INTERVIEW II, Random Child, 1/16/09
In an ongoing effort to provide you, the reader, with valuable content, Richardgin.org and I Fall To Pieces are pleased to present this extensive interview with members of the band, Random Child, conducted on January 16th, 2009.
Jack Greenleaf: Wait, do you have questions and everything?
Rich Gin: Eh, I sort of wing it. So we're here with Random Child; If you could introduce yourselves.
JG: My name is Jack Greenleaf and I play guitar and keyboards...
Ian Cory: ...and bass...
JG: ...and bass.
IC: I'm Ian Cory, I play drums, keyboards and sing on the record, I mostly sing live.
Eli Sidman: I'm Eli Sidman and I play bass primarily but on the songs I've written on guitar I [also] play guitar.
RG: And you all know each other from previous bands?
JG: Well! There was this very serious band called Cool & Unusual Punishment. It consisted of me, Henry Crawford from The Mighty Handful and Ian Cory.
IC: And for a while, Scout [Pare-Phillips from Radiates].
JG: For a while we had Scout at the end. And [Cool & Unusual] was, like, pop music but Ian always had metal drums in the background. So I thought there was definitely some originality to it but also it just wasn't very good.
ES: I really liked it.
JG: Banzai loved it; Jonathan Edelstien thought we were the shit and, like, Max Coburn thought we were the shit.
Tola Brennan: That last show WAS the shit.
JG: That's Tola Brennan, by the way.
RG: Tola Brennan is listening, by the way, and kicking in his two cents. He is welcome to do so.
ES: I was in The Floor Is Lava for a long time as guitar player and then I was the bass player for Zinko Propolus, which was Tola's old band.
JG: I also...
ES: You played bass for Zinko Propolus for a show.
JG: I also played bass for The Floor Is Lava for one show...
ES: Two shows. At the very end. And then the last song of our last show.
JG: The last show [Calamity] Sam, like, dropped the bass and ran away. So I jumped on stage and played and it was like old times.
IC: Jack and I were in Tetsuwan Fireball for one show.
JG: With Henry [Crawford]. It was weird.
IC: And I was also - and still am - in Earth Defense Force, in the sense that Earth Defense Force still exists.
ES: You're on hiatus.
JG: The world doesn't need any saving right now.
IC: Yeah, it's OK; Obama's in office.
ES: In four to eight years you guys will come back out with another two songs.
IC: I was also in Somewhere There's A Fix and we were terrible.
ES: I liked it too! I've got those recordings I think they're good!
JG: They were a metal-core band. It's just the most upstate thing you'll ever hear.
RG: Taking it back to Eli saying he liked all these bands - who is your audience?
ES: For The Floor Is Lava - I feel like this whole scene started around the time when The Floor Is Lava and Cool & Unusual and Tetsuwan started. Before then there was The Hysterics, who I don't think exist anymore...
IC: And Fiasco was around as Stun Gun.
ES: They were pretty much just a punk band at that point.
JG: The scene at that time just wasn't as strong. I think Fiasco were making a lot of connections at that time. They were meeting Starscream; meeting people like Gavin from Consumer Feedback who's a really, really talented promoter.
ES: Yeah. I think the first show we ever had was in Staten Island and I think we got it from Consumer Feedback and that was with you guys and Tetsuwan...
JG: No that wasn't Consumer Feedback, that was Demand For Cheaper Money.
ES: Demand For Cheaper Money, yeah. Back then our audience was just our friends. I remember before every show the band would get together and go through our phonebooks on our cell phones and just call everyone we knew regardless of whether we'd spoken to them in two years and say, "Hey our band is playing a show! You should come." And then [if anyone] showed up [it] was great. Parents came.
JG: Parents are a great audience.
ES: The Floor Is Lava, had one 21+ show where a bunch of our teachers came which was cool.
RG: How did that go over?
ES: It was good. The venue was pretty shitty. We didn't sound great. But there were ten of our teachers and parents there, which was kind of nice. And then other than that it was just other bands. I mean, that was always the audience I always enjoyed playing to the most - my friends who were in bands. Because, you'd talk about what stuff you were writing over the course of the [previous] week or two and then you'd come get together for a show again and you'd say, "Check out this new song I wrote," and everyone would play their new stuff.
JG: Actually, I think the biggest audience was other bands. And I think that's still true. And I think that now that the scene is meshing with the Todd P scene in a way with Gabe Weinstock I feel like Fiasco is kind of taking the next step and not necessarily [leaving] this scene but also, like...
IC: Expanding...
JG: ...bringing them together a bit more. I think that's really nice. I think it's become much more like - you see the exact same people every time which I think is good and bad because there's always a lot of people, but it's also... y'know.
ES: At the shows I've been to since I haven't been performing, like, the audience is made up of the same people every time which is kind of cool because you go to a show and you know you'll see those twelve kids.
JG: You make friends and stuff.
IC: In terms of Random Child's audience in this scene I don't really know if we have one.
JG: I think with Random Child we have the same attitude we had in Cool & Unusual, which was, "Whoever likes us, likes us," and we don't really care. But right now we're in the process of trying to see what kind of people would enjoy it and we're just shopping around to everyone.
IC: From what I can tell everyone enjoys one part on the record.
JG: Everyone likes one thing.
ES: If not a song, then a part of a song.
IC: I was joking around saying, "Oh there's something for everyone," but there's also something for everyone to hate.
ES: Again, from what I've seen, the primary audience is other bands. I've played some stuff for Jonathan Edelstein and his friends, I mean [Jonathan] is in the band, but other members of Banzai and they all think it's really cool. And I played some stuff for [Calamity] Sam and he thought it was awesome. We tried to do something that no one we know who plays music has done before - at least that was an effort for me; do something that I haven't heard anyone our age do. So when I play those parts for people they say, "Cool! I never would have done that or thought about doing that."
IC: For me it wasn't a conscious attempt to write things differently, It's just that it's always what I wanted to do - the more metal sounding stuff - that I just never had a chance to do before. For me it's about finally being able to write whatever the hell I want.
RG: The only track I've heard is the one online - Angel of Dead New York - and it seems like it's either the opening for Side A or the opener of Side B. It's as if the song is setting up to lead into something else. So - ugly question - is this a song cycle or a concept album?
ES: The concept is chaos and, quite literally, random-ness.
IC: There are some lyrical themes throughout the record. It wasn't like I set out saying, "OK here's the next song in the storyline and there are this many characters and we're going to have a string orchestra..."
ES: And a boy who is deaf, dumb and blind.
IC: Exactly. And in the end we tear down the wall. It wasn't like that. The lyrics all kind of relate to similar things, except for maybe Illusions, which is our hardcore punk song.
ES: Which is the one that's probably the most tongue-in-cheek.
IC: The main song on the record in my opinion is the closing track, Plague, which is nine minutes long and has three separate parts.
JG: It is definitely embracing its ridiculousness. There's a part where Ian is just saying, "Mountains will crumble," - talking - over the heaviest riff you can imagine - just chugging. It's just Ian talking. He would say a line and [have to] back away from the microphone [because he'd be] laughing and we'd giggle for a while and then he'd go back. But you listen to it and it works.
IC: The idea running through the song is that everyone to some degree is fucked up. And not in the sense that I hate everyone, because that's not true at all, but more like everyone, even amazing people, wonderful, inspiring people have some side to them that's really ugly and really hideous and no matter what you do to hide it the really disgusting parts of your personality are still there.
ES: It's funny because I wrote all of Plague except for one part.
IC: Yeah, the Dream Theater bit.
ES: And for me the song has a totally different feeling. Writing it on guitar and listening to it in its entirety, to me it seems like the rise and fall of a band in nine minutes. It's got all these different parts and the sound changes constantly but it's all linked together. It gets exciting and happy and exotic and pretty and then it gets all heavy and chuggy and in the end it burns out like a really bright flash of light and then there's a little acoustic outro like, 'there's still hope.' The first time I heard it I thought, "This makes me feel like I'm in a band and having it form and then fight and then crumble."
JG: The main thing about this album - this band has been a lot of not really doing anything, not getting off [our] ass. We had songs [on the shelf] for years, where we would finish one part of it and be really proud of ourselves and never finish it.
ES: How long were we around?
JG: I don't think it really counts...
ES: ...Random Baby.
IC: There are two stages of Random Child - there's Random Baby and that was when we first started off with me and friends of mine who weren't really musicians; I was just really close with [them].
ES: And you weren't even really a musician at that point.
IC: I was more of a musician than anyone else. And the only remaining members from that time are Joey [Hurtado] and me. Joey is our other guitarist and he isn't here because he lives in Staten Island. Distance was a problem and scheduling because everyone just started getting really busy but we had a few riffs. What we used to do is take a riff and we'd jam on it for ten minutes and the other guys didn't know how to change melodically - they'd just be playing the riff and I'd just be drum soloing.
ES: I joined the band after this phase.
IC: Jonathan [Edelstein] joined then because I wanted to have another drummer and at that point it was like, "OK, if we're going to have Jonathan Edelstien from fucking Fiasco in the band, we're going to have to get our shit together." And we started writing the songs and it became quickly apparent to the people in the band who weren't musicians that they would have to leave. And so Jack joined and shortly thereafter Eli joined.
