Where are we now? What’s the name of this place?

B: Uh, Nita Nita?

J: We love this place. We come here every day.

R: This place is called Slugger’s … like, Slugger’s Juke Bar, nobody knows about it.

J: Nita Nita, nine-dollar whiskey on the rocks. It’s delicious.

Let me get everybody’s names. I don’t even know who is who. I guess we can go clockwise. What’s your name?

R: My name’s Robert Paredez.

How old are you?

R: I’m twenty-one.

All right, so what do you play? I mean, for the band, what do you play?

R: I’m just a singer.

B: Ben Bray. I’m thirty. I play guitar.  

D: First name’s Dan. Last name’s Edelman.

Like the Edelman public relations firm?

D: Third largest in the world. The guy actually has my exact name. Daniel J. Edelman.

You’ve got the same middle name?

D: Yeah, Jordan. I emailed him a couple years ago when I found out about him, for shits and giggles, hit him up for money.

Just out of just name recognition, you’d think they’d throw you a couple of bones. Did he every respond?

D: Yeah. Actually, I got an email from him.

Did you save it?

D: Yeah. And five thousand dollars. No, no. He sent me an email back and was like, “Hey, that’s funny! Look at that! Jordan!” Thanks for nothing.

And then last but not least … Joel, right?

J: Yes.

Control. Wait, how do you spell your last name?  

J: C-O-N-T-R-O-L.

Is that really your last name? Do you go by that? I don’t know, I thought it was Alfred or something like that.

[laughs]

All right. Control. All right, how old are you … or how old do you want to be?

J: I’m nineteen.

Are you really nineteen?

J: No, I’m twenty-eight. You can put that. I’m not ashamed.

Robert’s the delegated baby.

R: I turned twenty-one in mid-March. It’s been a hard twenty-one years.  

Where’s everybody from?

R: I’m from California. I grew up in East Los Angeles.

What part of East L.A.?

R: It’s like the southeast area. Like Huntington Park, Southgate area. I also lived in Oakland.

Ben, where are you from?

B: I grew up in southern California, too. I lived in the Bay Area for a long time.

SoCal slash Bay Area?

B: Yeah.

Where do you claim home, if you were to claim a home? Besides New York.

B: I’d say SoCal.

Dan, where are you from?

D: I’m from Washingtonville, New York.

Where is that?

D: Hudson Valley region. It’s probably an hour and a half north of the city. It’s a suburb-y kind of town.

And … let’s see. Mr. Control.

J: I’m from Virginia.

What part of Virginia?

J: I grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I love that place. I didn’t get to spend much time there, but I have a lot of love for it.

J: As soon as I was old enough to drive, I started going to Richmond a lot.

I was in Richmond, too, actually.

J: I feel like Richmond is more home than Charlottesville.

I really liked it there. I wish I could spend more time there… So how did you guys meet?

R: I stayed in Richmond for a year, and I worked this minimum-wage job. I worked in this bookstore, selling textbooks to the kids.

I’ve done that too. You and I have had similar jobs.

R: I also washed dishes.

I did that too. My first job.

R: I actually really liked that job.

So I’m always fascinated how everyone gets from where they are to here. So you stayed a year there, you did your job, and then you went back to Oakland?

R: I moved up here finally. It was my whole goal.

You met Joel then?

R: Joel was living in…

J: That’s why he came to Virginia.

R: ‘Cause I knew Joel. We were just making a stop on our way to New York, and I got stuck, so I stayed in Virginia.

And you were going to meet Joel.

R: Right. I stayed at Joel’s house. We…

J: We used to be friends in the old days.

R: And then we got in a band together.

So you knew Joel before. You’d come from Oakland to the south, and then you broke down and stayed?

R: The point of confusion might be that Joel lived in Oakland for a short time, and then he moved back to Charlottesville.

J: ‘Cause I was living in Chicago, and moved to Oakland for a while, then moved back to Virginia.

So how did he entreat you to come to New York?

