Contents

1. Meet the Band: The Show is the Rainbow
2. Meet the Band: Oui Bandits
3. Meet the Band: Talking Mountain
4. Meet the Band: UUVVWWZ
5. Meet the Band: Spring Gun
6. Meet the Band: Kyle Harvey

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Meet the Band: The Show is the Rainbow

Darren Keen has been performing in his one-man band The Show is the Rainbow for over six years now. Any artist that’s been playing that long is bound to mature and evolve. Most fans don’t want to hear the same record over and over or feel that a band is getting stale. In a business where image can be just as important as the music, re-invention is key. Look at Madonna, the ultimate chameleon, who (arguably) manages to find ways to stay relevant. Speaking of Madonna, though their music is quite different, a Madonna/TSITR comparison isn’t such a stretch. They both became notorious for their onstage antics, brazen lyrics, confrontational style, and clothing (or lack of it). Keen, like the pop queen, is in somewhat of a transitioning phase. Unlike Madonna, Keen is an actual musician and quite adept at guitar.

Wet Fist, the new album out March 17, marks a new act in The Show is the Rainbow narrative. Recorded mostly in the storage room of Enamel Studios (owned by The Faint), the album treads new sonic ground; it’s heavier on guitars and bass than his past work. Keen has matured as both a musician and a person, and the album reflects his growth. I doubt Keen regrets past incarnations of his musical act, but he doesn’t want to solely be thought of as a guy in a skintight purple jumpsuit and dollar sign chain necklace dancing around and rapping. He wants to put to rest the perception by some that he’s a novelty act.

There’s no better way to silence skeptics than making a solid, inventive album like Wet Fist. The CD will be released March 17 on Retard Disco, an L.A. based label Keen greatly admires, and one of only two record labels he sent the album to (Saddle Creek is the other). Not one to stay idle for long, Darren has another band called Darren Keen and has recently joined Beep Beep. He also runs his own record label called It Are Good Records.

His work ethic also applies to touring, which Darren does incessantly. He’s toured across the globe, citing Tampa, Minneapolis, Bergen, Norway, Padua, Italy and Berlin as his favorite cities to play in. 2008 was a busy year for Keen; he toured the U.S. and Europe multiple times, solo and with UUVVWZ, John Vanderslice, and The Faint, as well as writing and recording new music.

From the looks of it, 2009 promises to be just as hectic. Keen embarks again on March 14 for an eleven-week tour with Beep Beep. He’ll be pulling double duty, opening as TSITR and playing in Beep Beep. He’s already doing yoga in preparation.

So the new album is titled Wet Fist?

Darren: Wet Fist came from a lyric in a song that didn’t make it onto the album. The album has a few themes to it. It’s all about control and people trying and not trying to control each other. There was this lyric that said, “I can raise wet fist” but it didn’t make it onto the album. A lot of people think it’s sexual which kind of annoys me because it’s like, “Okay, yeah, that’s great, cool. Everything I do is some big joke.” But I guess I have to expect that if I’m not going to name my album things like “Sunshine” or “The Blackest Night.”

What’s the best and worst part of touring?

Darren: The worst is definitely missing my friends; not being able to have a normal social life. I live with my best friend Jim [Schroeder] and when I get home – it reminds me of when I lived with my parents – I get home from tour and I’m just like, “Hug me. Give me love. I need attention.” Jim’s a good roommate like that because he’s a weird, sensitive dude. Also now I have a girlfriend and it was really hard to be away from her for 25 days. But touring is cool. I’ve spent the past six years of my life on tour. If I didn’t like it, I would’ve stopped by now.

Do you usually have time to hang out and spend time in the cities on tour?

Darren: Yeah, I always make time for it. In the states I don’t care so much anymore to be honest with you. Overseas is when the partying becomes a little more important to me than the shows – not even partying, like getting crunk, just like doing all the tourist-y stuff, you know? I have a lot of interests outside of music. I’m interested in the world. I like going to Europe and experiencing everything about it.

