James: Tell me a little bit about this place.

Brian: We recorded our last two records here and we’ve been rehearsing here for the past month.

Ralph: We’re also going to be recording the next two releases here. We’ve known Mike, who owns Moonlight for fifteen years. He’s one of my closest friends.     When we’ve toured in the past and Sean couldn’t make it he’s filled in on guitar for us. He’s as close to a fifth member as you can get. He owns this studio and we rent the space.

Sean: Stuyvesant is more or less a musical family.

Ralph: He plays in a bands called WJ and the Sweet Sacrifice.

His name is Mike Moebius.

James: You have a lot of musical talent outside the three of you who contribute to the band.

Tell me a little bit about that.

Brian: Generally the core of the band is Ralph, Sean and I. We also have Pete Martinez who is our drummer. He had dropped out of the band for a while. We had Joel playing drums for us.

His stage name was Kneel Peart. Whoever is here to help out. There are certain elements to the recording process that aren’t part of our live shows. We have a keyboardist named Lysa who’s also in WJ and the Sweet Sacrifice. We also have a horn section come in.

James: How does Mike bring out the best in your sound?

Brian: He’s been working with us and played along side with us for so long. He knows what our interests are as in what type of guitar tones we want. What type of mixes we want. A lot of it is just leaving it up to him to make us sound good.

Ralph: He knows the bands we love. Not necessarily the bands we want to sound like but I’d say he knows the ones we don’t want to sound like. He puts us in the right direction. There’s really not a lot of instruction going back and forth. We can pretty much feel what we want from each other.

Brian: Not only is he a fan of most of the post hardcore and indie pop we listen to  but he’s been in bands himself. So he has a good understanding of what we’re going for.

He understands the process and our goals. We’re on the same page with that for sure.

James: How is the record coming along?

Sean: I’m holding everything up. Honestly, it’s been hard to find time to get together.

But I’d say were about 80% through it.

Brian: We have the basic drums done. We’ve laid down drums and bass.

Sean: We just need some leads and vocals and we’re done.

Brian: We’ll also have Mike sprinkle his pixie dust on it.

James: So Sean is holding up the 20%. (laughs)

Brian: Sean commutes from Mamaroneck and Ralph commutes from Trenton.

They both have kids, Sean has twins and me? I still act like a teenager.

But we make it work. We have the EP coming out which will be followed by the full length.

It’ll be out by October.

Ralph: Even with the distance we love it. We do this because it’s fun and we enjoy it.

Brian: That’s it. I don’t play for a softball team. I don’t scrap book.

James: When I saw the title of the record “Jihad me at Hello” I couldn’t stop laughing.

It’s clever and catchy at the same time. Is that going to be the title of the EP or the album?

Ralph: That’s the title of the EP.

James: Talk about staying current with the times.

Ralph: It came to me like a stream of consciousness.

Brian: The EP is going to be a sample for those who haven’t heard us yet. We just got signed to a label called Dromedary Records. The EP is going to be a re-introduction to the band. So I think the title is fitting in a sense.

Ralph: It’s going to have two songs from the first LP and two songs from the first LP.

A bunch of B-sides and some songs that never made it out. A nice re-introduction to the band.

Brian: I think the title ‘Jihad me at Hello’ is just fitting.

James: How did the signing with Dromedary (Drama Dairy) come about?

Ralph: Dromedary was a New Jersey label that was around in the 90’s. They put out some records with Mounting Hopefuls, Cup of Joe, The Mommyheads and my old band Footstone. Over the years I had remained friends with the owner Al Sandy. The label had shut down somewhere around 1996/97 while they were on the verge of putting out a few more records. But he just couldn’t do it due to career and family obligations. We had met up and reconnected last year when he had decided to restart the label. He decided to start a blog about his entire experience with Dromedary. There was a lot of drama there including bands that were stolen and numerous other things. Writing this blog actually made him decide to restart the label in a digital only format which when you think about it makes a lot more sense these days. We were one of the numerous bands  he signed to do music with. He’s got a great online distributor. Using one of the many outlets you can download music on. As of now he’s been putting out reissues of some of the older stuff on the label from the bands he loved then. It’s just now that he’s beginning to release new material.

James: I have a couple of friends who had record labels back in the 90’s. Despite the pitfalls, problems and even failures have decided to give it another shot. I’m curious as to what would help to bring more success the second time around.

Brian: When your doing a digital label it’s a lot easier because there’s no overhead. Nowadays that money can be put into distribution and promotions.

Ralph: It’s instantaneous. You can just email it. You don’t have to pack and ship seven hundred records. It’s just so much easier.

James: It’s taken time for me to get used to it. There’s something special about the grooves of a record and the anticipation of going to a record store or waiting for my 7 inch to arrive wrapped in a brown paper bag.

Brian: I got a 7 inch in the mail recently. The name of the band was the Last Marked Men. I got the package and the sleeve and there was no record in it. Puzzling.....

The label was Dirt Nap. I guess they just forgot to put the record in.

James: A lot of bands I talk to today have basically given up on the idea of making any money on their records or even touring. They do it sheerly for the love of playing and making music. Do you think that gives you a sense of freedom and perhaps relieve any pressure you might feel?

