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WEHM All Access - Great South Bay Music Festival - The Ries Brothers · WEHM All Access

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to WEHM All Access, the podcast where we bring you in-depth conversations with the people shaping life right here on Eastern Long Island.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: Now, every episode we're going to dive into the stories, the music, and the voices that define our community, from local leaders to musicians you know and love.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: And throughout this tale, we're catching up with many of the performers, taking the stage at the Great South Bay Music Festival, getting the inside scoop on their music, their journey, and what they're bringing the patch out this year.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, next up on WEHML last test from Florida, the Reese Brothers.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: They're coming north to the Great South Bay Music Festival.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: Now they've been on the road a lot this year.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: They're heading up to perform Friday night, July 24th.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Get all the details at GreatSouth Bay MusicFestival.com.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: We chatted with the brothers about their musical influences, how long they've been together, working together as brothers, what's that like, and lots more.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: Take a listen to the Reese Brothers on WEHM All Access.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's EHM All Access, the Great South Bay Music Festival 2026 edition.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: And coming up on Friday, July 24th at 6 30, the Reese Brothers are performing, and very interesting to uh chat with these brothers uh to see uh kind of get a little history and see what's going on.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: And uh first off, have you ever performed at the the Great South Bay Music Festival before?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: We have not, and I've been following this fest for years.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Every year when the lineup comes out, uh it's always been one of the top of my list to play one day, so we were highly honored to be asked to play it this year.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Very it's interesting because you guys are from Florida, so I guess I'm curious how you guys got hooked up with the festival.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: We've uh we've been on the road, let's see, full time since 2018.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: We've been an opening act for everybody from G Love and Special Sauce, Tyration, uh Iatara Galactic, uh Big Something.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we've been working the circuit for a while.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and like I said, this festival's been on our radar for years.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: We've we've tried to get on it before.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I gotta give a shout out to our friends, our good friends in Ugiwawa.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: They put in a good word for us this time around.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and then the festival reached out and made it happen.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Very nice.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: You guys are from Clearwater uh St.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Pete area down in Florida.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh how old were you guys when you started performing together?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was freshman high school.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Kevin was in middle school still when we started playing local bars.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: We had a family friend owned a family friend owned a seafood restaurant and gave us our first shot uh on Sunday afternoon, one to five was the gig.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: And during football season, so no one cared about the band at all.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it was a great place to learn how to make a set list, learn how to, first of all, we needed material.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we were we had like one original song back then, so we were playing on all covers, but we learned how to slowly integrate our originals in there, learned how to work with the crowd.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: So we played there about two full years um while we were in school um to get get the chops up before we could uh start doing like bigger shows.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: Matt's very cool.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: What have what did you guys listen to growing up?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: What kind of influenced you as far as choosing this direction, kind of a mix of rock and blues and reggae?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: Where where did this come from?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I guess from a really young, really young age, uh we were introduced to the Beatles from from our dad, and uh that was kind of our first band that we fell in love with.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then as we got older, we kind of developed our own different tastes in music.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like Charlie's a big classic rock fan, like the doors are his favorite.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I kind of grew up and and started loving reggae and old school reggae, and that's what's kind of cool about it is we take both of our influences and kind of put them together and create a pretty unique sound, which is pretty cool.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the whole reason that I do the uh the key bass with my left hand is uh tribute to Rayman Zarek uh the doors.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: And um when I because I was blown away when I found out they didn't have a bassist.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, wow, like a rock band of the 60s is not a bass, but how did they do that?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because because we were having trouble finding a bass player.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I'm like, wow, he played all the bass lines on his left hand with a mini keyboard.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what if I tried to do that while I played the drums, and then that would fill in our whole sound?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then I tried it, and um, I thought it would be okay, I'll just do this until we find someone, and now here we are, over ten years later.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: I read it's interesting you say that, but the doors.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: I also read something about Jimi Hendrix being a big influence on you.