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Cris Cohen interviews professional musicians to get the stories behind every beat, chord, and lyric.
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13 JUN 2025 · “When I gravitated back to music, it was for the right reasons.” I interviewed Kenneth Nixon of Framing Hanley. We discussed:
- Their new song, "Mean It".
- The influence of Walt Whitman's "The Poet's Purpose".
- The advantage of growing up across the street from the library.
- Developing song ideas through humming.
- Why he stepped away from music for a few years.
- Persevering despite how the social media / streaming companies work to prevent musicians from connecting with their fans
6 JUN 2025 · I interviewed the band Secret Monkey Weekend -- Ella (bass), Lila (drums), Jefferson (guitar). From their bio - "Ella and Lila’s father Matt, a prominent area drummer who’d toured with Hüsker Dü’s Grant Hart, passed suddenly in 2012, when his daughters were aged just 4 and 9. Matt had played in bands with Jefferson and, after his friend’s passing, Jefferson started teaching Ella guitar. A relationship with their mom, Laura, slowly blossomed." What began as a hobby / therapy evolved into a family band.
We discussed:
- Their new album, "Lemon Drop Hammer"
- Starting so young, how Ella and Lila have adapted their playing as they have physically grown
- The song "So Much Joy" and its gritty happiness
- The quirky, fun title track
- The great lyric "walking between raindrops"
- How the music community embraced them after their dad died
- The job title I have never seen in album liner notes before
16 MAY 2025 · I spoke with AJ Dean of The Wandering Hearts. We discussed:
- Deja Vu (We've All Been Here Before), their reimagining of the album by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.
- The rare thunderstorms that bookended their recording sessions in the California desert.
- Veering away from the obvious choice of who should sing lead on a song.
- And more.
25 APR 2025 · I spoke with the band Sister Hazel, specifically Ken Block, Drew Copeland, Jett Beres, and Ryan Newell. (Drummer Mark Trojanowski was warming up because they were about to go on stage.) We discussed:
- Their new album... Sand, Sea & Crash Debris
- Co-writing a song with Emerson Hart of Tonic
- Ken co-writing a song with his daughter
- Which member of the band is "the unwriter"
- The songs "Hole In Your Life," "All Goes By So Fast," and "Lay Your Worry Down"
- And more
20 APR 2025 · Vulnerability with volume. Talking about the song "Wild" with Kelsy Karter.
20 APR 2025 · Talking with Matt Scannell of Vertical Horizon about the song "Everything You Want"
16 APR 2025 · I interviewed Peter Holsapple, best known for his bands The dB's and the Continental Drifters, as well as his work with groups like REM and Hootie and The Blowfish. Topics and pull quotes:
- His new album, The Face of 68.
- "You want to kind of go for feral performances if you can. You want it to jump out of the grooves of the record."
- "There's the human jukebox that's running from the second I get up to the instant I fall asleep that I can't turn off."
- "It's got conversation that I'm having with him beyond the pale. I need that. I need to grieve somehow."
- And he proves he is an even a bigger music geek than I am.
9 APR 2025 · “Sometimes the moment that you think is the worst moment, the worst thing to happen, turns out to be, in hindsight, something that was necessary, maybe even profoundly a gift.”
I spoke with Jim “Soni” Sonefeld of Hootie and The Blowfish. We discussed:
- His autobiography, “Swimming With the Blowfish: Hootie, Healing, And One Hell Of A Ride”.
- Overcoming his addictions.
- Writing about his tumultuous times in a way that did not let himself off the hook, but also did not harm his bandmates, friends, or family.
- The thrill and the pressure that comes with releasing one of the best selling debut albums of all time.
- Hearing the crowd at one of Darius Rucker’s solo concerts sing along to “Hold My Hand,” which Soni wrote.
27 FEB 2025 · I interviewed Chris Berardo. We discussed:
- His new album, Wilder All The Time
- Sequencing the song order so it mimics a live show
- "You are cheating yourself if you don't recognize the joy when it happens."
- Writing songs on the piano that are then played on guitar
- And more
https://chrisberardo.lnk.to/wilderallthetime
https://blog.bandstofans.net/
19 FEB 2025 · I spoke with Logan Tabor of alltheprettythings. We discussed:
- Their album Prose
- His hodgepodge methodology for collecting potential lyrics
- Creating a song like "New Teeth," heavy rock that you can dance to
- His pre-tour vocal workouts
- The different extremes within the song "Carousel"
- From the song “Teenage Lines” the lyric “How you were reaching for the stars again / and only pulling down the empty things that were sitting in between”
- And more
Cris Cohen interviews professional musicians to get the stories behind every beat, chord, and lyric.
Information
| Author | Cris Cohen |
| Organization | Cris Cohen |
| Categories | Music |
| Website | www.bandstofans.com |
| cris@bandstofans.com |
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