We always like to start our interviews off with a brief history or summary of the artist. So if you could just tell us how you got started and a little about yourself as a musician.

I’ll try my best to give you the condensed version. Here goes: Growing up, my parents always played music around the house. My dad played/plays guitar and would play and write and record around the house all the time. My first musical love outside of the Beatles and James Taylor and whatever else my parents were into was probably Poison, Warrant, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi…I was big on hair metal. That got replaced by Vanilla Ice and Kriss Kross. Around 6th grade, Nirvana and Pearl Jam appeared and basically blew my mind. After grunge, I discovered indie rock, and it was all Meat Puppets, Sebadoh, Guided by Voices, Dinosaur Jr, and Pavement. Weezer was huge for me in high school. A Canadian band called Sloan showed up on my radar around 1995 and led me into a life-long love of melodic, guitar-driven pop music. From then on I’ve been down with everything from indie backpack rap to Black Flag. Throughout my musical education, I’ve played in tons of bands. Most notably a spastic punk band band called Thunderbirds Are Now! that did a lot of things nationally and internationally in terms of touring and releasing records. We were heavily active from about 2002-2007. I’ve played with other projects, like Friendly Foes and the Cold Wave, and currently sing and play guitar in a grungy pop band called Destroy This Place. On the side I do solo stuff where I play basically all the instruments and write songs that are pretty personal to me. I made my first record in 2012, which came out on Bellyache Records. Now I’m self-releasing my second disc called “Heart String Soul,” and I couldn’t be more proud of it.

 

Getting into your upcoming album, while the songs are definitely in the tradition of classic power pop bands like Big Star, The Raspberries, and Shoes, I heard a strong influence of alternative icons like Bob Mould. Who were some of your main influences and maybe some ones that would surprise some people?

Yes, all the classic power pop stuff certainly seep into my psyche and influence my solo work. I love Tommy Keene, the Toms, DBs, 20/20, Any Trouble… a lot of the Stiff stuff I like a lot. 

 

But I do love me some Husker Du, and even more specifically, I’m a huge Sugar fan. Bob Mould is a constant inspiration and an absolute hero of mine. He’s never compromised, always evolved and tried new things, and has made music that is heavy and emotional. I love it.

 

I love all types of music, though. I love 70s post punk like Wire and Gang of Four. I love heavier stuff like Black Flag, old Metallica and Naked Raygun. I’m an unabashedly huge Foo Fighters fan. I’m a HUGE fan of John Davis from Superdrag. I think he’s a genius and super underrated. 80s British stuff like New Order, the Smiths, Echo and the Bunnymen, the Jesus and Mary Chain - I love all that stuff. I love all the Canadian 90s stuff like Sloan, Thrush Hermit, Superfriendz, Eric’s Trip and Jale. I love female songwriters/bands from the 90s like the Breeders, Elastica, PJ Harvey, Juliana Hatfield, Belly, and Veruca Salt. I’d rank Superchunk very high as one of my all-time favorites. Same with R.E.M. Then I’ve got my mainstays, like Westerberg, Elvis Costello and Tom Petty. Of course the Beatles, the Kinks, the Who, the Rolling Stones. Paul Simon’s “Graceland” was a staple of my childhood. I had an intense emo phase in high school and early college - the Promise Ring, Get Up Kids, Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker. I like some of the newer emo stuff like Title Fight, Joyce Manor and La Dispute. I love Fugazi. I love shoegaze music - MBV, Slowdive and Ride are probably three of my favorite bands. I like Beyonce. I like Lorde. I’m all over the map. I’m as likely to listen to Shellac as I am Harry Nilsson. So yeah, I’m not sure If anything is surprising, but I’m a big believer in the fact that you don’t need to necessarily make the same type of music you listen to and vice versa. I take influence from all over the place and feel no particular allegiance to any type of genre. A good song is a good song, whether it’s super heavy or super chill.

 

You are based in Michigan. Is the scene still as strong as it was when bands like your previous band, Thunderbirds Are Now!, and The White Stripes were playing?