Brian: The goal is just getting the music heard. That’s such a reward in itself. Not to sound like a

cornball but that really is the goal. It’s about contributing.

Ralph: It’s an expensive hobby.

Sean: We’re not looking to make any money from this. This costs us money.

We do it because we love it. It frees us because we’re not trying to make a living off of this.

James: With the living distance and the responsibilities of work, families and Brian’s comic book collection how often do you think you’ll be able to get out and promote the record?

Ralph: That’s the catch 22 of this. We plan on playing some shows in the fall on the road but just how many is up in the air.

Sean: Maybe if we get sponsored.

Brian: Yes, by Schlitz.

Ralph: All kidding aside. Not having any illusions of grandure relieves a lot of the pressure. We do  it for fun. We’ll personally promote it by word of mouth and we have a very good record label that will do it’s job.

Brian: About once a year we’ll go out as far as we can and come back within a week.

We’ve done Chicago and back. We’ve done North Carolina and back.

James: The reward.

Brian: Music is an addiction. Writing and performing songs. It’s something you just can’t explain.

Sean: The reward, the payoff is having ideas and bringing them together as a band. That’s the rush. Having the three of us. All of us coming from different places and bringing that idea together.

Ralph: It’s not only about crafting songs and being quote, “musicians”. Sometimes we’re just goofing off. Just acting like three moronic idiots. But that’s just as gratifying, hilarious and fun.

James: When your building a song what comes first? Is it the harmony, the melody, the hook, the riff?

Ralph: It’s always the riff for me. From there it would be the melody. When Sean is bringing a song to the table I will work on a melody line to either counter or compliment his.

Brian: Sean was a vocalist before he was a guitarist. So I would imagine his melodies would come to him as vocal melodies before they become guitar melodies.

Sean: It depends on what strikes or inspires you. Like when you hear a song on the radio one day and you don’t realize when the next day you’re humming it. “That’s really good.”

It’s subliminal, you changed it somehow and made it your own. When your doing a song you add parts. A chord here and a chord there. It starts to build later. That’s what I love about having two song writers. You have two people coming from two completely different places and when it comes together you just can’t beat it.

James: When I think of some of the great power pop or pop punk bands of the past like The Doughboys, Big Drill Car  and even bigger names like Cheap Trick. One of the key elements of their lyrics was a sense of insecurity, self loathing, self deprecation and alienation. How do you relate to that and does it influence your lyrics?

Brian: Speaking for myself I can honestly say I’m a King Dork. Not the king of dorks but a King size one. The initial draw of Punk Rock back in the day was it was a scene for outsiders. It’s like a release because now we’re speaking to other freaks and dorks.

Ralph: Bands like the Descendants who had self deprecating yet funny lyrics appeal to me today just as they did when I was sixteen. I like the fact that they don’t take themselves too seriously.

James: I was also curious about your backgrounds being that you all came together from different bands and varied musical backgrounds.

Brian: Ralph comes from Footstone. Me and Sean came from Friends, Romans, Countrymen.

Both were pretty much straight up rock bands. Our bands had played together all the time. Ralph moved back to Texas for a couple of years when Footstone broke up.

When he moved back Friends, Romans, Countrymen were pretty much inactive. The three of us started playing together as Stuyvesant.

Sean: Ralph invited us to dinner at Maxwells and asked us what we thought about starting something up. It was all Ralph’s idea. We just started playing from there.

Brian: Pete was studying drums at Jersey City University. Studying drums and music theory. He was my friends younger brother. I knew he was into Jazz and other styles besides Rock. I thought it would be cool to bring him into a Rock band to give us a different kind of twist. He’s not from that Punk or Hardcore background but he knows his Rock music.

Sean: He has music theory training which we don’t have.

Brian: When we write a song Pete has a way of making it fit.

James: Ralph and Sean came from two different band where you were the key song writers. Was it hard to adapt to writing songs together?

Ralph: Initially we were walking on egg shells because we didn’t want to step on each others toes.

No matter what Sean did I’d be “Oh, that’s great.”. It’s good in a sense to be able to control yourself.

We didn’t butt heads at all.

Sean: I find that if I’m stuck, Ralph can find a way to get around it. It’s great to have a different point of view because they can take something great and make it better.

I find it so rewarding to listen to what he’s coming with and find a way to back him up.

It takes the pressure off for one thing but I just love working with him. We have very different voices but we compliment one another. I love working with him because I’m a fan.

Brian: They really do have two distinctively different voices.

James: You’ve played shows with bands on different ends of the spectrum. Nolan Gate for instance who are very dark and heavy. Then you have bands like Amber Jets and

!No Pasaran!.

Brian: We know Amber Jets through their singer John Telenko who used to sing for Serpico.

Ralph had actually tried out for Serpico when John had left the band.

Sean: I remember Amber Jets covering the Descendants “Christmas Vacation” and they completely nailed it.

Brian: I love them. It’s good to play with a bunch of grown ups who still rock. I’ve known Tom from Nolan Gate since he worked at Maxwells. We play with everybody. It wouldn’t be fun if we were playing with a band that sounded exactly like us.

Interview and images by James Damion

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