JG: The album is more of us trying to finish something and just the fact that we finished something is really encouraging. So [the album] is much more for ourselves than anyone else.
IC: I don't think people will like this in the, "Oh I love this album it's my new favorite band!" sense, although I think there will be one person in the world who would think that...
RG: ...possibly in Norway.
ES: Someone out there other than us will love every part of this album.
IC: I think most people will be like, "Oh wow!"
JG: "Oh wow, that's Ian!"
IC: "Oh wow, Random Child; this is really happening..."
JG: "Ian is that you? Oh my God!" It's like, "Yeah, mom!"
IC: Although [my parents] did sit through Somewhere There's A Fix...
JG: I liked Somewhere There's A Fix, but if I was a parent and heard that I'd be like, "Y'know you're not singing on key."
ES: "Put your shirt back on."
JG: Again, the songs are concepts, not really the album.
IC: I've already worked on a lot of material for the next record.
JG: I feel like this band has gotten its shit together so quickly and with all my other bands it's like, "Oh we'll record when we have money..."
ES: Wasn't your only practice space [in the early days] in the basement of Ian's house? Which you could only use one day a week?
JG: Yeah, Cool & Unusual could only practice at Ian's house once a week.
ES: And I think at my house you practiced twice. I think the fact that [we] have a place where [we] can go and rehearse is nice.
IC: I also always thought that the place where a band practices has a huge impact on how they sound. Cool & Unusual, we practiced in my well-lit, comfortable living room and we had this...
JG: ...well-lit, comfortable sound.
IC: And then The Floor Is Lava, they practiced in Eli's basement, which is a bunker - the most disgusting, war-zone kind of place and they came out and they sounded like a fucking G.I. unit. Just deadly.
ES: It's funny because we sounded awful in my basement but Random Child sounds pretty good in my basement.
IC: This is where we're supposed to be; it's just loud and angry...
JG: ...and gross and sometimes one of us isn't wearing deodorant because it's a Sunday.
IC: But for a week in the summer right before we went in to the studio we practiced every day and we got so good.
JG: And we never got angry at each other.
IC: It was amazing.
JG: This seems like instant band.
IC: Just add basement.
RG: Over the last six months or so a lot of the bands in the scene have been "muscling up" their sound live and in the studio. Talk about the sound in terms of album production because what I've heard has a high level of execution.
JG: Well, we recorded at GaluminumFoil, which is a studio in Williamsburg.
IC: So much fun. It was probably the best part of my summer - just going into the studio and it was just a blast - one, just playing the tunes and then having them played back.
JG: At first, I'll be honest, we were playing in Eli's basement and I was like, "This will be OK. I don't know if we're tight enough to do this... I don't know." And we went in and I thought it was really interesting to see the environment the audio engineer creates to make you feel comfortable and make you do your best.
ES: Yeah I've recorded at GaluminumFoil three times now: Twice with The Floor Is Lava and once with Random Child and I worked there for a month for an internship. The guy who works there is this guy Jeff [Berner] - plug to Jeff - he's just an incredibly...
IC: ...tall...
ES: ...skilled, very tall. I sort of jokingly challenged Jack to give [Jeff] the most ridiculous description of the sound he wanted on his guitar that he could think of - it was the keyboard! [Jack] told him you wanted the keyboard to sound like is was on a boat, alone, in the middle of a lake on a foggy night.
JG: And he did it.
ES: He was, like, "Oh, that's easy." And it took three seconds; he twisted some knobs and was like, "Try it now!" And Jack plays a big chord and says, "That's perfect!"
IC: We did that with the guitar too, we wanted it to sound like we're under water in a submarine. And he said, "Let me get my Fucked Up Pedal."
JG: It was really fucked up. I don't know what that pedal does - It just makes you sound like you're on a submarine radar.
ES: I give him so much credit though. He's good at what he does and he's nice and he knows how to give the band as much help as they want, he knows the things you want done without having to be asked.
IC: I was surprised. I came in and said OK, I want the guitar sound to be really heavy and sound like this record and I gave him Catch 33 by Meshuggah...
JG: And he listened to, like, 3 seconds of it and said, "OK, we can do that."
IC: We started playing Subjects, the first track, and I thought to myself, "This is the heaviest thing I've ever heard." It's ridiculous how quickly the most amazing parts happened. I felt good going in and when we finished the drums sounded awesome Jonathan's drumming sounded great my drumming - of course my drumming sounded wonderful.
JG: I think Jonathan drummed on the exact right track.
ES: Unfortunately Jonathan played on only one song because he had a dentist appointment. He said, "I'll come back," and by the time he came back we had finished.
JG: But he came back, which is really nice.
ES: We took a cab back to Ian's place and Jonathan rode his bike behind us...
JG: ...And I kept looking out the back window saying, "I don't think he's going to make it!"
ES: ...And he followed us for, like, twenty blocks and then he got lost. We turned a corner and he was gone and he was replaced by a huge black dude on a bike.
IC: Which just plays into the theory that Jonathan is a shape-shifter.
ES: I think the hardest part about this band is getting Jonathan to come out and practice. He's in Fiasco and Banzai and everything extracurricular at school and he's definitely feeding starving children in other countries every other weekend. It's just really hard to nail him down and his phone never works or he loses it.
JG: But he's always very, very supportive and very, very professional.
IC: I think he really digs the music. When he plays - there are definitely songs on the record that I wish he'd played on. I wish he'd played on Stasis. There were songs that I definitely should have played on, like Angel of Dead New York, I think I played that better than him.
JG: The thing is, since Ian's the main writer in this band, it's mainly Ian and us around him.
ES: Either doing things he says, or presenting things to him that he would appreciate.
JG: He's like a king.
ES: It's [his] baby. That's how I saw it when I joined the band. This isn't music I really listened to before, in fact most of the stuff that influenced Random Child I listened to after I joined the band because [Ian] gave me 5 CD's of homework to listen to. For The Floor Is Lava I just wrote whatever [I wanted] and because there were five people in the band we all got to say, "This sucks or that sucks," or ,"We'll use this but change this." Now, with Random Child, I basically do the same thing; I'll write something that I think is cool and show it to Ian and he'll say, "That's too light," or, "That's perfect; can you bring it down a half step."
JG: I think that's the reason we all get along so well; we're all on the same page and it's not democratic. It's totalitarian and it's great. And there are no arguments, really, because we all know what we're trying to achieve.
ES: And because I have no foundation writing music like this if Ian says, "That's terrible," I'm like, "OK! I'll write something new!"
JG: There are some riffs I wrote and I'd say to myself, "This is terrible. It's just me playing five notes fast and no scale," and Ian would say, "No! That's it!" and I have to just trust him. But it sounds good on the record, it sounds like it belongs there.
IC: I think going back to when we were recording Pilgrimage, Joey [Hurtado] - both Jack and Joey have very interesting limitations on guitar. Joey's not very good at playing chord-based music...
ES: ...He doesn't have a lot of rhythm with his right hand. He can do some really impressive stuff speed-wise and riff wise if he practices a lot and he actually does practice, which is amazing to me.
JG: Joey is someone who listens to metal. I listen to, like, Explosions in the Sky, which is heavy but... sensitive...
IC: That is a part of our sound though, more Mono than Explosions in the Sky.
ES: I totally appreciate Joey though, because Joey will come to a practice and I'll try and teach him a riff and I won't even know the names of the notes I'll [count off], "3rd fret, 4th fret, 5th fret," and he'll sit there with his Sidekick writing God-knows what and he'll be barely able to play [the riff]. I'll say, "How can we play this song he can't play this riff?" and then he'll come back two weeks later and be able to play it perfectly.
JG: Or he'll play it different and better.
IC: But there was a point where we were recording Pilgrimage where [Joey] couldn't do the folky, rhythm parts and Jack said, "I'll just do it," and then there's the part in Angel of Dead New York where Jack said, "I can't do this part with the fast picking," and Joey said, "I'll just do it."
ES: That was the fun part about recording. There was so little ego in the studio. We went in and there are some songs that Ian and I wrote and then every other practice Jack and Joey would learn a part of a part of a song, like, on bass or something. But once we got into the studio if one of us said, "I can't play this," we'd just pass the instrument off on to someone else. On Illusions, Joey said, "There should be a solo here." I had already done my solo on Stasis and I didn't want to solo again because I'm not that versatile; it was going to sound the same so I said, "Jack, you do it." And he was like, "Whhhhaaaaaaat?" and [he] took it and it sounds awesome.
JG: I still don't remember ever playing that. They keep telling my I played a solo on that song and I'm pretty sure I didn't.
ES: It's great because you basically took as many strings as you could grab as high up on the neck as you could go and bent them as much as possible and picked as fast as you could and it sounds brilliant. It sounds perfect for what the song is and you did it in one take and said, "Is that ok?"
IC: And it's over this riff in 5/4 where I'm singing this... metal-scat thing it's completely ridiculous but it works.
ES: And I told you whenever I play that song for someone and it gets to that part with the harmonics everyone's always, "That's so cool! Who did that?" and I say, "Jack Greenleaf," and they say, "Whatta G."
RG: This question might be ahead of its time, but is the goal for Random Child to become a live band? I know [Ian] and I were talking about this last night; about picking your spots, playing shows where you might get a different audience or people who would definitely appreciate it.
