoots and we've got some new songs that we're going to record pretty soon and we'll be looking at, probably, an EP or an album sometime next year.

What barriers have you run into as a musician; has anything held you back?

I wouldn't say anything necessarily holds me back; I would say there are some missed opportunities, but we just do what we're doing and do our best at it. I mean, I'm not measuring the success of my life by how much money I'm making playing music so, I wouldn't say there have been any major barriers.

As a band, I think one barrier is that we're not always singing in English. It's tough to bring that kind of music to the masses because it's not pop and it's not necessarily in English so I don't know how radio friendly it is but, yeah, we're a live band so that's all good.

What do you want people to take away from Butcher Knives music?

There are a lot of great musical traditions around the world and, though they might be extremely different from one another, they are always compatible and you can always take influence from a plethora of styles and traditions and genres. You can mix blue grass banjo with a French accordion and cumbia and punk rock and come up with something that's cohesive and the musical and cultural clash that happens in that can be a rewarding and beautiful result. 

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Rob Drabkin

Photo Credit Steve Rosenfield

Check out my interview with Rob Drabkin to see how his infectious personality comes through in his music.

How would you describe your genre or style of music?

Rob Drabkin: It's kind of this mix of rock and folk and singer/songwriter and I put in jam-band also. I mean, all those genres kind of have their own little, you know, immediate assumptions, but [the music] does have a lot of each of those elements.

What got you interested in all those different genres?

Hmm, well, I think that's more of like what just seems to come out. It seems like it's more of a natural thing than trying to, you know, go for one style or another. There's certainly influences in all of those realms;  there's just music I love in all of those genres and they all seem to come out in one way or another. It's not like I sit down and I'm like "I'm gonna make this a blend of folk/rock and improvisation and singer/songwriter all in one" so it's just kind of the music I love. If I'm writing music I love I think it will probably have some of those elements in there.

So your approach to songwriting is just sort of organic?

It is. It's usually the music that comes first, opposed to lyrics and, you know, I mean it's usually something that I'm having a fun time playing. It's like a little riff I stumbled upon or a chord progression and you kind of have to love that element of the music first and that's kind of what drives me to write the songs; there's some idea that I'm really excited about and I wanna bring it into a complete form. That's kind of my approach but, yeah, I guess it's like one percent for free and then I have to work to get ninety-nine percent of the song.

Little Steps was released in 2013; do you have plans for another album?

We're going to put out a live album probably in October. It's already been recorded and it was actually this past January that we did a nice recording of it and then, yes, we will go right back to the studio and start just dishing them out. It's just been a crazy promotion for this past year with Little Steps; it came out - it might have actually been exactly a year ago, I think, from the second it was released on iTunes - but we never actually really started to promote it and really push it out there until 2014. We've been kind of going strong on that; it still feels new, it still feels fresh to me it's just, in this day and age, you just have to keep one thing after another; there's not much of a rest time. I don't get to have three years before I put out another album, it's kinda got to be right away.

We'll do the live one; I love the doing the live ones cause it's just, I don't know, we put out a live album in 2012 and it did better than all my prior studio albums - this new album has done better than the live one - but it's just a nice treat and people seem to dig it. It definitely showcases the improv sections and the improv side of the band and I love it; I love live albums.

What's your favorite part about the album making process?

I think it is, when you, as soon as you finish a day in the studio or you finish a song or you've got kind of the basic structure and you go back and listen to it and you're really proud of how it sounds and it sounds new and it sounds fresh, that's the most fun to me. I mean, that's the gratifying part of it, when you're the first one to hear it, the first one to take it to your headphones and, when you're excited about it then I think that is, you know, you feel like you have something. It's cool in that it works. It's a bit of a scary process: you go in to the studio cause you don't know what it's going to sound like and you don't know how it's going to turn out - if we record it right or we're prepared to go in there - and then, when you get it back and you listen to it, I think that's my favorite part of the studio.

Do you have a least favorite part?

Um, a least favorite part.. There really isn't a least favorite part of it. I mean, I like being involved in every part from getting the sounds on the drums to, you know, recording all the parts that have nothing to do with me are totally the ones that I'm still involved with, you know. So I mean, I'm hands-on with every element of every beat and rhythm that is played: there really isn't a least favorite part. Sometimes singing can be the least favorite part. Sometimes there are songs that we get in one take or two takes and then there's song that I probably sang twenty times before we picked out the right part. I would say singing; I don't know why that is. I mean, I still love it too, but that can be a bit of a gruesome part - but not my least favorite in any way.  

Were there any tracks that were cut from this last album that you hope to bring back?

You know, no, actually. The way we did this album we recorded this one song at a time over the course of maybe eight or nine months and that was kind of unintentional; like, we go and record a new song, we go and record a new song, you know I wasn't about to record a song and then not use it. There were certainly ideas, things that we kind of started to record and just didn't go with it, but we never did a full on production and then just put these songs in the holding pen. That was a cool thing too; you sing one song at a time and it was really hands-on with my fans, as well; I would always release that version for friends on social media and whatnot and it was a good way to kind of keep your name out there and keep buzz going and building, doing it that way, it's harder to hold a track back once you're already kind of put it out there.