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Here's one of the the first kind of guitar second two, and that made my decision easy when it came to which instrument I wanted to play.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I saw Jimi Hendrix's videos and I was like, Yeah, I want to do that, except right-handed.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what's interesting is it's it's only two people, but uh, you guys have a lot of of really rich sound and a lot how when did you realize you can do this as a duo and kind of figure out because it sounds like you guys just play so many different instruments.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it was born of necessity in the beginning because we we tried, you know, we started out, there was like two or three others in a in a band that we had in middle school.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we played about two shows, and then people stopped showing up to rehearsal like one by one and just lost interest.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: So by the end of it, uh, and we rehearsed in our living room.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: So by the end of it, it was just Kevin and I in our living room.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: We were just like, you know what?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: We actually really want to do this.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: If no one else does, we'll just be a duo.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because we really didn't know anybody else in the music scene or anything, so we're like, you know, we know we love playing music.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't we just find a way to do this as a duo?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I brought in the key bass thing, and then we tried to come up with every way possible to make it sound more than just two people, and also for the audience to not get bored.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: That was one of our goals still to this day, is in a full show, throw as much at the crowd so that there's only seeing two people up there, but they will never get bored.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's really interesting, and really a kind of a challenge for you is how do you decide what instruments to play for the songs and kind of fits that song's personality?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um most of it just as a gut feeling, what feels natural, and then sometimes we push the envelope a little, like no one expects Kevin to pull out a ukulele and put it through his distortion pedal for the blues rock stuff, but we do that anyway.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's really interesting to kind of come up with.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you guys have kind of been inventing yourselves for the for the past decade, it sounds like, in different things.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: What do you guys listen to as far as um I guess inspiration and ways to kind of shape the band?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: What artists did have inspired you besides we talked about Hendricks and the Beatles, but like are there current acts that you kind of inspire you to watch and kind of develop as a band?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for for me, like guitar players, um, like Bucket Buckethead, probably my favorite of all time.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I just love instrumental music too because you can kind of listen to it and and you can take your own interpretation of what it's about.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if there's no lyrics and and no songwriting, you can kind of take the song and and with any situation kind of put it as a soundtrack.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's I love instrumental music.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm a big fan of like modern takes on on blues music.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: So like I love what the black keys do, Gary Clark Jr., um, John Mayer is live album.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's been a big uh big inspiration.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: So like Kevin brings that reggae influence and I bring the blues influence, and then we combine them into something that we hope is a is a is a new sound, something that's completely ours.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's why I feel like we've worked so many years on the road to figure out what that sound is, something that makes us unique.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we're really excited where the show is sitting right now.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, we're beyond stoked to hit the festival.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, I've been wanting to play this one for years.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I the combination of that festival with with how the show's feeling right now, I'm I'm very stoked.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's cool because like Sublime is playing, so they're one of the first kind of reggae bands um that got me into the whole the whole scene.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then that led to yeah to getting into Roots Reggae because Sublime had a lot of roots, you know, uh influences in their in their music.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: So plus we started out playing, you know, the local beach bars in Florida, and and there'd be a lot of Sublime in our set list.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's full circle now to get to share a stage with them.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's pretty amazing.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: It sounds like Florida was kind of a main character in shaping your sound uh a little bit where you grew up and kind of uh gravitating towards this music and towards reggae.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what was it like to tour with different bands and kind of reggae bands and learn from them?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's I mean, what you said about Florida, that's absolutely right.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: There's um like there's not a lot of music industry where we're at, but there's a ton of places to play live, and every outdoor bar and restaurant has live music, mostly seven days a week and usually all year round, because the weather's so great.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: So there were so many opportunities for us as a young band to get playing time.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that was huge.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then when we met our manager, David Parnes, shout out to you, David.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we got hooked up with the reggae circuit, and Well G Love and Special Sauce took us out on our first national tour, and then right from there, it was Pacific Dub, Ayatera, and Iration that took us out um on full national tours.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: So getting to uh to see the country and tour with these bands was like we learned so much in just a couple years, and we found that the the reggae scene was so welcoming to us.