Calling Hours, an East Coast punk/rock band featuring members of Farside and Don't Sleep, has just released their debut album, "Say Less," produced by Brian McTernan. The album explores the vocalist Popeye Vogelsang's feelings of displacement and discomfort after moving from California to Pennsylvania. The music video for the single "Low End Theory" is now streaming online. Critics praise the album's catchy choruses, energetic punk roots, and a mix of melodic punk sensibilities with a contemporary twist.
How did the band form and what does the band name mean?
Popeye: Popeye: Tom and Tony were in a band called The Commercials based out of Harrisburg, PA. They were planning a reunion show and found out that I had recently relocated from Los Angeles to Pennsylvania. The show promoter, Jeremy Weiss, is a mutual friend who got us all connected and I was invited to open the show doing a solo acoustic set. That turned into all of us playing some full band songs which also included some Farside songs.
We had never met in person before the night of the show but when we ran through the songs during our soundcheck the chemistry was incredible! Lucky for me, they had been working on some songs but didn’t have a lead singer. I wasn’t working on anything musically at the time so I asked if I could try out as their frontman. They started sending me practice demos, I started scribbling out lyrics, and we took it from there.
As for the name Calling Hours, honestly, I think we just thought it had a nice ring to it. We batted around several different possible names on what seemed like an endless thread of text messages between all of us before we finally found something that we all liked. At the same time, there’s a hint of darkness to the name without it being too dark or putting us in a corner where we have to live up to a specific sound or style.
Previous musical projects? How'd you first get into music?
Tony: Well, Jim, Garrett, Tom, and I have been playing in bands together now for probably close to 12 years, and in addition to Calling Hours we have two other bands we play in called Don’t Sleep, and Very Americans, but Tom and I have been playing together since we were 16.
I think I first started getting into music when I was a little kid like Beach Boys, The Monkees, Beatles, stuff like that. I then started skateboarding in probably 5th grade and a friend started introducing me to more alternative stuff like Violent Femmes, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Nirvana, and those bands and skate videos were then sort of the gateway into punk and hardcore, but I’ve always leaned a little more towards the melodic end of things.
Garrett: Other than the bands Tony mentioned above (Calling Hours, Don’t Sleep, Very Americans), I played in a band in the early 90’s called Junction. I have an older sister who was into new wave music that got me into cool stuff when I was 11 years old (The Clash, Echo and the Bunnymen, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sex Pistols), and then in 8th grade a kid named Brian Brasher moved to our town from South Carolina and he obviously thought I needed to pick up my game a little, so he gave me a tape with Bad Brains, Minor Threat and Black Flag on it, and I was hooked. Thanks for ruining my life, Brian!
Popeye: My entire family has always been very musical. I was the only one to ever play in a proper band but my parents, my older brother and older sister all played instruments, so I guess music was always part of my upbringing. There always seemed to be music playing in our house and were one of those families that would have singalongs in the family station wagon when we would go on road trips. Also, my brother and sister had really cool friends so they were always bringing home new records that I got to listen to on the family stereo system. The Clash, The Jam, Elvis Costello and the Attractions and Oingo Boingo are standouts from that period of my life.
As for previous music projects, being the singer for Farside was one of the most incredible experiences of my life! The 10-plus years that we spent together brought me more adventures than I could have ever imagined, and made me more friends than I thought I could possibly have.
First concert that you ever went to?
Tony: I think the first local show I went to was to see a band called Lost Cause at a record store that did shows in Carlisle, PA. The first big national tour I think I went to was Lolapalooza 94 in Philadelphia. Beastie Boys, Smashing Pumpkins, Tribe Called Quest, Flaming Lips, Breeders… pretty epic show in retrospect.
Garrett: The first concert I went to was in 6th grade. It was ZZ Top on the Eliminator tour. It was on City Island in Harrisburg, which was basically a massive dirt field in the middle of the river that you accessed by a walking bridge! Truthfully, I was mostly stoked to see the opening band Kix, who was one of my favorites at the time and were kinda hometown heroes. My parents were dope and let me get out of school early so I could line up early for the show. Our Cub Scout leader was supposed to be chaperoning my friends and me (we were wearing our Cub Scout uniforms!), but he got SUPER high and ended up passing out in a field. We had to call one of our parents from a pay phone to get a ride home. What an introduction to rock and roll!
What's your writing process like?
Garrett: Our writing process for Calling Hours was a little different than how we’ve written for other bands. Our guitarists Tom and Tony and I would sit in a room and Tom would show us some sick riffs. We’d develop the riffs into a basic skeleton of a song with verses, choruses and bridges. Tony would then program a very basic beat to the skeleton of the song, and we’d share a demo of the song with our drummer Jim. Jim then would record drums to the song - even though Jim lives in the same town as us, this was a pretty efficient way to write, and also helped save what’s left of our hearing since Jim hits REALLY hard and is a loud drummer.
From there, we’d send the instrumental demo to Popeye to apply his lyrical and vocal magic, and he’d share with us the demos with his vocals on top of them.
Genius producer Brian McTernan entered the fold very early on in the process, and we knew he could take anything we would write and make it way better. Bearing this in mind, as a band we all agreed that we wouldn’t get too emotionally attached to anything we wrote because once Brian got involved with pre-production, the song could change just subtly or could change in a wholesale way. In the end, most of Brian’s input involved how to make better transitions in the song, slight changes to chord structures, etc., but we love what Brian did to make our songs better and the record never would’ve happened without him. We love you Brian!
What other artists or songs inspire your music?
