Steal Away

Catch up with Matt Babers of San Diego-based trio Steal Away and listen to the band's new single, "Flower Shop" featuring Brooke Ehlert, out now.

What got you guys interested in starting a band?

Matt: We've been playing together since we were little kids. My mom was always in bands and all of that stuff, so she got us into orchestra and band when we were really young in elementary school and as we were getting older into middle school, one of my friends gave me a Jimi Hendrix CD of his greatest hits and that was pretty much it. I was in 7th grade and my brother was in 6th grade and I came home, put the headphones on his head, and was like, 'listen to this!' and we just both started freaking out listening to "Purple Haze" and "Fire". Then we just started playing guitar and messing around and trying to imitate all of our favorite people ourselves and, by the time we got to high school, we were able to actually write a song and started playing a little bit more. We grew up in Tucson, Arizona and once we graduated high school we came out to California to give it a shot and see what we could make out of being in a real band [laughs] instead of just messing around like when we were kids. 

Do you remember the first song you guys wrote?

Let me think... I mean, not really... Actually [laughs], yeah I do remember - it had a funny name. It was called "Benjamin Franklin's Key" and we thought that was a cool name because I thought it was like Benjamin Franklin's key that he actually tied to the kite and my brother was a little bit more musically inclined and thought that it was the key you were playing in type of thing, so he thought that was a cool play on words. I actually forgot about that up until just now but, yeah, I guess that was one of our first songs and it was this little punk rocky song. Now that you've mentioned it, we can probably still play it but, yeah, that was one of the ones that we first wrote. We always just forget about one song after the other when we come up with another one, but that was probably the one that started it all off and I always remember that because it had that funny, weird name, "Benjamin Franklin's Key".

Where does your name, Steal Away, come from?

We're huge classic rock fans, like I was saying. Right after we got into Jimi Hendrix and got into high school, we got obsessed with Led Zeppelin and there's a song called "How Many More Times" and there's a famous live rendition of it and they have a breakdown in the middle of the song and Robert Plant just goes into a vocal solo and he yells, 'steal away, steal away my baby,' and it's sort of like an old blues phrase - a lot of guys used to say, 'steal away to Jesus,' or that type of thing and it was an old blues guitar, Robert Johnson type of thing - and Led Zeppelin were always big blues guys. I was growing up watching these live performances of Led Zeppelin and they would always say 'steal away' in the middle of one of my favorite songs and I always just thought that was the coolest little two name phrase and I figured anybody that was as obsessed with Led Zeppelin as we were would be able to figure out the little code there and we'd be able to identify our friends anywhere we went if they could pick that out.

Other than Hendrix or Zeppelin, which musicians would you say you've been influenced by?

Growing up it was a lot of classic rock stuff like Tom Petty, Queen, The Eagles - in addition to Hendrix and Zeppelin - and stuff like that. As we were getting a little bit older, we grew up right in the heart of that 90's super pop rocky stuff, but we actually listened to more of the harder stuff like The Offspring, Third Eye Blind, The Spin Doctors, Blues Travelers, and a lot of that really good, not too hard core, good, solid rock music. We're kind of classic rock weird guys, so pretty much anything where they're playing guitars, hitting real drums, and do a good live show.

Any current artist you're hooked on?

As far as just really big ones, probably Kings Of Leon - I'm all about those guys. A lot of the local San Diego bands around here are doing some great stuff. I have a massive list of all the music I'm listening to but everything at the top of my list is just nothing but all this old classic stuff like Bowie and Rush... Elle King I actually really like - she's got that song "America's Sweetheart" - she's kind of like a folk rocker chick. I just like a lot of that folk rocky stuff like Edward Sharpe and, if you wanted to go super folk rocky, Mumford & Sons, stuff like that. Pretty much anybody that's keeping it a little bit more authentic as far as their instrument selections. Anybody that's playing a guitar and writing and singing, even if they can't play or sing that well, I'd rather just listen to somebody that's really trying to put their heart out and do something real with it. There's a lot of what I call 'disposable music' stuff coming out, as far as the pop rap genres and really, really pop-y stuff, so anything that's writing and singing and playing, we're pretty much into it.