How long have you played guitar?

Darren: Since the eighth grade. I joined this Incubus cover band in middle school and they were like, “Get a PA because you’re going to be our lead singer.” And I was like, “Okay, no problem.” I went to the music store to buy a PA and I saw a guitar and an amp and I was like, “Nah, I’m going to buy that instead. I’m going to play lead guitar too!” They got really mad at me. They almost kicked me out.

Do you remember your high school band names?

Darren: “Status State” and “Filming Zapruder.” Zapruder is the guy who filmed JFK being killed, so we named it “Filming Zapruder.”

I grew up in the suburbs of Lincoln; there was nothing cool out there. When I was a senior in high school, I saw this Lincoln band called Her Flyaway Manner. They were kind of this post-rock band; Fugazi type stuff – they still play occasionally — and it blew my mind. I was like, “Oh my god, you can be aggressive and not have dreadlocks.” I saw Bright Eyes that same year, and it was really important to me to see a dude just playing his songs and singing his heart out.

Does the album feature any awesome guitar solos?

Darren: Yeah, there are a couple of good solos on it, for sure. During “Made of Cardboard” I play a pretty bitchin’ solo. Oh yeah, there’s this one – Joel [Peterson] said it reminds him of Santana – I play this really chilled out, smooth solo on the song “They Won’t.” That’s pretty tight. I think my finest example of guitar playing is on the song “Roar Means Run.” The end of it has this total Jonny Greenwood weird finger pick thing. It’s all over the place, all over the neck. It’s really fun to play live.

What is something that not that many people know about you?

I’m afraid of horses, heights, and being wrongfully accused of something by the police. These are three very irrational, very intense fears of mine. Any time I see a police car near me, I’m like, “That’s it. Send me to the pokey.” Oh, this is more interesting: I don’t speak to police, under any circumstances. Police, when they arrest you, tell you that you have the right to remain silent. You have a right to remain silent all of the time.

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Meet the Band: Oui Bandits

Maybe it’s the use of French in their name, but the members of Oui Bandits come across as a cultured bunch. With two English majors, a French major, and a Film/Fine Arts major, they would have a fair shot at Band Jeopardy if it existed.

And while I’m sure Blue Line has had its fair share of sophisticated coffeehouse conversations within its walls, the informal band interview does not often run the gamut from Cassavetes to the recycling movement (the book Cradle to Cradle was namedropped) to 1960s psychedelic pop to the type of soil that denotes a true bluff (note: not all of these discussion topics have been included in the edited interview).

Brainpower isn’t the only thing the band has going for it. They’ve recently welcomed drummer Jeff Koster (who also plays in Son Ambulance) into the band and they’re on the eve of releasing their first full-length album Mattress in the Afternoon, an infectious collection of well-written pop songs this Saturday at the Slowdown.

Mattress marks the first vinyl release for I’m Drinkin This, the local label known for its embrace of the cassette tape. I’m Drinkin This released Oui Bandits former recording It Was Like That When I Got Here.

It’s a vinyl release show, because as singer/guitarist Robert Davis states, “Vinyl is a lot more romantic than CDs. Records are an active medium; you have to flip it over and stuff.”

How did the band get started?

Bob: The band started as Pat and I. Officially, this incarnation started in the summer of 2006. But we’ve been playing in bands since…

Pat: Bob and I met in high school in 2001.

Bob: Pat came up to me and asked if I had another Nader sticker or button, and I did. I think this was after Nader lost. This band started in 2006 after I moved back from San Francisco.

Pat: Aaron moved back from France and started playing bass, then Jeff moved back from Chicago and a few years later he started playing drums.

Aaron: Bob came up to me when I got back and was like, “Hey, do you think you could learn bass?”

Bob: No, I said, “Do you want to play bass in Oui Bandits?” I worked out the wording very specifically in my head because I thought you were going to say no.

