The Answer Team

The Answer Team opens "Sad and Future Human" as aptly as the title could ever suggest, as feedback and dissonance give way to melody, opening the doors on what's to come. This album does indeed feel like a sober love letter to a future being. As far as the music, the atmospheric aspect to their instrumental attack creates an impressive wall of sound. They're rock format is supplemented by orchestral overtones that build into walls of sound, and later descend, relying on various rhythms that end up pulling the motion in various interesting directions. "Bedroom Anthropologist" capitalizes on a stellar sample which gives the record its title, and which talks about a tape recorder being found inside a white tree in Jakarta. (We know, that alone is enough for you to try this record on for size.) The sample gives the album the only vocabulary it needs, as the ideas inspired fit perfectly with the evolving destruction brought to life by the sum of this bands' parts. "Breakfast for Dinner" further enhances the 'build, destroy, rebuild' mode the band seems to perfect, and "Does This Shirt Make Me Look Dead" provides one of the more memorable melodies on the record, being deftly balanced with TAT's trademark guitar-driven sonic edifices.

This Omaha, NE based post-rock outfit on Imagine It Records is talented, has vision, and makes music that will surely spawn thoughts between the ears that take it on.

The Answer Team = really good music. - IPaintMyMind.org

7.5 out of 10

Omaha Nebraska has been a hotbed of musical activity dating back as far as the 1920's. Jazz clubs and underground nightspots were once home to some of the most prominent staples in Jazz, Blues and Swing history. There has been a notable music scene to be found in Omaha at any point in time ever since. It wasn't until the early 1990's that Omaha began it's gradual reign as one of the biggest independent music scenes in the Midwest. The Answer Team is certainly helping to fuel this fire with their debut album, "O Sad And Future Human".

Formed in 2006, Thomas McCauley and Brandon Bone started jamming together in college, and thus began a foundation that would eventually evolve into The Answer Team. After a few years of "revolving door" band members and a brief stint with vocals, their niche was found with the help of now permanent fixtures, Jason Bejot and Dustin Treinen. This finely tuned niche I speak of can be summed up by just simply calling them an instrumental Post Rock band, but this would be an understatement, and quite frankly, an insult to the band itself. The album opener, "Where's The Sun" is a gorgeous yet deceptive tune, it begins with a bit of feedback and distorted chords sugarcoated with light, melodic anticipation; all the makings of a build-up that begs for an explosion of angst-ridden vocals and rapid guitar riffs. Fortunately, it takes a refreshing detour into a beautiful, arpeggio-rich frolic. It's almost like a lone flower growing out of a crack in the middle of a gritty city sidewalk. This sets the tone for the whole album. On "Does This Shirt Make Me Look Dead?", uplifting layers of violin and a defiant, thunderous rhythm make this track as powerful as it is heart wrenching. The occasional spoken word interlude and a captivating solo piano track serve as palate cleansers for the ears and mind. There are no shortages of gems here.

"O Sad And Future Human" paints an honest and extremely well structured portrait of a journey through the emotional spectrum. Whether you're an avid Post Rock lover or an occasional visitor of the genre who feels that a little goes a long way, there is something here for you. This is a strong debut by a group who I hope will continue to produce beautiful music for years to come. For fans of Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, Pelican, This Will Destroy You and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

Standout tracks: Where's The Sun, Does This Shirt Make Me Look Dead?, A Hero's Aftermath, A New Look At Marilyn Monroe - EverythingIsChemical.com

08.16.2011

The Questions. Knocked to the floor, rattled, shaken and bruised, picked back up by another tunefully tilted intellect, occupied with a contraption of choice, and sloshed, splattered and smashed against the walls, only to colliding before your very eyes; ah ha, there it is. The Answers. (Provided by Tom McCauley)