What words would you use to describe your own sound?

I had it written down just 'cause it was funny the way somebody said it one time: a catchy blues based surf punk pop rock type of sound. I thought that was funny because it was pretty descriptive as far as pulling words from every genre, but I like that. All of my lyrics are pretty catchy and fun to sing along with and it's always nice to express yourself and the deeper, darker things that you've got going on but, for the most part, we like to make music that makes people happy and is fun to sing along to or play and lighten everybody's mood and take everybody out of the stuff that they're dealing with day in and day out. Some of the songs that we listen to, like Lana Del Rey or whoever it is, have these really heavy songs and it's relatable and definitely touching, but it's a little too much at times. We like to have a simple poignancy in our sound and our style; make it relatable, make it authentic but, at the same time, try to cheer everybody up a little bit, even if it's depressing.

What was your inspiration behind your single, "Flower Shop"?

My brother Chris wrote that one and [laughs] we actually give a posthumous credit to our old dog that passed away. We used to have a really killer dog and he used to sleep in my brother's room and my brother was writing a song in his room and came up with this weird version of the B chord that "Flower Shop" starts on and he was just playing it in an odd way in a weird place on the neck and found that little melody that's the basis for the song and he said that the dog's ears perked up and that's when he knew it was a good song and that was a done deal. He was just writing that one just trying to touch on the eternal struggle of every girl or every guy that has that person they have a crush on. It's not too big of a deal in real life, but when you're actually thinking about going to get some flowers and trying to make a move or let somebody know how you feel, it's actually pretty intimidating and it's that type of thing that people always have to deal with, no matter how old or young they are. He was going along, playing this melody, and he just wanted to extrapolate that little idea of always being having to be scared of going to get a girl flowers and everything that goes along with that. Then, we came up with that girl/guy dynamic of picking flowers up at the flower shop instead of actually just giving the flowers to the person and I guess that was the metaphor we wanted to go with: all they gotta do is just give the flowers to the other person and the other person is thinking the exact same thing and they're just a little too scared to bridge that gap but, hopefully, they end up together. I feel like that's the story of everybody's life.

Can you tell us more about your video for "Flower Shop"?

It's just me, my brother, and Brooke Ehlert, who we filmed it with - she's the girl that we featured. I was buddies with her older brother and we used to hang out a lot and he told me, 'dude, my sister's got a killer voice,' so we chose to sing with her and she was absolutely incredible and we cut that song and it only took us one or two sessions and she was awesome. We ended up filming the video and we did it at the Newport with some guys up there that are doing a lot of good work and hopefully he'll be making a name for himself - Erick Sanchez directed that video. I think we're going to have an exclusive release and then we're going to release it worldwide.

What do you hope listeners are able to take away from your music?

I just like people to know what we're going for is relatability on a real, real level. Whenever we're listening to music that we like, it makes you feel like you're not the only one in whatever fashion that may be; whether it's a love song or a sad song or a happy song, everybody likes to know that somebody out there is feeling the way they feel and it's always nice if somebody can put it in a way that's figured out how to phrase it a little bit better than you did and I just want to put out music that really makes people feel like they have a voice in it also. That's what we're going for and our songs are everybody's songs and when we write them we like to say we find the songs. They're already out there and all we have to do is uncover them and everybody else in the world has whatever it is inside of them that will identify with and get them excited about that too. All we gotta do is just go out there and find that song, show it to everybody else, and I always feel like, deep down inside, some part of somebody everywhere is going to have that same sort of reaction. We just really like to make sure that everybody can take something away in that regard, that they're not the only one to feel some way and somebody is out there feeling the same way that they do.

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RYNO

Look for New York-based electro-pop rock artist RYNO to release his EP, The Pervade, later this year and listen to his single "I'll Take Forever" now.

What got you interested in music?

