An Interview With Backseat Vinyl
A new album release from Backseat Vinyl hits every indie-rock sweet spot you could ever want.
The Scared of Everything album is an insanely fun, refreshing, fuzztone opus of catchy hooks both vocal and guitar wise while the songs play out with an amazing energy.
This is one vibrant record. It's alive and bright. It's youthful and robust. It's 200% addicting.
Blending all sorts of alt, indie, grunce, punk, new wave, and more into one confluent record must have been quite challenging but goddamn does it work well.
There are maybe a few songs that are more filler than killer and even those are still outstanding tracks.
The bangers are many and they are so much fun it's nuts.
It's like if The Cure, Blink 182, and Weezer had a love child and that child will grab hold of you and not let you go..maybe ever.
Backseat Vinyl has the elements of something special and it's all there in the songs.
With such a wonderful record, we wanted to sit down and have a chat with the band about it all.
TSWS: Let's start with the Scared of Everything album. This record is bursting with all kinds of excellent pop punk, garage rock, and more! Where did this album come from?
Backseat Vinyl: Lyrically, Scared Of Everything comes from all the struggles we overcame in 2019.
It was a fun year ‘cuz we toured frequently, and we were finally making our mark in the Denver scene, but none of it came easy:
Friends moved away, romantic relationships ended, I lost two jobs, all while trying to keep our cool as we lived out of a suitcase. This album is a reflection of that.
Musically, we always kind of limited ourselves. We thought we had to stick to a niche, and only that niche.
We stopped caring about that on this album. We just played what we felt.
TSWS: I'm hearing some sick rock styles all over this album. What bands and artists really influenced you guys?
Backseat Vinyl: A lot of Nate & Clara’s influences were Fidlar, Wavves, & The Frights.
For me it was The Story So Far, Blink-182, & Dance Gavin Dance.
I jammed their new album religiously, I think it’s where a lot of my drum fills came from.
TSWS: How did this all start for you?
Backseat Vinyl: I’ve known Nate since high school, my Junior year he asked me to lay some drums out for him on a project. I was into what we had going on and decided to stick around.
We went through a couple of bassists until we found Clara. She’s the most committed member we’ve had to date. She’s been beyond patient with us, and I’m thankful for that.
TSWS: This felt like a big record. Did it come out how you expected? Are you guys happy with it?
Backseat Vinyl: We’re never 100% satisfied with anything we make. That’s just how we are, we want it to be perfect but that’s not possible. However, I can say this is the proudest we’ve been of a release. It feels good.
TSWS: What kind of non-musical things inspire you to write songs?
Backseat Vinyl: Clara’s always been creative, she draws & does photography in her free time, a lot of Nate’s writing comes from whatever he’s struggling with at the time.
For me, I’ll hear a repetitive sound really anywhere, and start tapping a beat out to it, or sing a melody to it.
I usually try to record these on my phone before I forget them.
TSWS: Do you guys get together to rehearse? Will you maybe be performing live when the time comes?
Backseat Vinyl: We do, our parents have been okay with us rehearsing in their basements since high school, and I’m thankful for that. We’re kind of just hanging out right now ‘cuz of Covid. That and we’re pursuing individual projects at the moment.
We will definitely perform live again when it’s safe to. We miss it a lot.
TSWS: What are you doing when you're NOT working on music?
Backseat Vinyl: Honestly, I’m usually smoking pot in my dad’s garage, LOL. That or playing video games, binging music, I recently started skateboarding; my homeboy Josh turned me onto it.
It’s been a while since our last session, I should hit him up again.
TSWS: What's next for you as a band?
Backseat Vinyl: We’re not really sure, we’ve hit some bumps again in 2020, and this pandemic doesn’t help.
I’d love to do live-stream performances once we have the production to.
On the upside, we’ve started some side projects in 2020; I’m working on an EP with a friend right now, and Nate actually has a few songs out under “Bobby Ultra” that you can check out here:
https://open.spotify.com/
TSWS: You guys have been releasing songs on Spotify since 2016! What kind of advice do you have for other up and coming bands trying to get heard out there?
Backseat Vinyl: Don’t be lazy, do your research.
Know what you want your music to sound like before you record, write a plan out for your release, revise the plan as you go. The more organized you can be and the more research you apply, the more successful your release will be.
You can find articles on Google to help with branding yourself, getting Spotify streams, even help you plan a release.
This all takes discipline, you won’t always want to do these things, believe me I know. When you feel that way ask yourself; how important is this to you?
How bad do you want this?
With that being said, practice before you record. Everyday if not almost everyday. Listen to yourself on phone recordings and revise yourself, learn to listen to yourself while you’re playing, make sure you’re happy with how you sound. Production starts with the musician.
TSWS: Before we go, what would you like to say to fans?
Backseat Vinyl: Thank you all so much; from the day ones to the more recents. Thank you for buying our merch, coming to our shows, listening to our music, showing us to your friends, everything.
We are nothing without y’all, & I can’t stress that enough.
And shout out to our fan Riley, who made a drum cover to our track “Heads.” I lost my shit when I saw that.
Keep playing, man. ️