Timberwolves ahead of their album release show at Cafe Nola

BY COLIN MCGUIRE Special to The News-Post

Brett Putz and Matt Marcus are twothirds of local rock band Timberwolves, and boy have they seen a lot. Having formed the band some 20 or so years ago when they were barely teenagers, the trio took a few years off recently, only to come back together in the past couple years to record new music.

That music will be on display at Café Nola on Aug. 11, when they (unofficially) celebrate the release their new EP, “Tales From the Shred.”

We recently caught up with Putz and Marcus to talk about the new music, why they took a break, what’s changed within the Frederick music scene throughout all these years, some of their favorite local bands and what musicians can learn from covering other musicians’ music.

I wanted to start out with the new material. I didn’t even know anything was out until recently. What was up with that? Did you go to Treetop Studio?

Matt Marcus: Yeah, we went to Colin’s [Colin Shultzaberger, founder of Treetop Studio]. We’re definitely going to go back there because they were awesome.

How many songs did you do there?

Marcus: Four.

Brett Putz: Three originals, one cover.

Was that the first batch of new songs since you guys got back together?

Marcus: No, we went to Kenny Eaton’s studio. We did one album with them. One of the songs on that album was brand new and three of them were old ones we had that we made better. Then, the next year, we came out with an album that was basically our older stuff that was on other random platforms and put the best of those songs together to put online. So, this is our second new album with an old album in the middle of it.

Are you going to print any?

Putz: No [laughs].

Marcus: Music is such a money pit. I know people will buy T-shirts, and people like buying T-shirts, but it’s such a niche thing. It feels so financial with that kind of stuff. You have to buy 1,000 of them, so you have to sell them or you’ll have 1,000 of them. Streaming platforms are awesome. Do you want to tour? You used to tour a bit.

Marcus: It was definitely back when it was simpler times. Now, we’re adults with jobs, and I have a one and a half on the way. I’m not opposed to doing a long weekend, because you can do a lot of stuff in a long weekend. You could play four shows, and that feels like a tour. So I’m open to that, but we don’t know how likely a full two weeks are. I’d love it again, but things would be totally different this time around.

Putz: Yeah, nothing is going to stop us if some band with a label is like, “Hey, we randomly want you guys to come out.” Going on a tour where we’re guaranteed shows that aren’t bingo halls where we’re the only band from another state.

Marcus: Yeah, that’s a lot. Putting together your own tour without having any real help, those are the shows you end up playing. If it was something that was guaranteed, awesome, worth-thewhile thing …

Putz: You have to remember gas, too. You spend a lot of money trying to get somewhere. At this point, we have bills to pay, but when we were fresh out

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of high school, that didn’t really matter. Speaking of Frederick alone, what’s the biggest difference between the first time around for you guys and how it is now?

Putz: The generational gap. The young kids don’t come out to shows?

Putz: It’s not that they don’t; it’s just that they don’t know you because you’re of the older age, and we don’t know them because we’re not young anymore, so we have to find a middle ground, and that’s kind of what our show at Nola is going to be. It’s a bunch of kids and then a middle ground band and then us. We have 18-year-olds playing in one band, 20-somethingyear-olds in the other band, and then us in our 30s.

Marcus: Also, almost exclusively now, we play bars and breweries. Before, we played at Guido’s a lot and we played Olde Towne and stuff like that, but there were no breweries. That wasn’t happening back then. We actually never played Nola before we came back together for some reason. There was a lot more bluegrass stuff. We did play Bushwaller’s once, and it was one of the worst shows of all time. Some of the wires were crossed with whoever set up the show, and they were like, “You aren’t going to play that loud, right?” [laughs].

You guys started and stopped and now you’re doing it again. Do you think you’re indestructible now? Like, you’ll be doing this forever, right?

Marcus: I hope so.

Putz: With age, it comes easier. We do it now because we love playing music. That’s the reason we keep going — it’s fun and it sounds good to us and we don’t suck anymore.

Why’d you stop in the first place?

Putz: After five, 10 years, you slow down. People want to try new things in their lives. New bands spring up. Some opportunities here and there. Then Marcus [Collins] left, and that factored into it. Matt was getting married.

Marcus: Also, we weren’t really writing music anymore. It felt like we were practicing the same eight songs over and over again for shows, and that eventually gets stale. That’s part of being in a band, but it’s only half of it. When the other half starts not being there, it’s just like, eh.

Putz: It was also a mutual ending, too. We never had a breakup talk. We just kind of parted ways for a bit.

Marcus: Marcus moved to Colorado and COVID happened and then he moved home. When he got home, I was living in a new house, so I had a pretty sweet spot for band practice, and we were like, “Let’s just set up in that shed in the backyard and start playing again.”

Putz: That’s why the new album is called “Tales From The Shred.”

You were talking about writing. What’s the songwriting process for you guys now?

Marcus: It’s kind of like it always was. Either me or Brett will have an idea on our own and we’ll bring it in and sometimes, the whole band immediately clicks with it, and we write it out. Other times, it’ll be like, “I like that part, but not really that part.”

Putz: Weirdly enough, we’re playing more covers now than we ever did. When you play other people’s music, you get inspired to write something similar.

(See TIMBERWOLVES 15)