IC: Well I do want to play a few shows with the local bands. I'd love to play a show with Fiasco or Banzai.
JG: So basically you want to make Jonathan's life a living hell?
ES: If we could get a show with Banzai, Random Child and Fiasco it would kick so much ass and I think the people they bring would really appreciate it.
JG: I can't imagine The Mighty Handful and Random Child playing a show on the same [bill] because the energy is different and the ideas are different.
IC: I think if Random Child starts playing live then it will have that theatricality to it. I don't want to just play shows.
JG: There's so much theatricality to the music...
IC: The thing is, we kind of embrace the ridiculousness of it all...
JG: ...Embrace the melodrama.
IC: ...Because there’s nothing wrong with it.
RG: Well that's what metal is at it's best - with a heavy dose of absurdity.
ES: Yeah that's why Dragon Force sucks; because they think they're the best band ever and what they're doing is the coolest thing.
JG: I think in general when people take things seriously it becomes more fun but we're embracing the...
IC: ...Like, there’s a part where I'm just doing spoken word in a Norwegian accent and I'm speaking from the perspective of the black plague - it's kind of insane. But there's nothing wrong with being absurd.
ES: On the other hand, bands that don't take themselves seriously enough won't sound as good because they're obviously not into it as much. But bands who play that up too much like Dragon Slayer, remember them? From Staten Island? With the rainbow glasses...
IC: I left before they played because I was so pissed off at that show.
ES: This guy had an axe that his microphone was on and he - this big fat guy - wore a tunic and he wore this pink heart-shaped glasses and he walked around talking in this crazy accent like, "Zees glahsses ah made of drahgon glahs!" and he said something about unicorns like, "Unicorns ah mean zhey steal ahnd zhey rape." And there were three people there to see them and they were all wearing costumes. And then they were just bad. It was like Tenacious D to the negative tenth power.
JG: I actually think our seriousness is along the lines of They Might Be Giants because they take themselves very, very seriously and they're very professional and they write some genuinely heartbreaking songs. At the same time they wrote Istanbul.
IC: That was a cover; they wrote I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die.
ES: We were talking about movies earlier today and we decided that no matter how ridiculous the premise, so long as the movie takes itself seriously then it's going to be good and I think it's the same thing with being in a band.
IC: I think we're like the movie Battle Royal. In the sense that you're thinking, "Holy shit! What the hell just happened!?" When Jack and I first watched it I was so depressed [after] and when Joey came over and watched it he just laughed and we ended up having the best time because it was just a bunch of Japanese kids killing each other. And with Random Child you can be like, "That's really interesting and thought provoking," or you can be like, "This is the most absurd thing on the planet! They're playing in 19/16? Why are they doing that?"
ES: If the audience gets it and views it from one of those two perspectives it will be good. But playing shows is hard because it's hard to get everyone together.
JG: I don't see us being a live band for a while. I think maybe this coming summer, honestly. We tried to do it this winter break and we got together and practiced and we wrote new stuff and a lot of it sounded awesome.
ES: But then everyone went away.
JG: It's just distance.
IC: But once we get everyone together I want to play a few shows with local metal bands like Inswarm or Hull.
JG: Or more people I don't know.
IC: I just found this band Consider The Source; have you heard of them?
JG: I want to play with Krallice. Krallice are intense.
IC: I also have friends in other bands upstate from being in Somewhere There's A Fix. I wouldn't mind playing shows with Matt [Weinberg] - it would be a bit strange but I do want to branch out and see what the response would be from a scene that would be in to heavier music. It's kind of funny because here in the Brooklyn, Park Slope Indie scene we have parts where I'm screaming and we tune to drop-D to play doom metal riffs but then if we play with other metal bands we have arts where I sing cleanly over acoustic guitar parts. We're too heavy for the indie kids and too light for the metal heads.
ES: Like Metallica: Too heavy for the punk clubs, too light for the metal clubs.
[At this point, Ian is compared to Lars Ulrich and swearing happens. Tola plays music in the background to get attention.]
RG: I noticed at the last Vanishing Point show there were about 125 people and I didn't know 100 of them. Do you - and this is an question independent of Random Child - but do you notice that the crowds are composed of more people than there used to be?
JG: Yes. And the worst part of it is that I look at them and say, "What are the eight graders doing here?" I feel like, especially at the Old Stone House show; I mean I thought it was successful and we [play that venue for charity] every year - Henry [Crawford], Ian and I - Ian less so this year.
IC: My mom basically organized the last two...
JG: Your mom is the shit.
RG: That's going in the interview.
JG: Your mom is the shit. She's the one who made us dinner at every practice.
IC: Sometimes my dad would do it too.
JG: And your dad is really cool; He has some really cool stories that we can't tell here. But it's kind of like in with the new and out with the old. I'm interested in seeing what the younger bands are going to do and what the younger bands are going to be because I feel like there aren't any [younger bands] yet.
ES: I'm so afraid because those are kids who are inspired by us. That can't possibly be good. We're so half-assed to begin with. That's why Fabian [Kaupert] scares me so much. Because he's so into the music - I mean Fabian's bag still has a The Floor Is Lava flyer on it - his bag for school. And I love that he came to all out shows and was really into it, but I can't imagine someone seeing me play music thinking, "That's cool! I want to do that!" and then starting a band. It's like, "What awful spawn did I create?"
IC: I think Jetlag was like that. I thought, "Wow this is the band that Fiasco would inspire."
ES: I mean I'm inspired by Fiasco; I have such a low opinion of my own music.
JG: With bands like The Crayons and Runtime Error - I mean Runtime Error has members of Fiasco in it - but I mean, Jack Wolf and Lucio Westmorland [Ex-Care Bears on Fire] who are probably now going to inherit; we're probably going to leave and they're going to make [the scene] a big deal.
ES: It's actually really creepy too, because I used go to a Fiasco show and there would be all these freshman kids from my high school who I'd despise and I'd be like, "Why are you here?" and they'd say, "Well, we're groupies with Lucio. And Lucio was like, 'I'm going to a Fiasco show!" And so we did too."
JG: Lucio is the nicest guy on the planet. He has a whole studio in his basement now. That's where Women. are recording, The Mighty Handful started recording there and that's when I said, "[The Mighty Handful] have to get tighter." I'm such a band bitch.
ES: When they were younger - like, Care Bears on Fire; I don't want to talk shit about anybody - when those kids were younger they were bad musicians and they sounded like they were nine and ten year olds playing music.
JG: It was more like they were just doing it and not thinking about it.
ES: It's kind of weird because Fiasco was kind of like their den mother; taught them all how to dress and it pissed me off for a while because they weren't very good and they were kind of imitating these kids who were a couple of years older than them but now it's gotten to the point where Lucio’s drumming just blows me away; they actually have their own set of skills which is cool.
JG: And Jack Wolf has the best guitar tones.
ES: They've both learned to really appreciate what they're doing.
IC: We'd love to play a show with The Crayons.
RG: They were supposed to play last night. Wha' happan'?
JG: Knowing them, they're just really shy and really - "I don't think this is going to go well..."
ES: I was Jack Wolf's CIT for songwriting at Berkeley Carroll a long time ago.
RG: They need to work on the shyness thing because watching peoples' backs is really a bummer.
ES: Someone, probably Jack Wolf, decided it was too cold to leave his house yesterday.
RG: I will accept that explanation.
IC: I think Dexter Loos said that. I think Dexter would like Random Child.
JG: I love Dexter. His enthusiasm at first is shocking and you think he might be kidding. I love all those people who I rarely talk to but keep showing up - to any of the shows. I remember when I first went to Stun Gun, which was Fiasco in 6th grade...
IC: First band I ever saw live.
JG: I went to their show and I remember thinking, "I can't hear the vocals at all," because Jonathan [Edelstein] would just be, "[mumbles lyrics]."
IC: And then Lucian would sing and they would do Puddle of Mudd covers.
JG: They did She-fucking-Hates Me with Lucian screaming.
IC: Every time I think I'm doing something wrong with my life I remember hearing that and say, "It's ok!"
JG: You look at Fiasco and I'm just amazed at how good they are now and how hilarious they were before. Even early Fiasco every other song was incredible and then there was some stuff where you just [shrugs].
ES: All the really fast punk stuff that's two minutes long that they don't do anymore - they still have that attitude but they're never going to play those songs again.
IC: They're not going to play TK421...
ES: They'd play CBGB's and they'd do 20 songs in 10 minutes.
JG: With Modrocket - they’d always be with Modrocket and the Bones Royal. And then Mod Rocket went to California.
IC: And then Modrocket broke up.
ES: The old bass player of Modrocket goes to my school; I discovered her really weirdly. I was advertising Brooklyn music and Brooklyn bands, and of course on the internet you can ask people and see if they have certain things. I was advertising The Floor Is Lava and Tetsuwan and Fiasco and this random person was like, "Fiasco's really pretentious," and I said, "I guess... They're nice guys. Do you know them?" and she said, "Yeah I used to play shows with them all the time." Finally, I said, "Who are you?" She said, "I was in a band called Modrocket," and I said, "Oh! I was in The Floor Is Lava," and she was like, "OH SHIT! LAVA!" so we connected really randomly.