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: And we weren't a strictly reggae band, like like we were talking about, our set has some elements of blues and some rock and some jam band.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you could but reggae has been a huge influence to us, and the audience has been very accepting and very open to new ideas as well.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: You guys um attended, I I think I read an online high school.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: You were really young when this was all coming down.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: What was that like?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: What did your parents say about all this when it was happening?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know our parents are very supportive.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um I still did online high school, but we were on tour with Chicago actually back in I think 2013-14.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I was still I was still uh in you know in school, so I had to continue doing that on the road.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it, you know, it made it a lot easier to to do both.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I could still be in school and learn and everything, but then I could be out there living the dream on the road as well.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I think I was a senior in high school, Kevin was a freshman, and that's when we had the opportunity to hit hit the road for the first time.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um so we we hooked up with uh Florida Virtual School to be able to finish uh education.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: And um that was yeah, it was such a trip.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I wasn't the best, like at the time I was not the best student.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I was so focused on music and I already knew that was what I wanted to do.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I was ready to go.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so that was that was nice that that they that technology caught up, so we were able to do that.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's funny.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: You mentioned the man Chicago, you guys went on a tour with them.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: What did you learn from that experience?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: I have to imagine that shapes you pretty young and kind of to see such a legacy band and how they operate as professionals and how how did that inspire your career?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, like still to this day, I every day like we think of the lessons we learned in that.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because we were we were 18 and 15 years old, and when someone at our local bar show uh who worked for the band, like saw us, and just that's how it happened organically, um, passed us along to them and gave my dad a business card and said this is the manager of Chicago, um, and he'll he'll be expecting your your call.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we thought there's no way that's real because we played so many of those bar shows where everybody that you meet says they know somebody and something, you know.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's very true.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we thought, okay, here's another one.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: But then we were like, okay, this business card actually looks real.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's their actual logo.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Look, then we looked it up online, that's the actual manager's name.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: So let's give this a shot.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: We had zero representation, so it was our dad that helped us back then.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: So he called and said, he called their manager Peter, and and and Peter said, Okay, I've heard a lot about the guys.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to send me in the mail uh DVD of them performing a CD and then a short bio, like an EPK.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but he didn't want it emailed, he wanted it mailed to him.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: So we had to get all this together, mail it, and we thought, okay, we're never gonna hear from him again, but it was still cool that he talked to him.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then about a month later, he said, All right, I want to put the guys on two shows.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: We have Orlando and Atlanta.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And do you want to do you want to open the two shows?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we were like, obviously.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, and at the time we we we didn't have many originals, but we did a lot of classic rock covers, and I think he really liked that to have a a young duo play classic rock before Chicago, like a perfect walk-in music.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and um, so and and we were still we were just a two-piece, so we could get off stage in like two minutes, so we're not like in anybody's way.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's funny.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: That is important, and that actually adds to the end.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's absolutely funny to say.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: We found that in the beginning we got a lot of opportunities that way because a lot of bands wouldn't want to take a large ban on for an opener because it's just a pain sometimes.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that really helped.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that first show in Orlando, and then the show in Atlanta turned out to be Reese Brothers and then Ario Speedwagon and then Chicago.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: That was the bill.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: And like you're this is like our first time ever playing outside of Florida, too.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it's that in an ampitater in Atlanta.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: And wow, it was such a trip.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: And the Chicago's tour manager came up to me.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Alright, you have you guys have 15 minutes set tonight.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you guys play 16 minutes, you'll never play with us again.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, wow, like to hear that as a really fresh like touring artist was.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's quite a lesson.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's yeah, that's very important.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think fans realize that too.