RYNO: Initially, it was sort of second nature because I was born into it. My dad is a vocal and theater teacher so I grew up with singing and my mom's also a singer - she plays guitar - and the two of them were part of a folk group and also sang in church. I grew up with my mom and dad singing together and, on top of that, I'm the youngest of four boys and all of my brothers are musicians; even at the times when they're not playing the part of musician, they're very, very strong music critics [laughs], so I was born into a lot of music. I wasn't pushed into it because my parents did a really good job of not being stage parents; as much as they were into stage and theater, my dad was very passive about it and was like, 'okay, if you enjoy it, try it,' whereas a lot of other parents are like, 'you need to do this, you need to do this,' [laughs] so they're really good about that. Naturally, I expressed my interest, especially as a kid, with baseball; I was obsessed, obsessed [laughs]. Living now in New York is a warm and fuzzy feeling with me being so close to Yankee stadium, but that was my infatuation as a kid.

Do you remember the first song you wrote that you were happy with?

That's funny because, actually, the first one I wrote I still break out once in a while. I started writing real young just 'cause I was in bands from the time I was in middle school, so I started writing in 8th or 9th grade and I wrote a song called "Brand New Eternity" with a friend of mine, John - John now performs with the symphony in San Diego and he's a percussionist and he's doing incredible things every time we catch up - he and I wrote our first few songs together. We wrote lyrics together but he liked to do poems more and I liked to do the melody and hook and stuff like that. We would piece together some stuff that we write together and it inspired me at a young age to just dive in and start writing all the time, so the first song I ever wrote was called "Brand New Eternity" and I actually do love it. It's very, very easy - as everybody's first song is - it's two chords but it's something that I still come back to today and will sit down with the acoustic guitar and start playing it; I really like the melody.

Which musicians would you say you've been influenced by?

That obviously changes upon the day but, growing up in a household of musicians with music being jammed down my throat whether I liked it or not [laughs], but I seem to attach most with my oldest brother's taste of music; he was very, very into The Police and bands like XTC and The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds was incredibly influential. My other brothers, the two middle brothers, were a bit more into the rock alternative, a bit more of the heavier sound, and I took from that and I learned from that; the artistic freedom of groups like Faith No More and these bands that have no limitations and do radical things. The band that struck me the most of that nature was The Clash. I would, honestly, out of all the influences, probably say The Police, The Clash, and The Beach Boys - just because my mom was the one who really loved The Beach Boys and she got my brothers turned onto The Beach Boys at a young age. Pet Sounds and London Calling were both actually very influential to me at a young age.

Are you hooked on any current artists?

Yeah, I thrive on trying to find different music and not just music that's popular; I like to listen to a little bit of everything and keep my ears fresh. I'm doing a little bit of self-producing now, so I'm producing my record on my own at my studio - I have a studio in midtown that I go and work at - but there's groups that definitely spark my ears that are of newer nature, as well. The 1975, their stuff is really interesting; I love what they're doing, I love the production elements of their records. They've got such a Peter Gabriel/David Bowie influence and I love hearing that in their stuff. A group I just saw two nights ago in New York, St. Lucia, I loved their show and I had a chance to meet the singer a couple months back and just had a nice chat with him. It was cool because he and I come from a similar world where we've always been rock band dudes and we've been with bands - and St. Lucia's obviously a band - but I was just really picking his brain about the world of electronics and the world of DJing. My project can lend itself to a bit more of a synth-pop-electronic thing and I'm implementing some of that into the live set, so we were talking about that. We both came from the same place where we'd always been band people, we're not purely electronic guys, so I really channeled that conversation he and I had and I really loved their show. I also love and had such a good time at the Walk The Moon show. Those groups are definitely more contemporary, newer groups that I'm really, really channeling to what I'm into today. I feel like everything has that underlying influence from the past, which I think is important when I'm crafting a new show to be like, 'cool, I can feel these moments of London Calling coming out,' if there's stuff that's really raw or over the top but then surrounding it with contemporary sounds in the nature of St. Lucia or The 1975.

How would you describe your sound?

It's sort of electro-pop rock. It's definitely got an electronic, synth underbed, but then it's a pop rock driving. It still has live drums and live piano. Electro-pop rock is what we're calling it, but it lends itself to the world of synth-pop rock.

Could you tell us more about your inspirations behind your single, "I'll Take Forever"?

