THE SEASCAPE
The SiS Interview by Dany Sloan

The idea of teenagers in a garage band has been romanticized over the years
to the point of being a cliche, but there's always a reason for that cliche.
As of late, indie rock has had a youth movement, and Connecticut scenesters
The Seascape are quickly rising to the top of the fray. The best thing
about these kids is that they are still a secret, but if songs like
"Hemingway" or "Person, Place or Thing" are of any indication, the world may
be waking up to them very soon.

Patrick talked to Stranded in Stereo a few weeks ago to tell us about the
band's beginnings playing Christmas tunes and why London is the most
inspiring place on Earth.

SIS: How/when did you guys form? What was the impetus to start playing?

Patrick: In eighth grade, our school was having a Christmas toy drive, and our teacher required that we all volunteer to help somehow. Me and Jake (bass and vocals) figured the coolest thing to do would be to play Christmas songs in the front hall of our school as people came in. I had played in a crappy pop punk band for most of middle school with my friend Mike, so I asked him to play drums for the songs. We wore Christmas hats and everything it was pretty awesome! That was the first version of the band as it is. A little bit after that, Jake's dad let us record a few cover songs at the studio where he worked. We just kept writing songs, and every few months we got to go back to the studio to record them. Eventually Mike rejoined us on drums, and we've pretty much just gone from there.

SIS: Who are some of your influences?

Patrick: Originally we just wanted to sound like Interpol or the Strokes. We would have songs that sounded like rip offs so much that they would be called "the Interpol one" or "the Strokes one." Now our influences are slightly more diverse. Music-wise, our influences are the Beatles, Mew, Death Cab, The Shins, Beirut, Sigur Ros, Annuals and lots of other things that I'm forgetting. Aside from that, we're really inspired by all the young bands coming out of England right now like Bombay Bicycle Club, Lo-Fi Culture Scene, Kets, Pull in Emergency and that whole scene. We really didn't think we could do much until we saw what bands our age were doing over in London.

SIS: What do you hope to do with the band in 2008?

Patrick: We're trying to get the word out about our band! The scene where we live is non-existent, so we're looking to get shows in the city, and we're also looking to release our first official EP. We want to people to listen to us.

SIS: Tell me about your local scene.

Patrick: As I said, our local scene is non-existent. When we first started playing shows, we played down at our teen center with all these hardcore screamo bands from out of town. We didn't really fit in well, and the screamo bands would scare people away from coming to our shows. Luckily we found a band called Midi and the Modern Dance a couple of towns over who are awesome and they like the same kind of music as us. We've been playing with them a lot recently. The only venues around here are teen centers. We have a small group of friends that like indie and alternative music, but for the most part the kids around here listen to "bro" music (DMB, OAR, Jack Johnson, Dispatch) or they like to be pretentious and listen to hardcore gangsta rap. We are very envious of the underage scene in London right now.

SIS: If you could tour with any band, who would it be and why?

Patrick: This is a tough question, but I'll say Art Brut. I've seen them twice and both times were amazing shows. I think they would be very fun to tour with. Other possibilities would be Bombay Bicycle Club or Tokyo Police Club. They're both awesome bands and we like clubs.