Brolin

Interviews:

Brolin

Posted by Gina on 01 Jan 2005 - 5 Comments



Interview by Vianca


Chicagos Brolin have hopes like any other band to make it big localy then to break out from that scene onwards. Competition seems tough in Chicago though as the cities profile has recently risen dramaticaly bringing us bands such as Fall out boy, Allister and The academy is who are all (amougst others) becoming internationaly recognised by fans over the water. But who are they, what makes them different exactly and will they make it out of Chicago? vianca had a chat to the guys to get to know more..

So who are you and what do you do in the band?
Max: I’m Maxwell Hobbs, I play guitar,
Steve: I’m Steve Carey, I play the drums
David: I’m David Prebula, and I play the Bass guitar . Rene Valdiviezo is missing in action but he is lead singer and guitar player.
Steve: What you should know about each member is as follows. I likes to bang on things
David: I like blonde hair girls that are about 5' 3", I like airplanes, the movie Peter Pan, and I strongly believe in Aliens, God and David's pecker.
Max: I likes fans, rolling on freshly cut grass, gnawing on used bandages, dying my hair, touching rusty spoons, I’ m vegetarian and David likes blink 182.

Who are some of your inspirations?
David: Fall Out Boy, Taking Back Sunday, Finch, Blink 182, Fenix TX, and Frank Sinatra Steve: Senses Fail, Atreyu, Every Time I die, Blink 182, The Bled, Throwdown, and Fall Out Boy
Max: Alkaline Trio, Coolio, After the Fall, Okgo, Weezer, Saves the Day, Green Day, Cock Sparrer, Head Autimatica, Strokes, The Blood Brothers, The Postal Service, HelloGoodbye, and Jupiter Sunrise.
Rene: Fall out Boy, Taking back Sunday, Blink 182, Atreyu, Emmanuel, Silverstein, and Finch

What do you think the band can offer to the music world?
Max: We don't use much profanity, so we can offer music to almost all ages. Some of us our straight edge, so we minimize the drug movement and I am vegetarian so I’m against the whole murdering animals when you can live off vegetation just fine

Do you ever show any anger to people who don't share your same views? As in not eating animals or being straight edge?
Max: We accept people who are different than us because some of us drink and some of us are SXE and everyone but Max eats meat. We are friends with everyone, we try to stay away from confrontations with people on reasons they do not agree on. The only anger we show to people is when they judge our band before they hear us and try to pick a fight because they label us as a poppy band.

okay now this is an individual question for every one :In one word describe your band mates..
Rene: Steve - the worrier , Max - the conservatist , David - the partier
Steve: Rene - LATE , Steve: max - Lover, David - A.D.H.D.
David: Steve – Talented, Rene – Incompetent, David - Max’s friend no wait ...“Lady Killer”
Max:Steve - pretty , Rene - heart throb , David - ENERGETIC

Where is one place you would want the band to take you?
David: I want it to take me to Mount Everest and all around the world !
Rene: I want to see the world from the back of a van !
Steve: Get me out of school before I graduate !
Max: anywhere away from home.

Is there a place you would really like to play someday? Why??
Rene: New York, I always get the impression that once you play there you can play anywhere.
Steve and David: Soma (San Diego, California), because its historic.
Max: San Francisco, California, I've heard its always fun to play there from bands I listen to.

Who, past and present, would you really like to perform with and why?
David: Tom Delonge. (because he is David's hero, aw that's sweet!)
Steve: Led Zeppelin because John Bohnam is amazing!
Rene: John Mayer because he believes he brought back blues and anyone who can revive any form of music impress me greatly.
Max: I would like to play an acoustic set with Rivers Cuomo, from Weezer, or with the original members of the band Matt Sharp, Brian Bell, and Patrick

What is a song you really like to play live? why?
David:Last Year's Winner, because its a sing along song.
Rene: Last year's Winner because I can relate to the lyrics since I wrote them
Steve:All Else Fails because it keeps him in touch with his hardcore roots.
Max:All Else Fails because its our post hardcore song and I enjoy the screaming in it.

Is there a specific story behind the name of the band?
Max: After changing the name multiple times, Rene finally came up with Brolin after realizing all the previous names we had were taken by bands in other towns with copyrights reserving their name. The name of the band is completely random

Rene, how did that pop into your head?
Rene: I come up with odd ideas at the randomness times. I could be writing a song and get an idea for a story I have to write for school. The name just popped in my head. It gives of an image of boldness and discipline so other bands and people could take us seriously just from hearing that name.

What makes Brolin’s sound and performance stand out from other bands?
Brolin: Many people, when they see us assume we're talented by just seeing us before we set up. There is the presence of visual talent we give off before we even turn on our instruments. A lot of bands get all pretty and forget about the music, and when they start playing, are horrible. Their structure never stays intact on stage. We look the look and when we get up on stage we do what we do on our previously recorded tracks if not better, because we have somewhat of a stage presence which we are currently working on improving.

When you say “ A lot of the bands get all pretty and forget about the music..’ does that mean that you feel having a good look or image won’t help you out in the end?
Brolin: Unfortunately in this industry image is everything if you want to make it, but relying solely on it will not make you a good singer or a good musician. You must have some talent, or a parent who is already famous to get you chance in the business, and we're hoping that we will be accepted for our talent not our image.

I'm sure a lot of fans are hoping that you do make it.
Brolin: thanks we appreciate all the support we get from our fans. The internet has been a big help and luckily Steve's a computer nerd and if it wasn't for his advanced training through the Russian tetras camps in Moscow we would have never found out about purevolume, myspace, or agendanothing.

Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Rene: When I first started writing songs I would write pop punk songs mainly because I listened to blink 182 and green day a lot. I started going through hard times in high school and I realized not everything was supposed to be kicks and laughs all the time. many of the songs have come out of experiences ranging from.....points of view, internal conflicts, good and bad memories from my childhood to the present, fun times, relationships (that's a given though),....Last Years Winner talks about a departure from a relationship, a friends battle with drug addiction. All Else Fails is pretty much about a threat that I can’t back up. but if I ever went through with it I would leave my mark. Many bands make this mistake and most of the time the songs sound and lyrics are predicted, so we stay away from that

When can the readers of Ewo-punk.com expect a CD in-stores or available on-line up for grabs?
Brolin: we are pretty close to finishing up the selection of songs we want to keep from our previous collection of songs. After we decide which songs to keep and which to discard we will put them on a CD and we will be recording at the end of January hopefully. So the CD will be out by like mid February. If all goes as planned at the latest. But hopefully we will be releasing a CD quickly. As of now people will have to listen to us on purevolume or myspace

What are you expecting from your tour? Do you have any dates decided yet?
Brolin: We really just expect to have a good time and let the public listen to our music. We expect a good experience out of it and hope to mature musically, mentally, and physically. About the dates, we are planning on cutting North-east across the U.S. to New York and then south to Florida hitting every state between. And then back to Illinois playing as many shows as possible. If we could get any help from booking people for venues who read this site or people who would offer us a place to stay in the town over the night email Sccpunkdrummer@netscape.net and help us out with tour dates and places to stay those nights. As of now we have just briefly talked to venues without setting actual dates yet, so if we are to do it, we have to do it systematically.

Check out more from Brolin at www.myspace.com/brolin or on purevolume at www.purevolume.com/brolin



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