MDMay12SigMid

You played in the ska band, The Skatastrophes, for a number of years while in high school, what did you learn from being in that band and have you applied that knowledge to things you do in Signals Midwest?

I see somebody’s done their research! From age 13-18 that band was pretty much everything to me. It was how I got my start writing songs, playing/booking shows, making friends, dealing with venues and promoters, doing design...pretty much everything I do now. It was great for Signals because I had gotten a lot of the mistakes that you’re bound to make with your first band out of my system already. Not that there weren’t more to make, but I did a lot of things that young kids in bands get suckered into doing...you know, stuff like agreeing to hustle tickets for venues, signing contracts, pay-to-play stuff, playing shitty Battle of the Bands shows... stupid rites of passage, basically. I dealt with all that stuff so much, and when I discovered the DIY punk scene it was life-changing to me because even at a young age, like 14-15 years old, I had been through hell with shady promoters and venues trying to rip off young kids who are just trying to play music and have fun. Realizing that people were throwing shows in basements and living rooms and that the line between band and audience didn’t always have to be so rigid was a huge revelation to me.

There was also the personal and interpersonal aspect of things...learning how to manage different demeanors and settle disputes in order to work together and be productive. Overall it was a hugely positive experience. I’m sure it sounds ridiculous to some of the people reading this, but I would be nowhere close to where I am today if it weren’t for that high school ska band.

Did your earlier ska history influence the horns on the song “The Weight & The Waiting”?

Oh yeah, absolutely. I wrote all the horn parts in my old band, so it was really fun to bring that aspect back. I loved writing a main horn line and then adding harmonies to it and

transposing it for all the different instruments.

I would write something in standard tuning and then have to transpose it like three times for all the different horns. Just nerding out like that, layering different melodies on top of other ones. I miss that stuff. It taught me so much about harmony and how different instruments can work together. It’s really fun.

You mentioned before that you got made fun of in high school because of being in a ska band and nowadays, if you’re not a fan of ska, it seems almost universal to hate on or make fun of ska bands. Why do you think ska bands always get a bum rap and why do so many ska bands use the word “ska” in their names?

You know, even now I’m thinking about the people reading this who may or may not know my current band, and I imagine their reactions to be negative just based on the fact that the first three questions have pertained to ska music. And I think that sucks for several reasons. First off because that music totally changed my life and got me into playing shows and writing songs. Secondly, I still like ska music a lot. I don’t listen to it as much anymore because my tastes have changed as I’ve gotten older, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still throw on Less Than Jake or The Bosstones from time to time. Those records were awesome when they came out, perfect when I discovered them, and will continue to be great.

Ska bands (particularly ska/punk bands) get a bum rap because people think that music takes itself less seriously. Ska tends to resonate with younger crowds, and older crowds like to make fun of younger crowds.

It’s just the way it goes in the world of punkrock posturing. But I’ll tell you this - I go to shows now and see the older kids (myself included, sometimes) standing in the back and drinking beer and nodding their heads with their hands in their pockets. It’s the younger kids who are up there dancing and singing along and getting lost and finding themselves in that music and that moment who are having the better time. There’s no

reason to be embarrassed of where you come from musically, and just because your tastes change over time doesn’t mean you have to renounce where you came from. I don’t play ska anymore, but it will always have a special place in my heart as the music of my youth and discovering something that I hold dearly to this day. Maybe it’s not as cool as the kid who grew up strictly on The Ramones and The Clash - I grew up (am still growing up?) on that stuff too, but it will always be important to me.

As for the name thing...it just makes your band easy to identify, I guess. That’s what I wanted to do back then. Nowadays I like being able to release an folk song, or a punk song, or a post-hardcore song, or do whatever I want to do without being restricted by my band’s name.

Were you looking to do something different musically when you started Signals Midwest?

Definitely. Being in a band that had the genre of music you played in the name was very limiting, and it just became too hard to keep it together with all the different members spread out in colleges around the midwest. Early in the summer of 2008 an amazing band from Cleveland (now Columbus) called The Sidekicks asked me to go on tour and play guitar for them, and during those two weeks spent in a van and various basements across the east coast my life totally changed. I knew when I got home from that first tour that I wanted to start something new. At that point I was starting to get really into local music and what was around were great bands like Delay, No Target Audience, Ghost Town Trio, and American War. I was really inspired by all of those folks. I played acoustic sets for a few months, just kind of stretching my legs and seeing what it was like. In September of 2008 the first edition of Signals Midwest formed and we went from there.

Signals Midwest was originally a 3 piece, but then added a member later on. How did adding the fourth member help musically?

Adding Jeff was huge. It freed me up to do so much more on the guitar. Before I had to think of ways to play lead and rhythm at the same time which meant a lot of open chords with melodies played up on the higher strings.

