Nota a RealCoolYeah - Habla Jerry Arsenault

Antes de comenzar con la entrevista, quiero agradecer a los chicos de RealCoolYeah y a Jerry Arsenault principalmente, por haberse tomado el tiempo de contestar mis preguntas.
Las respuestas están intactas, porque creo que de esta manera se conoce la verdadera esencia del músico y también sus pensamientos.
Disfruten y gracias de verdad a Jerry (batero del grupo) que demuestra que es un verdadero talentoso.
Ahí va…

¿Como se conocieron? Digo, quién tuvo la idea de formar la banda?
Allá por 1990, conocí a un guitarrista por un amigo en común, su nombre era Mark Wardell. Algunas veces tocábamos en el sótano de mi vieja. Ya en 1993 Mark y yo decidimos formar una banda juntos. El nombre fue “Candy Jar”. Diría que sonábamos como una banda experimental de grunge. Cinco años más tarde nos separamos y cada uno tomó caminos diferentes.
Tenía muchas ganas de formar otra banda y contacté a uno de mis amigos de skate quién conocía a un guitarrista (Brian Saxton). Incorporamos a un bajista, un cantante y a otro guitarrista y constituimos “Mississipi Black Snake”. Describo a esa banda como una de rock, con un poco de jam. Probablemente sonábamos parecido a los “Black Crows”. Hacíamos giras por New Jersey y Philadelphia, y hubo unas veces que contactamos a productores y agentes de música, pero no funcionó y una vez más nos separamos.
En 2002 tuve la idea de juntar a mis dos amigos guitarristas (Mark y Brian) para que juntos pensáramos en algo más y así unimos a Sean Friel. En los fines de semana practicábamos algo pero nunca canciones completas, la música nos llevaba porque cada uno tenía distintas influencias musicales.
Nos costó mucho encontrar un cantante porque ninguno tenía lo que buscábamos nosotros y entonces fue cuando Brian dijo que el se disponía cantar también, y para sorpresa de todos… su voz funcionaba a la perfección. Fue ahí cuando comenzamos a componer.
El nombre “RealCoolYeah” (Real, Buenísimo, Si!!) sonó un día luego de terminar la práctica. Pensamos que la falta de significado que tenía encajaba con nosotros, porque no “etiquetaba” para nada nuestro estilo, no nos ponía limites en cuanto a la variedad de música que queríamos hacer.
Grabamos nuestro primer demo (llamado “Demo”) e hicimos muchos shows en vivo (más o menos 8 por mes). Editamos un cd en vivo en 2005 llamado “RCY in NYC” grabado en el Continental de Maniatan.
Un año más tarde editamos nuestro segundo demo titulado “RCY” y lo que nos espera en el próximo tiempo va a ser algo realmente grande, vamos a lanzar nuestro primer álbum completo.

¿Tienen estudio musical?
Si, tenemos estudios musicales. Yo tomé lecciones durante mucho tiempo para aprender a leer música y así poder mejorar mi técnica.
Brian enseña guitarra a nivel profesional, Sean tomó lecciones de bajo… en realidad, los cuatro sabemos lo que estamos haciendo, conocemos mucho a los instrumentos.

Su estilo de música es bastante único. ¿Hay alguna influencia de la que querés hablar?
Tenemos mucha influencia. A mi me gusta todo, excepto el nuevo country o algo de lo nuevo del pop. Me gusta el rock progresivo como “Yes”, “Genesis”, “The Mars Volta” y “Radiohead”. El viejo rock también me atrae muchísimo, “Hendrix”, “Chilli Peppers”, “Floyd”.
A Brian le gusta un poco más el estilo jam (“Phish”, “Grateful Dead”)
Sean estila para el rock clásico y Mark prefiere el blues y el rock sureño (“Allman Brothers”, “Santana”, “Vaughan” y “Lynyrd Skynyrd” entre otros)

¿Cuáles son tus expectativas musicales? ¿Estás contento con el curso que tomó la banda?
Estamos muy felices, amamos lo que hacemos y la música que creamos. Las canciones son como hijos para nosotros. Básicamente somos fanáticos de la música escribiendo para fanáticos de la música… se entendió no?
Nos encanta comunicarnos con gente alrededor del mundo a través de lo que hacemos. No somos compañeros, somos hermanos. Queremos llegar al punto de poder vivir tranquilos… sólo haciendo esto.

