AN INTERVIEW WITH SOMEKINDAWONDERFUL

(Photo: Mercedes Gonzales-Bazan)

Leaders of the #butterflymilitia and striving for world domination, SomeKindaWonderful had Albuquerque buzzing last Tuesday at the Sunshine Theatre.

The group-- Jordy Towers (lead vocals), Sarah Dyer (percussion & vocals), Justin Andres (bass & keys), Matt Gibson (guitar), Ben Schigel (drums)-- is currently on New Politics' Everywhere I Go Tour alongside Bad Suns after releasing their self-titled debut album in June of this year. I heard their single 'Reverse' before anything else and for days after I couldn't get the hook out of my head. Anything so catchy is worth a second listen. Their album is a soulful collection of anthems on love, loss and moving on and will leave your mind reeling, wondering just what genre this band fits in... But that's not a bad thing. In fact, it's quite refreshing. Tunes like 'Devilish Man' and 'Burn' get you moving while gospel-inspired, classic rock vibe 'Shine On Me' is a song to just let your emotions run free to. Sarah Dyer (percussion & vocals) said it's her favorite song to perform and it never fails to make her and Jordy shed a few tears.

After their set, my photographer and I met up with them in the back alley of the Sunshine. The energy they have on stage, which is quite a lot, follows them around everywhere and we were greeted with hugs, not handshakes. Jordy Towers, unrecognizable at first, was bouncing around with a bandana tied around his face, bandit-style, and Sarah jokingly commended us for our acceptance of his "artistic expression".

With that, we got to chatting about tour, their many musical influences, and Matt Gibson's obsession with Disney Land.


On being a part of the Everywhere I Go Tour:

Matt: This is our first like big tour. We've done like a couple runs up at the East  Coast but this our first like, jump in a van with other bands and, like, see the country, you know?

Ana: Yeah, yeah. So how has that been?

Ben & Justin: Oh, awesome.

Jordy: Super dope.

Matt: It's been one big party, in some ways.

Sarah: And a great learning experience as well.

Justin: And all three bands compliment each other very well, so.

Sarah: Well you know, we've never done... Something new is that we've never done, you know, performances pretty much every day or every other day for 40 cities straight. So, that's what I meant by learning experience.


On their favorite cities... For music AND parties:

Ana: Where's been your favorite place so far?

Justin: New Orleans. New Orleans was the best, yeah.
Matt: Oh my God, it was the best!
Ben: The show, I wouldn't say was our best.
Justin: The show was probably Tulsa or like, 930 Club in Washington, DC. Amazing.
Ben: Uh, Masquerade in Alanta was really cool.
Matt: But back to New Orleans, that was really fun. We got wild.
Sarah: It was Jordy's birthday. They celebrated it, they sang.
Matt: Tonight in Albuquerque was good too.


On crowd vibes & pre-show rituals:

Ben: A lot of times it's not the size of the crowd, it's the feedback you get from them.
Matt: Yeah, size doesn't matter, it's what you do with it.
Ana: I was gonna say that your energy on stage is what, I think, got the crowd going.
Justin: That's what we're here for.
Ana: How do you guys get pumped up before a show?
Ben: Michael J. Fox.
Matt: We uh, we... Okay let's do it for her! We all put our hands together like this, say something like "Alright guys lets have a good show, this is awesome," and then we're like on 3... 1, 2, 3... Michael J. Fox! And we say Michael J. Fox because of the scene in Back to the Future when he just goes up on stage and just rocks the crowd and everyone's like "What was that?!"
Jordy: Yeah but they just kinda look, they don't know what to do with it!


On musical inspiration:

Ana: Back to the energy, who are your musical influences? 'Cus there's a lot of different sounds.
Matt: Oh Jesus, so many.
Ben: They run amuck. He's into like Blues and Folk, the Beatles.
Matt: Beatles are like my favorite band of all time.
Ben: He likes a lot of Reggae, Jordy... And like Rap and Hip Hop. She's [Sarah] like into Hip Hop and Soul.
Ana: Soul is like, really prominent.
Justin: Old school soul, definitely.
Ben: I'm more like metal, more rock. And like, I like old funk.
Justin: 80s, don't you love 80s?
Ben: Yeah, love 80s. Duran Duran.
Ana: Duran Duran. My mom was a Duran Duran fangirl.
Nima (manager): Oh, now we're talking.


On live shows & favorite tunes:

Ana: Okay, so what's your favorite song to play live?
Matt: Oh jeez, I mean, for me like, it probably changes every show, you know what I mean but like... California Love's really fun.
Ben: Devilish Man's fun.
Matt: Yeah, Devilish Man is like the most energetic. I just feel like everyone's dancing, the crowds groovin'.
Justin: Burn too, Burn turns into a party! Gets everybody dancing. I love to look out and see people dancing.
Sarah: Mine's Shine on Me. Me and Jordy usually cry sometimes during that song. (laughs) It never fails. It's just so inspirational, you know?