JG: I think the most inspiring thing is that Fiasco did what they wanted to do as hard as they could even when it was kind of shitty and now you read magazines with High Places and No Age - [Fiasco] loves No Age; they're one of [Fiasco's] favorite bands - and then they open for No Age and No Age love them [back]. I can't even imagine that feeling of one of your favorite bands really liking you.
IC: Like, if we opened for Isis or Opeth. My head would explode.
RG: You guys touched on this before how you regret the younger bands looking up to you - who were the standard bearers for you? Were there any?
ES: Tetsuwan. I mean, Tetsuwan started before The Floor Is Lava and eventually [Calamity] Sam became our bass player. I just remember Sam saying, "I'm in a band now." Back then Tetsuwan Fireball was fueled by Sam's irrational hatred of The Hysterics. I remember after each song during their first three shows Sam saying, "FUCK THE HYSTERICS!" And I remember at some point having to sit down with him and talk to him because people were getting genuinely upset; people from St. Ann's [School] were saying, "WHO'S THAT LITTLE FUCKER WHO KEEPS SAYING 'FUCK THE HYSTERICS?' THE HYSTERICS ARE OUR GREATEST PRODUCT FROM ST. ANN'S!"
I saw Tetsuwan play a few shows and I said, "I want to start a band!" I had known Jack [Ferencz] for a long time and we met Felix [Walworth] at... Camp years before and [Felix] was the world's shittiest guitar player when we met him. When Jack [Ferencz] met [Felix] at a party [some time later] he said, "I met that kid Felix again," and I said, "I don't know who you're talking about," and Jack said, "He plays the drums now!"
So we went to [Felix's] house and he clearly had no idea what he was doing at the time but because Jack and I had never played with a drummer before we were all said, "THIS IS AMAZING!" And Will [Tesdell] said, "I hear you've started a band, let me hear a song." He came back a week later with a full page of lyrics and said, "I'm in the band!"
JG: Cool & Unusual... We were different people because I was fat and [Ian] wore short khakis all the time - [Ian] still does. And [he] used to have only band t-shirts.
IC: I still do only wear band t-shirts. And at that time I was listening to Marilyn Manson.
JG: Yeah, all the band shirts were: Marilyn Manson.
JG: But the three of us were into Queen, Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse. Those were the only things we listened to.
ES: I have the recordings of them that I stole off Jack's computer and they're just three recordings of Jack, Ian and Henry screaming Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of their lungs. They're all over 6 min long.
JG: We do every single part.
IC: Before Cool & Unusual, my very first band in a practice situation was with Ludwig [Persik] from The Bones Royal and Good Omen and Alex Niemetz from Mod Rocket and Sandra Nazz from Modrocket and this kid Kevin Gannon...
JG: ...with Ian Cory in a room playing Led Zeppelin.
IC: We would just do Led Zeppelin covers and at that point I could do parts of Zeppelin songs but I couldn't play fast enough to play Rock and Roll. That's what made me get my shit together on drums because Ludwig was a really good guitarist and Alex Niemetz was good and Sandra Nazz was not that good of a guitar player.
ES: I said it before but in terms of inspiration for me it was purely the other bands who were around who were my peers; they'd play a song and I'd be, like, "That song is fucking awesome."
JG: I think Fabian is one of our peers - he's our age.
ES: I don't know. He's two years younger than me, a year younger than you. But at the time the bands that were popping up were friends of me and friends of [Jack Greenleaf]. I remember when [The Floor Is Lava] started, Tetsuwan was the greatest band ever and the songs they did we were always, "How did they do that? That's awesome!" That was back when Jonathan [Betz of Whiskey Crusaders and Earth Defense Force] still played drums for them. When we formed they were the coolest thing, and so everything was just [all of us] trying to one-up each other but in a really friendly way. There were very few egos there until later. It was always, "They did something awesome, we need to go back and sit in my basement for three hours and try and figure out something awesome that we can do."
IC: In Cool & Unusual we started doing weird time signatures first. We had a song in 13/8.
JG: And it was our most popular song.
ES: Odyssey?
JG: It was really catchy. You wrote this really strange drum beat and Henry, being simple; back then he didn't know how to play the bass as well so he would have little melodies but they were so catchy.
IC: The point I was going to make by saying I was in The Bones Royal is when I left The Bones Royal I was so angry and I said, "I'm going to form a band! And it's going to be with Jack and Henry and we're going to be great!" That [thought] became Cool & Unusual.
JG: See, [my experience] was totally different. We were all playing Halo and I was like, "Yo, [Ian] you have a drum set," and Henry was like, "Yeah I think I have a bass amp; I'll ask my dad," and I was like, "I have a guitar amp!" We walked over through the snow and played Another One Bites the Dust for three hours.
ES: I think I have a few takes of you doing that too.
IC: For me, my drive was to be better than The Bones Royal.
JG: I thought Fiasco had a lot of advantages because they started in 6th grade and we were [just starting in] 8th grade and we were [thinking], "Oh shit, it’s too late." I was playing guitar and thinking, "Wow, I really don't know how to play guitar." So I think that inspired me to be a better musician.
ES: For a long time my view of Fiasco was like, "Oh, it's Steve Buscemi's kid; he probably gets them all their shows; they're probably terrible." But when the Floor Is Lava record came out I was trying to push it on kids at Berkeley Carroll and [Fiasco] was selling their record and I traded with Julian [Bennett Holmes]. I said, "Do you want to buy this?" and he said, "I'll trade you for God Loves Fiasco." I went home and listened to it and I said, "Oh my GOD this is GREAT! They do know what they're doing! Forget it!"
IC: It's not all Soñar.
ES: It's not all Soñar, which is 20 minutes of feedback.
JG: Julian and Lucian's noise band it was just... the opposite of "light." It was just noise.
ES: Yeah and that was my impression of Fiasco before I heard Fiasco.
JG: It was great because before they got popular Lucian [billed himself] as Lucian Ray, which is his middle name, on everything. There was no connection [between Lucian and Steve, his father] until they got to the Todd P stage and then he put [Buscemi] back. Which I thought was really good and I think it's funny when people say, "Oh, well his DAD made them popular...." It's quite the opposite.
ES: And even if he is [Steve's son], they're still great.
JG: But, y'know, we could suck their dicks more right now.
IC: If Jonathan was here he would probably say that it wasn’t like that at all. The thing is, sitting here with the three of us, I already know what [Jack and Eli’s] opinions of Random Child are. I'd love to hear what Joey and Jonathan have to say about Random Child in an interview.
JG: I think if we take Random Child out into the community, where we're already familiar faces, we'll be accepted.
IC: People will say [sarcastically], "Oh man! It's a super group!"
JG: Yeah, like we thought The Mighty Handful was [going to be].
ES: Back when you were The Vision.
JG: Oh God we used to be The Vision.
RG: That's not as good as The Mighty Handful.
ES: I remember thinking that [The Vision] was the most pretentious thing of all time.
JG: I remember when Jack [Ferencz] told me, or it might have been Henry, because they way they got band names was Wikipedia. They would just click through until something cool came up. We were almost St. Elmo's Fire.
ES: I just remember how Jack Ferencz and Henry Crawford talked about how there was going to be eight people in the band and it was going to be awesome. And I [makes dismissive gesture]. I called Jack [Greenleaf] and asked what it was going to be called and he said, "The Vision!"
JG: I think it's interesting the growth that The Mighty Handful have gone through. It was a competition within the band at first. It was like, we wanted everyone to be in it and then we wanted no one to be in it and we wanted to kick each other out.
IC: And Random Child is the exact opposite.
JG: I don't know. I feel like now that it's just the five of us and Jessie [Goldberg, of Banzai] and Claire [Ardito] are this horn section that’s really professional and cooperative and really nice people. And I think we hold our own without them and with them we're better.
ES: Like when They Might Be Giants have a horn section at their shows they're even cooler.
JG: But I think with the familiar faces Random Child will be a success as a live band. The hard part is going to be getting that sound [live]. The thing about doing the recordings is that those are sounds we could never play live.
ES: That's the thing, doing this record and being in the studio - this is such a studio band for me, because The Floor Is Lava was all about performing and then we recorded because we thought it'd be fun. But with Random Child, when we joined the band, we were all like, "We're never going to have any shows; we might have one, maybe."
IC: We won a talent show though.
ES: We did, with only 3/5ths of the band there.
IC: And I was playing drums and singing.
ES: When I was writing [for the band] I was thinking, "When we record this it will sound really awesome." What's really cool is when we recorded it - we had all these overdubs and harmonies we never thought we could do live - but when we had practice a few weeks ago I taught parts to [Jack] and I taught parts to Joey and it sounded really good and I think we might be able to [play the songs] live.
IC: Also, a shout out to Dan Müller from InDelirium plays on the record. During the really slow part of Angel of Dead new York - he's doing the really ridiculous metal vocals.
JG: I was a great experience and in conclusion - IN CONCLUSION - We'll see [about Random Child] but we've all become more professional through the studio recording [process].
THE RANDOM CHILD ALBUM IS CALLED Treatment, AND IT WILL BE RELEASED IN SPRING/EARLY SUMMER 2009
PLEASE ALSO SEE INTERVIEW I WITH EARTH DEFENSE FORCE FROM JUNE, 2008
Jack Greenleaf: Wait, do you have questions and everything?
