the hourglass demo
One stormy summer night, I head over to a deserted parking lot to meet Chris, Greg, Sean of The Hourglass Demo along with their friend Josh for our Passed Out PR interview. The three had just purchased their new (and air-conditioned!) van earlier and were itching to show it off. Everyone in the Frederick, Maryland scene knows the story behind these three: they are bigger and better than your band and your friend’s band. With my tape recorder in hand, I highlight perhaps one of the most entertaining (and longest) interviews I can offer. Inside jokes that you’ll never understand, a band history lesson that can’t seem to get past the first year, and a bunch of down-to-earth emo-looking band members talking what they know best. And that’s only half of it.
Julia: Ok, first of all, I need you to go through and give me a rundown on how the band started. The general history of everything.
Chris: Want everyone to talk at once. It would be annoying.
Julia: Ha-ha. No.
Chris: So it started, a long time ago. About two and a half years back.
Greg: Almost three.
Chris: Almost three. Me and Greg we didn’t know each other very much.
Greg: He thought I was Asian. I thought he was a heroin addict. (everyone laughs) Turned out pretty much true.
Chris: Greg isn’t Asian; he just has a small penis.
Julia: Just to let you guys know, every single word of this is going in the interview.
Greg: All right, that’s awesome.
Chris: Ok. So I don’t do heroin. But Greg’s penis still is small. I’m just kidding, it’s moderate size.
Greg: It’s not how big it is.
Sean: It’s the motion of the ocean! (everyone laughs) Anyway, back to the interview and not Greg’s penis.
Chris: We met in 2002, in like January.
Greg: No, it wasn’t.
Josh: It was definitely before that.
Sean: Well, I met Greg a long time ago, like way back in like 1993.
Chris: But back to the band.
Sean: Oh yeah. Greg and Chris met…
Chris: ...in 2002, January. And we had jammed together a couple times. And we we’re like “Yeah man. I could see this going. This is pretty good.” We were feeling it, you know. It doesn’t matter the size of the band…
Greg: It’s the strength of it. It’s the power-driving choruses. (everyone laughs)
Chris: That was our word. Power-driving choruses.
Sean: Well, anyway. Greg and Chris met January of 2002…
Chris: Stop starting over, Sean!
Sean: Chris knew me.
Chris: Yeah, I met Sean in Biology class. Me and Sean used to be in a band called Speed Bump. (in a mocking voice) You can check us out at www.speedbump.com. (laughs)
Greg: I think that got changed to speedbumpsucks.tk. (laughs)
Chris: No, it was this band called Speed Bump and there was this guy called Basham. And we cut him about everyday.
Julia: What was his name?
Chris: Sean Basham. He looks like he’s made out of porcelain. Or Butters from South Park. All fragile and stupid. So we just cut him everyday.
Greg: But Jesus Christ!!
Chris: We got Sean because Chris said he knew all the riffs and stuff. And Greg was like “Is Sean gonna like our type of music?” And I was like “Sean likes any kind of music that’s somewhat complete.” And it was true because Sean he joined the band. And he came down wearing a big stripped t-shirt. A really big stripped t-shirt.
Greg: Shit. We had Mikey before we had Sean.
Chris: Oh yeah. And we used to be a four-piece. We used to have an original member. His name was Michael Pryor.
Greg: But he’s known as Baby Pryor.
Chris: Yeah he turned into Baby. He used to be in the band and then Sean joined the band like a week after that.
Greg: Like we played New Room over the phone to him. New Room’s gonna be on the new CD but it’s a totally different version.
Chris: New Room was actually our first full song.
Sean: But it’s totally different now.
Josh: The coolest thing is that it’s still around.
Greg: So that song is almost three years old and it’s just now being released.
Chris: Yeah, isn’t that pathetic.
(random laughing)
Sean: So I join the band. And me and Chris go on vacation.
Chris: Yeah, so me and Sean go on vacation and when we get back we call Greg and we’re like “Get Mikey together, we’re gonna start playing again.” And Greg was like (mocking him) “Uhh. We broke up, right?” “And I was like, “Nah, dude. We’re gonna play.”