We began in spring 2006 with songs I’d been writing on my acoustic guitar. I showed the songs to Brandon and away we went. We hit the basement, played some shows, went through many line-up changes, experienced several false starts and spent a few years experimenting and refining our sound. Our music naturally progressed toward instrumental post-rock. In summer 2008, we recorded an EP, Dead Letter Office, in digital format before re-releasing a hard copy in February 2010 with an additional song, “Dinner for Breakfast.” In autumn 2009 we recruited Dustin Treinen, who added a louder and heavier tone. From December 2010-January 2011 we recorded our first album, O Sad and Future Human, at Enamel (bass and drums), ARC (guitars, piano and Celeste), and Empty House Studios (violin, piano and poetry). We hit the road in February, released the album in August, and now we’re on the verge of playing our release show at the Slowdown.

How do you connect with music? What is generated within?
All of us have powerful reactions to music otherwise we wouldn’t devote so much of our lives to writing, playing and listening to it. Speaking for myself, aside from being the second most fun thing I can think of, music helps me integrate thoughts, feelings, memories, dreams and hopes. It lets me live life more beautifully, widening my social circle particularly among local artists and musicians I admire.

Music is generated simultaneously in several parts of the mind or imagination and filtered through the body. It incorporates the ancient, pre-lingual parts of us that produce fear, euphoria, intuition, all powerful chemical emotions, the parts that spur playfulness and creativity, the parts that rely on muscle memory and musical ability, and the higher-level parts that deal with evaluation, criticism and categorization. The important thing is to keep reaching for an instrument.

How dose it feel to be part of a whole? What is your blend?
Being part of a band is great but is also incredibly difficult. Generally, Brandon or I will bring a riff to the room and we all start playing over it and letting it take shape. We trust the process, perhaps more than we should: we’re incredibly slow writers. The newest song on our album was a year old when we recorded it, and it’s built off a riff I wrote four years ago. Brandon’s great at structuring our songs and trying different arrangements. Jason adds depth, texture and color through melodies, effects and feedback. Dustin helps augment the mood and add ear-shattering power. I am good at chords, foundational melodies, and playing the same thing over and over. Interestingly, the styles we exhibit on our own are usually pretty different from how we play in the band. For instance, Brandon’s a great jazz-type drummer, but in the band he plays a lot harder and heavier. My style is more chaotic and complex, but I try to play simpler and smoother.

What/Who do you hope to connect with through such a powerful medium?
We want to connect with anyone. We’re not playing to a specific audience. It means more to us when someone who doesn’t normally seek our kind of music has a surprisingly powerful reaction verse someone naming eight bands we’re similar to. It’s awesome when someone who we admire is enthusiastic about our stuff, actually it is the most meaningful response I can think of receiving. While it’s good to hole up in your room and connect with the ethereal strain of music running through the ages, it’s also good to be part of the contemporary dialogue and seek other musicians’ reactions.

What future do you envision?
We just want to keep writing and playing music, recording it, and travelling. The larger the audience we can reach, the better. Spread the gospel of beauty like Vachel Lindsay, a poet who walked from Illinois to New Mexico in 1912 and did exactly that.

New Album! What is the structure, foundation?
The title and concept of the album came from a poem I wrote a couple years ago called ‚ÄúBedroom Anthropologist,‚Äù which shows up as the album‚Äôs third track (performed by our friend Chelsie over some seriously apocalyptic slowed-down drums). Inspired by an anthropology class and the absolutely staggering fact that potentially thousands of human languages (and the billions of human stories encoded in those languages) have gone extinct, no one will ever hear them. I thought, what if an ancient race had a way to record stories and preserve them for millennia? The poem ends, ‚Äú…allow me to mail myself to you / O sad and future human.‚Äù The climactic line sums up what is not only the overarching purpose of the album, but recorded music in general: the chance to investigate and document the present while launching an artifact into the future. Music can last forever and be rediscovered by future humans who will suffer the same kinds of happiness, sadness, confusion and hope we experience. Like countless humans before them, music will help them deal with those phenomena. Our show at The Slowdown is going to feature a very special antique radio playing old, progressive-minded speeches between songs.

