Olde Pine- ‘The Jawns’ Album Release/ Interview Special

OP – Thank you for having us!

SP – I’m Sam, I play bass in Olde Pine. I’ve been playing music with the guys for 7 or 8 years. First as a guitar player, and sometimes lead singer in high school. Back then we would pretty much just fuck around in Tony or Justin’s basement and cover The Fall of Troy or make acid jazz/noise music . When I went to college the guys formed Dios Trio and when I came back for the summer break they needed a bass player so  I jumped on board and haven’t looked back. I became a member of Olde Pine when I started working on the album this summer. – Sam

TL – Justin and I (Tim) have been playing music together for almost 11 years, since middle school or so, and the four of us have been together for the last 7. We do a pretty good job of telling everyone, so you might already know we have another band, Dios Trio, with the same 4 dudes. That’s where things started. We were all in high school together, I met Sam in the theater department, then we all met Tony in a music theory class, and it was love at first sight.JB – Tim forgot to mention that he plays guitar. The easiest way to sum up the history of this band is our instrumental band Dios Trio brought us all together, school blew that up, Tony and I started playing as a duo because this is what we’ve always wanted to do. We we’re a duo for the first two years and then played with our good friend Zack on bass while we played in another band called Roosevelt. Zack lives sort of far away and it just became really difficult to organize practices and recording at times. 2014 was a pretty dead year for OP, as we we’re having a hard time finding time to record and were still trying to find a lineup to work with. When school ended for Tim and he came back, we asked if he wanted to play with us. We asked Sam if he was into doing bass. They both said yes and then we started chipping away at finishing the full length.

Olde Pine has doubled it’s member size since the last time we featured this talented act, how did you all meet and whats the story being the formation of Olde Pine?

TK – I met the guys in high school. I thought they were p cool. We jammed it worked out then timsam moved away and justin and I formed olde pine due to wanting to play music and only being us two. We formed what is called, a duo.

JB – Sam and Tim were pretty active in the theatre department of our high school, so usually Tony and I would play after school in my basement and not do homework. I would say thats where most of our music chemistry was born.

Where did the name come from?

TK – The name came from a Ben Howard song that sort of defined a whole summer for us, we just said “fuck it” and put an e at the end for good taste.

JB- It just felt right.

SP – Viscous

TK – Rumplestilskin

JB – Covalent

SP – life, relationships, punk rock, vikings

TL – Each other. Shit that happens when we’re together or apart. At least that’s where I often draw from.

TK – Being outside, girls, candy, the dollar tree etc etc

JB – people, friends, visual art, movies, tv shows, food

The Jawns dropped a few days ago, only a few weeks into the new year this is already a strong contender for our favourite releases of 2015, describe the influences and what its meant to you personally.

TK – Wow that’s incredibly kind, we got inspired last year by each other and busted out a bunch of songs. I love this record and am so pumped people can finally hear it.

SP – For me its has meant reconnecting and creating with my best friends in the world. You can really hear and feel it when you listen to an album made by people who really enjoy each others company.

JB – Personally it’s been one of the hardest things we’ve ever done. I’m still trying to understand why that is. I’m just glad we made something happen with it, there were times where I wasn’t sure we would finish it. There’s a sense of closure in many ways: that the record is finished, the stories in them aren’t entirely stuck inside of us anymore.

JB – It sounds stupid but we literally just said “let’s write a full length.” We probably wrote the whole thing in a week or two over the course of 4-6 practices. The writing process was more natural than I thought it would be, and we tried really hard for the album to feel cohesive.

TK – Justin played some rad tracks and I put beats to them. Justin’s a rad dude. The rest fell into place by having Tim and Sam join in and give a really great new perspective on the record as a whole.

SP – I live in NYC and have a small studio set up in my apartment. Justin sent me the guitar and drum tracks and I recorded bass for the most part in New York. Tony, Justin and I bounced some ideas around for particular sections and we made some edits in MA when I was home for Christmas. I also wrote the lyrics for “I’m gonna shoot”. It happened spontaneously, the very first time I hear the instrumental track. I was really inspired right away and wrote the whole song on the spot. Love when inspiration strikes like that.

From the writing process, the recording process followed, how did this come about and what do you feel your new release captures?

JB- If the writing process was natural, the recording process was the exact opposite. We recorded the drums and main guitar tracks a long with some vocals the first month or two of recording, and then we all got full time jobs. We were literally sitting on the instrumentals for months before we really tried hard to finish it. I think if we can take anything from the process of recording this album it’s that for us, we need to carry the momentum of the writing process into the recording process. It’s just a little bit more difficult for us because we do everything ourselves and everyone has different schedules and commitments. I feel like the album does strangely capture the scope of the whole process, a lot of different influences. We really wanted to make something that sounded different from what a lot of bands are doing now.

TK – We wrote many of the tracks really quick and then recorded the drums really quick. It feels like a dream. I think this new release captures what it feels like to be a young man in love for the first time.

