How have things been for you on Tee Pee Records?
I feel like we got really lucky with Tee Pee being so interested in us. I’m fucking psyched that we’re on Tee Pee, because the roster is ridiculous and it’s the music that we are all into, for the most part. Even bands like Annihilation Time and Iron Age, more of the faster-paced thrash or hardcore, that’s my style too, because before I moved to New York, I was playing a lot of hardcore punk. I’m from Massachusetts and I lived in Boston for a little bit. When I was growing up, my music interests revolved around early age hardcore, Black Flag and Citizens Arrest or whatever. It’s cool to be on a label with such a wide range of good music. Heavy psychedelic, hard, aggressive or even just light, weird drone or whatever. It’s awesome. The kind of music that matters, I guess. There’s so much bullshit, but Tee Pee’s got exactly what we fit into.
Well, even just for the amount of bands they have from around Brooklyn and New York. It seems like there’s a real vibe there between everybody.
Oh yeah, for sure. Playing shows here, I couldn’t ask for better shows for a hometown. I’ve played around the U.S. in different cities. And even Boston. The scene in Boston is very small and conservative and opinionated. The difference being in New York, people are more into it for the music, I feel. There’s just so many people for every genre of music, but especially ours. I never thought there would be such a big scene for it, but it is New York City and there are millions of people here. There’s something for everybody and there’s a lot for us, I feel. It’s a big, growing scene and it’s awesome. I love it.
Talk to me about CMJ. The line-ups for those showcases, the day party and the night showcase, are pretty unbelievable.
I’m really excited to play with Nebula again. We went on tour with those guys for a couple days and it was awesome. We went out with them for about six dates and toward the end of that, they were still going and we didn’t want to go home. It’s going to be really cool to play with those guys again. I’m really psyched to play with them again. Fucking awesome. The line-ups for those shows are awesome. The venues too. The venues are all good times. We just got added to another day show as well with Nebula as well. The Cake Shop and Union Pool shows, and now I think we’re playing at Fontana’s. The Cake Shop is the day party. There’s another show—I can’t keep up with all the dates. We’re playing a BrooklynVegan thing. It’s a BrooklynVegan CMJ showcase during the day. That’s at Fontana’s, and I don’t know the date, but Nebula’s playing that one too. It might be the date of the Union Pool show. Lot of good shit for CMJ. We’re real busy this month for shows.
And you’re hitting the road after?
Yeah, we’re hitting the road with Priestess for a couple East Coast dates. It’s going to be pretty fun. We all just want to aim to be on the road as much as possible, playing music and touring around. Hopefully we can get to that point and do longer and longer, rather than just a week. But we’ve got a little tour coming together in January as well that’s gonna be good. It’s still kind of indefinite now, but it’s going to be on the West Coast, I believe. That’s all coming together right now and that’ll be good.
Naam’s self-titled full-length is available now on Tee Pee Records. Naam will be appearing live at the CMJ Music Festival Oct. 22 at the Cake Shop during the day and in the evening Oct. 23 at Union Pool in Brooklyn for Tee Pee’s label showcase. More info’s at myspace.com/naamdestroysfaces.
JJ Koczan has more of this Q&A on his blog, theobelisk.net. If you can read it there, thank your service provider.