Now, I can drop down on the verses while Jeff fills the sound out, take a guitar solo and not have to worry about it sounding hollow, or write harmonies and parts that intertwine with each other. It completely changed the way our band sounded. My style is built on finding melodies within chords, whereas Jeff takes a sharper single- or double-note approach to things. I usually sit low or high in the musical register and the parts he writes fit really nicely in spots that I usually overlook. It really changed the way that the songs developed because now I’m not afraid to have more instrumental breaks. The songs got darker, heavier, more complex and defined.

Any time you add a member you’re also adding whatever influences they have. Jeff introduced me to bands like Braid and The Promise Ring who I now consider to be huge influences on Signals Midwest. The first song we wrote together was “Monarchs” and that turned out to kind of set the tone for all of Latitudes and Longitudes and really for all the songs we’ve written together from there on out.

You originally self-released Latitudes and Longitudes on CD, and were talking with Will at Beartrap PR/Tiny Engines about doing press work for the album when he offered to put out the album on vinyl on Tiny Engines. What was your reaction upon getting that email about putting out the album on vinyl and how has it been working with Tiny Engines so far?

I had been following Tiny Engines for about a year before I started talking to Will. I was into CSTVT, Tigers Jaw and I already knew our Northeast Ohio buds in Annabel. I was just really impressed with the entire lineup and how it was so diverse but maintained such

a high level of quality. Most labels will have great bands, decent bands and bands that you’re really not sure why they signed, but the Tiny Engines roster was amazing and from that I could tell that they really put a lot of thought and effort into each release.

When I sent our record to Will, I was secretly hoping that he would want to put it out but I didn’t say anything. When he offered to do press for us, we had just gotten back from our first full U.S. tour and for the first time in the history of our band had a little bit of money to play around with, so I figured that we would go for it with Beartrap and maybe someone would pick it up. I actually had a check written out and sealed in an envelope, and the night before I was planning on mailing it out I got an email from Will that was like “Wait! Keep your money! We want to put out your record!” I was over the moon. We’d never been on a label before and had done everything ourselves for three years straight.

Loren (bass) and I were huge fans of Tiny Engines already and it just seemed like a perfect fit. From the diversity of the lineup to the way they deal with bands to the attention to packaging and design they put into each release...it’s great to be a part of it.

So yeah, the night I got that email I pretty much lost my shit for about 15 minutes and was just kind of dancing around my room like an idiot. I barely slept that night and was a total wreck at work the next day, but I didn’t care. We all went out for drinks the next night and had a serious band bonding moment. It was great.

You did some really cool things with the vinyl packaging for the album, where did the ideas for that come from?

The die-cut window thing was actually Chuck (Tiny Engines/Beartrap)’s idea. Loren and I both do graphic design and had come up with a general motif with the toy airplane and the logo based off of it, and we had done the CD layout already. Chuck said that the cover kind of reminded him of looking through a window

and that it might be cool to do a die-cut thing that worked like a window/picture frame, so we took that and ran with it. It turned out awesome. We redesigned the back cover and got to see the artwork full-sized and beautiful. Usually something goes wrong with the packaging process for everything I’m involved with...just my luck I guess. But the L&L vinyl packaging turned out perfect, especially considering that we’d never even had a 12” pressed before.

As a bonus, all the records were accidentally pressed on 180 gram vinyl, which was the icing on the cake. Now we’ve got these beautiful slabs of colored vinyl inside some awesome packaging. I’m really proud of it, both from a design standpoint but also just like “We actually have an LP! This is so rad!”.

It’s all new and exciting for me and I still look at them most days.

Being a graphic designer, has there been any album packaging that you were blown away by from a graphic standpoint?

Something that really stood out to me this past year was the Touche Amore record,Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me. I loved that seven-pointed star and how they basically made a mark for the record that kept popping up everywhere else, like t-shirts, bass drum heads, posters, etc.

We ended up doing something similar with the bi-plane logo we came up with for L&L. I just like really clean graphic design and tend to fall in the “less is more” category most of the time. Simple imagery just connects with me more. I really loved the CSTVT “Echo and the Light” artwork. The layout is killer because it’s so elegant but just made up of simple geometric shapes and images, and I loved how the photos were printed glossy and the rest of the record was printed matte. Andy Hendricks from Annabel does fantastic design and the layout for their Here We Are Tomorrow 7” is really rad. The band name, title and tracklisting is actually printed on the poly bag that holds the insert and the record, and you

can flip it around to change the front and back cover. Just little things like that that you wouldn’t normally expect - more than just a cool drawing or a photo. If you can isolate one little but important aspect of something and carry it over into a design on a larger scale...I think that makes for the coolest work.

Georgia. The fact that the quote came from a friend who had made the tough decision to put distance between himself and the place he had grown up in and loved really resonated with us. We were having a hell of a time trying to figure out a name for the record and it just seemed to fit right.

On the total opposite end of the spectrum, I think that Lubrano (Iron Chic/Righteous Indignation) does awesome work. He did a 7” layout for our best buds in Worship This! and it’s this amazing drawing of a zombie dog...so cool. Also, Bruno Guerrerio (Restorations/The Holy Mess/Decibel Magazine) kills it. He just did a shirt for us and also did an illustration for the test pressing of Latitudes and Longitudes, which should be available through Tiny Engines very soon.

