fairchild

as quickrelease:

Interview: quickrelease
Devout fans of Chihuahuas and New Order, this Boston trio is set to rock the stage and outer space.

Written by Erin Elisabeth

quickrelease is nothing but a group of three mild mannered musicians from Boston who love food and have a soft spot for little dogs and old ladies. You'd think there's nothing strange about them. That is until, of course, you venture to talk to them. The band is made up of Will Solesbee (guitar and vocals), Aidan Fox-Holden (bass), and Shannon Rutherford (drums). When asked to describe their music, they find it difficult. I can understand why. If you can imagine a few man-sized robots, golden and inlaid with computer chips, playing ambient rock songs in a white, sterile room, you might be able to get a picture of what quickrelease sounds like. Recently, Antidote was able to snag bassist Aidan Fox-Holden for a wee-bitty interview.

Antidote: quickrelease is still relatively new on the music scene. How would you describe yourself to those who don't know the band?

Aidan: It's funny - we've been discussing this question a lot, and we have a hard time coming up with a solid, unified answer. Our most recent answer to that question, and my favorite so far, is that we like to think of our music as "gourmet rock." And I think what we mean to say by that is to say we shoot to make delectable music that strives to be unique and original, but is relatively accessible and rather danceable. We want our rock and roll to be a meal that you never forget.

Antidote: Your album, fast little article , has been done for a while now. I understand that you're putting off touring until you've worked on distribution. What is your strategy?

Aidan: Strategy? Must be a tagalong word or something… never heard of it. We're terrible at strategy. Our strong suits in the band are writing, recording, dancing, rocking out, reading, doing math and enjoying tasty meals. Right now we're just working on getting our music to people who haven't heard it. We're setting up a good show schedule for this fall and winter, we're sending the CD out to magazines, college radio stations, and fine websites like you folks. We're also selling copies through our website, and it's really cheap; though we also offer all of the songs as free downloads, and we don't really care if you buy the CD or just download the songs. Our main concern is that people hear quickrelease and enjoy it as much as we do.

Antidote: For a band in your position, if you were offered contracts from both an independent and a major label tomorrow, which would you take? Would you take either?

Aidan: Those aren't very easy questions to have a definitive black and white answer to, because there are too many variables. It would depend on the label, the actual individuals we were dealing with, what we were being offered, the length of the contract, the pecuniary particulars and so on. I don't think any of us have a real desire to be an indie label or a major label band. I think the type of music we do probably has a better chance with certain independent labels, but who knows really?

Antidote: You have a pretty unique sound. The vocals are somewhat distorted and soft, like they are far away in a dream. The guitar is pretty clear, and the drums sound electronic at times. Is there a specific sound you are trying to achieve in your music?

Aidan: Thank you. The only specific thing we've established is that we want to make sounds we really dig on and that you don't hear all over the place. Between the members of this band, tastes range from Paul Simon to Radiohead, from Britney Spears to Aphex Twin, and I think that we're just an amalgam of all those things. We never really sat down and delineated what our “sound” would be, but it obviously goes beyond your standard rock band setup, which doesn't super interest any of us as a creative means of expression. We like to play with toys. As a bass player, I have probably too many effects, and I use more delay than lots of guitar players do. Will has a huge mad-genius pedal setup he's built with an almost absurd amount of toys that he uses live; and on the record, there was all kinds of finagling and maneuvering in the electronic realm. There was, of course, your standard retinue of fuzzes, delays, choruses and so on, but there was also all kinds of more involved processing we did, primarily with the Nord Micromodular. The drums went through all kinds of business. There are no sequences or anything, it's all live drumming, but we made lots of new sounds in the Nord using the original performances as the base. Actually, every piece of our band went through the Nord somewhere or other on that record. I love that thing. There's even a vocoder hidden in one song. I dare you to find it! In terms of the vocals, I think we were striving to find a sound that wasn't quite "real" sounding, but that didn't sound over processed or fake. - Antidote Mag

as quickrelease:

Interview: quickrelease
Devout fans of Chihuahuas and New Order, this Boston trio is set to rock the stage and outer space.

Written by Erin Elisabeth

quickrelease is nothing but a group of three mild mannered musicians from Boston who love food and have a soft spot for little dogs and old ladies. You'd think there's nothing strange about them. That is until, of course, you venture to talk to them. The band is made up of Will Solesbee (guitar and vocals), Aidan Fox-Holden (bass), and Shannon Rutherford (drums). When asked to describe their music, they find it difficult. I can understand why. If you can imagine a few man-sized robots, golden and inlaid with computer chips, playing ambient rock songs in a white, sterile room, you might be able to get a picture of what quickrelease sounds like. Recently, Antidote was able to snag bassist Aidan Fox-Holden for a wee-bitty interview.

Antidote: quickrelease is still relatively new on the music scene. How would you describe yourself to those who don't know the band?