Rich Gin: Eh, I sort of wing it. So we're here with Random Child; If you could introduce yourselves.
JG: My name is Jack Greenleaf and I play guitar and keyboards...
Ian Cory: ...and bass...
JG: ...and bass.
IC: I'm Ian Cory, I play drums, keyboards and sing on the record, I mostly sing live.
Eli Sidman: I'm Eli Sidman and I play bass primarily but on the songs I've written on guitar I [also] play guitar.
RG: And you all know each other from previous bands?
JG: Well! There was this very serious band called Cool & Unusual Punishment. It consisted of me, Henry Crawford from The Mighty Handful and Ian Cory.
IC: And for a while, Scout [Pare-Phillips from Radiates].
JG: For a while we had Scout at the end. And [Cool & Unusual] was, like, pop music but Ian always had metal drums in the background. So I thought there was definitely some originality to it but also it just wasn't very good.
ES: I really liked it.
JG: Banzai loved it; Jonathan Edelstien thought we were the shit and, like, Max Coburn thought we were the shit.
Tola Brennan: That last show WAS the shit.
JG: That's Tola Brennan, by the way.
RG: Tola Brennan is listening, by the way, and kicking in his two cents. He is welcome to do so.
ES: I was in The Floor Is Lava for a long time as guitar player and then I was the bass player for Zinko Propolus, which was Tola's old band.
JG: I also...
ES: You played bass for Zinko Propolus for a show.
JG: I also played bass for The Floor Is Lava for one show...
ES: Two shows. At the very end. And then the last song of our last show.
JG: The last show [Calamity] Sam, like, dropped the bass and ran away. So I jumped on stage and played and it was like old times.
IC: Jack and I were in Tetsuwan Fireball for one show.
JG: With Henry [Crawford]. It was weird.
IC: And I was also - and still am - in Earth Defense Force, in the sense that Earth Defense Force still exists.
ES: You're on hiatus.
JG: The world doesn't need any saving right now.
IC: Yeah, it's OK; Obama's in office.
ES: In four to eight years you guys will come back out with another two songs.
IC: I was also in Somewhere There's A Fix and we were terrible.
ES: I liked it too! I've got those recordings I think they're good!
JG: They were a metal-core band. It's just the most upstate thing you'll ever hear.
RG: Taking it back to Eli saying he liked all these bands - who is your audience?
ES: For The Floor Is Lava - I feel like this whole scene started around the time when The Floor Is Lava and Cool & Unusual and Tetsuwan started. Before then there was The Hysterics, who I don't think exist anymore...
IC: And Fiasco was around as Stun Gun.
ES: They were pretty much just a punk band at that point.
JG: The scene at that time just wasn't as strong. I think Fiasco were making a lot of connections at that time. They were meeting Starscream; meeting people like Gavin from Consumer Feedback who's a really, really talented promoter.
ES: Yeah. I think the first show we ever had was in Staten Island and I think we got it from Consumer Feedback and that was with you guys and Tetsuwan...
JG: No that wasn't Consumer Feedback, that was Demand For Cheaper Money.
ES: Demand For Cheaper Money, yeah. Back then our audience was just our friends. I remember before every show the band would get together and go through our phonebooks on our cell phones and just call everyone we knew regardless of whether we'd spoken to them in two years and say, "Hey our band is playing a show! You should come." And then [if anyone] showed up [it] was great. Parents came.
JG: Parents are a great audience.
ES: The Floor Is Lava, had one 21+ show where a bunch of our teachers came which was cool.
RG: How did that go over?
ES: It was good. The venue was pretty shitty. We didn't sound great. But there were ten of our teachers and parents there, which was kind of nice. And then other than that it was just other bands. I mean, that was always the audience I always enjoyed playing to the most - my friends who were in bands. Because, you'd talk about what stuff you were writing over the course of the [previous] week or two and then you'd come get together for a show again and you'd say, "Check out this new song I wrote," and everyone would play their new stuff.
JG: Actually, I think the biggest audience was other bands. And I think that's still true. And I think that now that the scene is meshing with the Todd P scene in a way with Gabe Weinstock I feel like Fiasco is kind of taking the next step and not necessarily [leaving] this scene but also, like...
IC: Expanding...
JG: ...bringing them together a bit more. I think that's really nice. I think it's become much more like - you see the exact same people every time which I think is good and bad because there's always a lot of people, but it's also... y'know.
ES: At the shows I've been to since I haven't been performing, like, the audience is made up of the same people every time which is kind of cool because you go to a show and you know you'll see those twelve kids.
JG: You make friends and stuff.
IC: In terms of Random Child's audience in this scene I don't really know if we have one.
JG: I think with Random Child we have the same attitude we had in Cool & Unusual, which was, "Whoever likes us, likes us," and we don't really care. But right now we're in the process of trying to see what kind of people would enjoy it and we're just shopping around to everyone.
IC: From what I can tell everyone enjoys one part on the record.
JG: Everyone likes one thing.
ES: If not a song, then a part of a song.
IC: I was joking around saying, "Oh there's something for everyone," but there's also something for everyone to hate.
ES: Again, from what I've seen, the primary audience is other bands. I've played some stuff for Jonathan Edelstein and his friends, I mean [Jonathan] is in the band, but other members of Banzai and they all think it's really cool. And I played some stuff for [Calamity] Sam and he thought it was awesome. We tried to do something that no one we know who plays music has done before - at least that was an effort for me; do something that I haven't heard anyone our age do. So when I play those parts for people they say, "Cool! I never would have done that or thought about doing that."
IC: For me it wasn't a conscious attempt to write things differently, It's just that it's always what I wanted to do - the more metal sounding stuff - that I just never had a chance to do before. For me it's about finally being able to write whatever the hell I want.
RG: The only track I've heard is the one online - Angel of Dead New York - and it seems like it's either the opening for Side A or the opener of Side B. It's as if the song is setting up to lead into something else. So - ugly question - is this a song cycle or a concept album?
ES: The concept is chaos and, quite literally, random-ness.
IC: There are some lyrical themes throughout the record. It wasn't like I set out saying, "OK here's the next song in the storyline and there are this many characters and we're going to have a string orchestra..."
ES: And a boy who is deaf, dumb and blind.
IC: Exactly. And in the end we tear down the wall. It wasn't like that. The lyrics all kind of relate to similar things, except for maybe Illusions, which is our hardcore punk song.
ES: Which is the one that's probably the most tongue-in-cheek.
IC: The main song on the record in my opinion is the closing track, Plague, which is nine minutes long and has three separate parts.
JG: It is definitely embracing its ridiculousness. There's a part where Ian is just saying, "Mountains will crumble," - talking - over the heaviest riff you can imagine - just chugging. It's just Ian talking. He would say a line and [have to] back away from the microphone [because he'd be] laughing and we'd giggle for a while and then he'd go back. But you listen to it and it works.
IC: The idea running through the song is that everyone to some degree is fucked up. And not in the sense that I hate everyone, because that's not true at all, but more like everyone, even amazing people, wonderful, inspiring people have some side to them that's really ugly and really hideous and no matter what you do to hide it the really disgusting parts of your personality are still there.
ES: It's funny because I wrote all of Plague except for one part.
IC: Yeah, the Dream Theater bit.
ES: And for me the song has a totally different feeling. Writing it on guitar and listening to it in its entirety, to me it seems like the rise and fall of a band in nine minutes. It's got all these different parts and the sound changes constantly but it's all linked together. It gets exciting and happy and exotic and pretty and then it gets all heavy and chuggy and in the end it burns out like a really bright flash of light and then there's a little acoustic outro like, 'there's still hope.' The first time I heard it I thought, "This makes me feel like I'm in a band and having it form and then fight and then crumble."
JG: The main thing about this album - this band has been a lot of not really doing anything, not getting off [our] ass. We had songs [on the shelf] for years, where we would finish one part of it and be really proud of ourselves and never finish it.
ES: How long were we around?
JG: I don't think it really counts...
ES: ...Random Baby.
IC: There are two stages of Random Child - there's Random Baby and that was when we first started off with me and friends of mine who weren't really musicians; I was just really close with [them].
ES: And you weren't even really a musician at that point.
IC: I was more of a musician than anyone else. And the only remaining members from that time are Joey [Hurtado] and me. Joey is our other guitarist and he isn't here because he lives in Staten Island. Distance was a problem and scheduling because everyone just started getting really busy but we had a few riffs. What we used to do is take a riff and we'd jam on it for ten minutes and the other guys didn't know how to change melodically - they'd just be playing the riff and I'd just be drum soloing.
ES: I joined the band after this phase.
IC: Jonathan [Edelstein] joined then because I wanted to have another drummer and at that point it was like, "OK, if we're going to have Jonathan Edelstien from fucking Fiasco in the band, we're going to have to get our shit together." And we started writing the songs and it became quickly apparent to the people in the band who weren't musicians that they would have to leave. And so Jack joined and shortly thereafter Eli joined.
JG: The album is more of us trying to finish something and just the fact that we finished something is really encouraging. So [the album] is much more for ourselves than anyone else.
IC: I don't think people will like this in the, "Oh I love this album it's my new favorite band!" sense, although I think there will be one person in the world who would think that...
