Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Interview: Breckenwood

Hey readers! This past Saturday, I got in touch with Buffalo band Breckenwood for a quick get-to-know-you interview! All of the answers you see here are direct quotes from them, as we did the interview over email. If you live in the area, go check out one of their shows! If you're not in the area, you can still check out their music via their social networks, which I'll link at the bottom of this post.


Members and their roles:


Garrett Shea - Vocals
Will Folckemer - Bass
Cameron Kukla - Drums
Stephen Adolf - Lead Guitar
Anthony Knox - Rhythm Guitar


When were you founded?

November 2010 is when our current line up began to take shape. Stephen and Tony Joined us earlier this year.



How would you describe your sound?
Our sound is what we would like to think is unique. It is a pop rock hybrid with some rare elements of punk/post hardcore. Our main difference from most other bands that are classified under the same genre is that we do not shy away from guitar solos.


Who are your influences?

Will: Early rock bands like Black Sabbath and AC-DC got me into music, but when I stumbled on In Too Deep by Sum 41 and What's My Age Again by Blink 182, that's when I really knew I wanted to play music. Ever since then Mark Hoppus, Jaco Pastorius, Duff McKagan and a bunch of pocket players inspired me to play the way I do. I try to give myself more of a presence than just root notes, while still fulfilling my spot musically by linking Tony's parts with Cam's.

Steve: Stevie Ray Vaughan. I just heard his guitar, and I wanted to do that. It's funny because I've still never learned a SRV song.

Cam: Dave Grohl on the Nevermind album.

Tony: I have two distinct memories that sparked my inspiration in music. The first was hearing my first Green Day song. After I heard it I needed more. Unfortunately at my age I was unable to purchase their music and my parents were anti green day at the time. I ended up going to the mall on a fairly regular basis to listen to green day Cd's at Borders because they didn't just sample the CD, it played the whole thing. The second memory is sitting in a car with my cousin in Long Island who was playing a local band's first CD. Fast forward a few years and the band ended up being Taking back Sunday, who's chaotic melodies inspired me to begin learning guitar.

Garrett: I started listening to my parents old Billy Joel albums, which made me want to write and play piano. After that I got into classic rock bands like Styx and Journey. Once I started listening to The Goo Goo Dolls though was when I knew I wanted to actually take a crack at making this a career. Johnny's lyrics always spoke to me and I wanted to write like he did, and still do.


Where did the name come from?

Garrett was trying to think of a band name and was standing at the corner of Breckenridge and Elmwood in Buffalo NY. And the rest is history.


What’s coming up for you guys?

 We had a song we called "Oh Beer" for a while that was an inside joke, and we were planning on recording it at a local recording studio, but then someone approached us and told us he thought we'd make magic with Rob Freeman, so we went there and recorded "Lights." Based on how much more professional that song was, we kind of upped our game, and Garrett wrote some new songs going into a more pop direction.  After our first album, which was kind of blues based sounded good, but Rob really helped take us to the next level, and that professionalism kind of got us into gear with the new songs. Garrett actually wrote Pick Me Up the week before we left for the studio to further our pop direction.



Are there any other local bands that you guys find you play shows with a lot or you collaborate with?

Since early on, we got really close with the guys in What is This, and because of that, we've done a lot of shows with them. We tend to only book shows with bands we like or bands we are intrigued to hear, so bands you see us with like The Home Crowd and Sacklunch (now Contender) are bands we've heard of and like enough on a personal level and music level to want to keep working together. Not that we don't like working with anyone, there are a bunch of bands that we support and would love to play with again, but those are the ones we've favored several times.



Are any of you involved in other projects at the moment?

Currently we are promoting our new EP. We are looking into getting a label again possibly soon and looking for more endorsements through various companies. In November we are hosting a benefit called "Breckenwood's Benefit for Brittne" for a fan who was recently in an accident and was moderately paralyzed.. All proceeds are planned to be donated to her hospital bills. Other than this, we are planning to head out on the road in January to share our music with the east coast for the fourth time as a band.


Links


Breckenwood Facebook


Breckenwood Twitter


xx


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