An Interview With HOCKEY

Hockey, a band whose name was the result of a joke, recently released their debut LP, Mind Chaos, through Capitol Records. Based in Portland, OR, their sound has been compared more often to New York and London based new wave bands than their northwestern counterparts. Mind Chaos is an album with slinky guitars, ’80s synths, and huge dance beats, but attempts to have more soul than your standard dance fare.

But it all might not have happened. Ben Grubin and Jeremy Reynolds found each other while attending the University of Redlands and formed Hockey as a duo with a drum machine. They were signed to Columbia — but between producers trying to change their sound, and lacking a full line-up, the band left the label and moved to Oregon. Once there, they added guitarist Brian White and drummer Anthony Stassi.

I recently spoke with Brian while he was relaxing in New York before kicking off their North American tour.

Q: You’re heading up to Wisconsin next. What does a band do in a place like Wisconsin?

BW: I’ve actually never been to Wisconsin. It’s the middle of nowhere, but it’s really not. We travel a lot, so it’s always changing. But I’ll be getting a Packers cheese hat up there.

Q: You just finished up your English leg? How was that?

BW: We just came in from our first headlining tour. We were in Dublin, and Scotland and ended up in a small city in France called Rennes. We had some great opening bands. There was this one guy from Detroit, Deastro, and this band from the UK, Little Comets. Really good time, really good bands and I hope we can play with them again.

Q: Any crazy stories from the road or is it just a go to sleep, wake up, play a show?

BW: There is a lot of routine of playing shows, of trying to stay healthy. But there were definitely some forgettable nights. On the good nights when we play a good show, they  kind of go that way. But we’re a very over critical band and that doesn’t really lead to partying after a show. It’s tough enough just to maintain yourself over a tour.

Q: Have you noticed a difference between an American audience and an English audience?

BW: Really, the main difference is we have had so much exposure over there. We’ve had a lot of radio play and that jumpstarted the tour. The fans are more intense because they’ve heard more of us.

Q: Has England become a second home to you?

BW: London is out my league. It’s crazy. I don’t want to call it home. Spokane, WA is about the furthest thing from London, so…

Q: What was the band you and Anthony were in before joining Hockey?

BW: It was a band called Seaweed Jack. You won’t find anything about Seaweed Jack. It’s sort of a sunken ship.

Q: The band has had some label problems in the past. Can you tell me a little about that?

BW: Again, that was Ben and Jeremy in college. They had a small development deal with Columbia. Didn’t really like what was being done in the studio. It didn’t work. As a duo, they also couldn’t perform the songs. They decided they needed a band.

Q: With the recording of this album, how did you look to avoid the problems that happened in the past?

BW: We are a band that does everything on its own. Never want to blame anyone else. It’s like writing a paper, you don’t want someone else’s name on it. The labels try to help, but sometimes they don’t. And bands sometimes don’t know what they want. So, we want to do everything on our own.

Q: To fail and succeed on your own?

BW: Yeah. At times it is overwhelmingly tedious and stressful.

Q: How do you guys write the music?

BW: Ben, the singer, is the leading man on the album. He writes the songs, brings them in and we arrange them and build it together. Ben played a lot of the instruments on the album as well.

Q: What is your approach to the live show? Do you try to recreate the album or do something different?

BW: The album is so lo-fi. It’s not over the top glamorous. It’s not a usual major label album. It’s not supersonic hi-fi. That’s just how we recorded it. So the live show is the same songs, the same parts, though we just added a touring keyboardist [Ryan Dolliver].We try and make the show more powerful, more vibrant, louder. More dynamic. We don’t try to blow people’s faces though.

—DJ Bears!