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Timing is there, it's funny because when we we do a uh we do a contest, uh battle for the great South Bay every year, different Long Island bands compete for a spot at this festival.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: And we have a time limit.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's 12 minutes, and been you know, kind of uh a lot of people have fought back against it.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, no, this is what you have to do.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: This is actually preparing you, and it's it's actually kind of cool to hear you say that because they're part of it, it's like ah, let them go a little longer, or whatever.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's but we learned it.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: We learned a lot how not to go over your set and and the time you've been given, and also how to quickly get your gear off the stage.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's super important too, so that the the headliner can make you know, their older guys can make sure that their gear is fed up in in plenty of time.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: And we've yeah, we've experienced that on both sides of it.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: We've been an opening act for a long time, but and on this tour right now, we're doing a headline run.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we see if if an opener for us goes overtime, the whole show is is yeah thrown off kilt.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: So like I think that really instilled to us because I think we we probably you know rode up there feeling cocky and confident, like, man, we're open for Chicago, or we're gonna and then like immediately it's like, oh shit, this is serious, like this isn't a party, like and then it was like so so valuable to have that so early on because timing is so important, and it's it's not just like the big thing is be someone that people want to work with and want to ask back.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's the like so much of this business is is you know being someone just people want to work with.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's very true.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: How'd you guys hook up with G Love?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I know you became their his backing band for a bit.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: How did that all happen?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: How long ago um so we started working with our manager, um, he's had a relationship with G Gone back years as a promoter.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he would slowly send him send G Love a video every once in a while of us and say, This is a new band we're working with, you're one of their inspirations, just wanted to share it.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, a few months of that and uh just like getting on his radar, and then he had this winter tour pop up and we s we submitted for it right away, and then basically we were told this is never gonna happen.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we're okay, and then you know, a few months go by, and I'm noticing they s he just still didn't have an opening act announced.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, we should try again.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like maybe who knows what's going on, we should try to get this tour.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then we ended up getting it like a a couple weeks before it left.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then from there we just became great friends with him, and then he asked us on the following year that tour, and that tour was extra cool because it was just him acoustically without his band special sauce.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: So what would happen is we would do our set, and then he would do his set, and then we would do a 30-minute encore set where we were his backing band, and we do like his biggest songs in that set, which it was such a trip.
• 16:12
  unknown: Wow.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's actually really cool.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: And what an experience for you guys.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he was Garrett was great, and uh another person that we got to learn so much from.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Same thing with with him and Chicago, like people who've been around you know forever doing amazing things, like they don't need to take the time out to you know give advice or whatever, but they were always willing to.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times when we didn't even ask, you know, it was just like they wanted to come and share their knowledge.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that was really cool, especially because when you're a young band, you can be shy talking to stars, you know.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: So like that that was a huge to get that kind of um that time from them.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: You uh you toured, I think I read with the link Butch Trucks um and his band.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: What did you learn uh from that whole experience and kind of being um adjacent to the Allman Brothers kind of lineage and so to speak?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: What was that like to see that side of things?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: That was an honor.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like that was we did a southeast run um with them, and yeah, just just just getting to be on the same stage as him and and and getting to talk to him a little bit, same thing, just s as the other ones like um you just see what it takes to to remain in the business that long.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, because so many bands come and go and pretty quickly like a band can disappear.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: But like when you have a chance to to pick someone's brain who's been there for a long time, like you should always take it.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we got to do the Almond Brothers uh Museum in Macon, Georgia.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was just a very cool um experience and getting to meet everybody in his band as well.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: They were all awesome, and and we still maintain some relationships to this day with some of his band members.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's very cool.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: How do you guys write as far as especially because you're our brothers?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, is there a role each of you guys have?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: How does it work when you're kind of time to put together a record or at least an EP?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: We try to write together more than ever now because we want to make sure that that whatever we're writing, we can create just the two of us on stage.