¿Están haciendo muchos shows… verdad?
Cuando comenzábamos hacíamos muchos, alrededor de 8 por mes en diferentes estados. Era demsaidao exhaustivo y no nos rendía arriba del escenario. Tomábamos cualquier cosa que nos ofrecían. En 2005 bajamos a 4 por mes, para asegurar que la gente vea lo mejor de RealCoolYeah en vivo. No estaba mal, pero no podíamos grabar nada ni escribir nada nuevo.
Ahora hacemos 2 shows por mes, que está bueno, porque podemos enfocarnos en nuevo material y dedicarnos a grabar por completo el primer álbum. Elegimos mejor nuestra opciones, antes nos enfocábamos en cantidad, ahora lo hacemos en calidad. Nos han dicho que somos una gran banda en vivo.. y queremos mantenerlo así.

El último demo está listo..¿Qué es lo que viene para RCY?
Uhh… muchas cosas. Recién compramos nuestro propio colectivo, acabamos de terminar nuestras 42 grabaciones en estudio (estudio que construimos en mi casa, jeje) y lo más importante es lo que te comentaba del álbum que vamos a lanzar en 2007.
El rock va a ser mucho más rock, el funk va a ser mucho más funk y si te gusta lo que hacíamos hasta ahora… Yani, te va a encantar lo que viene.
Nos vamos a enfocar también en generar más prensa y más tiempo en radio.

Y por último… decime ¿Cómo es un día regular para ustedes?Bueno, practicamos los fines de semana, si no hay shows o grabaciones. Antes de tocar recorremos un poco el lugar y hablamos un poco con la gente y cuando terminamos vamos generalmente a la casa de algún amigo o fan.
Tenemos los pies sobre la tierra, por eso, somos muy agradecido para con la gente que nos sigue. Por eso tratamos de ser buenos anfitriones en lo que respecta a la atención de los fanáticos antes y después de los shows.

Interview with Jerry Arsenault (drummer of RCY)

First of all i wanna thank the guys from RealCoolYeah, especially Jerry Arsenault, who is the drummer, for answer my questions.
I put it exactly the way Jerry wrote to me, because i think it´s the best way to know his thoughts.
Take the time to read it, trust me.
Here it goes...

How did you guys met? I mean, who had the idea about starting the band?
Back in 1990 I met a guitar player through a mutual friend, His name was Mark Wardell. We would jamm out in my Mom’s basement sometimes. Then in 1993 me and Mark decided to put a band together. That bands Name was "Candy Jar". Candy Jar’s music was very fitting of 1990's and I would say we sounded like experimental grunge. By about 1995 Candy Jar broke up and we all kind of went our separate ways.
Then around 1996 I started to get itchy to play in a band again. So I contacted one of my skateboarding buddies who I knew played guitar (Brian Saxton). So we got a bass player, a singer, and another guitarist and formed a band called "Mississipi Black Snake".
I would describe the music we made in that band as sounding like soul rock, with a little bit of a jam sound too. We where probably closest too sounding like "Black Crowes" ”Mississipi Black Snake” had done pretty well for them selves playing around south New Jersey and Philadelphia, and even had talked to a couple of producers and talent agents. But there were some serious riffs within that band and once again I was left with out a band.
I played in other bands for a while here and there but nothing was coming of it.
Sometime in 2002 I got the idea to get my two guitar playing friends from my previous bands (Mark and Brian) to play together, and form a new band. So I called them up and they came over and we started jamming. Brian Saxton had a friend who was a pretty good funk bass player named Sean Friel. So we invited Sean over and he fit right in. So then we where doing these weekend jam things and not even playing any songs, just jamming and seeing where the music would take us, because we had all these different influences. We then started to try out singers and kept jamming for the next year, but none of them fit our style of music (probably because it was so different).
In 2003 we pretty much realised that we weren’t going to find a singer who fit us. So Brian Saxton said he would sing for us as well as play guitar (He used to sing the back up vocals in Mississipi Black Snake). We found that his voice fit our music well, and we started to write actual songs, instead of just jamming.
One day after practice we came up the band name "RealCoolYeah". The band thought that the lack of any true meaning that the name had was a perfect fit for the open ended style of music we where playing, nor did we want to have a name that would type cast us or pigeon hole us into a genre. RCY spent the next year and a half then crafting songs and recording our first demo (simply named "Demo").
2004 was the year that RealCoolYeah really broke out, and we played a huge amount of shows that year, sometimes like 8 shows a month.
RealCoolYeah released a live cd in 2005 ("RCY in NYC", recorded from one of their headlining shows at the Continental in Manhattan, Nyc. They also kept a steady diet of shows as well.
2006 saw RCY releasing their second demo cd (which was self titled "RealCoolYeah") in the winter. Then in the summer they released a single "Swim" for a compilation cd for Danimal records.
That was handed out at the Danimal Record's booth at the east coast Warped Tours.
2007 will be a big year for Realcoolyeah as well, as they will be releasing their first full length album, and we have a few other tricks up our sleeve as well.