Greg: Yeah, I was fed up.
Chris: You wanted to kick me out of the band. You were talking to Mikey and you were all like “Dude, I think we need a new drummer. Chris sucks.” (everyone laughs)
Greg: We didn’t really get along.
Chris: Yeah. We weren’t friends for like…
Greg: … a good portion of the band. Now we still wrestle and grab each other’s penises and stuff.
Josh: Greg does that to everybody.
Sean: But yeah. We went on vacation. Greg said we broke up. We came back. Decided to start playing without Mikey
Chris: Then we just played as a three-piece.
Sean: Until about November, I guess.
Chris: Oh yeah, and the first name of the band was called Quarter Life Crisis. That was when we had Mikey in the band. We had all that vacation ordeal. And we got back together and started playing as Spot the Blank. That’s when we really started to play out a lot more. But then we…uhhh… (to Sean) Did you just throw your cigarette up front?
Sean: No. I threw it out the window.
Greg: Is this gonna be too long for one question?
Julia: No, this is fine. Go ahead.
Chris: So then we started playing a lot more as Spot the Blank. And then around November we met Jake R. We met him online. Actually we met him on pheer.com. And we’re gonna say the same thing we say to everybody when we talk about this. That we got lucky that he wasn’t a crack head because we met him on pheer.com. He’s actually a normal person.
Sean: We’re not saying people on pheer.com are crack heads.
Chris: Nah. Things actually started to pick up and get better when Jake joined the band. He brought a lot to the band. A new stage presence and everything. And then around December is when we first played out of Frederick County. We played in DC. And actually Sean didn’t even play the show. He was on a cruise at the time. Jake played bass. Everyone actually liked us. We thought they were gonna hate us. There were a buncha gutter punk kids getting drunk in the alley next to the place. And then they came in and they were moshing and shit. It was sweet. I don’t know if they were making fun of us or not.
Greg: We were surprised that people actually liked our show.
Sean: Yeah. That was good show.
Chris: We were known as the emo band. Remember that?
Greg: All right. Where are we at?
Chris: December. We played DC for the first time.
Greg: We pretty much played a lot of places around the Mid-Atlantic.
Chris: We didn’t play another show until like February because we were doing a lot of recording. We recorded our first CD from like December and uhh, February. Then we started playing….wait….back track.
Sean: So I’m in Florida after my cruise and I get a call from my ex-girlfriend saying they got a new bassist and I was kicked out. (to the guys) I don’t think I ever told you that.
Chris: You told us that.
Sean: Yeah. But that didn’t happen. (everyone laughs for some reason)
Josh: You just threw everything off.
Julia: I’m so lost.
Greg: Yeah, then we played around the Mid-Atlantic for a long time.
Chris: You keep skipping over. They don’t know time periods. They don’t know when anything’s going on.
Greg: In September of 2003 we started recording with Will Saxton of Robot Sound. It’s still now out yet. And we were just playing shows and stuff when we could.
Chris: Yeah. We played with a couple decent size bands. We started playing out at bigger size venues. We started playing at Talking Head and eventually Ottobar. And we got to play with one of our favorite bands, which is Brandston. That was a lot of fun.
Sean: Definitely.
Chris: That was a good moment for us.
Greg: And Slow Ride. They were pretty cool.
Chris: Slow Ride was pretty cool. And of course Liars Academy. It was fun to play with them. So we got to play with a bunch of decent bands. And recently we played with Desert City Soundtrack. And I’d never really been into them too much but I thought they were fucking awesome. And their drummer’s insane.
Sean: Yeah dude.
Josh: She was unbelievable.
Chris: She was really hot and she was fucking amazing. She was so good.
Josh: She thought you were Animal.
Greg: And then a couple months ago Jake decided to join Downtown Singapore.
Chris: I dunno. He just left.
Sean: We hadn’t talked to him. We practiced with him probably a week before he left. A month maybe.
Chris: We tried to get him to come down and practice.
Sean: Yeah, we tried to get him to come down and practice because he lived up in Rockville.