R: I moved to New York before he did.

Okay. So Robert … you moved to Brooklyn first?

R: Yeah, I moved to Bed-Stuy and I lived in…

Bed-Stuy? What year is this?

R: This was 2002. I lived in this 5000-square-foot loft with this crazy guy. He was a short Puerto Rican guy, and he had a height complex. He used to build his own shoes to make himself look taller. He had a 5000-square-foot loft and it was full of garbage, because he ran this illegal storage facility in it. And he had a cat infestation. There were thirty wild cats just roaming around. I just had this room, and I’d just keep the door closed all the time. It was always pitch-black because there were no windows.

Was that annoying? Were they, like, mating all the time?

R: Yeah, none of them were fixed. They were all wild cats. They would reproduce at an alarming rate.  He had these storage facilities that were basically sheets of drywall stacked on top of each other with makeshift doors. And all the cats would go in there and pee and shit all over people’s stuff.

Did he feed them?

R: No. He didn’t know how to get rid of them.

All right. So, you’re in New York, and you’re getting your first dose of the psychotic lifestyle.

R: All my roommates got mugged. That guy, the short guy, he got his jaw broken with a crowbar outside our front door.

Holy shit. So, what’s your background in music? Have you been playing around?

R: No, I’d only ever been in really shitty bands before. They were really bad punk bands where nobody could really play. It was bad.

What were some of their names?

R: I was in a band called The Envelopes in Riverside, California. And then we changed our name to The Invalids. Yeah, I tried to play the guitar for a while. My friend who was in the band with me, he taught me how to play guitar, which I still can’t play very well, but I tried to play the guitar in that band.

Is he being modest?

R: No, I can’t play very well.

B: It’s true.

All right. So The Envelopes, The Invalids … you had some shitty bands. And then you came to New York, and you were in this world, and you … how did you eat?

R: How did I eat in New York?

Did you know Joel?

R: Joel didn’t move here for a couple years after I moved here. I don’t know. I don’t remember how I ate. I dumpstered!

When did you move here, like two years ago? Something like that?

J: I moved here basically… No. It was three years ago. Two and three-quarters years ago.

Now how did you guys meet?

R: I had been in this band called Cop on Fire. It was kind of like a thrashy thing. We had two drummers for a while. It was really loud. First it was me, and then some other people, and then some other people, and then Joel and Ben joined the band.

 How did Ben come into the mix with you?

B: I met Robert around the time. We had a friend in common.

So you guys found each other, and you were playing in a band called Cop on Fire. Okay. How long did that band last?

R: That band lasted for probably like…

B: It depends on what you mean.

R: But we were playing shows for, like, a year. Joel and Ben were in it for the last three shows that we played.

How did it fall apart? Did it just not have staying power?

R: It was just a mess. It was a beautiful, beautiful failure. No, I’m just kidding. There’s nothing beautiful about it.

And did you guys just say, “Look, we should do our own thing?”

R: Yeah. The band kind of just dissolved naturally, and we sort of talked about it. We had a conversation with Matt from Matt & Kim. We wanted to start playing music with him. This was before Matt & Kim got really serious.

J: Yeah, I was riding back with them from some tour, and we finally decided, “All right, fuck this. Let’s go write some songs tomorrow.” So we did. Me and Matt went and wrote three songs, and then Robert and Ben just sort of showed up ’cause we’d been talking about starting this new band. And then that just seemed to fit right in with what we were trying to do.

So how did you [agree on the] the notion of, “Okay, we should start our own thing now?”

R: Just because we wanted to keep playing music together. We were really good friends and stuff, and we just wanted to have fun and play music that we really enjoyed.

J: It was more of getting to playing music that we really… For me, anyway, playing in Cop on Fire was fun, but it was more like wanting to start writing songs that were more like what we really listened to when we grew up.

But you guys come from a very diverse sort of origin. So it’s three of you guys, and then you guys started coming up with this. How did the drums make their way into the mix?