SP – For me and the Bass the key to the recording process was all about getting the perfect tone for each song. Usually this came down to “how punk do we want this to sound?” So for the heavier tunes I recorded with my G and L bass with a pick and overdrive. Some of  the mellower tunes like “Mr. Pavo’s Jackhammer Tricks” is actually Tony playing,(he’s also a great bass player) since he has a much smoother sounding bass and plays with his fingers.TL – I was contributing new parts to an essentially finished album, so I would walk into Justin’s basement, plug in my guitar, and then proceed to noodle. That was pretty much my entire process.

What does the final finished album mean to you?

JB – A stepping stone to whatever is next.

TK – It feels like empty nest syndrome. We sat on this ish for so long and now it’s gone. I feel like a mother who never gets texts from her offspring.

SP – The fun part is over, now we have to work our butts off to promote the hell out of it!

Who makes up the songtitles?

TK – Song titles are comprised from many nights of mistakes. We have a list dedicated to song titles in the note app on my phone to capture any and all super sweet things we say, collectively.

At present the release is available digitally, any physical release plans?

TK – maybe

JB – we are talking with a lot of people right now trying to figure all of that out. a vinyl release is the goal.

JB – I feel like the first music you write for a project dictates how people recieve your band, so I was really happy with Reservoir and how those songs came out. Those songs have a lot of condensed energy in them. We still love playing them live. The Steve French EP was a ton of fun to write, but was also a bit difficult to record because of schedules etc. We play songs from that still but I think for some people who liked Reservoir it might not have been what they were expecting. That EP helped us hone our song writing skills more than anything else. It was the first time we experimented with some more traditional song structures.

TK – In 2011 I was too dumb to understand how effing great the release was, then we just got together when we could and recorded what we could and now I’m out of school and hopeless. Thank god for beer.

Casting back to your previous releases- these were originally independently released and how was the reception?

JB – We love the idea of releasing things independently and that worked for us originally, but things have changed so much in this community you sort of need to have some help from a label, even a smaller one. Our first releases got some people interested in the band so I guess there’s not much more we could’ve asked for.

TK – I’m unsure if anyone listened to any of them.

‘Reservoir’ was then released on a limited run from Germany’s Tief Marcellos Schuld Records- how did this come about?

TK – We got contacted and we said yes, they did such an amazing job. Dennis has always hooked us up and been super kind about our tunes. He’s the best.

JB – Dennis does such amazing work and is so dedicated to what he is doing it’s awesome. He is also incredibly easy to work with, incredibly supportive. His band Almost Wanted War is heavy as fuck too.

JB – We have nothing we can announce yet but we’re figuring that out.

TK – soon

Any plans to come to the UK? Play Circuit Sweet’s front room?

TK – if we did I’d die, LET ME BE A TOURIST UNIVERSE

SP – Hopefully in the future. That would be rad.

JB – We owe you guys that atleast!

JB – There are so many good young bands in this community. I honestly don’t think they need any of our advice, they already know whats up. Bands like Casper Elgin, Handwriting, Perspective A Lovely Hand to Hold… I’m sure I’m leaving some awesome bands out. The only real advice I have is be careful who you work with, always respect the venue/house you’re playing, be real with people and other bands, and don’t forget about the music community that you came from. So many bands that have grown out of this genre tell me they don’t want to associate with “emo” anymore, and I just think that’s sad and sort of short sighted when you think about how some of these bands are where they are at because of working their asses off inside of this community.

TK – play what you like and have fun. Be yourself and take care of your body.

SP – Find the people who really love to work with and stick with them. You will meet a lot of talented performers over the years, but the synergy between the right group outshines the diva asshole every time.TL – Well it really helps if you love the people you’re playing with. That alone takes care of a lot of the stress of being in a band, and less stress means more fun. Once you’re having an appropriate amount of fun, share it with people. Preferably for free. People like free stuff, and then if they happen to like your music for its content, rather than simply because it was free, you’ve got someone who’ll share it with their friends, and so on. For a long time that was all we did, we made music we liked playing and we shared it with whoever would listen, and it seemed to work.

Where you are based it seems you are surrounded by some equally amazing bands all of which with strong DIY mentalities, how is the live community in Westborough, MA ?

TK – MA is great, but Westborough is a succubus of human emotion.

JB – Westborough is a good place to walk your dog and then leave forever.

We wish the album the best of luck and can’t wait to own a physical release! For now have you got enlighten us to what can we look forward to from you in the future?

JB – New Dios Trio, new Olde Pine. This year.

TK – nothing, we quit.

And finally any last words?

JB – Thank you guys for always being supportive of us!

TK –I love you Circuit Sweet for listening to my highly politicized jargon.

A huge thank you to these awesome musicians for spending some time with us, we are honoured and our door is always open when they finally get to the UK. We wish Olde Pine the greatest success- such a hardworking act, this album will reap in their efforts.  For now We urge you to visit their bandcamp and download their entire catalogue

http://www.oldepine.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/oldepine