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The Birch Hill, 03.21.02 Show & Tell sat down with greenwheel’s front man Ryan Jordan and bass player Brandon Armstrong. At the time of our interview there was very little existing press on the band. We went with a pretty straight forward interview pulling our questions directly from best seller "How To Ask The Same Questions As Everybody Else." Here’s how it went... SHOW & TELL: So what was your first concert? BRANDON: Anthrax when I was about 14. RYAN: I think mine was The Monkees. BRANDON: Didn’t you see the Scorpions? RYAN: I saw the Scorpions after. S&T: My first concert was Neil Sedaka. Do you remember Neil Sedaka? [Scott sings a bit of Calendar Girl] RYAN: That's on tape. The Monkee’s were it man. S&T: Next familiar question, what kind of bands influenced you guys? BRANDON: Everybody. RYAN: A lot of stuff. When I was young I grew up on Country. I think Europe was the first "rock" tape. Europe was the shit man. S&T: [Kris] Now I’m singing that song in my head. RYAN: The Final Countdown [does a little rendition]. BRANDON: I was influenced by so much stuff. My brother listened to all 80’s metal like Judas Priest, Scorpions and Iron Maiden and then also 80’s pop like Richard Marx. My uncle used to play bluegrass so I heard that a lot. I just had a lot of music around me. RYAN: Grunge stuff like Nirvana. Then I also listened to some rap like TuPac and Easy E. Now we all listen to so much stuff like Jeff Buckley... British bands that come over like Coldplay. BRANDON: We just try to listen to as much stuff as we can. RYAN: If you listen to one type of music you won’t be able to creatively expand. Mark is into a lot of Joe Satriani... guitar riffs. When we first started Doug was a big Pumpkins fan, Andy was a total Love and Rockets fan and I was into pop melody. Over the years we’ve all shared our musical tastes. S&T: And how many years is that? RYAN:Three and a half years now. For three and a half years we're very fortunate to be where we are. S&T: Its a nice Cinderella Story. RYAN: It is. BRANDON: Yeah three and a half. S&T: So where does the name come from? RYAN: The name greenwheel just happened... its a name. BRANDON: We're always hearing "What's your name mean?" RYAN: When we did media training up in New York they wanted us to contrive something. S&T: Media training? RYAN: We learned what its like to be in beaming white lights in a hotel in NYC. Its like CIA shit. [laughing] BRANDON: People can come up with their own interpretation of the name... I don’t like giving them one. Same with songs... figure it out. What does it mean to you? RYAN: [Greenwheel’s] just a label for the sound. S&T: [Greenwheel's original band name had been 'Soma Holiday' from Aldous Huxley's classic "Brave New World."] Do you guys do a lot of reading? RYAN: That's one thing I try to do. The problem is I read too many books I’m always having to catch up. S&T: [Kris] I do that... read like 3 or 4 books at a time. RYAN: Yeah. I have like three of them that I’m on page 30. S&T: How long have you been out with these guys [Injected]? RYAN: Few weeks and we have a few more weeks to go. They're just awesome. BRANDON: It helps that we're all around the same ages. We can all goof off a bit. RYAN: Its really the best part of this job... getting to meet so many people. S&T: What are some of the worst things about being on the road? RYAN: It would have to be the van and not being able to get much sleep. S&T: Who drives? RYAN: Everybody drives. BRANDON: Usually you are so bored that you want to drive. RYAN: It gets interesting sharing that little space with eight guys. BRANDON: You try and find stuff to drown out the annoying habits of others [laughing]. RYAN: Its like a big family vacation. BRANDON: So which one of you does the show review? RYAN: So you can start kissing up? BRANDON: No. So I can apologize in advance. [laughing] There was no apology necessary... Greenwheel put on a captivating live performance rooted in a traditional, mainstream rock aesthetic. On the cusp of music’s recent old school rock revival, they’re not to be missed. Keep an ear out, you’ll be hearing a lot about these guys real, real soon. |