There is one lyric that gets repeated throughout the album, which is “I was counting the miles, you were counting the days. Ain’t it strange that the numbers we wanted were moving in opposite ways?”. What is the meaning/significance behind that line?

I think it’s one of those lines that can change meanings depending on the context in which it appears. For example, it first shows up on “In Tensions” which is actually written from the perspective of my grandmother and what I imagined her thoughts were about dealing with my grandfather’s mental issues as he gets older. In that case, the “miles” represent an abstract distance between them and how they struggle to communicate as he struggles with mental health, and the “days” represent how much time he has left. She wants less distance between them and he wants more time, so the numbers they want are moving in opposite ways.

The title of the album, Latitudes and Longitudes, comes from a Henry David Thoreau quote that goes, “Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.” How do the lyrics on the album relate to that quote?

The entire record deals with distance in various forms, whether it’s between loved ones spread out geographically, between day-today life and larger aspirations, and between the living and the dead. When we started writing the record we were just starting to play outside of Ohio on a regular basis, and I was also beginning to travel around more with friends and just trying to get a feel for what it’s like outside of my comfort zone here in Cleveland. So there are songs written about being away from those you love (“Monarchs”), about where you’re at vs. where you want to be (“Family Crest”, “The Quiet Persuader”), about traveling (“I Was Lost”) and also about life and death (“In Tensions”, “The Weight and the Waiting”).

We chose that quote because it was told to Jeff by our good friend Tim Gill of the band Echoes of Harpers Ferry, who we were pretty close to but had recently moved away to

On the next track (“Monarchs”), it takes on a much more literal meaning. I took a long trip out west while my girlfriend packed up and moved to Washington D.C. for the summer, and we were apart for a pretty long time. So I was counting the miles that it took to get out there and back home, and the more I traveled the more I racked up. The days being counted were just days until we got to see each other again.

The line shows up two other times on the record (in “The Quiet Persuader” and “The Weight and the Waiting”) and each time it takes on a different meaning, but I don’t think I need to get into it. You can listen to the songs and decide for yourself. If people derive their own meaning from that line I think it’s more important than any explanation I might come up with.

You mentioned the change of sound between your first full length and Latitudes and Longitudes was partly influenced by not wanting to write the same record twice. Are you currently writing new songs and how are they shaping up compared to your previous songs and can you hear the growth in your songs musically and lyrically?

We’re maybe two or three songs into the next record, and I have another few written. We’re taking our time and still trying to decide if we want to do another full-length or an EP because our whole discography so far is just full-lengths and split 7”s. I can definitely hear the growth in the newer songs - I think they’re a little bit more reserved so that the intense moments hit harder. There are parts on L&L that are kind of all over the place and don’t really make sense in the context of the song but fit within the context of the record (like the end of “Construction Paper”, for instance). I think the songs we’re writing now are a little bit more focused, less meandering. I’m really stoked on the last two songs we released on our split with The French Exit from Los Angeles, CA. They’re strange enough to the point where they’re still interesting to play and we still throw a lot of parts in, but I think we’re getting better at writing songs that flow together naturally rather than just mashing different parts together, which I feel is done to a certain extent on L&L. I imagine whatever we do will have some kind of overarching lyrical/musical theme again because we all like records that work as a cohesive unit rather than just a collection of songs.

You all lead pretty busy lives outside of the band with jobs and college, where does music fit into it and if you were given the choice between a secure, steady paying job with benefits or living in a van making music and touring, what would you choose?

I think about this every day and still don’t have a definite answer. Writing music, playing shows and traveling are my three favorite things to do. My instinct tells me “Yes! Absolutely! Tour forever!” but we’re on tour maybe one or two months out of the year as opposed

to six or nine like most touring bands are, and I know barely a small fraction of the hardships and struggle that come with being on the road that much. I graduate college in May and Steve isn’t too far behind. Jeff and Loren both work service jobs and have expressed to me that they want to tour as much as possible.

We’re at a point now where things are starting to pick up a lot, but we aren’t getting offered spots on national tours or anything like that. I don’t even know how to go about trying to do that stuff - we’ve always pretty much done our own thing, which is as much as we can, when we can. We tour in my 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan and are typically most comfortable in basements and living rooms. I’m not opposed to playing bigger shows at all, it’s just what we know and where we’re happiest. If it was to the point where we could scrape by on rent by playing bigger shows and touring I would quit my job in a second, but I’m not crossing my fingers because nobody gets handed that. It’s like anything else - you have to put everything into it in order to see what you’re actually capable of. I have no idea what’s going to happen, but I’m really excited to see where things go.

Interview with: Maxwell Stern signalsmidwest.tumblr.com Tiny Engines tinyengines.net Photo: Rebecca Weil flickr.com/photos/_sharkbait