Interview: Stickup Kid talk catalog gaps, making music at their own pace, and their upcoming record
Posted: by The Editor
Contributor Luciano Ferrara recently opened a show on the Belmont/Rarity/Stickup Kid tour, and afterwards got the opportunity to speak with John McMaster of Stickup Kid about the gaps in their release history, their creative stylings and what the band has been up to in the interim. Read it here:
Ferrara: So, to make this professional and not like I asked you to do this 15 minutes ago, please state your name and occupation for the record.
Jonathon McMaster: [laughs] My name is Jonathon McMaster, and I play bass in Stickup Kid since Day 2. Literally, like, the second practice.
Ferrara: Well that’s good, considering we’re talking about how everything has developed from jump to now. Now, you guys have a very sporadic release history, where from 2013 to 2016, you hadn’t released any new music. Any comment on that?
JM: Right, we had the full-length, and then the EP, and those were just some slightly older songs. It got to a point where we said, “well we haven’t put music out in a while, so we should probably put something out.”
Ferrara: How do you think that gap of not releasing anything affected your creative style? Did you guys think that, “there’s not enough of this genre going on anymore, and we need to bring it back and revitalize it,” or was it more like interests are changing and now you need to sort of refresh your stuff?
JM: If I’m being 100% honest, I don’t think we’ve ever really cared what other people thought about our style. We care about the people who support our music, of course, but at the end of the day, we make the music we want to make regardless of trends or changing interests. Basically, it boils down to, “well, we wrote this song, now what else can we write?” There’s nothing wrong with finding your groove, and I definitely feel like there’s a certain sound that comes out when we get together, just from working and growing together for so many years as musicians.
Ferrara: In regards to the band not releasing anything for a few years, did that feel stunting? I don’t know about you guys, but whenever I finally release a record, I’m already writing my next project. Sitting on that time period, even from 2016 to now, what would you say that did for your band’s dynamic? Were some of you more itching to get things rolling than others?
JM: Well, we have a new record; it’s done. We started tracking it longer than I’d like to admit, but honestly, I think that extra time allowed these songs to develop more and for us to be in less of a rush to record the songs we had just finished. It was more like, “These are our best songs, not just the ones we got finished.”
Ferrara: Was there anything on this new album that you tried differently?
JM: I think it’s got some of our slowest slows and our fastest fasts, and we really looked at the kind of vibe we had for each of the songs and thought, “well, we’ve already got this sound. What can we do different?” Once we’ve explored this part of ourselves, what happens if we push the limits on the next one? I think the extra time shows those developments, and we’re all really happy with it. It took longer than we wanted, but in the end, the results are what matters.
Ferrara: Now, were you guys touring during these gaps?
JM: No, actually. Our singer, Tony [Geravesh], and Cam [MacBain], our drummer, were both finishing up college and it was important for them to get all that done before we could get moving.
[At this point, Tony enters the room]
Tony Geravesh: Got my degree, bitch!
Ferrara: [laughs] Let’s get your input as well. Anything new on this upcoming record you feel is based on these gaps that you think are going to be…the hits?
TG: I feel like there was this huge time period where I was trying to be everywhere at once, like trying to live two different lives. I actually say some of those words in the songs; struggling to try and be two different parts of myself at once. I wanted to be this collegiate kind of person and be successful through those means, and the other part of me wanted to be out on tour. There’s a lot on the record about that internal struggle, and just me feeling sort of landlocked by college while all of our friends were on the touring circuit.
Ferrara: Any last comments?
JM: We’re back baby.
Catch up with Stickup Kid’s latest single, “You Were All Mine,” and keep an eye out for a new album soon.
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Luciano Ferrara | @LucianoRFerrara
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