There actually is one song, there's a song called "Don't Worry About Me" on the album and that one actually appeared on an earlier album so, the exact opposite. It was a song that, you know, I had this kind of intention and it kind of insisted on being a solo kind of haunting, electric track with nothing else. Then, my bass player, he works with a lot of the folks at the symphony here in Colorado, and he just wrote this gorgeous string arrangement for it and it just had to be redone. I'm so glad we did it; I go back and to the older versions now and that was the only one we did twice.

What prompted that track?

You know, that was a guitar that I actually wrote in college and I used to play that lead guitar line but like ten times as fast. It was kind of a really upbeat jam-y acoustic track and I could never sing over it; I could sing over it, but it just wasn't coming across, it just wasn't quite feeling the way it needed to feel and so I think, one day while practicing - it was at these practice rooms at the University of Denver; I would always go there and record stuff there and write stuff and practice there - and I think I just started to slow it down and then I wrote the lyrics in a log cabin in the mountains, as cliché as that sounds, I totally did. When I go back and listen to that song, it does have that little bit of a haunting, lonely vibe to it and I wonder if I didn't do it in a log cabin in the middle of the woods in winter it would have a little different feel but it does have that. It's a bit dark and a bit haunting; it has those elements but also it's a happy song, as well. It does have that element in there and I always wondered if that came from me deciding to sing it and write the lyrics for it in the middle of nowhere. That was kind of unintentional but that element seems to be throughout the track.

I'm  sure a lot of people ask about "Don't Worry About Me" specifically, so are there any others from the album that you want to shine the spotlight on?

Yeah, well, what's funny: that song is kind of like, it's the outlier of the album in that it is the slowest and the quietest song on the whole album and there's a bunch of raging - well, not 'raging' raging - but there's definitely a lot of up-tempo rock songs on there. The video for ["Don't Worry About Me"] was directed by Dillon Novak who I've known for a long time and that was a song that he just really felt connected with and thought he could do a great video to so we just decided to do that. We have three more videos coming out for some of the more head-bobbing, rock in your face songs but, yeah, there's a song called "Little Steps" and "Down To Fate"; those are the two singles that we've been doing for radio and those are both, you know, "Down To Fate" is a bit of a more introspective song and then "Little Steps" is an upbeat, party song, I guess, is a way to put it.

Any new releases from other artists you can't stop listening to or feel inspired by?

I have this little Spotify playlist that is just like new songs I like. Um, trying to think what I have in there right now... You know, I just discovered - I think I found this band through Shazam, everyone else knows the band - there's a band called Beach House that I had never heard of before and there's a song called "Zebra" that I have kind of on repeat and it's just a beautiful song. It's got this amazing melody and I have no idea, I don't even know what the lyrics are in the entire song - I can't understand a word he's singing - but I love it. I think I'm going to need like another dozen listens before I try to pick apart the lyrics.

And then, another song I've been liking these days, hmm, I think I should go back and look at that playlist. You know, I just saw the band Lake Street Dive - I like them a lot - but I looked on their new discovery list and there was a band called Lake Street Dive and there was a band called London Grammar I like a lot. And then I like this performance by the band Bahamas.

"A Bird Lost" might be favorite off the album; what was the inspiration behind that track?

You know, that one started with a guitar riff and then it started with.. I kept envisioning this photograph. I can't find this dang photo anymore - it was on my old computer - but, it was this black and white photo of, just from the legs down, of this kind of wandering woman through a field and it was one of those things. I kept that picture in the back of my mind and there was nothing about the photo that evoked a bird, in any which way, but, you know, that photograph was in my mind the entire time; I need to go back and find that picture. I mean, I know exactly what it looks like but it was just this beautiful black and white photo and it was just the legs of this woman were clearly wandering, but with such a presence, such a force, and then it was just in this field where the winds were blowing and it certainly inspired me and certainly I definitely kept that image in the back of my head while I was foraging through lyrics. Yeah, I think that's where it came from, and when I think of the chorus I think that that photograph still resonate. It was one of those few photos that really just stopped me in my tracks. I think I just took a screenshot of it, that's all I had of it, and then one day I spilled some juice on my laptop and I lost my computer but it's still, like, I still have the drive so I think I can still check it out. I remember telling this photographer how much I loved this photograph but then she took the photograph away and I don't know where it went! I think it was just on Facebook, like in this Facebook photo album, but, yeah, at least for the chorus, that is certainly where that photo just still resonates.

What do you want listeners to take away from your music?

I hope people take away that there's definitely a lot of joy in it. It is certainly like a journey if you listen to the album from songs one through nine all the way through. It kind of starts in this dark place and then there's moments of joy and it feels like it's a very circular album; it always kind of comes back to a joyous place. It ends with the song "Feeling Good Again" and that was just a good way to kind of end the album; it just felt very circular. For listening to it, you know, I say dark, but really every song does have kind of an inherent joy to it and all the songs are so much fun to play live. I don't want people to take away the sad bastard songwriter thing from it, that's, you know, when people ask the genre I'm always like "it's upbeat! It's upbeat and it's happy and it's exciting". It's certainly joyous and that's what I hope people take away. 

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