Get groovy at the Slowdown, August 19th at 9pm with Back When and New Lungs. - Esoteric Velvet

by John Wenz

The Answer Team bassist Dustin Treinen used to be obsessive about having a physical copy of every album he liked.

So he understands people who prefer to have a copy in hand.

"I was pretty adamant about purchasing everything that I liked up until about two years ago," Treinen says in a phone interview. "I really wanted to have the artwork and all that stuff. Eventually, I realized I was limiting myself to what I was listening to by what I could afford to listen to."

With that in mind, Treinen and his Answer Team bandmates — guitarists Thomas McCauley and Jason Bejot and drummer Brandon Bone — have taken a two-tier approach to their debut full-length, O Sad and Future Human. First, they released the album far and wide digitally, debuting it on Aug. 2 on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon and Rhapsody. That same day, the physical copies — a 300 print run — was made available for order, with an Aug. 5 listening party becoming its unofficial unveiling.

That night, they previewed a video for "Where's the Sun," shot by Love Drunk Studio (below).

After the digital release, they found another way the online world could benefit them. A post-rock fan page on Facebook shared a European fan's rip of the album, generating national and international exposure and positive feedback.

"It’s pretty cool — someone who’s on the other side of the planet who has thousands of followers put our stuff out for people to hear," Treinen says.

Post-rock has always been a genre defined by its existence just outside the periphery of the mainsteam — complex instrumental numbers have led to success for some as soundtrack music (as was the case of Explosions in the Sky for the Friday Night Lights movie soundtrack), while others like Mogwai and Godspeed You! Black Emperor have generated dedicated underground followings.

The music is almost symphonic in nature, despite (often) traditional rock instrumentation. While local groups like Fromanhole and Mr. 1986 have explored the moody genre, The Answer Team have been largely going it alone of late — putting them on interesting and diverse local bills with Noahs Ark was a Spaceship, Ladyfinger and Back When, to name a few.

This process has made sense for Treinen. Though he grew up playing metal-style bass, the genre has always enraptured him, and he found himself wanting to play in a band himself. The Answer Team offered a natural home for him.

Treinen credits Bejot for largely shaping the band's sound.

"His guitar style lends more towards creating an atmosphere than writing a lot of riffs." Treinen says.

And they've found that the genre has allowed a lot of freedom traditional lyrical rock hasn't always allowed.

"With instrumental and post-rock, people can let the song be whatever they want it to be," Treinen says. "I think even all of us interpret what we’re doing differently and it just naturally kind of works itself out — we write parts that compliment the others."

The band has already sold out one-third of their CD print, with an official CD release show at the Slowdown Friday. It seems The Answer Team's time has come.

"We haven’t toured a lot outside of the Midwest, but with our kind of music — there’s a cult following for post-rock music," Treinen says. - Hear Nebraska

By MarQ Manner

Omaha instrumental band the Answer Team has a little bit of a harder go of it that many bands do. Cutting out the vocals eliminates a portion of music fans right from the start. The Answer Team have made due though playing all of the bigger clubs in town, the recent Red Sky Music Festival, and doing some touring around the country. The band plays a slightly aggressive and complex form of indie instrumental music, and are about to release their new album “O Sad and Future Human” at the Waiting Room Lounge on Friday August 19. Also performing with the Answer Team will be Back When and New Lungs. I met up with members of the Answer Team at the Sydney this past week to talk about being an instrumental band, the new album, and connecting with their audience.



Shout! – How did the band get together?

Tom McCauley – Brandon and I were in a band in high school. I was writing all of these songs on an acoustic guitar and he loved them-and then we brought Jason on. We went through a lot of bass players before settling on Dustin.

Brandon Bone – Dustin “Jerk” Treinen.



Shout! – How many releases have you had before this release?

Brandon – We had one EP. We did it digitally because we were like ‘no one is buying CDs anyway’. then people complained about us not having CDs so we printed some off.