RG: ...possibly in Norway.
ES: Someone out there other than us will love every part of this album.
IC: I think most people will be like, "Oh wow!"
JG: "Oh wow, that's Ian!"
IC: "Oh wow, Random Child; this is really happening..."
JG: "Ian is that you? Oh my God!" It's like, "Yeah, mom!"
IC: Although [my parents] did sit through Somewhere There's A Fix...
JG: I liked Somewhere There's A Fix, but if I was a parent and heard that I'd be like, "Y'know you're not singing on key."
ES: "Put your shirt back on."
JG: Again, the songs are concepts, not really the album.
IC: I've already worked on a lot of material for the next record.
JG: I feel like this band has gotten its shit together so quickly and with all my other bands it's like, "Oh we'll record when we have money..."
ES: Wasn't your only practice space [in the early days] in the basement of Ian's house? Which you could only use one day a week?
JG: Yeah, Cool & Unusual could only practice at Ian's house once a week.
ES: And I think at my house you practiced twice. I think the fact that [we] have a place where [we] can go and rehearse is nice.
IC: I also always thought that the place where a band practices has a huge impact on how they sound. Cool & Unusual, we practiced in my well-lit, comfortable living room and we had this...
JG: ...well-lit, comfortable sound.
IC: And then The Floor Is Lava, they practiced in Eli's basement, which is a bunker - the most disgusting, war-zone kind of place and they came out and they sounded like a fucking G.I. unit. Just deadly.
ES: It's funny because we sounded awful in my basement but Random Child sounds pretty good in my basement.
IC: This is where we're supposed to be; it's just loud and angry...
JG: ...and gross and sometimes one of us isn't wearing deodorant because it's a Sunday.
IC: But for a week in the summer right before we went in to the studio we practiced every day and we got so good.
JG: And we never got angry at each other.
IC: It was amazing.
JG: This seems like instant band.
IC: Just add basement.
RG: Over the last six months or so a lot of the bands in the scene have been "muscling up" their sound live and in the studio. Talk about the sound in terms of album production because what I've heard has a high level of execution.
JG: Well, we recorded at GaluminumFoil, which is a studio in Williamsburg.
IC: So much fun. It was probably the best part of my summer - just going into the studio and it was just a blast - one, just playing the tunes and then having them played back.
JG: At first, I'll be honest, we were playing in Eli's basement and I was like, "This will be OK. I don't know if we're tight enough to do this... I don't know." And we went in and I thought it was really interesting to see the environment the audio engineer creates to make you feel comfortable and make you do your best.
ES: Yeah I've recorded at GaluminumFoil three times now: Twice with The Floor Is Lava and once with Random Child and I worked there for a month for an internship. The guy who works there is this guy Jeff [Berner] - plug to Jeff - he's just an incredibly...
IC: ...tall...
ES: ...skilled, very tall. I sort of jokingly challenged Jack to give [Jeff] the most ridiculous description of the sound he wanted on his guitar that he could think of - it was the keyboard! [Jack] told him you wanted the keyboard to sound like is was on a boat, alone, in the middle of a lake on a foggy night.
JG: And he did it.
ES: He was, like, "Oh, that's easy." And it took three seconds; he twisted some knobs and was like, "Try it now!" And Jack plays a big chord and says, "That's perfect!"
IC: We did that with the guitar too, we wanted it to sound like we're under water in a submarine. And he said, "Let me get my Fucked Up Pedal."
JG: It was really fucked up. I don't know what that pedal does - It just makes you sound like you're on a submarine radar.
ES: I give him so much credit though. He's good at what he does and he's nice and he knows how to give the band as much help as they want, he knows the things you want done without having to be asked.
IC: I was surprised. I came in and said OK, I want the guitar sound to be really heavy and sound like this record and I gave him Catch 33 by Meshuggah...
JG: And he listened to, like, 3 seconds of it and said, "OK, we can do that."
IC: We started playing Subjects, the first track, and I thought to myself, "This is the heaviest thing I've ever heard." It's ridiculous how quickly the most amazing parts happened. I felt good going in and when we finished the drums sounded awesome Jonathan's drumming sounded great my drumming - of course my drumming sounded wonderful.
JG: I think Jonathan drummed on the exact right track.
ES: Unfortunately Jonathan played on only one song because he had a dentist appointment. He said, "I'll come back," and by the time he came back we had finished.
JG: But he came back, which is really nice.
ES: We took a cab back to Ian's place and Jonathan rode his bike behind us...
JG: ...And I kept looking out the back window saying, "I don't think he's going to make it!"
ES: ...And he followed us for, like, twenty blocks and then he got lost. We turned a corner and he was gone and he was replaced by a huge black dude on a bike.
IC: Which just plays into the theory that Jonathan is a shape-shifter.
ES: I think the hardest part about this band is getting Jonathan to come out and practice. He's in Fiasco and Banzai and everything extracurricular at school and he's definitely feeding starving children in other countries every other weekend. It's just really hard to nail him down and his phone never works or he loses it.
JG: But he's always very, very supportive and very, very professional.
IC: I think he really digs the music. When he plays - there are definitely songs on the record that I wish he'd played on. I wish he'd played on Stasis. There were songs that I definitely should have played on, like Angel of Dead New York, I think I played that better than him.
JG: The thing is, since Ian's the main writer in this band, it's mainly Ian and us around him.
ES: Either doing things he says, or presenting things to him that he would appreciate.
JG: He's like a king.
ES: It's [his] baby. That's how I saw it when I joined the band. This isn't music I really listened to before, in fact most of the stuff that influenced Random Child I listened to after I joined the band because [Ian] gave me 5 CD's of homework to listen to. For The Floor Is Lava I just wrote whatever [I wanted] and because there were five people in the band we all got to say, "This sucks or that sucks," or ,"We'll use this but change this." Now, with Random Child, I basically do the same thing; I'll write something that I think is cool and show it to Ian and he'll say, "That's too light," or, "That's perfect; can you bring it down a half step."
JG: I think that's the reason we all get along so well; we're all on the same page and it's not democratic. It's totalitarian and it's great. And there are no arguments, really, because we all know what we're trying to achieve.
ES: And because I have no foundation writing music like this if Ian says, "That's terrible," I'm like, "OK! I'll write something new!"
JG: There are some riffs I wrote and I'd say to myself, "This is terrible. It's just me playing five notes fast and no scale," and Ian would say, "No! That's it!" and I have to just trust him. But it sounds good on the record, it sounds like it belongs there.
IC: I think going back to when we were recording Pilgrimage, Joey [Hurtado] - both Jack and Joey have very interesting limitations on guitar. Joey's not very good at playing chord-based music...
ES: ...He doesn't have a lot of rhythm with his right hand. He can do some really impressive stuff speed-wise and riff wise if he practices a lot and he actually does practice, which is amazing to me.
JG: Joey is someone who listens to metal. I listen to, like, Explosions in the Sky, which is heavy but... sensitive...
IC: That is a part of our sound though, more Mono than Explosions in the Sky.
ES: I totally appreciate Joey though, because Joey will come to a practice and I'll try and teach him a riff and I won't even know the names of the notes I'll [count off], "3rd fret, 4th fret, 5th fret," and he'll sit there with his Sidekick writing God-knows what and he'll be barely able to play [the riff]. I'll say, "How can we play this song he can't play this riff?" and then he'll come back two weeks later and be able to play it perfectly.
JG: Or he'll play it different and better.
IC: But there was a point where we were recording Pilgrimage where [Joey] couldn't do the folky, rhythm parts and Jack said, "I'll just do it," and then there's the part in Angel of Dead New York where Jack said, "I can't do this part with the fast picking," and Joey said, "I'll just do it."
ES: That was the fun part about recording. There was so little ego in the studio. We went in and there are some songs that Ian and I wrote and then every other practice Jack and Joey would learn a part of a part of a song, like, on bass or something. But once we got into the studio if one of us said, "I can't play this," we'd just pass the instrument off on to someone else. On Illusions, Joey said, "There should be a solo here." I had already done my solo on Stasis and I didn't want to solo again because I'm not that versatile; it was going to sound the same so I said, "Jack, you do it." And he was like, "Whhhhaaaaaaat?" and [he] took it and it sounds awesome.
JG: I still don't remember ever playing that. They keep telling my I played a solo on that song and I'm pretty sure I didn't.
ES: It's great because you basically took as many strings as you could grab as high up on the neck as you could go and bent them as much as possible and picked as fast as you could and it sounds brilliant. It sounds perfect for what the song is and you did it in one take and said, "Is that ok?"
IC: And it's over this riff in 5/4 where I'm singing this... metal-scat thing it's completely ridiculous but it works.
ES: And I told you whenever I play that song for someone and it gets to that part with the harmonics everyone's always, "That's so cool! Who did that?" and I say, "Jack Greenleaf," and they say, "Whatta G."
RG: This question might be ahead of its time, but is the goal for Random Child to become a live band? I know [Ian] and I were talking about this last night; about picking your spots, playing shows where you might get a different audience or people who would definitely appreciate it.
IC: Well I do want to play a few shows with the local bands. I'd love to play a show with Fiasco or Banzai.
JG: So basically you want to make Jonathan's life a living hell?