J: Not that long ago. Well, I mean, there was another drummer before. We started with…

R: We played a show with Dan in Richmond for Best Friends’ Day two weekends ago, which was really, really awesome. He was the fourth drummer that we’ve played with.

B: In four shows in Richmond.

J: And the best. And the handsomest.

That’s something to be said actually. Best Fwends said that you guys are their hands-down favorite. They follow you guys.

R: I wish we could say the same for them. Just kidding.

J: Best Fwends and Best Friends’ Day are two very different things. Best Fwends, the band, were supposed to play Best Friends’ Day, the event. But they ended up not being able to.

But you guys played with them recently, didn’t you?

J: Yeah, we played with them a bunch of times. They’re actually really solid dudes.

How do you guys know them?

R: We have a lot of mutual friends. We played this show together in Bushwick at this loft, and they jumped on. We had a really good time.

How does it work? As a group of four, how is it working out? What’s your impression so far?

D: I’m just doing this for a paycheck [laughs]. It’s been really good. Totally awesome. These guys are a bunch of sweethearts.

Ben. Nonstop talking Ben. Where do you fit?  

B: We’re getting a lot better at writing songs.

How does that work?

B: A lot of times, how it has worked is that I’ll come up with some guitar parts, and then we’ll come and just work it over and sort of rewrite it all together, with some exceptions.

So let’s talk about your job. I mean, do you guys do shitty jobs, or do you guys work, like, Wall Street?

J: We do a lot of different jobs.

Do you guys keep afloat that way, or how do you support yourselves?

B: I work for… Have you heard of Not For Tourists? That guidebook? I work for them.

What’s your…?

B: I work in production of the book. Sort of keeping track of writing to all the editors and stuff. It’s a really small place. I do a lot of different kinds of shit for the people that work there.

What do you do?

D: I’m an electrician.

J: And no, he will not fix your loft. I’ve already asked.

And does that take you inside nice homes?

D: I started upstate where I grew up, and I worked in all the richest houses up there. I was mostly doing alarm systems and surveillance systems and things like that. Down here I’m kind of more freelance. It’s a lot of similar stuff, but freelance, so I can go to school and do band stuff. The electrician thing is seven a.m. to whenever I get done. Sometimes six days a week. I went from really exclusive rich houses, movie stars’ summerhouses to the shittiest roach-infested crapholes, freelance-style. But it builds character.

And Joel, how do you hold your own?

J: When I first moved here, I got a job delivering food, and I did that for a long time, which is a wonderful job. I actually kind of miss it a lot. It’s fucking great. The place that I worked at, a lot of my friends worked there. We rode around and delivered … basically, we rode our bikes and got paid and drank beer all day long. And it was really fun. Now I have a full-time job as a PA at this fancy design place. But I’m the one guy that’s not fancy there. I take out the garbage and run errands for them. For one of the producers the other day, I went to pick up his fucking bong.

No shit.

J: And then I took out the trash, and then I went to pick up a birthday cake after that.

So they make you do gopher shit, kind of? And other stuff around the office?

J: Well, yeah. I do some production artist low-level design shit. 

So you guys do your thing, and then you guys play how many times a week?

R: Well, we have three practices.

Three practice spots?

J: We have three practice slots.

Oh, slots. Is that enough?

B: Yeah, it’s enough.

J: I wish we’d get to practice every day.

Really? Because?

J: I don’t have anything else to do.

Do you really mean that? Is music kind of like everything to you? We’re getting a little bit on the sappy side. I’m looking for tears.

J: No, no. If it wasn’t for this band, I would have left here long ago. That’s all I have to say on the subject.

And where would you have gone if you did go?

J: Back to the south.

Ben, you said you do the guitar on most of the songs. Who comes in with lyrics, who’s coming in with tunes?

B: Most of the songs that I come up with, I come up with the music first.

And how do they come to you?

B: In a dream.

I mean, is your process to start by sitting in a dark room?