Jason Bejot – We used to give them away for free.

Tom – That was a terrible business model.

Brandon – I just started giving people money out of my wallet after that.



Shout! – Why haven’t vocalists worked out with the band?

Brandon – It’s something with the way that Tom plays guitar.

Dustin Treinen – Barely any of the songs that have been written after I joined the band have had typical song structures that would be easy to sing over.



Shout – Does being an instrumental band hamper you in anyway?

Brandon – It’s tough to get on shows. I have noticed that when we get out of Omaha the crowds are more engaged in the music. In Omaha they are almost passive observers and it’s almost like they are listening to a record at their home. I think with our music if you can’t connect with it beyond the passive means it’s hard. We now play a lot harder that we used to, and the music has become more complicated and powerful live and so we are doing better at getting people through the door.

Jason – When we started to doing this, the genre was pretty new. It is a genre that is lacking in Omaha. In Austin and in Tennessee there are bands like that. In Omaha there is definitely a style and they don’t sound the same, but there is a sound

Brandon – It might just be how people react in Omaha. I mean people dance at a Faint show, but if you had another band that sounded like the Faint and were darker then people would not dance.

Tom – It can also be that a lot of musicians are watching us, and they want to watch the playing.



Shout! – Why do you think that you get a different reaction out of town?

Brandon – When people go out to a show in other towns they are not taking it for granted, because they don’t have the clubs in their towns like we do with the Slowdown and the Waiting Room here in Omaha.

Dustin – In general, I don’t think most people connect with melodies from instruments, but they do with melodies from vocals. And so that is where the challenge is. The casual listener we have pushed aside as fans, not intentionally.

Tom – We have made it just a little harder.

Brandon – Or they tell us we need a singer now.



Shout! – How often are you told that you need to get a singer?

Brandon – At least once a show.

Dustin – I don’t think some people get it.



Shout – What is the name of the album?

Brandon – “O Sad and Future Human.” It came out today (Tuesday, Aug. 2nd). We are just doing a push about the album coming out now and then trying to get people out to the CD release party on August 19th.

Jason – There will be live nude chicks.

Brandon – And dudes for those that are into dudes.



Shout-And this will be a physical release?

Bone-We did a physical release and then you get a digital download when they buy it online.



Shout – Where did you record?

Dustin – We did some of it at Enamel with Joel Peterson. We did some of the guitar and miscellaneous stuff with AJ at ARC. AJ also mixed it.



Shout – Who are some bands around town that you like or feel akin to?

Thomas – I love Noah’s Ark Was A Spaceship. I love how they sound. They are a great band to watch.

Brandon – They blow me away on stage and have something new every time. I always feel like ‘man we gotta do more’. The same with Back When. We haven’t played with Conduits but we would love to.

Dustin – I like playing with Lady Finger

Tom – Honey & Darling.



Shout – You guys did a video recently right?

Brandon – We did a Love Drunk video in March, and that is coming out this week. Hopefully that will draw some awareness with the album.



Shout! – How do you think groups like Ingrained and Love Drunk doing videos affects the local music scene?

Dustin – I think it has created a lot more awareness. Even bands that haven’t thought of recording, they are able to get studio sound with them and many have never probably thought about making a video.

Jason – They are coming to the bands and asking to do the video and instead of you just promoting the video they are.

Dustin- It is something so unique. I haven’t seen much of that in other places. I think that those videos show how much support there is for local music. All of the people helping with the videos are all volunteers.

Speaking of that support, we didn’t know who we were going to have do the artwork for the album. My cousin John wanted to talk to me about something big, and he told me how bad he wanted to do the artwork for this album. The band means a lot to him. I knew he was good, and we said sure and he gave him free range. And we are all really happy with it. And he did it for free, and that goes back to the Love Drunk thing, there are people that will help you out. I don’t think a single person will look at this artwork and think that it is the first band artwork that he has done.