Aidan: It's funny - we've been discussing this question a lot, and we have a hard time coming up with a solid, unified answer. Our most recent answer to that question, and my favorite so far, is that we like to think of our music as "gourmet rock." And I think what we mean to say by that is to say we shoot to make delectable music that strives to be unique and original, but is relatively accessible and rather danceable. We want our rock and roll to be a meal that you never forget.

Antidote: Your album, fast little article , has been done for a while now. I understand that you're putting off touring until you've worked on distribution. What is your strategy?

Aidan: Strategy? Must be a tagalong word or something… never heard of it. We're terrible at strategy. Our strong suits in the band are writing, recording, dancing, rocking out, reading, doing math and enjoying tasty meals. Right now we're just working on getting our music to people who haven't heard it. We're setting up a good show schedule for this fall and winter, we're sending the CD out to magazines, college radio stations, and fine websites like you folks. We're also selling copies through our website, and it's really cheap; though we also offer all of the songs as free downloads, and we don't really care if you buy the CD or just download the songs. Our main concern is that people hear quickrelease and enjoy it as much as we do.

Antidote: For a band in your position, if you were offered contracts from both an independent and a major label tomorrow, which would you take? Would you take either?

Aidan: Those aren't very easy questions to have a definitive black and white answer to, because there are too many variables. It would depend on the label, the actual individuals we were dealing with, what we were being offered, the length of the contract, the pecuniary particulars and so on. I don't think any of us have a real desire to be an indie label or a major label band. I think the type of music we do probably has a better chance with certain independent labels, but who knows really?

Antidote: You have a pretty unique sound. The vocals are somewhat distorted and soft, like they are far away in a dream. The guitar is pretty clear, and the drums sound electronic at times. Is there a specific sound you are trying to achieve in your music?

Aidan: Thank you. The only specific thing we've established is that we want to make sounds we really dig on and that you don't hear all over the place. Between the members of this band, tastes range from Paul Simon to Radiohead, from Britney Spears to Aphex Twin, and I think that we're just an amalgam of all those things. We never really sat down and delineated what our “sound” would be, but it obviously goes beyond your standard rock band setup, which doesn't super interest any of us as a creative means of expression. We like to play with toys. As a bass player, I have probably too many effects, and I use more delay than lots of guitar players do. Will has a huge mad-genius pedal setup he's built with an almost absurd amount of toys that he uses live; and on the record, there was all kinds of finagling and maneuvering in the electronic realm. There was, of course, your standard retinue of fuzzes, delays, choruses and so on, but there was also all kinds of more involved processing we did, primarily with the Nord Micromodular. The drums went through all kinds of business. There are no sequences or anything, it's all live drumming, but we made lots of new sounds in the Nord using the original performances as the base. Actually, every piece of our band went through the Nord somewhere or other on that record. I love that thing. There's even a vocoder hidden in one song. I dare you to find it! In terms of the vocals, I think we were striving to find a sound that wasn't quite "real" sounding, but that didn't sound over processed or fake. - Antidote Mag

QUICKRELEASE
Fast Little Article
8 songs

Um… let's see, I have 200 words to work with here, and I suspect I won't need them all, because I just don't have much to say about this. It's getting harder and harder for me to trash any musical effort that shows obvious sincerity, as this does, so I'm trying not to put on my asshole cap. I was sort of hoping for at least one song about bicycles, but alas, it was not to be. The musicianship is adequate to the music, which isn't terribly demanding---it's a rather bland, poppy thing, with some vague hints of "rock" in maybe two of the songs. And there are eight songs in a total of 25 minutes, so you can bet your ass this isn't Emerson, Lake and Palmer. I kind of wish it was. I miss them. Stop snickering. You know you smoked dope to Brain Salad Surgery, and if you didn't, your youth was completely wasted (or you're too young to have been eligible for such a cultural milestone). Short songs need a solid hook in order to work, and this is all conspicuously hookless. Looks like I'm just about out of words, so, um… anyone for bong hits to King Crimson? Didn't think so. (Tim Emswiler)
- the Noise

QUICKRELEASE
Fast Little Article
8 songs

Um… let's see, I have 200 words to work with here, and I suspect I won't need them all, because I just don't have much to say about this. It's getting harder and harder for me to trash any musical effort that shows obvious sincerity, as this does, so I'm trying not to put on my asshole cap. I was sort of hoping for at least one song about bicycles, but alas, it was not to be. The musicianship is adequate to the music, which isn't terribly demanding---it's a rather bland, poppy thing, with some vague hints of "rock" in maybe two of the songs. And there are eight songs in a total of 25 minutes, so you can bet your ass this isn't Emerson, Lake and Palmer. I kind of wish it was. I miss them. Stop snickering. You know you smoked dope to Brain Salad Surgery, and if you didn't, your youth was completely wasted (or you're too young to have been eligible for such a cultural milestone). Short songs need a solid hook in order to work, and this is all conspicuously hookless. Looks like I'm just about out of words, so, um… anyone for bong hits to King Crimson? Didn't think so. (Tim Emswiler)
- the Noise