Aaron: I was like, “Sure, I’ll take a shot at it.” So I picked up the bass, they gave me a crash course and we were playing a show at Slowdown in like two weeks.

How did you get the name Oui Bandits?

Bob: This Frenchman came to me in a dream…(Laughter)

Aaron: What was he riding?

Bob: He was riding a flaming cake, and he said, “You are bandits with a yes, and so you shall be.” Since he was French, “yes” was “oui.”

Do you have any interpretations of that dream?

Bob: Nope.

Jeff: The band is becoming the interpretation.

Pat: You’re changing your life around the dream.

Bob: Before that dream I was in law school. I was going to become a lawyer, maybe President someday.

Then the dream changed everything?

Bob: Yep. That damn Frenchman.

Did you ever think about incorporating flaming cakes into your live show?

Bob: We did that a lot in early shows, but then we burned down a house. So we stopped doing that. Plus, buying a cake for every show gets expensive.

Aaron: The headline for this article will be “Oui Bandits make music comma lies.”

Bob: I prefer to think of them as creative truths. I could still run for President.

Can you talk about the new album?

Aaron: The new album is entirely Bob and Pat.

Pat: We’ve been working on it for a while. Most of them we recorded at home.

Bob: A few songs we recorded at Bassline with Kyle Peterson.

Is the album title a reference to the film Meshes in the Afternoon?

Bob: No, but it is a movie reference. I was telling Pat about this German movie Mädchen in der Uniform, that I watched in this film class. It translates to “Girl in Uniform.” I was commenting on how bad the print was, because an hour into the movie, the subtitles just stopped appearing for like 20 minutes at a time, so we were like, “What’s going on in this movie?” And then they came back but they were randomly changing fonts, so I was like, “Man, this person has been talking forever” because I thought it was just one person talking. So I was telling Pat the story of how bad this print was, and he thought the movie was called “Mattress in the Afternoon.”

Are all of you into film?

Aaron: I love film, but Bob’s a pretty big buff. He’s pretty pretentious about it.

Jeff: That’s how I met Bob. We talked about film in an art class.

Bob: We had life drawing together.

Did you do nude drawings together?

Bob: Yeah.

Jeff: He sat right beside me.

Bob: It’s hard to have awkward moments with someone after you’ve stood staring at nude bodies for four hours at a time.

Favorite films or directors?

Jeff: I think Cassavetes.

Bob: I enjoy Cassavetes as well.

Aaron: I’m a real big Christopher Columbus film. (Laughter). He directed Home Alone. He’s basically a director slut, he’ll do whatever people want him to. I like his movies though…he did Mrs. Doubtfire, which is a great movie. He also did the first Harry Potter movie.

Jeff: He’s good at making the first part to a sequel.

Bob: I also like Billy Wilder a lot. I think The Apartment was the last movie I truly loved of his. You don’t really encounter movies from the late 50s, early 60s that have suicide as one of the main themes that is also a comedy.

If you could tour with any band, who would it be?

Pat: The Righteous Brothers. That would be so boss.

Jeff: I think I would want to tour with Ariel Pink.

Pat: That would be pretty weird.

Jeff: They’re kind of the pop rock that I’d like to see more people doing.

Bob: I’d love to tour with Sonic Youth. I think that would be fun, because I love that band. But we sound nothing like them. I just read a music biography on Sonic Youth and there are all these stories of how Thurston Moore is so up on music that a band would release a tape with no press whatsoever and he would find it and buy it. Like a band in San Diego would release a tape and two days later he would own it, even though he lives in New York. So now I feel he’s going to read this interview and be like, “What bands mentioned us this week?” and then they’re going to call us. That’s my dream now.