"I'll Take Forever" was a cool process on writing the song - I'll tell you about the backend of it. My friend Scott is the MD for Jennifer Nettles and also works for Sugarland, so we have this writing team, Scott and my friend Mark Jackson - who's like a music supervisor in LA - and the three of us actually wrote a couple of songs off the EP together, but all via emails. It was really interesting, it was the first time I'd ever written a song purely via email. I wrote a hook and a concept and fired off this real easy demo of it and I sent it to the guys and they sent me back ideas and I sent them a version of that, so it was really cool. It was the first time I'd ever done that because, again, I come from a rock band world where I come from rehearsal space with a couple of dudes and we just kind of craft something, but this was a really nice opportunity that I wanted to try and I actually have really enjoyed, since then, trying to craft songs that way. I know it seems impersonal, but it's actually a very interesting way of exposing your personality; it's a very vulnerable situation to be in a writing session. Being in a room with a few writers, you have to let your guard down, so this is an interesting way of doing that, because I let my guard entirely down while writing these songs, but I did it in a room where I could express it very purely and very honestly where it wasn't influenced at all by my surroundings or who was around, so it's very different and I actually was quite inspired by it. It liked it, it was fun, I still enjoy getting in a room with folks and songwriting, but the process of crafting the song via email was cool. 

The song itself came out of nowhere. The actual meaning of the song is basically about that a bit, where it's about exposing yourself and that feeling of humility you can get when that happens; it's about not taking those moments too seriously, not taking those moments too heavily, and just pushing forward for you and not letting life pass you by. That's the inspiration behind the video for it too. We did this thing where we slowed down the pace of the actual filming so everything that's happening around me is at rapid speed, but I'm moving at normal speed. It was cool because it was an interesting interpretation of the lyric. The meaning is just, don't let life happen around you, grip it and make what you want out of life. That's the general meaning behind it which was crafted as a love story on the lyrics to make it relatable just because then you could relate it to your situation and I like that in songwriting; I like songs that make references that are relatable so you can listen to songs and be like, 'I get that because this is what's happening to me today'. I really appreciate that when crafting a song.

Can you tell us more about your forthcoming EP?

The EP is called The Pervade, pervade meaning to spread throughout and the album art is cool: it's a rhinocerous on the moon. It's that 'anything can happen' type of thing. It all references to life, love, and passion and it is really just an anything is possible type of feeling. The lead-off single, "Stars In The Sky", is very inspiring, it's very uniting. "I'll Take Forever" is a little bit more personal to me and I pulled more from personal stories. The EP is, I'm hoping, going to come out in Summertime. We're very grateful to get some traction on the lyric video for "Stars In The Sky" and that actually ended up trending in Europe on YouTube, so we gained some attention over there and we're trying to figure out if it's something we could put out with the label or not but, either way, it's something that I'm hoping to have out by this Summer. I'm very excited to get it out and show the world.

How would you sum up The Pervade in one sentence?

The Pervade, in general, references life, love, and passion and all the songs are purely relatable to anything is possible and they're generally very positive songs that send good, positive vibes. I've been using a constant hashtag with all of the things that are getting posted which is #pervadepositivity and positivity surrounds this project because the project has been nothing but passion since the day I started recording it, so it's been driven on pure passion and pure love, which I'm grateful for. There's no pressure, there's no record label saying, 'you need to deliver masters to me by this point,' purely just crafted on passion.

Pervade positivity is the best way of expressing what this album is to me; it's spreading positivity and spreading joy.

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

Very much so that. Influence their day positively and meaningfully and for them to leave having experienced a positive feeling or something that just relates to them. Again, I'm trying to encourage people to do that aspect, do something positive with your day and share it; it's like that whole nature of, during the holidays, when everybody does a nice gesture, I want people to live their life more like that. Less due to it being the month of December because the holidays are coming - I love that because that's such a nice feeling - but it's just a healthy way to live, mentally and physically when you're acting positively, that's what I really want people to take out of the experience. That's what I think the EP is, the EP is an experience. It's a lost art form, but the EP has these instrumental interludes which each deal with an expression and they're not as much like which pop song is going to go on the radio, they're more about crafting the experience. "I'll Take Forever", for instance, has a minute and a half intro called "Can You Hear Me" and it's really interesting to craft this mood. The whole EP, in general, I want people to be able to take a positive feeling from it, but I also want them to be moved by art because this is an expression of art. That's most important to me. If there's one song that sticks out for somebody more than another, that's awesome and that means a lot but, most importantly for me, is that people are able to connect and it's something that they can relate with and affects them positively. 