Chris: We knew something was up. We actually heard about that Jake was leaving the band from like someone’s livejournal or something that someone told me about. I’m like “what?!” And then I called Jake and I was like “Did you leave Hourglass?” And he was like “Uh no. Not yet.” I’m like “What?!”
Greg: Yeah. Someone was like “Is Jake still playing with you guys?” And I’m like “Yeah!” And the next day I’m like “Uh. Jake’s not playing with us guys.”
Chris: It kinda sucks. We all miss Jake a lot. If we could do it again and if we could do it again we wouldn’t have him leave the band. But that kinda shit happens.
Greg: You get a new chemistry once you leave somebody. Or if you gain somebody.
Sean: And then…
Chris: And then we tried going with another guitarist for a little bit. We wanted to do the four piece thing because we liked the fuller sound of it.
Greg: But we played that one show at the Talking Head and it just sounded amazing. (side note: it really did).
Josh: It was, in my opinion the best show to date.
Chris: I guess it was the chemistry with the people that didn’t work out too well. So we’re playing as a three-piece now. We just bought a new van. We’re sitting in it right now.
Josh: It’s amazing.
Chris: It has air-conditioning. And that’s the biggest thing.
Greg: It’s gonna be the second home of my new Ax.
Chris: But after that we’re gonna release our new CD.
Greg: It should be out by the end of October.
Julia: Can I ask the next question? Where did the name The Hourglass Demo come from?
Greg: Fuck.
Chris: From a bee hive. That’s what we tell everybody.
Greg: I went outside one day. And I thought it would be cool to put demo at the end of a band name because no one does that.
Sean: It actually came from a song that we had called…
Greg: Hourglass!! We used to have a song called Hourglass for Years and then it was…
Chris: Turned into Analog…
Greg: Which is number four on our old CD. I went outside to smoke a cigarette and I was like, how about The Hourglass…The Hourglass Demo. And now I think it’s the dumbest name.
Chris: It gets people’s attention because they are always like “This is The Hourglass Demo.” And they pick up our CD and their like, “Can we get an Hourglass Demo.
Greg: It doesn’t really mean anything.
Chris: Sorry.
Josh: It just sounds emo. (laughs)
Greg: Shut up.
Julia: It does sound very emo.
Josh: That’s the great thing. I mean people see it and they’re like “Oh. It’s gonna be another fucking emo band. I mean, look at their hair.” (everyone laughs)
Julia: Well, if you don’t think you’re emo, than what do you think you are?
Chris: Is that the next question?
Julia: Yes.
Chris: That was nice!! That was a good transition.
Julia: Ah ha. I’m good at this shit.
Sean: It’s hard to classify us.
Greg: Everything goes into rock.
Chris, Greg, and Sean: Yeah…
Chris: Yeah. Everything is rock, dude. I think we’re rock, but we have…
Greg: We all have individual influences.
Chris: And it all goes into one.
Greg: What was the question again?
Chris: What kind of music are we?
Greg: We used to just say indie rock. That’s pretty much what it is.
Chris: It’s indie rock, you know? Some of the new songs we’ve been writing have more of a poppy catchy feel to it. Yet they definitely have…
Josh: Goooood bass lines.
Chris: A lot of our stuff have good bass lines.
(random, nonsense talk that I couldn’t add in because I had no idea what they were talking about)
Chris: We saw Rush last week and that was fucking sweet.
Sean: There would be no Coheed without Rush.
Chris: Exactly.
Julia: If someone we’re to listen to your music for their first time and you had to describe your sound or compare your self to another band…
Chris: What band would we compare to? We get compare to Sunny Day Real Estate a lot. But I don’t really think we sound like them anymore.
Josh: (to Greg) You got the unique Sunny Dale scream.
Greg: Sunny Dale?
Josh: Sunny Day.
Chris: I dunno. How about we ask you a question? What do you think we sound like?
Julia: You read my review. I compared you guys to Cursive and Armor for Sleep.
Josh: It’s in the eye of the beholder.
Greg: If I had to tell somebody I would say think about the seventies rock and mix it with just something you wouldn’t hear in a seventies rock song. Like, the drums aren’t really what you would hear in seventies.
