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WEHM All Access - Student Body Interview · WEHM All Access

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's WEHM All Access.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Harry Warren.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Good to be here as we get to know the performers of this year's uh Steg Harbor American Music Festival.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at the schedule, Steg Harbor Music.org, go there and check out uh all the different performances, four days of free music all throughout the village of Stag Harbor, and coming to uh Kidsquid, it's Student Body, and we're joined by the band right now, uh, three members.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is uh a lot of fun.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they are here.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh welcome John Carlo, Kevlar, and Frosty.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: How are you guys doing?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Great, that's fine.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for doing this, John Carlo.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is uh a project you've had for for a bit, but so you've been you've been around, of course, down on the east end for a while.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to have you and and your bandmates here for you.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I guess we'll start with John Carlo.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: You grew up, um, you grew up on the East End in Abigail, uh, right?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: So you're used to Oh, yeah, in the wild and willing 1970s.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: So you've wow, so you really have seen uh everything just uh change over the past uh few decades.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of amazing.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: You've uh uh you've had a a bird's eye view to all of it.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what's your earliest memory growing up out in Abigail?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: You were surrounded by music, I know, but what's what's something you kind of remember?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: My mom uh ran a restaurant, The Royal Fish, in Abaganset Square in the 70s, and uh that opened in like '73, and I remember spending a lot of time in the square as a kid.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: It was great, it was fantastic.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: What uh how did you get involved with music?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of caught your ear at the time?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I mean, I can't really concentrate on much else, so uh uh they pieced together that that must be my personality before I knew what a personality was, and uh I was just interested in playing music and I was lucky to find some like-minded peeps with with Frosty so we could create our vision.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: How did you meet uh uh Kevlar and Frosty?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh well, um I moved back uh to Long Island um after going to uh college in uh Berkeley School of Music and came back and ended up meeting Jen at the honest diner where we were working.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: She was a good waitress and I was a bad waiter.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so Jen helped me get drinks for table five and helped me get the menus back from table three, and that's how uh so that's when our and our musical um partnership began a little while after that.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: We've been in a bunch of bands together.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Minkla emergency party, and that now student body.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um, when we were in emergency party, we played a show out at the Maidstone Pavilion, and uh and there was a young Kevlar in attendance.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's 20 years ago this summer, actually.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, where did you guys become a band become student body?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: 2017.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_03: Almost 10 years.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: How would you uh how would you guys and each can each take a crack at this?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: How how would you guys describe the band's sound as someone who's who's never heard it before?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_03: All the good ones.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: Uh surprise music.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: Surprise music is a good one.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we just came upon these.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_03: Spaz Rock.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: We end up, you know, getting people compare us to bands like The Minutemen, um uh, for example, because that's sort of a uh high-energy three-piece with um a lot of short songs and fast ideas and uh like a high turnover rate of lots of songs.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's like a band that's kind of similar, you know, to what what we like stylistically.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: We like not having any reverb and we like having um we all each have synthesizers and we all sing, and so we're going for an ambitious thing, but I think we're all like-minded, so it makes it easy.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm sure uh as far as the lineup with the band, is there you because you collaborate with a lot of different people, if I'm not mistaken.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's been pretty much just us.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, we each are in a lot of musical projects, okay.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: But inside the student body, no, it tends to be, you know, we really like to for a song to be on the record, it really would need to probably contain all three of us.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like now that makes sense.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're all doing our own thing as well, you know, sort of writing songs to get to the band, but but um, but it is nice how the records tend to reflect all three of us.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, that that's great.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you guys uh as a band and the three of you write uh for this project?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: How does the process start with uh the germ of an idea?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of it is is John Carlo's songs and and Tim's songs, yeah.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: And and stuff that has uh has been around for a little bit, but it's totally different once it's in a different situation with different people playing itself.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the great thing is that's changing too, you know.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: There Jen has written a lot of songs, Kevin is starting to write more and more, um, and we're starting to do Kevlar songs and Jen songs, so so everybody's personality is uh well documented.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: You've been part of the East End uh scene for for years.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you've been really, it feels like that's from the beginning per se, but it's been decades in the making.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I know you left for Berkeley for a bit.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: What makes the East End such a great place for creativity, do you think?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's beautiful out here, you know.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh I think when it's very easy to be inspired just by um the beauty of nature and uh and and where we are.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think most of the people um that like our music also like the water and the sun, and so it's a it's a great place to be.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um what do you guys say?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think being close to the ocean is is uh a lot of energy there, so I think that helps with creative energy too.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of appreciators too out here, which you don't necessarily find in the city.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: People appreciate things, but not quite in the same way that that people out here do.