Is there anything you'd like to add?

We're doing a release party for the single at Pianos in New York in East Village on May 17th and I've been debuting the project because it's a very brand new project; The EP's obviously not out yet, I've only put out one song, "I'll Take Forever" is the second single and I've showcased at The Viper Room in Los Angeles and I've showcased it here in New York at Mercury Lounge: really cool rooms that I'm just excited to debut the project at. It's just about to get on its feet, so it's a real exciting part of the process, but everything will be caught up to speed on the socials.

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The Phryg

Catch up with funk group The Phryg and listen to their single, "Hello Miss", taken from The Phryg's forthcoming self-titled album set to drop this July.

What brought you guys together?

Bryan: Collin and myself went to college together. We went to the Manhattan School of Music up near Columbia together and we were actually both studying classical music while we were there and became pretty good friends. We were some of the only guys in that program who actually listened to a lot of different types of music and found ourselves going out to see a lot of shows together and stuff. Later down the road, we ended up living together and, after we graduated, Collin ended up going to grad school in Florida, I stayed here in New York, and when he came back into town, he was looking to start a funk band and knew that we had really similar taste in music. We started writing tunes together, the two of us, and then shortly thereafter, we found Mike here through Craigslist-

Collin: Bought him.

Bryan: Yeah, we purchased him off Craigslist [laughs] and it's history from there. The three of us played as a trio for almost a year and a half before we actually found a keyboard player, so that's kind of how it all began.

Where does your name, The Phryg, come from?

Collin: The Phryg originally came from a musical term called Phrygian, which is a type of scale, but really only studied, educated musicians - for the most part - know what the hell that is.

Bryan: It's a nerdy musician joke.

Collin: Yeah, so that's also why we use the refrigerator as our mascot, which hopefully makes it slightly easier to figure out how to say it.

Bryan: We actually have an antique refrigerator that we bring around to our shows and sits on our merch table and he's kind of our mascot. Little Phrygie we call him [laughs]. Our goofy little refrigerator mascot.

Collin: Yeah, I always thought that it was much easier to grasp onto something if there was a logo you could associate it with which, for us, is Phrygie.

Which musicians would you say you've been influenced by?

Bryan: Probably some of the big ones, as far as funk music goes, Parliament-Funkadelic with George Clinton, some more modern day funk bands like Lettuce. But, we span quite a gamut of musical taste; we all like a little heavier stuff, like metal and progressive rock as well. We actually were just listening to a bunch of Yes - which is a British progressive rock band - in the car a lot the other day. As far as current musicians, what would you guys say?

Mike: I mean, there's a ton in the music festival scene that we drive with a lot that we are influenced by and also would love to jam with someday. There's bands like Kung Fu; a little on the jazzier side like Snarky Puppy; bands like Primus; something more on the proggy side like Umphrey's McGee; then back to the more traditional classic rock kind of stuff. I feel like we all can agree that we love and grew up with classic rock like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, stuff like that.

Collin: Prince.

Mike: Yeah, we love Prince [laughs], which we do play.

Bryan: Yeah, we play some covers here and there. Prince has been on that we've touched on a couple of times, for sure.

How would you describe your sound to someone who had never heard you before?

Bryan: We like to label ourselves as progressive funk. It's definitely based in funk and rock & roll. It gets a little heavy and a little proggy at times, but it's always definitely rooted in funk music. We want people to be able to shake their booties at our shows and be able to still move to the music, but it definitely has a progressive fusion taste to it.

Could you tell us more about your single "Hello Miss"?

Bryan: Sure. "Hello Miss" was one of the tunes that I wrote. It stemmed out of just living in New York and being single and the whole funny nature of how that whole game goes down in the city, trying to meet people. You just see so many people in a day and there's a lot of very attractive women in New York, so it's just about trying to summon up your courage to talk to and approach women and how that can fall into these interesting relationships that fall into dating and falls out eventually throughout time, stuff like that. Just about beautiful but dangerous women in New York City would be the way I would sum it up.