Garrett:
Pegboy – Through my Fingers
My friend David Batista was living in Morgantown, WV in the early 90’s and he put on a show at a club called The Machine Shop. He invited my band Junction to play our very first show there with Admiral, Nation of Ulysses, and Icefan (who later changed their name to Lincoln). After the show, I was talking to David in the spare bedroom at his house and he played a record for me called “Three Chord Monte” by Pegboy. I was immediately hooked. When it was time for me to track the new Calling Hours record, I told our producer Brian McTernan I wanted my bass to sound like the bass on “Three Chord Monte,” and I think the tone that Brian came up with is pretty close!
Seam – “Bunch”
Sooyoung Park, singer and guitarist for Seam, is a highly underrated and unsung genius of a songwriter and performer. His work in Seam and Bitch Magnet helped lay the groundwork for what later was dubbed “slow core.” Seam’s songs were beautifully crafted – they were incredibly catchy but also had a melancholy nature to them. Calling Hours songs have a similar quality to them – our singer Popeye’s vocals help create earwig pop songs that you can’t help but sing along to, but the themes and lyrical content have a sullen heft to them that I love.
Popeye:
The Clash - Complete Control
In addition to the awesome melodies and overall songwriting, this song always reminds me of how proud I am to have spent my entire musical career on independent record labels and not be part of a corporation. This is one of those pivotal songs that inspired me to want to be a musician in the first place.
Descendents - My World
Displacement and isolation are not always bad things. They can sometimes lead to healthy self-reflection. Even though this song isn't a happy tune, the overall theme often reminds me that it's OK to be angry at the world with the hope that I'll gain some knowledge from my daily experiences.
Jim:
Descendents – Clean Sheets
Nivana – In Bloom
When I was working on The Say Less record, I aimed for drums that were both mighty and easy to groove to with a solid beat. My main inspirations were The Descendents' "All" and Nirvana's "Nevermind." I admired the drumming styles of Bill Stevenson and Dave Grohl and how they seamlessly integrated their drum parts into the songs. Both albums featured a straightforward but potent eight-note rhythm that perfectly complemented the vocals, blending elements of pop with hard-hitting drums, leaving room for the songs to breathe. In discussions with Tony and Garrett, as we kicked off the writing process, I expressed my desire for the record to capture the essence of Bill Stevenson and Dave Grohl's drumming. They were on board with the idea, and I believe Brian McTernan did an excellent job translating that vision.
Tony:
Texas Is the Reason – Back and To The Left
TITR is probably my favorite band of all time, and I think they do that style of melodic hardcore with both aggression and melody perfectly. It was kind of a game changer for me when I first heard them, and I think they’ve influenced me to some degree in almost everything I’ve done musically since.
Samiam – Sunshine
Samiam is a band that I don’t think ever got the accolades or level of commercial success they deserved relative to a lot of their contemporaries, but I think are beloved by a lot of musicians. Really well written, catchy songs, that rock. I think that blend of melody and fast paced songs that are born from punk and hardcore is where I like to land when I’m thinking about songs for Calling Hours, and I think this song “Sunshine” and the whole album it’s off of “Astray” is a great example of that.
Tom:
Sugar-Changes
The way Bob Mould plays the whole guitar and it has this open turning like drone from Husker to his solo material is perfect
Superdrag – Feeling Like I Do
This song is what I want Calling Hours to sound like each time I write a song.
What's the live experience like and your philosophy on playing live? Do you think the music live should be identical to the recorded version or should it be its own thing?
Tony: That’s a good question. For me, I think when I go to see bands, I like when they are into the music, are engaging with the crowd, going off, etc. That energy is a lot of what I think what drew me initially to underground music, and punk/hardcore specifically. To that end, sometimes live songs can be a little sped up, the vocalist is maybe putting some more aggression into their voice, etc., and I dig that, and hope people feel we are able to bring elements of that to our live show. I love recording, and I think you can do a lot of things in the studio that can really add to a song, but I do like that the album and recording can be two different things that come from the same starting point.
Has the band toured? What has the touring experience been like? Best shows? Worst shows?
Garrett: The arc of this band is kind of unusual in that we were lucky enough to have a record deal in place with Revelation Records before we played our first show and got an opportunity to go on a European tour after only playing three shows, and without having a record out yet.
The European tour just wrapped up a few weeks ago, and we tagged along with As Friends Rust, playing shows in Germany, England, Belgium and Holland. All of the shows went great, As Friends Rust quickly became our favorite band and our favorite people, and we were counting our blessings every day that we had the opportunity to go on such a rad tour!
Highlights of the tour were playing at Club Indra in Hamburg, Germany on the same stage that the Beatles played on 38 days in a row when they were first coming up, playing at the famed Conne Island in Leipzig, having a few spare minutes to visit Abby Road Studios before our London show, exploring the beautiful streets of Antwerp, Belgium before and after the show and eating a custard and chocolate waffle there, and just in general getting to hang out with fantastic people and make a bunch of new friends – all the guys in As Friends Rust and their crew, Wasted Years, Tomas our driver, Betty, David and Weronika in Munich, Katherine in Arnhem and Haino in Schweinfurt! Hope to see all of our Euro friends again very soon!
No worst show to mention!
What's up next for the band?
Garrett: We’re just a couple of days away from the release of our record “Say Less” on Revelation Records when we’re answering this. Next weekend we’re playing a couple of record release shows – one in Brooklyn at Saint Vitus with As Friends Rust and one in our hometown of Harrisburg, PA with our good friend Deletions. We’re starting to work on some shows throughout early winter and spring, and are hoping for some West Coast shows in the near future, as well as more overseas shows. We have already demo’ed a handful of songs that’ll be on our next record.