Two years ago, my friend Mike (a contributor here on Plus Cat) and me used to spend our summer days crossing abandoned railroad bridges, antique shopping, and listening to music. That summer he introduced to an album called “Broom,” by a band called Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin. I was captivated. They blended the styles of the Beatles with the quiet vocals reminiscent of Elliott Smith. That album defined a few months of my life.
When they agreed to do an e-mail interview with me, I took it as an opportunity to ask one of my favorite bands questions that the music fan side of me was dying to know the answers to. Over the course of a couple e-mails with singer/songwriter/drummer/guitar player Phil Dickey, he found time in between finishing a new album to provide me with a wonderful interview.
Could you give me a brief history of the band. (How you met, what made you form SSLYBY)
I met Will at a party in high school in 1999. We started playing music together, but no one really liked us until we got John to be our singer. John was my roommate freshman year in college. Then Jonathan joined the band in 2005 after our bass player went to art school. His name is Tom Hembree and he’s an amazing painter. I think we formed because we were lonely and depressed and we wanted to be in a band that sort of tried to sound like the Beatles. I think everyone in the world should be in a band because it’s fun most of the time.
As a band and individually, what are your biggest influences (growing up and today) and how do they influence your music?
There’s not a huge amount of things to do in our town, so we’ve all been playing in bands since Jr. High. We all loved music since we were really little kids, so I think the biggest influence was growing up and trying to sound like bands that we like instead of bands that suck.
Being a fan of both Broom and Pershing, I’ve noticed certain style changes that sort of take the listener to different places, while still sounding like the same group of guys. Broom, from my understanding, was self released. How much changed in between the recording of those albums, and can we expect something similar with your 3rd?
We started touring for the first time in between Broom and Pershing, so that was a pretty big change for us. Before Broom we would just play maybe 20 shows a year–just whenever our friends would ask us to do a show. Our equipment was really old and it would fall apart during the shows and we messed up a lot. I used a big bucket from my mom’s garage for my snare stand and it would always fall over in the middle of songs. But then we played 150 shows after Broom came out and we had to get better as a live band, and I think that’s what made Pershing sound so much different than Broom. For the 3rd one we just tried to make a classic album. I don’t know how to describe it yet, but it’s by far my favorite thing we’ve ever made.
What is the writing process like? How much does each individual influence the rest? How do you play off each when writing your parts?
Will, John, and I all write songs on our own, usually on acoustic guitars. Then we show it to the band and we start writing new parts or taking parts out. Sometimes we try to make up new parts in practice, but that doesn’t always work. Last summer I thought of a bunch of ideas when I was at the Ozark Empire Fair. I went home and spent all night putting piano and organ parts over one of John’s new songs.How is the third record coming? I read on your myspace that Chris Walla is producing it. How has it been working with him and how much of a role is he playing in the song arrangements and performance? We’re 90% done. We’re just finishing overdubs in Springfield and then we’re going to mix it in February. Working with Chris was great. He made everything way easier and way better. I think he plays parts on a few songs when he thought of a good idea. One morning Will and I were working on a really old song that Will wrote in high school. I was playing piano and Will was playing acoustic guitar. Chris walked in and made up a really cool drum part, so now it’s on the album.
What are your plans beyond the new record (tour, etc..)? We’ll tour all over the states when the record comes out. Then we’ll probably go to Europe and play a few shows over there. Then we’ll come back home and play more shows and then we’ll take a break and avoid each other for a little while.
And, lastly, what is your current favorite band or record that you feel everyone needs to hear? Everyone should check out my sister’s band, New Monsters Collective. Here’s a link: http://www.myspace.com/newmonstercollective. She writes really good songs and Will (from our band) just started playing bass for her. When I see them play live it almost makes me cry because I can’t believe the melodies are so good.”
I can’t encourage any of you readers out there who haven’t heard this band enough; please pick up their first two records: “Broom” and “Pershing.”
And finally I would like to thank Phil and the rest of SSLYBY for taking time out of their schedule to answer a few questions for me. I have become a bigger fan in the process. Thank you.
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jonjon! one hell of an article. I now realize how much I miss broom (and friend-opened colas)