B: Usually I’ll just sit in my room with a four-track and record stuff every day and listen to it and think about it.

And then you record stuff and bring it in? Or do you come in with ideas?

B: No, I just come in with ideas.

And then from the conception of those ideas to the practice room, how long does it take to turn that into a song?

R: It usually actually happens pretty fast once we do it. It seems like we’re distracted a lot. It seems like we’re always like, “Oh, we have a show. We need to practice.” And then never actually work on songs. But when we actually come up with them, it usually happens pretty fast.

How often do you guys perform?

J: We play basically as much as we can, for the most part.

R: We play, on average, like, once a month.

J: No, we play more than that.

B: A lot more than that, when we’re in town.

R: Well, I mean, on average. I mean there have been months where we haven’t played shows.

J: I’d say it’s a lot more like three times a month.

I’ll say once a week.

J: Seventeen times a month.

B: It’s more like twice a month.

Do you guys feel like you have enough material to tour, take off from New York?

R: We’ve done a couple of tours.

How was that?

R: They’ve been great. The first one we did with Rager from Chicago and the Ultra Dolphins was really fun.

J: And then one with Team Robespierre. 

Where’s Team Robespierre from?

J: They’re from Brooklyn. Ultra Dolphins are from Richmond. They’re probably the greatest band.

So you love Ultra Dolphins? They’re the greatest band?

J: Yeah, they’re the best guys.

D: I feel like every day since we got back from Richmond, I go to the Ultra Dolphins’ MySpace, ‘cause they don’t have any records that I have, and I just listen to those four songs.

R: I’ll loan you that record.

D: Please do.

J: They’re preposterous.

We don’t have to go too, too into it. But just the idea that you guys love another band that much is something to be said.

J: They have nothing to do with the style of music that we play at all. That’s why it’s so awesome. I don’t know, they’re just like … they’re friends who happen to be geniuses.

B: I would maybe call them an odd fit, our two bands playing together.

J: It was, but it usually worked out all right.

R: Yeah, it worked out really well.

So do you want to maintain contact with those guys, or do something with those guys again?

R: Well, we just played a show with them at Best Friends’ Day in Richmond.

So you guys have been going down to Richmond a lot.

R: We’ve played four shows total in Richmond.

And how’s the reception?

R: Well, it’s kind of weird. Two of the times we were on tour, and they were really weird shows because we showed up really late.

Is that by default, or just by…?

J: It always takes longer to drive there than we remember it. There’s always traffic.

R: Another time we played in Richmond in this mess hall in the middle of the woods. Our drummer couldn’t come.

B: This was at Pocahontas State Park.

R: So we had the drummer from the Ultra Dolphins, we mailed him a CD. He listened to it, and then we just played without ever having practiced.

B: It sounded pretty good.

J: It was called Double Vision Quest.

B: Dan sounds better with us, but only by a little.

What would you say affects the sound of your music? What are you guys listening to? Besides Ultra Dolphins.

B: Well, as a direct influence on the type of music we write?

Or just stuff that you guys like.

R: Well, in Brooklyn there are a lot of really good bands. The Young Men, Bad Blood, Stupid Party, Dead Dog, Vivian Girls, Radio Faces…

So you guys really back up a lot of Brooklyn bands.

J: Yeah, there’s a really great group of Brooklyn bands that we wind up playing with a lot at a couple of houses. Those are the most fun shows.

R: Our favorite thing to do is to play house shows. And there are only a few houses in Brooklyn that have really good shows.

And what makes a Dynamite Arrows show? If someone came to see you guys, what could they expect?

D: Us drunk.

J: Not anymore.

R: Yeah, we all stopped drinking, as you can see.

J: Hopefully we’ll be crowd surfing at some point.

R: We’ve played some really fun shows where all three of us were being picked up at the same time.

Is that happening? Are you guys pretty much on stage, or are you in the middle surrounded by people? How do you guys set up?

R: We really don’t like to play on stages at all.