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Meet the Band: Talking Mountain

They may sport fuzzy, homemade monster masks while playing songs about abominable (and abdominal) snowmen and wizards, but Talking Mountain is a serious band with serious skills. Well, sort of. They surely know how to crank out memorable, catchy pop songs, but rarely keep a straight face while doing so. That is, unless they’re hiding stern stares under those colorful disguises. But I doubt it. The band’s official name recently changed from Talkin Mountain to Talking Mountain. Is this alteration an indication of their march toward proper grammar and maturity? No, simply put, Talkin was often written with an apostrophe at the end, and they’re not fans of apostrophes. They like “g’s” better.

The band is currently working on a new album, and Omaha’s Slumber Party Records will soon digitally release their album “Old Gold, Ancient Jamz.” In the meantime, you can pick up their cassette release on local tape label I’m Drinkin This, complete with a hand-stitched sleeve that doubles as an iPod or iPhone case. If you don’t have a tape player lying around, their four tracks are worth the investment in the outdated machinery.

Talking with the band, it’s apparent that their hilarious onstage banter is not as rehearsed as one might think. Band members Jason, Dan and Chris have an easy, natural rapport with each other and an ability to keep a joke going and make each other laugh. This is a band that knows how to have fun, and it shows on and off stage.

How did you come up with the name Talking Mountain?

Jason: I had a dream about a mountain that could talk. I could see all the words that came out, but they were upside down and backwards, so I couldn’t figure out what it was saying. When I woke up, I realized how easy it would’ve been to just turn the words around. Then I wanted to have the dream again, but it hasn’t happened.

Chris: Now we’re living the dream. (Laughter).

What’s with the masks?

Jason: I have nervousness and anxiety about performing live, so I like to cover my face to feel more comfortable and it would look dumb if only I was covered up. Plus, both of these guys have beards and when a band that is setting up have beards, nobody wants to watch them.

Chris: But we still show our beards when we’re setting up.

Jason: That’s true.

Dan: We need set up masks.

Jason: Well when we’re setting up, they might just think that it’s hired hands. They don’t really mind if the hired help have beards. It’s expected.

D: Blue collar beards.

J: But if we didn’t wear masks, they would be like, “Oh man, the hired help has started a band.” (Laughter).

Does it get hot under the masks?

Jason: Oh yeah, totally. It’s actually really uncomfortable.

Dan: Fuzz always gets into my mouth.

Jason: We don’t even have eyeholes.

Do you picture the audience cheering for you under the masks?

Chris: We actually sewed in pictures of the audience having a lot of fun on the inside of our masks.

Dan: And naked.

Chris: We went to a show where a popular band was playing and took photos of the audience to sew in our masks.

What’s your favorite Halloween costume that you’ve worn?

Dan: Mine is probably my costume from last year. I was Robin.

Jason: That was a good one. For the green underpants, he used a pillowcase with leg holes cut out.

Dan: He was always my favorite superhero.

Chris: In third grade I went as a painter with clothes that my dad had painted in, a paintbrush and a white hat. (Pause). That was actually like the worst costume ever. That was after like 4 years of going as a pirate in the same costume – it started out really baggy and then got really tight.

Jason: One year my brother and I were werewolves. My mom bought fake fur and glued it to our faces with that spirit gum stuff. It was awful trying to get it off. We should’ve worn like torn up jeans for clothes, but instead she went to Shopko and bought matching sweatsuits. So we wore these brand new blue striped sweatsuits, no holes or anything, with fur only on our faces. (Laughter).

Dan: Classy werewolves.

Given that you wear masks and often have funny lyrics, do you worry about not being taken seriously enough as a band?

Jason: It comes up sometimes. Some of the blogs around town have used the ‘novelty’ or ‘gimmick’ word. I think it would be gimmicky if we were wearing monster masks and all of our songs were about monsters, but I think all of the songs are kind of sad but presented in an entertaining way. You can either sing about how you had a friend that made bad decisions, or you can sing about an apple that wears pants that does drugs and kind of convey the same message, but if people don’t want to get bummed out, they don’t have to.

Do you have favorite karaoke songs?

Chris: The one where the TV falls on you.