Shout! – Any plans to tour or do more past Omaha?

Brandon – We want to get out there as much as we can. We are all professionals with responsibilities and so it is tough to plan long engagements on the road.

Thomas – Life just gets in the way.

Brandon – And there is this lack of acceptance of our style of music. There is this resistance of having an instrumental band not from their town on a show. We are trying to make people aware online. We have tried to get our name out there and we are doing it on our own. We want to gain some awareness out of town and then try to figure out where there is interest and where we could go play.

We really want people to hear this album. We really want your money so we don’t have to pay for the next one out of pocket, but if you do not want to buy it get it by any means necessary. - Shout!

The Answer Team is finding its true self in instrumental rock

BY CHRIS APONICK

Instrumental rock wasn't the initial plan for the Answer Team.

As the band was beginning, they kept seeking and finding vocalists. And each time, they kept losing them.

“None of us wanted to be in an instrumental band,” drummer Brandon Bone says.

But each time the Answer Team would play without a vocalist, people would recommend the band stick to it.

They ultimately embraced their post-rock leanings and got more creative with their songwriting style and rhythms. Bone says it became a little more free-form as they bridged the gap between traditional indie rock sounds and post-rock instrumentals.

The band's current sound feels crystallized and fully-conceived on their first full-length, O Sad and Future Human, which the band is self-releasing this week.

They recorded drums and bass with Joel Petersen at Enamel Studios, then tracked the guitar tracks with A.J. Mogis at ARC Studios. Additional violin, piano and spoken parts were recorded with Matthew Tobias at Empty House Studios. The sessions started at the tail end of 2010 and were wrapped up before the onset of spring this year.

“When it comes down to it, the album was made over the course of ten days,” Bone says.

The band had previously recorded some EP releases, with a three-song release in 2008 being offered only as a download. Bone says at the time, the band thought the download would be a better bet than physical product, but he quickly learned otherwise.

“When we didn't have CDs, people kept telling us we needed them,” he says.

This time, they will offer a download-only option, in addition to a CD, which includes a download if you order the CD from the band's website.

Of the 300 CDs the band had produced for the new album, 50 have been sold as pre-orders. The band is also selling the album as download-only.

Guitarist Tom McCauley says the earliest of the songs date to nearly six years ago, basically spanning the history of the band.

McCauley and Bone had played together in a hardcore band before starting the Answer Team.

The new band started taking form around acoustic songs McCauley was writing. Aside from trying out vocalists, the band also spent plenty of time practicing and trying to find other pieces to round out its line-up.

“It took about a year to get off the ground,” McCauley says.

Guitarist Jason Bejot was in earlier on, but the band also went through a few bassists before finding Dustin Treinen.

“Dustin really made us a lot louder and more powerful as a band,” Bone says.

McCauley says “Does This Shirt Make Me Look Dead?” off the new album represented a watershed moment as the band was embracing its life as an instrumental rock band.

Bone took the song to the band and then described what he imagined the finished version to be. It came together very easily.

“I had written it to be really layered and simplistic,” Bone says.

The entire band has focused on that mix of simple, direct music that is also highly layered as they have shifted to the more thoughtful, slower, intertwined post-rock sound that is now their core sound.

It's also changed how they play, given that each part connects so directly to the greater whole of a song, Bejot says.

McCauley says he's moved towards a simpler, cleaner style on guitar. The band's songs give all the instruments space to breathe and shine through.

“There's no hiding really,” McCauley says. “If it's not totally together, it sounds terrible.”

Still they haven't lost their eye towards concision in their playing, now that they are fully accepting that they are traveling a post-rock/instrumental rock path.

Bone says the band doesn't try to pass the 10-minute mark on any song. It's all about being tactful about running time and not letting any musical passages be long for no specific reason.

Bejot says they try to tap into specific feelings as their songs undulate and unfold.

“It's about evoking emotions,” Bejot says.