J: Although sometimes it’s fun to … like, sometimes on tour we’ve wound up at a random show where we’re playing on a stage and we have a sound guy. It’s not as fun, but it’s also sort of fun in a way to hear yourself sound proper. I wouldn’t trade one house show for a million fucking Bowery Ballroom shows, but it’s kind of a treat now and then.

Tell me about your best show. What happened?

B: I mean, there are differing things you could say. I can’t really say. I don’t think any of us could really think of something that’s a best show.

R: We played at Mauled By Tigers Festival in Chicago. And that was us getting to play with four of our favorite bands. It was really great. People were pulling me off the stage and tying my shoes together onstage.

How did that happen? Is that something normal?

R: Yeah, it’s pretty normal to fuck with me when we’re playing. People like to beat the shit out of me.

How does that happen?

R: I don’t know. I’m just standing there, trying to sing the song. It just happens. I’m standing there, trying to perform, and people are fucking with me.

J: They’re jumping over the barrier.  

Do you want that? Or is that something that’s kind of part of…?

R: No, it’s good. It’s good to have that part of it. It’s like a key part to a live show, I’d say. There’s definitely a line where it’s like, if too much of that goes on, you sound like garbage, and then obviously it’s not good. But it’s a balance.

Does your music get you amped? How do you picture people listening to your music and then dealing with it? When I’m listening to you guys, what I’m hearing are the certain elements of the classic essence of punk style. I see you take on that sort of rock. You guys seem studied. You guys seem very much conscious of where you guys take your muse from, but you’re also doing something with it that’s very forward and progressive. It’s hard to do that, though, because most people sort of want to like…

D: That’s one of the things that really attracted me to this band. It was a simple, fun pop-punk kind of thing, but with original twist on it that I couldn’t put my finger on. That was one of the things that made it not just some band.

How do you guys make it all work together? I’ve interviewed bands with, like, twelve, or sixteen even. They can’t even get everybody onstage. How do you guys make it all come together and work?

R: I don’t know. It just sort of happens. Depending on wherever we are in our lives or whatever, we’ll just pick each other up and make sure we do what we need to do. There will be times when one of us is really busy with something, and then the other ones are more in a period where they can be more responsible and watchful of the band and kind of take the reins. It just sort of happens like that. And we all get along really well. Me and Joel and Ben have known each other for a long time. It just happens. We all really like Dan. We really like each other a lot. And Dan fits in with all that perfectly.

J: I was thinking we should forward him a transcript of our fucking emails. It pretty much makes my day.

It makes your day when you hear from them?

J: Well, yeah, because they rip on me all day long. I don’t know. I fucking love these dudes. And that’s why it’s so awesome that Dan’s in the band now, ‘cause Dan’s just a dude that I would want to hang out with anyway and is okay. Ben’s different.

D: Yeah, it was kind of nerve-wracking going on tour with these guys. We practiced … four or five times maybe. Then we went on tour, and we’d known each other for only a little while. But I was nervous as shit. I was like, “These guys are really cool, but who knows?” When you really get to know somebody it’s on the tour. The day after tour, we didn’t see each other. And it was maybe twelve hours later that I was like, “Aw, man. Maybe I’ll go to Greenpoint and see those guys. Maybe I’ll pop in at someone’s job.”

What do you guys see the next chapter being? What’s the plan? How is everyone going to hear you guys?

R: Well, we’re finally going to have a real record come out.

When’s that happening?

R: We’re finishing them next week, and then they should come out in a month or two after that.

Have you heard it yet?

R: We haven’t mixed it yet. We have rough pieces. And then there’s going to be a split that’s coming out with this band Brainworms, from Bushwick. They’re really great. And then we have a seven-inch, which is going to feature four songs on an amazing record label called Mauled By Tigers.

Mauled By Tigers, that was that concert in Chicago.

R: Yeah. Well, that was a fest that’s thrown by this label.

Oh, that’s the label? That’s what it’s called, Mauled By Tigers?