On becoming band without even trying:

Ana: Oh, how did you guys meet?
Matt: Well, as the legend of SomeKindaWonderful has it, me and Ben were at a bar, just having some beers like right down the street from the studio. Um, Jordy just came walking in and at the point he was just a guy who just got out of a bad record deal in LA and he was just coming out to get away from it all the bullshit of Los Angeles. Just walks in and he sees me playing on the guitar. He walks up and before we even introduced ourselves we're already writing a verse.
Ana: So that was the first song you wrote together, right?
Ben: Yeah, he just started humming to it, singing to it. We were getting along great and after like an hour or so I was like "Man, my studios right down the street, let's just go, we can be there in literally 20 seconds." So we just like, went there and continued drinking and having a good time and the song just wrote itself.

Matt: And like, like we literally started writing the song before we met, before we introduced ourselves we already had the foundation of like, our first single.

Ben: We didn't really know we were gonna be a band at first, you know?
Ana: So the sound, was like, pretty organic when you first came, it just found itself?
Ben: Yeah, the sound was organic to begin with. Like we weren't using much keyboards or synths or anything they kinda just slowly kinda crept in and then once we had like three or four songs together we were like, man it'd be great to have like, uh, a female vocal on this stuff. That's when we hit Sarah up 'cus she kinda knew me and Matt from being in the Hip Hop scene. So we were gonna try a bunch of people but we only ended up, she was the first one and we didn't bother trying anybody else.


On the success of 'Reverse':

Ana: That's awesome, that's awesome. So did you expect the success from this song?
Ben: Um, I think, we were just having fun really.
Matt: I didn't.
Ben: I don't think we had any... Like I said we didn't have any idea we were a band so there was no like, alright we gotta get a marketing plan. It was like hey, do you wanna come over tomorrow night?
Matt: We were just having fun. Like, for me, like I had no idea that Reverse was gonna be our first single. Like we had five songs and that was not even like the one that I thought would even be our single.
Ben: It was funny cus the first time Jordy was there we didn't know him from a hole in the ground, you know?
Matt: We thought he was a hole in the ground.
Ben: So, all of a sudden after four or five, six days of us writing some songs he was like, "Alright well I gotta go back to California". And we were like, "Alright do we have a band or what just happened?" you know? So we just ended up flying him back up a few months later and that's when we brought her in and then he's [Justin] a good buddy of Jordy's and he used to jam with him so we brought him to play bass and keys. We're here now.
Matt: We're here in Albuquerque rocking a show.


On Coachella & taking over the world:

Jordy: Have you been to Coachella yet?
Ana & Mercedes: No, not yet. Maybe we'll go.
Jordy: You guys need to go to fucking Coachella, especially when we go! We're definitely gonna fucking try to play it.
Matt: We've been trying to play it every year!
Ana: So like, what are your goals for the next year? Where do you plan to be?
Jordy: World domination.
Ana: Take over the world!
Sarah: We're going to Europe in December and January.
Jordy: I think staying healthy is the number one thing cus as long as we're healthy we can take over the world.
Ben: We just wanna increase our fanbase, keep playing, having fun, you know? Write some cool songs.
Sarah: We've already written a whole lot of songs, so. Well, I guess I shouldn't say a whole lot but.


On Europe & funny accents:

Ben: I mean, we're going to Europe!
Ana: You've all never been to Europe?
Ben: No, we're signed to Capitol Records in Europe, so we're gonna be going up there beginning of next year to do press and uh, go play, go play for Germany. It's really cool.
Matt: Maybe play something funky, make a beat.
Sarah: That's the inside joke cus that's how all the label heads talked when they came here.
Everyone: (laughs)
Nima: So we're going to Europe just to hang.


On Matt's love for Disney Land:

Matt: I hear they have like a whole different Disney World in Europe. Euro Disney?
Ana: Mercedes loves Disney.
Jordy: Oh, you don't know how much he loves Disney.
Matt: I ran from our last show all the way to Disney. I'll show you the footage.
Nima: He ran 52 miles.
Jordy: Dude, he weighed 300 pounds before he ran to Disney!
Matt: I ran and I ran and I didn't turn back. (shows video)
Nima: He didn't really run all that way.
Ana: I almost believed you! I was like, oh wow.
Nima: But he did ditch us to go to Disney.

You can purchase SomeKindaWonderful's album here & listen to their cover of California Love below.

Written by: Ana Luz Jayme

Interview by: Ana Luz Jayme

Photos by: Mercedes Gonzales-Bazan