The Michigan music scene has and always will be ever-evolving. There’s tons of things happening, from the residual effects of the garage rock boom, to lots of great hip hop, punk, experimental stuff, indie rock stuff, emo/hardcore stuff… it’s really all over the place and there’s a lot of good shit going on. One of the the things that’s sort of frustrating is that there’s not a whole lot of cross-over stuff going on, and certain genres tend to get ignored by the Detroit music press. It’s weird. I was just talking to a friend the other day about a band from here called Fireworks, who are, like, absolutely huge. They are sort of pop-punk/emo or whatever, and some of them are from my hometown. It’s just weird that they can, like, go on tour and draw tons of kids, played Warped Tour and all that, yet nobody in Detroit writes about them or covers them. I found it was the same in TAN! for awhile. We got more recognition from folks outside of Detroit when we started than in it. That changed as we kept plugging away, but there seems to be an ignorance to some great stuff going on in Detroit’s own backyard that gets overlooked. But still, there’s lots of great bands from here, probably too many to list, but some of my favorites are Protomartyr, Monarchs, Chris Richards and the Subtractions, Terrible Twos, Cotton Museum, Child Bite, Nick Piunti, Braided Veins, Nice Hooves, Javelins, Palaces, Touch the Clouds, the High Strung, Fred Thomas/Saturday Looks Good to Me, Tyvek, all the Save Your Generation Records bands, Congress, Bars of Gold… man, there’s a lot.

 

Speaking of your previous bands/ collaborations, how does this project differ from those and what are the pros and cons of being more of a solo artist?

I’d like to think that no matter what I do, something that is characteristically “me” comes through somehow. I love melody, cool guitar parts, and well-thought out lyrics. I think that stuff has always been injected into whatever band I’ve been in. The main difference with the solo thing is that the songs are a bit more personal, the volume and intensity level is a little bit more subdued, and it’s just generally a little more “classic” sounding. I’d like to think everything I’ve done is timeless, but I know it’s probably not. But the tunes on my solo record I could probably play for my Grandma, and she’d be able to understand what’s going on. 

 

The pros of doing something solo is that you’re basically your own boss, and all the decisions you make are your own. You don’t have to ask anybody’s permission to do a four-part harmony on a song, or wonder if everybody else in your band is comfortable with you singing a song about your wife or your kid, because, well, there’s no band. It’s just me. On the other hand, I love being in a band situation, and I love collaborating with other people. I would never claim that all my ideas are the best ideas. 

 

Luckily I did have some collaboration on this newest album. I worked with Sean Sommer, who drummed on 90 percent of the album. He’s a great drummer, a great friend, and a musical brother (we played in Friendly Foes, and the Cold Wave together, and he’s the drummer of my band Destroy This Place). He’s great at reading kind of what I’m thinking and doing what’s best for the song. My dad was also involved in the making of the record, and he had cool suggestions on guitar stuff, some harmonies, and getting some cool sounds. Extra shout outs to Nick Piunti, Scott Allen and Zach Curd for providing additional guitar, harmonies, and keyboards to the record.

 

It seems like you have had a long running relationship with producer Dave Feeny. What does he bring that is so essential to your art?

Yeah Dave and I have collaborated on various projects. He did my first solo album with me, and he’s fantastic. However, it should be made clear that we didn’t work together on the new one - not because I didn’t want to, but because I wanted to try something different. I recorded “Heart String Soul” in my childhood home with my dad - Brad Allen - engineering/producing the music with me. It was an awesome experience creating this project with my dad. We got to bond and spend time together. He really helped me capture the type of record I was really hoping to make. We then sent it over to Andy Reed, who records as a part of a band called the Legal Matters, does his own stuff as An American Underdog, and also used to play with the Verve Pipe. He has a studio in his home called Reed Recording Company, and added his mixing skills to the tracks. He was integral in capturing the timeless feel I was trying to go for, and between him and my dad, I couldn’t have made this record. 

 

When can we expect the album to be released, and what are your plans as far as touring and future projects?

The album is basically out now, though I’ve been saying end of March. You can order it through my Bandcamp, CD Baby, Kool Kat Music, Jam Music, and soon on iTunes and all the other digital spots. My immediate plans are to play my record release show in Michigan, and maybe do a couple more gigs here and there, whether solo or with a band. I’m also working with Destroy This Place to finish writing our next album. We’re going out to Western Mass in April to do that with Justin Pizzoferrato (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Speedy Ortiz), so I’m really psyched about that. I’ve been really flattered by the press my solo album has received, so while I don’t plan much touring, I’m open to whatever comes my way.

 

 

 

Lightning Round:

Favorite album of the moment?

I really like the new Sleater-Kinney album “No Cities to Love"

 

Best concert you ever attended?

That’s almost impossible to answer, but I saw Cornelius in the early 2000’s, and his show absolutely blew me away. Really visually stimulating, a killer band, and one of the best drummers I’ve ever seen.

 

Favorite movie?

Boogie Nights

 

First album you ever bought?

Man, I honestly can’t remember, but it was probably, like, “Open Up and Say…Ahh!” by Poison

 

Favorite power pop band?

That’s a tough one, but if hard pressed, I’d have to say Big Star, followed very closely by Teenage Fanclub.

 

 

To listen to and purchase Heart String Soul

CLICK HERE