Chris: The vocals and guitars are more like something you would hear in a rock song. The bass and drums are a little bit more technical than a rock song.
Josh: A lot of the solos are rock based.
Chris: So what’s the next question?
Julia: Being in a band you have to make sacrifices. They are good sacrifices and there are bad ones. What are the bad ones?
Chris, Greg, and Sean: Your money….
Sean: Your money definitely goes down the drain.
Chris: You definitely are broke when your band is up and running.
Greg: I’ve never heard of a good sacrifice. What’s a good sacrifice?
Chris:Yeah, what the hell are you talking about?
Julia: I was just trying to make the question sound better. What are the good things about being in a band?
Chris: Dude, I love being in a band and nothing gets me more excited than people like actually enjoying our music. And I bet it’s something for Greg when someone actually tells him his songs actually mean something to them. If they were my lyrics, I’d be like, “Yeah man! That’s fucking sweet!”
Josh: Well I could never see Greg saying that. Say what he just said.
Greg: I’d be “Thank man…that’s really good. Man that’s fucking sweet.” (everyone laughs)
Julia: Ah ha. You said it.
Greg: What was the question? Oh yeah the bad things. If you get around people too much you get sick of them. Everybody in this band knows it.
Chris: Yeah. Everybody’s been in arguments with everybody hear.
Greg: And because the van’s bigger now, we can be farther away from people.
Sean: We haven’t been arguing as much anymore.
Greg: That’s because we haven’t been playing that many shows.
Sean: And we’ve been smoking a lot of pot.
Chris: That’s probably why it took us so long to describe the beginning because I kept on forgetting. (everyone laughs) Like when I called that guy Steve the other day. His name was Dave.
Sean: But yeah, we…What was the original question?
Chris: Bad sacrifices.
Josh: But then I know that it has brought you guys a lot closer.
Sean: It’s the same shit.
Chris: See, we’re not original.
Julia: Do you think you’re original?
Sean: I think we have an original sound because we all have our separate influences. Like name you favorite bands.
Chris: My favorite bands are like The Appleseed Cast, Your Black Star.
Greg: Describe Your Black Star. No ones ever heard of them. Almost like a mix between Appleseed Cast and U2.
Chris: Yeah. Almost like Appleseed Cast and U2. But it’s got jazz drumming. I’m really influenced by jazz drumming and I wish I could play jazz drums really well. So I try and dabble around with that crap.
Greg: What about you, Sean.
Sean: Meeee….Well, lately I’ve been listening to a lot more seventies rock type shit. And hip hop. I just like hip hop, man. It’s all about the drum and beats. What really got me into music really was Blink 182. They really did get me into music. And I’m not afraid to say it.
Josh: How about you (to Greg)? Pumpkins?
Greg: Yeah. Pumpkins we’re the first thing I really got into music for. But it all goes back to the first CD and tape I ever owned and that was ACDC.
Josh: Fucking right.
Greg: It’s that rock n’ roll. That’s where I go. And it mixes up with the jazz drumming. It’s like punk, rock, and there’s jazz.
Chris: I think it comes together really well.
Sean: But my bass playing isn’t really all that punk. I think it’s more technical bass lines. Uhh….yeah.
Chris: If we didn’t get wasted all the time, we wouldn’t be a band.
Sean: Yeah, probably.
Chris: Nah. That didn’t make sense. That’s not true.
Greg: If we didn’t get wasted so much we’d probably practice more.
Josh: We used to drink a lot.
Chris: Yeah, we don’t drink so much anymore.
Julia: If someone was to come up to you and compliment you as a band, what would be the best compliment?
Sean: Just people getting into our music. Just watching them as we play getting into our music.
(Josh lights a tissue on fire…everyone freaks out)
Josh: We’re all healthy and fine now.
Greg: If someone said to me, “I know what you mean.” That would be good…
(Drama ensues. Random car pulls up. Sean gets out to find out who it is. Turns out, random person is calling the cops. Interview ends (needless to say) and The Hourglass Demo van escapes before the PO can come. By this time, memory on tape recorder is running low. Catch Part Two of The Hourglass Demo Passed Out PR interview soon.)
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