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because we ran into that problem before where like I'll go spend a couple hours on like a huge production, and then we get together to play it, and we're like, Yeah, we cannot do this live.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: So right now we're and we've focused on that with the with this album we're about to release, but right now, yeah, we've been focusing on stuff we can play live that sounds like the record.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: So when people hear the record, they're like, Oh, they can hear exactly what it sounds like live, instead of like, oh, there's a bunch of production stuff that we can't do live, but it's on the album.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, that's so that is certainly that's considered right when you're writing, you want to make sure you can duplicate it live.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll we'll still go separate and come up with ideas because like that's that's good too, just to be alone and be able to come up with ideas without anyone in the room.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: But when we're when we come together to write, we want to make sure that we can do it live because our live performances are is where we are at our best, you know.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh pretty much always starts with him bringing me some some riffs.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: He's got you know an encyclopedia of of riffs.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he'll send me like 10 at a time, and and I'll be like, no, no, I don't think I can sing that one, but then I'm like, wow, this one right here.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get on this right now, and then we'll get together and go from there.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: But it seems to always start with with him and his guitar.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh yeah.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: You have a new record you mentioned?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: So how long has this been in the works and when's it coming out?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's been in the works over a year now.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's dropping actually the day we played the festival, so it's even more exciting um for us to get to to to debut it there.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: We've been working with the amazing Nick Hexum from 311.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: He's been um kind of our mentor the last year.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: He co-wrote the whole album with us, and he's got a brand new label called SKP, and that's what the album is coming out on.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he's been, yeah, he's another one that we've learned so much from because he's I mean, they've been one of the longest touring um original lineup American bands of all time, like that are still going, like with the original never changing one member.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so he's got so much knowledge of not only what works in the studio, but what works live, and we've been putting out singles for this album for the last year, and it's all getting buttoned up into this album that's gonna drop.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the 24th.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: How do you look at uh obviously singles and an album?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: Is it more just getting songs together and or is there kind of a common theme you want to put together with this record?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: I guess for this one, um, well, the way the industry is right now for a band our size who's not, you know, not a household name yet, um, this the single uh method seems to be the best way to go.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of dropping one or two singles for an album, we we did like seven or eight.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Basically giving each song its moment.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um because with with attention spans now, if you just drop a ten-song album as a not a huge band yet, like it's hard to get people to.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we wanted to build the momentum, get each song its uh its day in the sun, and um I guess as a common theme, this album just came together as w you know, a completely like way of we found our sound kind of.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's you know, we put out music before we felt like we were really hitting our stride right now with what the sound can be for this band.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the theme to cover all the bases, the blues, the rock, the reggae, the jam, into one album that uh feels like it flows from from back.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it's a 10-song album, but we you know we went through like 30 or so to get it down to 10.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um because we wanted it to be at our best.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: What's the uh the biggest thing you learned from Nick from 311 that uh you said he co-produced it or co-wrote the record?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: What uh what did you learn from him by working with uh on on this project?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: His songwriting ability um and how he approaches songwriting, because like he said, we've we're we're a live band, we take pride in our live show the most, so the studio has always felt like you know secondary to us because we love being out here on the road playing to people.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we always felt like you know our songwriting itself um could could could definitely be taken to another level.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And he came in and helped us do that because uh just just watching him work and like hearing things that we wouldn't we never even thought to go there and it's not like we thought we had this chorus finished, and he's like, guys, this is not a finished chorus, you know.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: This this is what it needs in the second half, and then it's like wow, how could we ever think that wasn't gonna be there?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, now I can't ever imagine not using that part.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: Stuff like that, like just his ability to hear things out of nowhere and then just totally improve a song, and it's totally changed now the way that we that we can write on our own.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: That makes a lot of sense.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, Charlie and Kevin, the Reese Brothers, Friday, July twenty fourth, uh, six thirty at the Great South Bay Music Festival.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: Can't wait to see you guys perform and uh your tournament all around.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: Looking forward to getting you here on Long Island in a couple weeks, and uh, we will see you out there.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for spending some time with us.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, thank you for having us.