pouring glass dreams

"We're all solid friends," says Pouring Glass Dreams frontman Nathan Hoffman.

"We all have the same sort of sense of humour so we just meshed, which is pretty hard to find sometimes."

PGD consists of Nathan Hoffman (Guitar/Lead Vocals), Eli hoffman (Drums), Matt DeLazzer (Guitar), and Make Murray (Bass/Vocals). All the members of PGD are former students of Niagara College.

Nathan Hoffman sat down with a reporter at news@niagara's newsroom at Niagara College in Welland, Ont. Hoffman, 22, says the four-member band has had members come and go because "it's hard to find people who like the same kind of music you do."

The kind of music PGD plays, according to Hoffman, is Hardrock/Alternative.

"We're not the heaviest band but we're not the softest band. We're kind of in the middle." He says the band is somewhat unique in the area.

"There's not a lot of bands who do the hardrockish alternative."

Hoffman says the band is excited about the new CD they're working on.

"The new album is more eclectic. Everyone has equal input in the songs," he says.

The college-age band member feels a certain malaise towards the radio and popular music culture.

"I really, really hate the radio right now. I can't listen to it. I don't want to slag any bands, but if you listen to [a particular rock station], it's all four-chord indy-rock ... I don't want to judge everyone else's taste, but I just, personally, can't stand it."

"I like music that's telling a story ... expressing how you feel ... but hate songs like, 'I woke up all alone/you're not calling on the phone.'"

"Personally I like more complex music."

- Noise at Niagara

Over the past few years, pouring glass dreams has progressed to a fairly large following in the local Niagara region. Those boys have always been up to no good, and this time is no different. I got a chance to interview Nathan and Jake, and voila.

Gryph: It's been a long time since any band has made this kind of a sound on stage. What are your inspirations?

NATHAN: Making music that I find interesting I suppose and having fun on stage. We just like rocking out without caring about messing up or playing the song exactly like the CD. As for music, one band that Eli (drummer) and I find extremely inspiring right now is Dredg. We don't really sound like them but we are definitely inspired by what they are doing. Their CD El Cielo is one of the most amazing things I have ever heard.

JAKE: well a lot of what we do is very much our own thing, our music doesn't really lend itself to a genre or band in particular... if I had to say we sounded like anyone I'd say finger eleven and Radiohead had a four headed baby named pouring glass dreams.

Gryph: One of the first impressions I had about your music was that you were trying to create something melodic yet energetic, was I way off?

NATHAN: not at all. We obviously aren't doing heavy metal music but we try to make heavy-ish music while still focusing on having a good melody. I have always liked starting songs off kinda slower and building them up into a heavier thing at the end. When I write songs I am always worried about the actual vocal melody of the song because melody makes or breaks the song. I really try to create a solid vocal melody instead of just singing over the guitar chords. Hopefully, I am doing an acceptable job of that.

Gryph: Your sense of humour as a band is always appreciated, how do you keep it real?

NATHAN: I've always had a bit of a strange sense of humour. The kind of sense of humour where I enjoy walking around the places I am in and having conversations with crazy people. Actually while we were unloading our gear in Port Colborne last Friday we got talking to these two old crazy guys. They were nice. There is a song by the band OneSideZero called instead laugh. It's about the lead singer feeling down and that something is missing in his life. I have sort of taken that song title and made it my new motto in life. When something bad happens or people treat you like garbage or the crowd doesn't seem to like your tunes, instead of feeling down or depressed I laugh it off. But as a band we are always laughing and taking shots at each other and just trying to keep it light and fun. You gotta be able to laugh at yourself after you screw up huge onstage or make a jackass of yourself.

JAKE: well I mean as a band I feel we have a lot of chemistry musically and socially, we've gotten to that point where we're all really comfortable with each other, I mean I've been in a lot of bands where the members were hardly friends. And these guys are some of my best friends and that really lends itself to the band on a whole were always having a good time even when were bitching at one another. lol

Gryph; There's been rumour lately that a new CD is going to be coming out from pouring glass dreams, any idea when that will be?

NATHAN: I think the government started that rumour. We've been talking about a new CD for a while now. We can't seem to find the perfect studio that will accommodate our lack of funds. But we have agreed that a new CD has to be done by the end of spring so we can promote and sell it during our summer tour. The plan is to release a full length CD through Faint and Hearted Records. The biggest problem we are having is finding time to get together and work on new songs, but it is slowly coming along.

JAKE: we've been talking a lot about spending some time on another home recording, but this time putting some more money and time into it. The new material we're working on is sounding amazing and I think it'll help draw in more buzz and all that good stuff.

Gryph: How exactly do you write music of this genre? It's not like there's that many bands that can give you ideas as to structure, aside from maybe some old Sparta.

NATHAN: Man I love Sparta! One of my favourite bands. We aren't even sure what genre we are in. We call ourselves alternative hard rock but I don't know if that really works. When writing a song on guitar, I have to be moved by the music of it or I don't continue. I try to write songs that you can feel strong about even if there are no words or singing to it. Our most recent CD has two instrumental tracks that I felt would be ruined if I added vocals to it. I've noticed that my morerecent songs don't really have the typical verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge chorus structure that most songs do. I didn't do that intentionally, I guess it just happened to be like that. We obviously aren't re-inventing the wheel but I think we have a different sound then most of the bands around here. - Scene It All