Page 42 - RockRevoltMagazine-FebruaryMarch2016

producing, working on other people’s projects, at this point in
my life for better or worse there’s really no separation.
Sounds like you’re married to your band.
(laughs) We have to function as a team as a good marriage
should.
(laughing) Your marriage probably works best than most.
I know it right! We’ve made it almost 10 years doing projects
together. I don’t know what the average length for a marriage
is in the states but I can imagine we are on a good run.
I close my eyes to see
I’ll take my throne, lay it on a mountain
And make myself a king
You grew up in the nineties and draw a lot of inspiration
from music in that time, tell me some of your guiltier
nineties pleasures. I grew up in the nineties as well and
have some of my go to favorites what are some of yours?
I grew up in Cleveland and a lot of the influences there was
what was coming out of there at the time, Nine Inch Nails
and Bone Thugs those two groups were out of Cleveland. A
lot of the guys were listening to 90’s hip hop which was just
so exciting because it was a pretty new genre and you had
a lot of the rock gods in the 90’s saying that it was just a fad
and was going to go away. Now look at it, in my opinion it’s
really about the only genre that’s really innovative. So, we
were all listening to a lot of nineties hip hop, a mix of that
and grunge.
A little Nirvana/Coolio, I think it’s a good thing.
Yeah, anything from JayZ to Biggie and Tupac in the nineties.
From that to Stone Temple Pilots and Smashing Pumpkins
is my favorite band from the era.
Smashing Pumpkins, 94’/95’?
Yeah, I remember when they, again having an older
brother was a cool influence, but I remember when they
put out Siamese Dream, hearing that shit, losing my
fucking mind. The perfect album.
Yeah, Bush was another good one as well.
Yeah I never, for some reason I never really liked them
but I was so weird about music in the nineties, if I
thought a singer was considered a heartthrob I would
shy away (laughs). I’d be like oh this is for a girl. He’d be
on the cover of girl magazines with his shirt off and I’d
be like awe Bush I can’t. But as far as influences, all the
music we are listening to right now, we love Travis Scott,
Ben Staples, artists who we consider to be the innovators
in music, all the guys that are bold in rock n roll or girls
and the hip hop genre. It’s kind of a weird era in general
where the bands are not as bold or making statements
the way they use to. A lot of what we are listening to
right now would be hip hop or electronic.
We could be free, we could be free
Finally, we could be free
I was going to ask, you try to be unconventional on
purpose and sometimes that unconventional can be
risky and today with everyone who has a computer
could potentially auto-tune themselves and make a
song. How do you feel Tribe Society will thrive above
artist that are attempting uniqueness?
It’s interesting, it’s not like we are competing with
other bands. We’re just trying to be honest and a lot
of that comes from us experimenting and just trying
things. It’s not really a decision that we are trying to be
different than everybody else, we’re just trying to be us
and that comes from a lot of never bending and a lot of
experimenting. I don’t think it’s even good art without
taking a risk. We’re just having fun and trying to create
shit that’s exciting.
Lyrically it’s interesting as well, so not just the music
but also the words that go along with it. You can kind
of feel the music is interesting and if you really needed
to dig deeper you have more meaning there as well,
so many layers. Do you do the songwriting yourself
or is it a collaboration between yourself and the rest
of the band?
Everything is a collaboration, having been with these
guys for so long if I get stuck on an idea I can go to them
and if they get stuck on an idea. It’s really awesome
being a team that collaborates, you never hit any
creative walls. I remember before doing stuff with these
guys I was always in bands that I would be the principal
songwriter and it’s so easy to get three quarters of the