Do you have musical studies?
Yes, I do have musical studies. I took music lessons for a year so I could know how to read and write drum music and improve my technique. Prior to that I am a self taught drummer. Brian Saxton teaches guitar lessons now as well as playing in RCY, and took lessons for four years when he was in his teens.
Sean Friel is self taught, but did take bass lessons for a year.
Mark Wardell is self taught and never had any musical studies.

Your kind of music is very unique. Is there any influence you wanna talk about?
Well we have so many influences. I like everything except for new country or any newer pop music. I really like progressive rock (Yes, Tool, Rush, Genesis, Mars Volta, Radio Head). I also really like old rock (Chilli Peppers, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Sublime, Smashing pumpkins, Pink Floyd). And enjoy jazz and old school rap as well.
Brian likes the jam band stuff (Phish, Grateful dead, Government mule) and likes jazz a lot too, (John Scofield, Medeski Martin and Wood, Miles Davis.) The rock he likes is( Jimi Hendrix, Tool, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, System of a Down, Mars Volta, Talking Heads)
Sean Likes Just rock pretty much (Chilli Peppers, Mars Volta, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Fugazi, Radiohead )
Mark is really into the Blues and Southern Rock ( Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Pink Floyd, Allman Brothers, Black Crowes, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy.)

What’s your musical expectation? Are you happy with the course of the band?
We are all very happy to be a part of this band. We love what we do and we love the music we create. These songs are our children to us. Everyone in RCY is a HUGE music fan first, so we are basically music fans writing music for music fans. We would love to connect to millions of people around the world thru our music.
We feel as though RealCoolYeah has become its own entity, and is much larger than any of us in the band. We also realise that we are all musicians, but more importantly we are all brothers first. Ideally we would like to see this thing grow to the point where we could all live comfortably just doing this.

You’re making a lot of show, are you?
2004, our first year of playing out as band, we where playing out so much it was crazy, like 8 shows a month, in three different states. We found it to be too exhausting and didn’t always make for the best shows. In 2005 we played out about four times a month to make sure that people got the best RealCoolYeah experience. Which was ok, but we still found it hard to have anytime to record and write new material. Now we play out about twice a month which is really much better because it gave us time to write and record the new songs for our new full length album, and to have new songs for our shows. We also pick and choose our shows more wisely now, so that we have great fan turnouts, new material so they aren’t always seeing the same show, and seeing us in the best clubs in the best shows with the best bands around. See, before we where into quantity, now we are about quality when it comes to shows. We have been told we are a great live band, and we want to keep it that way.

The demo is ready, what’s the next step to RealCoolYeah?
What’s next for us.... well a lot of things. We just bought a new tour bus, we just finished building our own 42 track recording studio (in my house).
And most importantly our first full length album is coming out in the beginning of 2007, which is going to have a lot of new material on it, and even new sounds. We have expanded a lot on things we where already doing, as well as trying some new things. So the rock will rock harder, the funk will funk harder, and the trippy stuff will be even more trippy. If you like what we are doing already, you are gonna love what’s coming.
So yea, basically were gonna keep playing out like we are, but also keep playing new venues and probably some larger festivals. Were also gonna start working on getting more radio and press exposure, and promote the hell out of this new album. New merchandise as well. And then in the background to all this we are gonna keep writing new tunes and start recording our second album ourselves in our private studio.