Is that same sound indicative of what we can expect to hear on your forthcoming self-titled album?

Bryan: Yeah, that's the lead single, so I think it really encompasses the whole gamut of our style: it's pretty heavy hitting at the beginning versus a pretty funky, more progressive breakdown, and it's got a really epic guitar solo. Some of the other tunes dive a little deeper into the progressive rock territory. I would say there's a little more vocal harmony and group vocals that get a little bit deeper on some of the other tracks, we do some pretty exploratory ten minute long tracks, through composed stuff that really just brings you on a full funk-rock journey. What would you guys say?

Collin: Yes, that was pretty good [laughs]. Obviously, "Hello Miss" is a little bit on the less proggy side, being our single. We have another single coming out any day now, it's called "Turn You Out", that's a very captivating song - you wrote that one too. 

Bryan: Yeah, it's more of electro-funk, I guess you could call it that. It gets pretty vibe-y, there's a pretty awesome synthesizer solo in it, so it definitely gets to a pretty heavy, vibe-y space. Something that we've heard quite a bit from listeners of our music is people saying that our music is pretty nonderivative. I've listened to a lot of bands recently where I get halfway through a record and all of the songs kind of start sounding the same and I get kind of bored and I would say that's pretty much the direct opposite of our music. We cover a lot of different things, stylistically, although it's still cohesive and you can always tell it's us. We're never really trying to stick with the same formula twice, so I think that's really some of the highlights of our music and what sets us out, keeps us different from things you are coming across today in the music scene.

Is there a song from The Phryg you're most excited for your fans to hear?

Bryan: That's a good question and a hard question to answer too.

Mike: Well, it kind of goes back to what Bryan was just saying. To me, it's a little hard to choose because there are elements in every song I like because they don't sound the same, so it's a little bit difficult to choose one. There are definitely reasons for every song that I'm excited about, which I know doesn't really help answer your question [laughs].

Bryan: Yeah, I guess, my opinion might be, we have a song on the record called "Supernova" that has some really nice vocal work and is one of the more lengthy songs, but I think it just has some really catchy vocal stuff happening. Also, it's pretty progressive speaking, as far as where it takes you throughout the sections, but also has some nice rockin' stuff as well. So that's a song that we don't really get to play live at every show, just because it has a different vibe than the others, but I think that's the one that's really going to - to me - really shine in the studio version. We'll really be able to showcase some of that vocal virtuosity as well as just the band's virtuostic nature, as well. 

What do you hope your fans and listeners are able to take away from your music?

Mike: That they'll want to come see us live. They'll check us out, check out our album, follow us around on social media, and check us out when we come to town.

Collin: I think Mike's right. The main reaction we'd like to get is for people to hear us and think, 'holy shit, we gotta see this band live'.

Bryan: Agreed.

Is there anything you'd like to add?

Collin: Our album is coming out in early July.

Bryan: Be on the lookout for our CD release which will be happening in New York and we will be blasting that over all of our social media.

Collin: We're also in the process of recording a music video as well for "Hello Miss", so just keep your ears open.

Bryan: Keep your ears to the ground. That music video will be coming out in June.

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The Devyl Nellys

Catch up with Nelly Levon of funk-pop group, The Devyl Nellys and listen to their new single, "Funk Is Free" off the band's forthcoming album, Delicious Business, set to release this July.

What brought you all together?

Nelly: Well, essentially, I was in the studios, whether it be jamming or tracking or recording or rehearsing up here in New York and New Jersey and, a lot of times, I'd be around musicians and they'd come up with some really great licks and riffs but they had no lyrics and I would hear melody lines and lyrics and concepts over those, so that's kind of how we got together. I grew up singing and dancing and I was doing rhythm - rhythm guitar, rhythm keys, and singing - and they were doing more of whatever their specialty was - bass guitar, drums, percussion - and we just all did something very different and in New York and New Jersey, a lot of the studios are in a building and there'll be 20 different studio rooms, so it's a consolidated set up which lends itself to natural collaboration and that's how it started. A couple of us were writing for other labels when there were labels around - Relentless, Mercury, Universal - so we had some background that we brought to the table and that's really how we, essentially, organically, started.