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's a different thing when everyone can talk to each other and say hello, uh, which you know, in all the years of living in the city, you'll see cool people, but you really don't have an opportunity to speak to them because everybody has to have their guard up a little bit.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Out here, you know, people sort of figure out who you are and what you do, and and people figure out some way of coming up and saying hello, and it's it's nice.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: How has the uh the band you mentioned student body at this in in this current incarnation started around 2017?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: How has it evolved over the past decade?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And and I guess where do you want to take the band?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh no, I mean, how has it evolved?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: We've gotten we've made two records.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's that's part of the evolution.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the first was Watermelon Lunchbox, and the newest one is Desensitize.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um I I think you know, like some of the things we were talking about, about the uh the writing being, you know, at first it was songs that I had written, and uh when you know, a lot of songs that my brother had written, um, that we enjoy playing.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so all this also equipment changes too as we get synthesizers, new effects, new things, we figure out sort of what is our sound as of late, and that does change over time.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I think having like a full sensory experience at uh the show, not just hearing it, but like feeling it and seeing something, like lights.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_03: We have like I like to play around with lighting and looking into other sort of media like that, like projection and things like that.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: I think a more multi-sensory show would be fun.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what uh are you writing now for the for the future projects or future outs?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_03: We've already started boating on stuff.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we're always we're always always playing, always yeah.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Music's an everyday all the time thing.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if I'm sticking to my goal of trying to make, you know, a song every day, and then I skip it here and there, but I still get done a couple per week.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, these aren't songs for anyone to hear but me, just song trying things, trying ideas.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you guys are it does seem like you're always working on different projects and uh different different things.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is this uh how often do you um I mean I I guess as you get ready for the Santa Carbor Music Festival uh performance, how do you view uh that performance as opposed to other ones?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a little different doing it for the the Santa Carbor Music Festival?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_03: We always try to do what we do, no matter like where it is, but we we definitely enjoyed playing the last time we played the festival and are looking forward to it.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um but we always try to give 150% and you know play the best we can.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like what we pretty much plan on having set up for that show is um, you know, uh I have two mini-disc players, they're going into a DJ mixer.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um that way all the sort of sounds that you couldn't make live can be um on those, can be triggered on those mini discs, and I can uh pull up some sounds with one player while I'm playing another one.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why they're going through the DJ mixer.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: I have a keyboard, and that's going into a looper, so I can make some loops on the fly.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and those can be going in between songs so there's no dead time.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then I the guitar is also going through a looper, so I can create loops on the fly with that.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Jen, you know, as as well as her singing mic, she's got her synthesizer.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Kevin's got his synthesizers in the back.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um so we have we have quite a bit of in-peace band.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that's that's very impressive.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: I I must say, because I was I was thinking about it.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: How do you I guess mimic the in-studio uh on the stage, and you guys have really come up with a creative way to do it.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it means that we go it's living torture while we're doing it, but we're having a great time doing it.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's important.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's the key to something.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's all great when everything works.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: When everything when something doesn't work, there's many ways and reasons why it could not be working.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: So then that becomes the challenge.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I think we've gotten pretty good at at like uh moving on the fly like that, if if there is anything that goes different.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Student body at uh Kid Squid, the Garden Lounge, 9 30 on that Saturday night, September 26th.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it should be a it sounds like a just a lot of fun watching you guys perform.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm curious uh for each of you, if we as we wrap up, I just want to go through all the all three of you, do your thoughts on kind of what you get out of student body and what have you really enjoyed being a band for the past decade.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Fun, mostly.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: I would say.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: Number one, if it's not fun, it's not worth it.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: It's been fun.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I've definitely like learned a lot from being in this band about a lot of things.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: So that's been that's been pretty cool.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, like Jen said, we have a lot of fun.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: The name student body was sort of uh predicated on uh the fact that it existed in lots of yearbooks.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's in every school, and the student body is not the stodgy faculty, it's the young and what they what they know.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they're the ones being educated, but they are clearly um the forward-thinking group.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we want student body to remind us that we're never done learning, we're never done listening, we're never done growing.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Our country needs to grow up, and it's been doing a lot of growing up, and and uh and we've all been going through a lot, and so we need um to know that the sleeper cells that we've heard about isn't some far-out idea.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: The sleeper cell is us, and it's a sleeper cell of love and of uh of trying to move the country back to where it it needs to be.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Giancarlo, Frosty, Kevlar.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much from Student Body, the uh Sag Harbor Music Festival.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, follow them online.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're a lot of fun on social media, I might add, as well, but just a great live performance.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for your time.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate getting to know you a bit.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.