Tell me how is a regular day for RCY (rehearsals, pre and post shows)
Well, we practice on weekends if where not playing out or recording. Before shows we usually hang out with each other and walk around the clubs and talk to people, then when its time to play we have a big group hug. Then after we play we usually go back to somebody’s house and party all night with our friends and fans. We are all very down to earth and silly, very easy to approach and love having good times with friends. We have nothing but love for the people who come to see us, so we try to hang out with them before and after the shows.

Listen this music, I put it one song so everyone could heard it.
Thanks again to Jerry and i will let you know about any news of the band.
Will see you soon!!

Realmente innovadores

En esta oportunidad voy a comentarles sobre una banda iniciada hace poco tiempo. En el 2004 unos cuatro músicos de New Jersey, quienes habían tenido experiencias por separado, decidieron probar suerte en los escenarios y formaron “RealCoolYeah”.
Brian Saxton (voz y guitarra), Mark Wardell (guitarra), Jerry Arsenault (batería) y Sean Friel (bajo) conforman esta banda que merece la suma atención al momento de oírla.
A diferencia de algunos otros grupos, RCY utiliza la parte vocal con más frecuencia y es muy impresionante la manera de mezclar ritmos y variaciones musicales en cada canción. Esto se debe a que cada miembro tiene un alto grado de conocimiento musical, me refiero a estudios muy avanzados, y una capacidad de creación e innovación impresionante.
Hablé hace poco con Jerry Arsenault y me confirmó que además de lanzar al mercado su primer demo, terminaron de crear su propio estudio de grabación, y realmente estaban muy contentos. Seguramente voy a lograr una entrevista en estos días para poder tener mayor precisión sobre algunos temas.
El cd que lograron posee 4 temas, ellos son “Is it real?”, “Long for short”, “Time out” y “Pressure”.
Como siempre mis recomendaciones de algunas canciones… “Doublecross Road” me parece un tema muy pegadizo y disfrutable, la letra está bastante copada, una guitarra bien cruda sin demasiados arreglos encima que pega cuando tiene que pegar (me acuerdo de una frase que dio Gene Simmons de Kiss una vez: “Prefiero un acorde bien dado que una punteada de 5 minutos”) y un final fiel al blues.
Además de los temas del demo, en la página podes encontrar links que te llevan a otros lugares donde podes bajar su música gratis. Para poder distinguir bien la variación de ritmos escucha estos dos temas: “Lies” o “Read my lips”. Después mandame un mail y contame que te parecen.
El sitio web de los “RealCoolYeah” es homónimo a su nombre: http://www.realcoolyeah.com/
Una recomendación que les aseguro les va a gustar.
Gente… nos encontramos en otra ocasión.
Prometo comenzar con las entrevistas y dentro de poco con las bandas locales…

Yanina Pérez de Villarreal

Music Innovation

This time I’m gonna talk about a band that started just a few years ago. In 2004, 4 musicians from New Jersey, who had played in other bands from separated before, decided to begin playing on stages and they created “RealCoolYeah”.
Brian Saxton (voice and guitar), Mark Wardell (guitar), Jerry Arsenault (drums) y Sean Friel (bass) formed this interesting band (you will notice at the time you heard it).
The difference from other groups is the vocal part, RCY use this resource so much often and it’s very amazing the way they mix rhythms and musical variation in every song.
All of this is because every member of the band has musical knowledge, I mean, very advanced studies and a unique capability of creation and innovation very very impressive.
I spoke recently with Jerry Arsenault and he confirmed that besides making a demo for the market, they just finished their own recording studio, and they were really happy.
I hope to make an interview very soon, so I would be able to get more details about this. The cd they made has 4 songs, there are: “Is it real?”, “Long for short”, “Time out” and “Pressure”.
As always my recommendations of some of the artist work….”Doublecross Road” seems to me very catchy and to enjoy very loud, the lyric is very good, nice sound with the guitar and a pretty end, just like blues style.
Besides the songs in the demo, in their website you could find links that takes you some other places in which you can download their music for free.
To hear the variations in the music, I recommend you “Lies” or “Read my lips”. Send me an email and tell me what you think.
The internet site is: http://www.realcoolyeah.com/.
I assure you, you will like it!!
People... I see you some other time
I promise to begin with the interview and local bands

