Chris Heaton
specifically from a bass line point of view, Paul wrote some really melodic and interesting lines. I find myself trying to be interesting on the bass and not just follow the chord progression, but to do things that are melodically interesting. That is one of the things that I think we have going in our favor because we have a lot of vocal harmonies in our music. That comes back to groups like The Beach Boys and The Beatles. Our influences are showing through because of the things that we listen to.
Drummer and vocalist
There's a lot of people our age that are the exact opposite of us, you're not wrong about that, but there are a lot of people out there like us. I think there are those people out there and maybe we can reach some of them maybe we can speak to them a little bit or maybe we can help them to find their own voice." - Chris Heaton
the piano for much of my childhood. When I first started picking up drums, I was really deeply affected by jazz music. My dad had some old Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich LPs that I used to listen to constantly. I was really jazz focused all the way through high school. Even though I did play rock and roll, my first love was jazz. I was really influenced by a lot of jazz drummers like Philly Joe Jones and The Miles Davis quintet in the 50s. Those were records I wore out. I went to college and actually studied jazz and so I just got deeper and deeper into that world. All the while though, I would always be playing in a band with guys like Eric and Tim or I would play in a cover band on weekends at the bars. I was always playing rock and roll too. From that perspective, I was really influenced by classic rock drummers like
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Keith Moon and John Bonham, of course. I feel like I'm probably kind of a heavy hitter when it comes to rock and roll. I like to think that I've had a pretty well rounded musical education because there's really not a lot of genres that I don't listen to or don't enjoy. TO: My first influence when I started playing guitar was The Beatles, which is probably everybody's first influence. I really tried to learn the songs and what they were doing. As I got older, I fell in love with U2 and R.E.M. That transitioned into groups like XTC in college and Living Colour, more cutting edge from that standpoint. As we write, and as I hear things, I try to hear from those perspectives. I think one of the cool things about the Beatles, and the people have their own opinions about the Beatles,
EB: I would agree with Tim, that's one thing that the three of us do that's a bit different. It cuts through all the fuzz and we get these melodic lines that cut through all of that. It's not noise, it's saturation, and sonic melodic lines that are going on, but to have those clear vocals poke through is really cool. As a three-piece band, I think there's a lot of challenges in that. Your prototypical band would probably have four or five guys where you have a rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass and drums. You have to put together your whole sound with three guys. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of having that arrangement? TO: I think a big advantage is that it can really expose your flaws. There's no place to hide when it's just the three of us. That'd be a big advantage. On the flip side of that, when we're in the groove, we're really in the groove. We can lock in and