ES: If we could get a show with Banzai, Random Child and Fiasco it would kick so much ass and I think the people they bring would really appreciate it.
JG: I can't imagine The Mighty Handful and Random Child playing a show on the same [bill] because the energy is different and the ideas are different.
IC: I think if Random Child starts playing live then it will have that theatricality to it. I don't want to just play shows.
JG: There's so much theatricality to the music...
IC: The thing is, we kind of embrace the ridiculousness of it all...
JG: ...Embrace the melodrama.
IC: ...Because there’s nothing wrong with it.
RG: Well that's what metal is at it's best - with a heavy dose of absurdity.
ES: Yeah that's why Dragon Force sucks; because they think they're the best band ever and what they're doing is the coolest thing.
JG: I think in general when people take things seriously it becomes more fun but we're embracing the...
IC: ...Like, there’s a part where I'm just doing spoken word in a Norwegian accent and I'm speaking from the perspective of the black plague - it's kind of insane. But there's nothing wrong with being absurd.
ES: On the other hand, bands that don't take themselves seriously enough won't sound as good because they're obviously not into it as much. But bands who play that up too much like Dragon Slayer, remember them? From Staten Island? With the rainbow glasses...
IC: I left before they played because I was so pissed off at that show.
ES: This guy had an axe that his microphone was on and he - this big fat guy - wore a tunic and he wore this pink heart-shaped glasses and he walked around talking in this crazy accent like, "Zees glahsses ah made of drahgon glahs!" and he said something about unicorns like, "Unicorns ah mean zhey steal ahnd zhey rape." And there were three people there to see them and they were all wearing costumes. And then they were just bad. It was like Tenacious D to the negative tenth power.
JG: I actually think our seriousness is along the lines of They Might Be Giants because they take themselves very, very seriously and they're very professional and they write some genuinely heartbreaking songs. At the same time they wrote Istanbul.
IC: That was a cover; they wrote I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die.
ES: We were talking about movies earlier today and we decided that no matter how ridiculous the premise, so long as the movie takes itself seriously then it's going to be good and I think it's the same thing with being in a band.
IC: I think we're like the movie Battle Royal. In the sense that you're thinking, "Holy shit! What the hell just happened!?" When Jack and I first watched it I was so depressed [after] and when Joey came over and watched it he just laughed and we ended up having the best time because it was just a bunch of Japanese kids killing each other. And with Random Child you can be like, "That's really interesting and thought provoking," or you can be like, "This is the most absurd thing on the planet! They're playing in 19/16? Why are they doing that?"
ES: If the audience gets it and views it from one of those two perspectives it will be good. But playing shows is hard because it's hard to get everyone together.
JG: I don't see us being a live band for a while. I think maybe this coming summer, honestly. We tried to do it this winter break and we got together and practiced and we wrote new stuff and a lot of it sounded awesome.
ES: But then everyone went away.
JG: It's just distance.
IC: But once we get everyone together I want to play a few shows with local metal bands like Inswarm or Hull.
JG: Or more people I don't know.
IC: I just found this band Consider The Source; have you heard of them?
JG: I want to play with Krallice. Krallice are intense.
IC: I also have friends in other bands upstate from being in Somewhere There's A Fix. I wouldn't mind playing shows with Matt [Weinberg] - it would be a bit strange but I do want to branch out and see what the response would be from a scene that would be in to heavier music. It's kind of funny because here in the Brooklyn, Park Slope Indie scene we have parts where I'm screaming and we tune to drop-D to play doom metal riffs but then if we play with other metal bands we have arts where I sing cleanly over acoustic guitar parts. We're too heavy for the indie kids and too light for the metal heads.
ES: Like Metallica: Too heavy for the punk clubs, too light for the metal clubs.
[At this point, Ian is compared to Lars Ulrich and swearing happens. Tola plays music in the background to get attention.]
RG: I noticed at the last Vanishing Point show there were about 125 people and I didn't know 100 of them. Do you - and this is an question independent of Random Child - but do you notice that the crowds are composed of more people than there used to be?
JG: Yes. And the worst part of it is that I look at them and say, "What are the eight graders doing here?" I feel like, especially at the Old Stone House show; I mean I thought it was successful and we [play that venue for charity] every year - Henry [Crawford], Ian and I - Ian less so this year.
IC: My mom basically organized the last two...
JG: Your mom is the shit.
RG: That's going in the interview.
JG: Your mom is the shit. She's the one who made us dinner at every practice.
IC: Sometimes my dad would do it too.
JG: And your dad is really cool; He has some really cool stories that we can't tell here. But it's kind of like in with the new and out with the old. I'm interested in seeing what the younger bands are going to do and what the younger bands are going to be because I feel like there aren't any [younger bands] yet.
ES: I'm so afraid because those are kids who are inspired by us. That can't possibly be good. We're so half-assed to begin with. That's why Fabian [Kaupert] scares me so much. Because he's so into the music - I mean Fabian's bag still has a The Floor Is Lava flyer on it - his bag for school. And I love that he came to all out shows and was really into it, but I can't imagine someone seeing me play music thinking, "That's cool! I want to do that!" and then starting a band. It's like, "What awful spawn did I create?"
IC: I think Jetlag was like that. I thought, "Wow this is the band that Fiasco would inspire."
ES: I mean I'm inspired by Fiasco; I have such a low opinion of my own music.
JG: With bands like The Crayons and Runtime Error - I mean Runtime Error has members of Fiasco in it - but I mean, Jack Wolf and Lucio Westmorland [Ex-Care Bears on Fire] who are probably now going to inherit; we're probably going to leave and they're going to make [the scene] a big deal.
ES: It's actually really creepy too, because I used go to a Fiasco show and there would be all these freshman kids from my high school who I'd despise and I'd be like, "Why are you here?" and they'd say, "Well, we're groupies with Lucio. And Lucio was like, 'I'm going to a Fiasco show!" And so we did too."
JG: Lucio is the nicest guy on the planet. He has a whole studio in his basement now. That's where Women. are recording, The Mighty Handful started recording there and that's when I said, "[The Mighty Handful] have to get tighter." I'm such a band bitch.
ES: When they were younger - like, Care Bears on Fire; I don't want to talk shit about anybody - when those kids were younger they were bad musicians and they sounded like they were nine and ten year olds playing music.
JG: It was more like they were just doing it and not thinking about it.
ES: It's kind of weird because Fiasco was kind of like their den mother; taught them all how to dress and it pissed me off for a while because they weren't very good and they were kind of imitating these kids who were a couple of years older than them but now it's gotten to the point where Lucio’s drumming just blows me away; they actually have their own set of skills which is cool.
JG: And Jack Wolf has the best guitar tones.
ES: They've both learned to really appreciate what they're doing.
IC: We'd love to play a show with The Crayons.
RG: They were supposed to play last night. Wha' happan'?
JG: Knowing them, they're just really shy and really - "I don't think this is going to go well..."
ES: I was Jack Wolf's CIT for songwriting at Berkeley Carroll a long time ago.
RG: They need to work on the shyness thing because watching peoples' backs is really a bummer.
ES: Someone, probably Jack Wolf, decided it was too cold to leave his house yesterday.
RG: I will accept that explanation.
IC: I think Dexter Loos said that. I think Dexter would like Random Child.
JG: I love Dexter. His enthusiasm at first is shocking and you think he might be kidding. I love all those people who I rarely talk to but keep showing up - to any of the shows. I remember when I first went to Stun Gun, which was Fiasco in 6th grade...
IC: First band I ever saw live.
JG: I went to their show and I remember thinking, "I can't hear the vocals at all," because Jonathan [Edelstein] would just be, "[mumbles lyrics]."
IC: And then Lucian would sing and they would do Puddle of Mudd covers.
JG: They did She-fucking-Hates Me with Lucian screaming.
IC: Every time I think I'm doing something wrong with my life I remember hearing that and say, "It's ok!"
JG: You look at Fiasco and I'm just amazed at how good they are now and how hilarious they were before. Even early Fiasco every other song was incredible and then there was some stuff where you just [shrugs].
ES: All the really fast punk stuff that's two minutes long that they don't do anymore - they still have that attitude but they're never going to play those songs again.
IC: They're not going to play TK421...
ES: They'd play CBGB's and they'd do 20 songs in 10 minutes.
JG: With Modrocket - they’d always be with Modrocket and the Bones Royal. And then Mod Rocket went to California.
IC: And then Modrocket broke up.
ES: The old bass player of Modrocket goes to my school; I discovered her really weirdly. I was advertising Brooklyn music and Brooklyn bands, and of course on the internet you can ask people and see if they have certain things. I was advertising The Floor Is Lava and Tetsuwan and Fiasco and this random person was like, "Fiasco's really pretentious," and I said, "I guess... They're nice guys. Do you know them?" and she said, "Yeah I used to play shows with them all the time." Finally, I said, "Who are you?" She said, "I was in a band called Modrocket," and I said, "Oh! I was in The Floor Is Lava," and she was like, "OH SHIT! LAVA!" so we connected really randomly.
JG: I think the most inspiring thing is that Fiasco did what they wanted to do as hard as they could even when it was kind of shitty and now you read magazines with High Places and No Age - [Fiasco] loves No Age; they're one of [Fiasco's] favorite bands - and then they open for No Age and No Age love them [back]. I can't even imagine that feeling of one of your favorite bands really liking you.