Yanina Pérez de Villarreal

Para disfrutar con el volumen bien alto

En esta primera nota sobre bandas Jam, voy a comenzar con una que realmente llama mi atención. Hablo de “Papas in the Shed”, banda originaria de Colorado, USA.
Esta banda comenzó llamándose “Good Question Band”, en ese entonces Ron Irving (percusión), Jonathan Lantz (armónica) y Michael Nuzum (guitarra) conformaban este power trío con muy poca lírica, guitarra distorsionada en un papel principal y una buena mezcla entre rock y funk. El paso del tiempo recorrió caminos diferentes entre los integrantes y el resultado arrojó el nombre del cual voy a tratar a continuación.
Si bien GQB me impresionó, “Papas…” realmente me atrapó. Nuzum y Lantz sumados a Peter Fiori (guitarra) y Matt Martin (batería) hacen un sonido totalmente pegadizo y atrapante.
El contar con una guitarra rítmica, le brinda mucha más libertad a Nuzum para resolver sus solos y punteadas. El bajo se pronuncia con agudos muy importantes y marca mucho la base musical, cosa faltante en la edición anterior. Tal vez el sonido les recuerde a Steve Vai en algunos momentos, pero lo cierto es que las canciones tomaron un tinte mucho más en común con el rock and roll.
Michael Nuzum me contaba (les prometo una entrevista con el líder dentro de poco tiempo) que el resultado de esta banda es mucho más compacta que la anterior, hay más voz y la batería y bajo se acentuaron. En estos momentos están trabajando en un nuevo demo, así que en cuanto tenga novedades, las voy a publicar.
El tema “Laid out” forma parte de mis favoritos, pero se puede citar además “Stuck on it” y “Fly Away”.
Si tienen ganas y quieren navegar un poco por internet. Péguense una vuelta a www.papasintheshed.com
En su sitio web pueden bajar algo de la música de estos muchachos, demos en estudio y algo en vivo.
La mayoría de las giras las realizan dentro de los Estados Unidos, tengan en cuenta que no estoy hablando de super bandas comerciales (que al fin y al cabo es la idea de este blog), pero gracias a la magia de la computación podemos escucharlos tranquilos relajados en un sillón!.
Para saber un poco más o alguna pregunta que quieran hacerme, manden un mail y les contesto en forma segura. No lo duden!!
Será hasta la próxima gente…
Sigan escuchando música.

To play it out loud

On this, my first note of Jam bands, I’m going to start with one that really got my attention. I’m talking about “Papas in the shed”, originary from Colorado, USA.
In the early years, this band used to be called “Good Question Band”, with Ron Irving (percussion), Jonathan Lantz (harmonics) and Michael Nuzum (guitar). They formed this power trio with distortions guitars and a beautiful mix of rock n roll and funk.
The time passed on and each of then took different ways. The result of this was the name of which I’m gonna talk about.
Although GQB impressed me, “Papas…” really got me. Nuzum and Lantz added to Peter Fiori (guitars) and Matt Martin (drums) create a totally impressive sound. The fact that they count with two guitars, makes Michael´s guitar more free to do riffs and solos. Bass acquire more important place in songs and helps with the rhythm.
Maybe in some parts you may remind a little bit of Steve Vai, the truth is that the songs took much more rocker ways. Michael Nuzum told me (I promise an interview with the leader in a few days), that the result of this band it´s much more compact that the old one, there’s so much voice, drums and bass.
On this days they’re working on a new demo, so when I heard news, I’m gonna publish it.
“Laid out” is one of my favorite, but you can also named “Stuck on it” and “Fly away”.
If you up to, go to www.papasintheshed.com
You can also download their music, some in studio and some live.
To know anything else or if you wanna make me a question, send me an e-mail, I assure you an answer. Don´t dude it!!
See you soon people
Keep playing music!!