INTERVIEW: The Hempsteadys

WTBU DJ Danya Trommer chatted with some members of the 11-piece New London, Connecticut ska punk band The Hempsteadys. Tales of deep cuts, new music, and cuddling ensued.

Danya Trommer: It’s been three years since your last full-length LP, El Amor de Los Muertos.  You say that Seance! Seance! is a big departure, so I was wondering what is the biggest difference stylistically between that LP and this LP?

Andy Carey: So the old one is like a weird concept album, sort of Bowie-, Alice Cooper-inspired concept album about monsters falling in love. Then we wanted to make a different album; we chose to go to a different studio. It’s more if a ska band recorded for, like, Merge Records. We wanted to make a rock ‘n’ roll album like the Rolling Stones.

N.M.E. the Illest (a.k.a Daniel Johnston): We wanted to single-handedly create the greatest rock and roll album of all time [Laughs].  

AC: We wanted to make Catcher in the Rye–

DT: But as a rock album!

AC: We wanted to make the great American rock and roll album! [Laughs]

DT: So you would say that’s the biggest difference: this is a rock and roll album, that was a concept album?

AC: Yeah, we definitely wanted to spread our wings and fly. [Laughs]

DT: Did any of your production methods change during the time of making this new album?  

Jon Logan: Yeah, we used some weird stuff, like a theremin and busted-up weird keyboards that were just laying around the studio.

AC: We used weird room mics. We had ghosts come in and–

DT: Just to haunt the place?

AC: [Laughs] Yeah.

NME: We recorded a song in a haunted mansion.

Shaun Burgundy: Actually, when we recorded the album, the septic tank at a Stop ‘n’ Shop in Rhode Island was being emptied. [Laughs]

Cody Freedom: We’d been a band since the last record came out, like same members that put the record out.

AC: This [album] was more of a real album.  

DT: Like solidified? Gotcha. Now, El Amor de Los Muertos had a very clear supernatural theme. What do you think ties the Seance! Seance! songs together?

AC: We were like, “What are we going to name the album?”  We were like fighting with each other–

NME: We weren’t fighting that much!

CF: It was like family fighting.  

AC: It’s family fighting! So we were like, “Seance!  Seance! Seance!” We had three seances and we were going to kill each other over it, but we could all [agree] on the two seances. But it still ties in to the old Amor de Los Muertos, still fits in the theme.

CF: I think our next record is going to have an Italian title. We have a Spanish and we have a French.

DT: So you guys are an 11-piece band, which is pretty insane. It’s hard enough having a trio cooperate. I was wondering what has being a big band brought as a challenge to you?

AC: Touring [All nod]. It’s a brotherhood, but we’re also free to do other things. Like NME is a rapper, a professional full time rapper. He’s going on tour in like a month in Canada. Our other drummer is on tour right now, our percussion player is playing drums [for us] right now. He’s on tour with this hardcore band. It sort of frees us up to do different things and this is our passion; this is our fun thing.

SB: It really started off as a side project. We were made up of three or four different bands when we first formed.

DT: Oh!  What different bands were you made up of?

SB: Hand Grenade Serenade, The American Infidels, Chasing Trinity.

DT: What were the different genres that came together to form you guys?

JL: It’s a lot of punk and hardcore.  

AC: Hip hop.  

JL: We’ve all loved reggae for a really long time.

AC: We saw the Aggrolites live. We opened up for them one time at this teen center and it was like the coolest show we ever saw, so we were like, “We should just start a ska band.” At the same exact time, Shaun [Burgundy] messaged me, “Do you want to start a ska band?”

DT: Whoa! It’s fate! Now, you guys relate yourselves to Parliament-Funkadelic on your Bandcamp, one of my favorite bands.  I was wondering if you find funk to be a main inspiration in what goes into your music?

JL: A lot of it.  If not a musical influence, there are some of our songs that are definitely based in that, like “Charlie Dynamite”, which is a single–

AC: I think more like Afrobeat, more like that stuff.

SB: The rhythm section definitely.  

AC: I think it’s more of a catchy slogan that we have on the site; “The P-funk of street punk.”

Jim Lockett: A lot of the horn parts are funk driven too. Just funk hits.  

CF: Like what does it mean to be the P-Funk of street punk? There’s not really a definition.

JL: Well the thing with that is, there’s a DJ in town named Frank Lowe who used to MC for us and introduce us for our shows at home and he was the one that was like, “Hey! P-Funk of street punk, Wu Tang Clan of ska bands,” blah blah blah.  

SB: It’s all in good fun. We don’t really think we’re the P-Funk of street punk.  

NME: We KNOW we’re the P-Funk of street punk!

JL: It’s just because we have so many members, it’s a fucking circus all the time.  

DT: So who do you find to be your main inspirations, then?

JL: Well, the Aggrolites, the Clash–

AC: 1970s [Bruce] Springsteen, like Born To Run album where we just play ‘till we pass out, sort of like Against Me. Bands that have a live show that really is an event.  Like we write our songs and want them to be good songs, but we want our shows to be something you want to be a part of.

JL: The best show we’ve ever played are always us and the crowd. It’s not us showing off.  It’s not fun if the crowd is not into it.

CF: The hardest part about recording our band is that we have such a crazy live show so it’s hard to record that.  

DT: Yeah! I noticed on your live album–it’s a very good live EP.

AC: They did a really good job on that. Like, it’s not just us, but the dudes recording it. I was very impressed.

JL: That was the homie Mike [DeMatteo].

AC: He recorded the Spring Heeled Jack album; he did a really good job. It’s pretty amazing what he did. Live albums don’t usually sound that good. It’s not really us, it’s them. [Laughs]  

DT: I noticed that some songs like “Long Drop Back” and “Teen Wolf 2012” got re-recorded from [album of unreleased tracks] Couldn’t Get It Up.  

JL: Woooow.  

AC: These guys hate that album.

JL: I don’t hate that album!

CF: We haven’t figured out how to get it off Bandcamp.

DT: It’s not on Bandcamp! It’s only on Spotify.

CF: Spotify, yeah. We don’t want it on Bandcamp.  

AC: We had a good following and we were playing shows, so we needed to have something out there. It looked weird with us playing big shows and we didn’t have any merch or shit, so we released some sort of weird recordings. That’s sort of what that album is.  

JL: It’s a B-sides record.  

AC: We love punk rock, we love old ska and reggae, and there’s a lot of B-sides and stuff–

CF: Some of those are actually demos from the record, I believe. It’s a different mix from the record.

DT: I was wondering if we could look forward to any other re-recordings from that album, because there’s still a lot of stuff on there that hasn’t been re-recorded.  

AC: We sort of have some stuff. We were in older bands, and there might be some songs from that–

SB: Well, a couple of them might make it back.  

DT: Alright, so here’s a little bonus question. So, you guys have a great live EP with Live at Cafe Nine, I was wondering what’s the craziest tour story that you have?

NME: We were on tour and me and Logan ended up sleeping on the floor because we got ten guys in a hotel room.  We were sleeping on the floor in this living room, and unbeknownst to me, Logan is cuddling me–

JL: I’m a cuddler.  

NME: I tried to push him off of me and he was like, “No, no,” and cuddled harder into me. So I just let him cuddle me. So I cuddled with a grown man.

DT: So, cuddling with a grown man, would you say that’s the craziest–

AC: Pretty common.

JL: Pretty common.

AC: Things got pretty weird, but you don’t want to tell too many secrets. Gotta keep yourself a little bit mysterious.