The Answer Team plays an album release show w/ Back When and New Lung Friday, August 19th at the Slowdown, 729 North 14th St., at 9 p.m. Tickets are $7. For more information, visit onepercentproductions.com. - The Reader

By Kevin Coffey
world-herald staff writer

Thursday August 18th, 2011

After The Answer Team begins one of its dense, dark instrumental tracks, some expect someone to come forward and start singing.

Stop waiting. It ain't happening.

While the band has played around with singers before, it's never really worked out. They're all-instrumental now and that's helped solidify their sound.

Fear not. Just because the band doesn't have a singer doesn't mean you won't like their music.

"O Sad And Future Human," the band's new album, is one of the best listens in recent memory. It's hard to find an album I can listen to start to finish, but this is one of them.

Earlier in the week, I talked to guitarist Thomas McCauley about the new album. Along with drummer Brandon Bone, guitarist Jason Bejot and bassit Dustin Treinen, McCauley will perform at The Answer Team's CD release show on Friday at Slowdown.

Kevin Coffey: How did the band get together initially?

Thomas McCauley: Brandon (Bone) and I, the drummer, got together freshman year of college playing acoustic guitar kind of in his dorm room. We built the lineup around that.

Over the years, we went through a bunch of different lineups. We let our sound evolve naturally. We used to be a lot more pop-oriented and a little more dancey. We had vocalists and everything, but it never felt right.

We started writing longer songs and getting louder and getting more dynamic parts. Then with the addition if Dustin Treinen on bass back in 2009.

KC: I didn't know you had ever used vocalists before.

TM: We played a few shows with vocalists but it never really worked out. We didn't want to morph our music to support vocals. We just kind of went in the instrumental direction.

KC: How has your music moved on from there?

TM: Some of those songs (on "O Sad And Future Human") did have vocals. But I can't even see where they'd go now. We're constantly refining the songs. It takes us months to structure a song.

The newest song on there was a year old when we started recording. We're always tinkering with dynamics.

KC: A lot of people seem to think you're onstage jamming out.

TM: Totally not true.

KC: Your songs are actually quite structured, right?

TM: We definitely are. Because of the way the songs are structured and the dynamics and the interplay between the instruments, people might think it's a little more improvised but it's really not. The challenge for us is to play songs that are structured, but feel spontaneous.

A lot of our music relies on kind of a bedrock of notes — decaying notes that create interesting harmonies with what we're playing. If we hit the wrong note, it ruins that effect.

KC: Where was everything recorded?

TM: We did bass and drums at Enamel with Joel Petersen in one marathon, 16-hour recording session. Then we recorded guitars over a weekend at ARC with AJ Mogis. We also did violin and piano at Empty House Studios with Matt Tobias. Recorded our first EP with him. He's been a helpful critic to us. Then Doug Van Sloun mastered it at Focus.

KC: You are one of the only bands of your kind around here. Why do you think that is?

TM: In other cities, when we go on tour, people are a little more familiar with that thing and are more receptive initially. Kansas City, Chicago, Dubuque, Iowa — they actually have a really cool scene there.

Lincoln has Masses. They're one of the bands that are closer to us, but they're a lot heavier.

KC: What do you have in store for the record release show?

TM: Without giving away too much, one of the interlude tracks is a track called "Bedroom Anthropologist," which is based off of a poem I wrote that also includes the name of the album. One of the images is a WWII radio and we bought a floor model radio from Grampy's Curious Goods and put some sound-sensitive lights in there and we're going to play some famous speeches that have to do with civil rights from the WWII era. One of them is Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" speech and Mario Savio's speech at Berkley.

We're gonna turn the house lights down between tracks and it will look like that radio's lighting up and talking and delivering those instrumental tracks of history.

KC: That sounds really cool. What's the inspiration for that?

TM: We don't really have a frontman or anything so we spend the time in between songs tuning. It seems awkward. We want to make those in between moments a little more seamless.

Hopefully we pull it off.

KC: Will the band go on tour again?