Which musicians would you say you've been influenced by?

Maxwell, my guitarist, is so into his guitar and his pedals, so he brings some very traditional and nontraditional flavors to the table. Ben Scott is a good A&R. He's good on the A&R, he doesn't always come up with the volume that Max comes up with, but Ben will spot a hit lick or a hit riff, so he's a good A&R person and, really, our drummer and the keyboardist have - we all have - very, very expansive taste and discography, so it's a little bit of magic right now. You always hope the magic stays together as long as possible, but it's a pretty good group. They're brothers, they love and care for each other and our project.

What words would you use to describe your sound?

[Laughs] Very close to what our album is called! Rockalicious, funkalicious, delicious. Very delicious jams and grooves. Your ass will shake. A fusion of deliciousness.

Can you tell us more about your inspirations behind your single, "Funk Is Free"?

Sure. Some people that were around - those in our inner circle - can be going through something and then can deal with it externally and internally and just know where to put it, know that there's a time and a place to put it and then just try to separate from it when they need to but, sometimes, we're around those that can't separate it out, so the song, "Funk Is Free", is all about reaching out and helping out those people that are going through things that they just can't separate out and let things go and enjoy themselves. Don't fight a particular night or weekend or moment. Don't fight it, just let everything go and, at least, don't worry about whatever's burdening you down for that time that you're with us or with a person that you maybe shouldn't be dragging that drama around to.

Could you tell us more about what we can expect to hear on your forthcoming album, Delicious Business?

You're going to hear variety, but there's not as much variety as our first album. Our first album was very, very various, this one was more around what we experienced from audiences while we were out touring the last two years: what we saw from audiences, what they really gravitated to when we were playing and talking and hanging out with them, what was on their minds. Part of it was shaped around, okay, what's this crowd that comes out to our shows, what do they want to do when they see us, what's the whole night and experience like? So, we build it around them and our take and perspective on that. Vocally and instrumentally it's different, but not as different. We blend traditional and nontraditional. There are some beautiful classic elements to it, but then there are definitely some quirky, different elements to it, but we blend them. There's going to be a lot of emotion in what we're talking about and singing about and telling stories to. When we're out with audiences, the world that we're all living in is very relevant to what they're experiencing and I think what people are experiencing right - keep in mind, it's been a weird time for people in America - their lives and lifestyles have either moderately changed or very much changed since 2009/2010, so some of the key concepts were, hey, we're all in this together; we're all going through this together, this too shall pass. You're not alone in what you're dealing with and we're all dealing with something, so even if it looks like we're not, we really are. Our job as artists and entertainers are being people that can basically help people transcend out of what they're not ready to deal with and our job is to keep transcending them, helping them cope. Music really is - I read it somewhere and you see it when you're out there performing for people - apparently, music is the number one widest addiction. Which, it's good that it, in and of itself, is helpful and doesn't directly kill anybody, but it certainly brings out all sides of people, and then other things come in that maybe do take the lives of people, but I guess it's more complex than it seems.

How would you sum up Delicious Business in one sentence?

An infusion of delicious, ass-shaken, heart-pumping, emotions and rhythm.

Do you have a favorite track from this new album?

Oh absolutely! Excited for the whole album, but "Funk Is Free" is going over exceptionally well, like 100% well with girls, the ladies [laughs], and tracks like "Bloody Mary" which is really kind of a hard rockin', funkin', fun and sass with a lot of Curtis Mayfield-like percussion - basically Curtis Mayfield but add rock - that one's going to be a lot of fun. Then, I think "Rodeo Queen" is just going to be a fun, fun one; that one's going to be fun for everybody because it's very [laughs] it's got disco elements, it's got funk elements, as all of us really, really leaned into the cheekiness of the '70s. I'd have to say "Funk Is Free", "Rodeo Queen", and "Bloody Mary" should be just out of the park live. 

What do you hope your listeners can take away from your music?

Just fun. I hope they're glad of the time they've spent with us and it stays with them from show to show and it does what it's supposed to do; it brings happiness and fun and warm, warm vibes to them.

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