IC: Like, if we opened for Isis or Opeth. My head would explode.
RG: You guys touched on this before how you regret the younger bands looking up to you - who were the standard bearers for you? Were there any?
ES: Tetsuwan. I mean, Tetsuwan started before The Floor Is Lava and eventually [Calamity] Sam became our bass player. I just remember Sam saying, "I'm in a band now." Back then Tetsuwan Fireball was fueled by Sam's irrational hatred of The Hysterics. I remember after each song during their first three shows Sam saying, "FUCK THE HYSTERICS!" And I remember at some point having to sit down with him and talk to him because people were getting genuinely upset; people from St. Ann's [School] were saying, "WHO'S THAT LITTLE FUCKER WHO KEEPS SAYING 'FUCK THE HYSTERICS?' THE HYSTERICS ARE OUR GREATEST PRODUCT FROM ST. ANN'S!"
I saw Tetsuwan play a few shows and I said, "I want to start a band!" I had known Jack [Ferencz] for a long time and we met Felix [Walworth] at... Camp years before and [Felix] was the world's shittiest guitar player when we met him. When Jack [Ferencz] met [Felix] at a party [some time later] he said, "I met that kid Felix again," and I said, "I don't know who you're talking about," and Jack said, "He plays the drums now!"
So we went to [Felix's] house and he clearly had no idea what he was doing at the time but because Jack and I had never played with a drummer before we were all said, "THIS IS AMAZING!" And Will [Tesdell] said, "I hear you've started a band, let me hear a song." He came back a week later with a full page of lyrics and said, "I'm in the band!"
JG: Cool & Unusual... We were different people because I was fat and [Ian] wore short khakis all the time - [Ian] still does. And [he] used to have only band t-shirts.
IC: I still do only wear band t-shirts. And at that time I was listening to Marilyn Manson.
JG: Yeah, all the band shirts were: Marilyn Manson.
JG: But the three of us were into Queen, Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse. Those were the only things we listened to.
ES: I have the recordings of them that I stole off Jack's computer and they're just three recordings of Jack, Ian and Henry screaming Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of their lungs. They're all over 6 min long.
JG: We do every single part.
IC: Before Cool & Unusual, my very first band in a practice situation was with Ludwig [Persik] from The Bones Royal and Good Omen and Alex Niemetz from Mod Rocket and Sandra Nazz from Modrocket and this kid Kevin Gannon...
JG: ...with Ian Cory in a room playing Led Zeppelin.
IC: We would just do Led Zeppelin covers and at that point I could do parts of Zeppelin songs but I couldn't play fast enough to play Rock and Roll. That's what made me get my shit together on drums because Ludwig was a really good guitarist and Alex Niemetz was good and Sandra Nazz was not that good of a guitar player.
ES: I said it before but in terms of inspiration for me it was purely the other bands who were around who were my peers; they'd play a song and I'd be, like, "That song is fucking awesome."
JG: I think Fabian is one of our peers - he's our age.
ES: I don't know. He's two years younger than me, a year younger than you. But at the time the bands that were popping up were friends of me and friends of [Jack Greenleaf]. I remember when [The Floor Is Lava] started, Tetsuwan was the greatest band ever and the songs they did we were always, "How did they do that? That's awesome!" That was back when Jonathan [Betz of Whiskey Crusaders and Earth Defense Force] still played drums for them. When we formed they were the coolest thing, and so everything was just [all of us] trying to one-up each other but in a really friendly way. There were very few egos there until later. It was always, "They did something awesome, we need to go back and sit in my basement for three hours and try and figure out something awesome that we can do."
IC: In Cool & Unusual we started doing weird time signatures first. We had a song in 13/8.
JG: And it was our most popular song.
ES: Odyssey?
JG: It was really catchy. You wrote this really strange drum beat and Henry, being simple; back then he didn't know how to play the bass as well so he would have little melodies but they were so catchy.
IC: The point I was going to make by saying I was in The Bones Royal is when I left The Bones Royal I was so angry and I said, "I'm going to form a band! And it's going to be with Jack and Henry and we're going to be great!" That [thought] became Cool & Unusual.
JG: See, [my experience] was totally different. We were all playing Halo and I was like, "Yo, [Ian] you have a drum set," and Henry was like, "Yeah I think I have a bass amp; I'll ask my dad," and I was like, "I have a guitar amp!" We walked over through the snow and played Another One Bites the Dust for three hours.
ES: I think I have a few takes of you doing that too.
IC: For me, my drive was to be better than The Bones Royal.
JG: I thought Fiasco had a lot of advantages because they started in 6th grade and we were [just starting in] 8th grade and we were [thinking], "Oh shit, it’s too late." I was playing guitar and thinking, "Wow, I really don't know how to play guitar." So I think that inspired me to be a better musician.
ES: For a long time my view of Fiasco was like, "Oh, it's Steve Buscemi's kid; he probably gets them all their shows; they're probably terrible." But when the Floor Is Lava record came out I was trying to push it on kids at Berkeley Carroll and [Fiasco] was selling their record and I traded with Julian [Bennett Holmes]. I said, "Do you want to buy this?" and he said, "I'll trade you for God Loves Fiasco." I went home and listened to it and I said, "Oh my GOD this is GREAT! They do know what they're doing! Forget it!"
IC: It's not all Soñar.
ES: It's not all Soñar, which is 20 minutes of feedback.
JG: Julian and Lucian's noise band it was just... the opposite of "light." It was just noise.
ES: Yeah and that was my impression of Fiasco before I heard Fiasco.
JG: It was great because before they got popular Lucian [billed himself] as Lucian Ray, which is his middle name, on everything. There was no connection [between Lucian and Steve, his father] until they got to the Todd P stage and then he put [Buscemi] back. Which I thought was really good and I think it's funny when people say, "Oh, well his DAD made them popular...." It's quite the opposite.
ES: And even if he is [Steve's son], they're still great.
JG: But, y'know, we could suck their dicks more right now.
IC: If Jonathan was here he would probably say that it wasn’t like that at all. The thing is, sitting here with the three of us, I already know what [Jack and Eli’s] opinions of Random Child are. I'd love to hear what Joey and Jonathan have to say about Random Child in an interview.
JG: I think if we take Random Child out into the community, where we're already familiar faces, we'll be accepted.
IC: People will say [sarcastically], "Oh man! It's a super group!"
JG: Yeah, like we thought The Mighty Handful was [going to be].
ES: Back when you were The Vision.
JG: Oh God we used to be The Vision.
RG: That's not as good as The Mighty Handful.
ES: I remember thinking that [The Vision] was the most pretentious thing of all time.
JG: I remember when Jack [Ferencz] told me, or it might have been Henry, because they way they got band names was Wikipedia. They would just click through until something cool came up. We were almost St. Elmo's Fire.
ES: I just remember how Jack Ferencz and Henry Crawford talked about how there was going to be eight people in the band and it was going to be awesome. And I [makes dismissive gesture]. I called Jack [Greenleaf] and asked what it was going to be called and he said, "The Vision!"
JG: I think it's interesting the growth that The Mighty Handful have gone through. It was a competition within the band at first. It was like, we wanted everyone to be in it and then we wanted no one to be in it and we wanted to kick each other out.
IC: And Random Child is the exact opposite.
JG: I don't know. I feel like now that it's just the five of us and Jessie [Goldberg, of Banzai] and Claire [Ardito] are this horn section that’s really professional and cooperative and really nice people. And I think we hold our own without them and with them we're better.
ES: Like when They Might Be Giants have a horn section at their shows they're even cooler.
JG: But I think with the familiar faces Random Child will be a success as a live band. The hard part is going to be getting that sound [live]. The thing about doing the recordings is that those are sounds we could never play live.
ES: That's the thing, doing this record and being in the studio - this is such a studio band for me, because The Floor Is Lava was all about performing and then we recorded because we thought it'd be fun. But with Random Child, when we joined the band, we were all like, "We're never going to have any shows; we might have one, maybe."
IC: We won a talent show though.
ES: We did, with only 3/5ths of the band there.
IC: And I was playing drums and singing.
ES: When I was writing [for the band] I was thinking, "When we record this it will sound really awesome." What's really cool is when we recorded it - we had all these overdubs and harmonies we never thought we could do live - but when we had practice a few weeks ago I taught parts to [Jack] and I taught parts to Joey and it sounded really good and I think we might be able to [play the songs] live.
IC: Also, a shout out to Dan Müller from InDelirium plays on the record. During the really slow part of Angel of Dead new York - he's doing the really ridiculous metal vocals.
JG: I was a great experience and in conclusion - IN CONCLUSION - We'll see [about Random Child] but we've all become more professional through the studio recording [process].
THE RANDOM CHILD ALBUM IS CALLED Treatment, AND IT WILL BE RELEASED IN SPRING/EARLY SUMMER 2009
PLEASE ALSO SEE INTERVIEW I WITH EARTH DEFENSE FORCE FROM JUNE, 2008
Labels: bands, brooklyn, eli sidman, ian cory, interview, jack greenleaf, music, random child
POSTED BY rgin AT 1:33 PM0 COMMENTS