TM: We all have pretty full-time jobs. We're playing in Lincoln and Kansas City to promote it and then try to do a tour maybe later this year. We're not really sure.

We did about a week in February. But it was a nightmare planning it.

But seriously, touring rocks.

KC: Is it easier or harder to get shows in other towns being an instrumental group?

TM: It's kind of a paradox. The crowd is more accepting there, but it's harder to get on a show. They don't know how many people you can draw, but you haven't played there so you won't draw initially.

Thanks to Dustin, he's got a lot of contacts from playing and touring with Paria for so many years. He's got a pretty solid network across the country.

We've gone to Kansas City two or three times and every time there's more people and they're more into it. It's definitely a positive thing.

KC: Anything else you want to tell people?

TM: We paid for about 40 percent of this album out of pocket. If you're too lazy to buy it, get it somehow. If you have to get it illegally, definitely share it with people. We don't have a whole lot of opportunities to tour, so it depends on word of mouth.

If you can pay for it, that will help us out. But if not, don't. - Omaha World Herald

Omaha’s The Answer Team really struck a right chord this evening. The band’s EP, Dead Letter Office, is a soundscape that is extremely easy to loose oneself in. I usually get bored with instrumental music. I find myself thinking wow, that was one really long song. This demanded my attention and each song had its own personality. - RockSellOut.com

I’ve never heard of these guys — a five piece that included a lady on violin and a guitarist who looked like McLovin’ with a perm and headphones. Their instrumentals-only music sounded influenced by Tristeza or The Album Leaf. One person compared them to Race For Titles without vocals... I do like what they did. - Lazy-i.com

Amongst the cacophony of lunchtime chatter at the Dundee Dell on a Sunday, the five members of local post-rock outfit the Answer Team agreed that sharing group meals was a good idea and should become a weekly routine along with other band-related activities.

With a lineup that’s been complete since bassist Dustin Treinien joined in early summer, the members of the all-instrumental quintet have their distinct personalities. The songs usually start in the hands of guitarist Tom McCauley, an intern at Mayor Suttle’s office who also edits the online poetry journal strange-machine.com. Initially, McCauley started the Answer Team with drummer Brandon Bone after the pair’s high school hardcore efforts dissolved. “We’re on the same page, pretty much all the time,” McCauley said in between a barrage of good-natured insults from Bone, who always seems to be joking around. (Bone works at the Web design and marketing firm Phenomblue alongside A-Teams’s second guitarist Jason Bejot, who handles miscellaneous duties for the band like online maintenance and media contact.) Violin player Kaitlyn Filippini may be the closest thing to a vocalist the group has due to the depth and emotion she employs in her playing, which surely comes natural for the professional musician who, when not taking college neuroscience classes, tours regularly with arena acts like the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Michael Buble and Josh Groban. Treinien is no small part of the overall group equation, either – outside of the band he manages the design firm 1984 Creative, works at CD manufacturing company Media Services and also is a founding member of local metal masters Paria; inside the group he adds counter-melodic bass lines and shares words of advice from his years of experience as a touring musician.

Musically, the group writes atmospheric, all-instrumental music full of rigid dynamics that balance interplay amongst the five musicians, not at all unlike staple groups of the genre Explosions in the Sky and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. It’s the type of music that seems relaxing to listen to at first, but upon paying attention to the subtleties, it washes the listener down a river of colors, sounds and moods, making for a meditative journey within the psyche. (In other words, the music has a more subconscious effect, instead of, say, the straightforward abrasions of a typical Madonna track.)

To date, the Answer Team has recorded only a three-song EP but that’s set to change next year as they enter the studio again to record a debut full-length at the Faint’s Enamel Studios. Next year also will see the group hitting the road for a string of short regional tours. And like most any band that has their act together enough to bring it out of the basement and onto local stages, they dream of one day being financially sound through their music – no easy feat. But still, we wish them the best of luck.

