After releasing new single "Don't Hang Around" earlier this week, New England-based garage rock/fuzz-pop trio TWIN BERLIN hit the Hard Rock Café in Boston tonight. Before we offer up a few free pairs of passes to catch the show, we tossed a few rapid-fire questions at the band's founders -- singer/guitarist Matt Lopez and drummer James Janocha, who both share duties in Twin Berlin despite living in different states.
Enter your email address in the comments section below -- or hit up the On The Download twitter account (@BostonMusicBlog), and re-tweet this q+a -- to be enterted in the ticket giveaway drawing at 3pm. We'll select two winners at random and give away a pair of passes each to tonight's show in Fanueil Hall.
How did you guys come together as a band?
James: This formation, we like to tell a lot of different stories about it. We had an old band back in Connecticut. Then the drummer left, and I met Matt randomly one night in Boston and we got talking about music, and the next thing I knew we were cramming into the living room of an Allston apartment, lugging our stuff in to jam.
Is living in different states hard?
Matt: Well, yeah. We’ve been doing this for a while so the travel’s not bad, it’s more of the fact that we can’t find a place to practice easily. We all have apartments we really can’t make much noise in.
James: It’s actually gotten a lot easier since I’ve gotten a car. We’ve always said that it shows a certain amount of dedication from us.
Matt: Nah, it’s a pain in the ass.
So you guys just released a new single -- is there a new album coming out as well?
Matt: Uhhh, yeah. It’s a little confusing right now because we have so many different opportunities going on at the same time and they all kind of conflict with each other so we don’t really know when we’re supposed to release certain things. So we figured we’d start with a single now.
Is the album finished?
James: It’s all recorded at this point, but the one that we released on Sunday is the only finished product. Since we had initially planned out and said we were going to put up a track in June, we didn’t want to go back on our word completely, so we released this track to hold people over.
What can you guys tell me about the track you just released, "Don't Hang Around?"
Matt: I think a lot of times when I write songs, I think in terms of playing them live, and to me, the most fun thing to play live is upbeat, energetic songs. I don’t know how that one came about really. Lyrically, there’s nothing hidden; it’s pretty straightforward – it’s basically just I’m tired of people’s shit, you know? I try to put a little layer of sarcasm in there so it’s not all completely serious, but I think the good thing is that the songs that we have are all the same, upbeat, energetic style.
Do you have any non-musical influences?
Matt: Alcohol?
James: Definitely alcohol.
Why did you do an acoustic album?
Matt: That wasn’t planned at all. I think I was just working out guitar parts and I had left my electric guitar in the car, so I was trying to record some guitar parts, and I liked how the guitars sounded acoustically. So while we were waiting to get into the studio, we put out these tracks.
James: I think it’s great because it’s something that people weren’t expecting from us.
Are there cool places to see shows in Connecticut?
Matt: Our favorite place to play is Snapper McGee’s. It’s this cool punk rock bar where the drinks are really cheap and the owner is really nice and fair to the bands. But other than that, there’s not much going on in Connecticut.
What kind of crazy stuff happens at your shows?
James: Matt busts his hand open all the time, and we’d end the night with bloody guitars. We’ve had cymbals fly off their stands and slice right through cables. There’s also the chance that our bassist will get naked.
Matt: Enter at your own risk.
Latest Slideshows