R: It’s a new label.

J: It’s new but it’s got a lot of like… Robert has a hand in it. They’ve put out one compilation.

Who has girlfriends? Who doesn’t?

D: I have a girlfriend.

You have a girlfriend. For now. Just kidding. You’re the only one with a girlfriend?

D: Yeah.

Do you guys plan on staying in New York?

J: I don’t really want to.

Really?

J: That’s like a whole…

You really like Richmond?

J: Yeah, I really love Richmond. I like the south more. I like having porches and dogs and not having to work all the time and having cheap-ass rent.

I’m sort of out of the loop with the whole sort of scene around here. But there are a lot of bands that are out there. Is it competitive?

J: We’re always trying to figure out these bands that come out of Williamsburg and think that you play a bunch of fucking bars and shows in Manhattan and you’ll get big. But to me, that doesn’t mean anything at all. I think that without being a band that is coming out of people and representing that group of people, then it doesn’t mean anything. And those bands always play a few shows and nothing happens to them anyway.

R: For us it’s more like being part of a sort of community or something rather than like, getting into some bullshit crap, trying to get in Nylon Magazine or something like that. Sorry, no offense. No offense to Matt & Kim.

Oh, they were in Nylon?
    
R: Yeah. They actually talked about our house in Nylon Magazine as one of their favorite places to go in Brooklyn.

You guys live in a house together?

R: Yeah, me and Ben do. It’s just like this loft that we’ve lived in for a long time. It’s kind of gotten this reputation. We just have a lot of weird people that have stayed there.

B: It’s turned into a place where a lot of crazy touring bands stay.

How many people live there?

B: Six.

Has it been the same six, or has it varied?

R: It’s varied. Me and Ben have been pretty much constant.

B: We figured out. There’s been, like, well over thirty people.

R: Yeah. There’ve been over thirty people who lived there with me and Ben. I don’t know, it’s been various retards.

B: I actually really like it. I don’t think I could live by myself at this point anymore. Sometimes I get sick of living with other people, but not enough to actually live by myself. It’s really too expensive for one, and I would get sick of that really fast.

So do you guys have shows there?

B: No.

J: We did a long time ago.

R: But it got put down.

So basically the people that come there kind of give it character? There are all these bands that come through and stay there, and sort of have an open invitation.

R: Yeah. Recently we had two bands stay there, our friends Canadian Rifle from Chicago and This Is My Fist. Both are really awesome bands. They were staying there, and that was during that storm, the tornado. Our place flooded and they were sleeping on the floor, and they woke up because Tim from Canadian Rifle was drowning, basically. There was water rushing all over them.

Where do you guys want to play that you haven’t played?

R: Mexico.

J: Yeah, we really, really want to play in Mexico.

Where in Mexico do you want to play? Oaxaca?

R: Man, that would be awesome. Oaxaca would be.

J: What’s the town where you guys went to…?

R: Vera Cruz. There are some sweet fucking shows in Vera Cruz. And Mexico City, of course.

Have you guys played internationally before?

All: No.

R: We’ve only played in the United States.

So that might be something to consider.

J: Yeah. I want to go to Europe so bad. I’ve been to Europe once with another band, and the treatment that you get is so much different from here. When you’re on tour here, you show up at the show, and if you’re really lucky, maybe somebody’ll give you some food and a drink ticket. But that’s not expected. Whereas in Europe, you show up, and everybody sits down for a lovely dinner, and you’re guaranteed a place to stay, and a million beers, and breakfast in the morning.

Do you know your origins, like where in Mexico you came from?

R: I’ve traveled a lot in Mexico, and so has Ben. Ben’s done some crazy shit in Mexico.

J: Both of these dudes, you could write a fucking book about their fucking lives.

I’m noticing this. The interesting part is that you’re completely almost 180s from each other. But that’s a good kind of karma. It complements each other.

B: I mean, I…

J: Wait, Ben’s quieter than Robert?