How long has the group been together and how did it form?
Tom: Well, Brandon and I were in a hardcore band back in high school, called South of No North. In college we kind of shifted from that – I started writing all these songs on my acoustic guitar with weird tunings. We started writing more song-oriented stuff – we used to just write riffs and mash them together. I brought them to (Brandon) and he liked it a lot. We tried to get going for a couple years, but we had a bunch of lineup changes; it was really difficult to find a practice space. But we got really solid last summer, we recorded a three-song EP and (Kaitlyn) came along and really revitalized our band.
Brandon: (Kaitlyn’s violin) give it direction, a lot of clarity, too. It’s like something to write around. Without vocals it’s really easy to get lost with your basic two guitars and a bass and drums.
Kaitlyn: What I did is I came in with these boys in the studio and I actually listened to the songs they gave me. I wrote them out, like I scored it all and I organized it.
Brandon: It made our lives a lot easier because we didn’t have to write as much.

How’d you initially come into contact with the band, Kaitlyn?
Kaitlyn: I found (Brandon) on Facebook. And I was like, “looks familiar,” so I added him. It just so happened that the timing was right. I do a lot of playing, I touched base with other bands before this and I do a lot of contract work for touring and stuff, but this is the first band that actually just fits.
Brandon: It wasn’t intentional either. You were just going to record originally.
Kaitlyn: I had never met them in person before until I met them in the studio. I had Mace
in my purse.
Brandon: We look sketchy, what can I say? I don’t bathe regularly. Sometimes I’m not wearing pants.
Kaityln: I thought Tom was a big jerk because he hated me the first day. He thought I was a singer.
Brandon: And then he heard the violin and he pooed a little.
Tom: I was like, (smugly) “Oh, she’s a violin player. That’s fine, I guess.”
(They all laugh.)

So, what about Jason, then? How’d he come to join the band?
Brandon: Tom and I, he was writing songs and since we didn’t have a second guitar, I was trying to learn the guitar as best I could. So I was writing second guitar parts and I was like, “Man, we should actually get another guitar player so I can play drums again.” I met Jason at the Underwood (Bar) at a random party of a mutual friend. He had gaged ears, so I assumed that he played music somehow.
Jason: (I hadn’t played guitar) in a long time.
Brandon: So, it took you like six months to get back up to speed?
Jason: Yeah, and just to get used to the whole Answer Team paradigm, anyways.

And Dustin?
Brandon: With Tim (Greenup, former bassist) in it we were pretty happy and Tim just happened to have to move and then Dustin joined. We got really close to some hard dates that we didn’t want to back out of. We asked Dustin to see if he wanted to play the first couple shows. He said, “We’ll feel out, but really I think it’d be fun to keep doing this long term so long as it works out.”
Dustin: So far so good. I have no plans on leaving right now.
Kaitlyn: You’ve actually changed a lot of the music. Which is great, I love it.
Dustin: I used a lot of the old parts, but I re-wrote a lot of them, too.
Brandon: It’s taken on a whole new level.

How does the band piece the songs together?
Kaitlyn: I think it took about an entire year to get kind of a good groove with everybody. So now what we do, we just start playing and somehow a song will just come out.
Dustin: It’s kind of jamming.
Kaitlyn: Yeah. It is structured, but it’s not at the same time. But usually Tom starts out with some riff that’s on one chord and all of a sudden he goes somewhere that somehow we all go.

Why did you decide to not use vocals?
Tom: We tried it for a long time. We never had any vocals that could really compliment our music.
Kaitlyn: In a way, I kind of fill in for a singer sometimes with my melodies (on violin).
Tom: Originally, I had all these songs and they had lyrics, but I can’t sing.

What’s the status on a new recording?
Kaitlyn: I think we’re going to record something early next year.
Tom: We’re talking about maybe February to start. Maybe put something out by the summer. From what we recorded last year till now, it’s still along the same lines, but the sound is very much different.
Brandon: It’s more powerful. - Omaha City Weekly