Pastimes - Sound In The Signals Interview
For anyone not familiar with your band can you tell me how you guys got together and what got you interested in music?
Adam and I have been playing music together for about 5 years and recently we wanted to start getting serious and start up a new project so we started searching for members to fill out our lineup. We met Chris Ponder through a mutual friend and formed Pastimes. We all come from similar musical backgrounds growing up listening to punk rock/pop punk/ska/hardcore. Honestly, what got us all into music was just growing up watching all of our favorite bands play shows and having a great time doing it. We knew that this is what we wanted to spend our time doing.
Your new EP I Wish I Could Change was just released. What was the recording process like for the EP and how long did you guys work on it?
We have been a band for about a year. In that year we wrote a handful of songs and picked 4 favorites to put on the EP. The recording process was a blast. We went down to East Bridgewater, MA to work with John Dello Iacono and he was great! The process itself went pretty smooth because we had everything already written and ready to go. We spent a whole day tracking drums with Brian Cauti (studio drummer) and the next 4 days was just us grinding through our parts (tracking bass, lead and rhythm guitar and vocals). Everything went well and John was super easy to work with.
I really liked the track "Shelf Life" from the new EP. What was the writing process like for that song in particular?
Funny story about Shelf Life actually; that song was originally extremely different from what we put out. It had a chorus and a whole different vibe to it. One day we were all talking and we just weren’t happy with the final product. So, we cut the choruses out of the song and changed how the song was presented. We are a lot happier with what you heard on the EP than what we had at first. The writing process for Shelf Life really wasn’t much of a process. We just wanted to write something that we liked and was fun to play and jam out to. We didn’t think too much about it while we wrote it. We just wanted to play fast really.
You guys keep the pace up for most of the EP and I think there are some great guitar parts but you closed the EP out with another favorite of mine the acoustic song "Lost Cause". Why did you choose to end the EP with an acoustic song?
We chose to close the EP with Lost Cause simply because it kind of ties all the other songs together nicely. The EP is about feeling like you aren’t good enough. You can’t live with the person you’ve grown into. Sometimes, when you fall into such bad habits you wish you could change and break them but it can be difficult.
What were some of the inspirations lyrically for "Lost Cause"?
Really what inspired us to write this song was just an old girlfriend of mine. Cliche I know, but that’s it. At the time we were just holding onto something that just wasn’t going to work. It was inevitable that it was going to fail it was just hard to let go of the only person I’ve known for so long.
I really like the EP artwork with the shattered image. What is something of the meaning behind the drawing/image, who came up with the concept, and why did you decide on it for the cover of this EP?
We are stoked on the album art. Jake Carruthers absolutely killed it. We came up with a concept of a man looking into a mirror but the area where his face was shown was all blown out and shattered. This was representing the reoccurring theme of not being able to live with yourself. Not being able to look at the person in the mirror in front of you. We pitched that idea to Jake and he came up with an even better idea with the picture frame and the spider webs where the guys face is. We can’t thank him enough. He did an unbelievable job!
I guess that about wraps it up. Thanks for taking the time to answer the questions. Do you have anything else you would like to add?
Thanks for having us and I guess just stay tuned. We have some new jams in the works and hope to be playing shows and getting back into the studio soon!
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