Jason: We went to karaoke last night and Chris knocked over the TV.

Chris: It still worked, but I was done.

Jason: It was a little TV and the plastic shell was demolished. It was the most incredible thing that ever happened at karaoke.

Do you ever incorporate moves?

Chris: I try to run around unless it’s a wired mike, and then I just walk in a circle.

Jason: I feel like we used to dance more in our younger days. I once stood up on a booth and hit my head on the ceiling fan. I didn’t miss a beat.

Chris: It actually hit you on the beat.

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Meet the Band: UUVVWWZ

Like many performers, Teal Gardner is quite different on and off stage. Striding into Jake’s to inform me we would be moving our interview to the Waiting Room next door, she took off her small backpack and sank into the booth anyway, revealing an easygoing demeanor. Onstage she’s anything but laid back. She shrieks, shakes and stomps to the band’s indefinable mix of punk, blues and post-rock. Before relocating, we talked about the arrival of a flea-ridden cat at her place and her biology classes. It’s amusing to think of the writer of such surrealistic verses as, “A suit made of shark teeth, making a tooth suit” up late writing biology reports. I guess it’s good to exercise both the right and left-brain.

We entered the Waiting Room just as guitarist Jim Schroeder arrived with pizza for the band, including drummer Tom Ambroz and bassist Dustin Wilbourn, to share. They’ve been busy as of late, and obviously they have learned how to maximize their time. The band recently returned from touring with Darren Keen, promoting their self-titled debut album that was recorded at Lincoln’s Fuse Studios and released on Keen’s It Are Good record label.

Time was tight, as they were about to open for New York noise-rockers A Place to Bury Strangers, but if they had any nerves, their appetites obscured them. It was one of the quieter nights, metaphorically speaking, at the venue, but that didn’t stop them from delivering an electrifying and sonically crisp performance.

How did the band form?

Jim: Tom approached me at my job (the Salvation Army) and demanded that he exchange the mirror that he bought.

Tom: No, that’s not how it went at all. First we had some small talk to establish that nice customer/worker relationship.

Jim: We talked about bric-a-brac.

Tom: Once I established that you were a nice guy, I was like, “Hey, this mirror is a piece of sh*t. I need to get rid of this.” And you said, “No, but you seem like a pretty cool, rad dude.” And I said, “That’s what people usually say.” And then, I don’t know, I just blacked out. (Laughter).

Teal: And then we had a band. You probably just woke up from your blackout now.

Jim: Was there any sort of ideology to why we formed?

Tom: Hmmm … that’s a good question. (Long pause). For the advancement of sound.

What’s your mission statement?

Jim: To remain living while…

Teal: Making loud noises with what we have…

Jim: …operating musical equipment to the best of our abilities every day.

Tom: Every day?

Jim: Every day we get together.

Did you know each other before the band?

Dustin: I didn’t know Tom. I joined the band about a month after they were together.

Jim: I actually met Tom right before we had a the Show is the Rainbow practice with him trying out.

Tom: You were like, “Who is this cool dude who returned a mirror?”

Teal: I’ve known Jim since high school. His old band played in my mom’s basement, and I had a big crush on his whole band – mainly on the music, sometimes on the boys. Jim and J.J. (Idt, currently in Eagle Seagull) asked me if I wanted to sing with them, and I was like, “F**k yeah.” So we went in the basement of J.J.’s house and started cranking out noise and I started squealing a lot and it ended up turning into songs.

Do you write all of the song lyrics?

Teal: Yeah.

They’re very enigmatic.

Teal: Enigmatic?

They’re sort of obtuse.

Tom: I was going to say that word.

Teal: That doesn’t sound very good. That sounds like they’re stupid or something … or hard to get.

Well, I think they are pretty hard to get.

Teal: I think they’re really idiosyncratic. They’re really just secret ways of saying something when you really could say something else, but you’re just making it more obscure or something.

Jim: Or maybe more poetic.

Teal: Yeah, that’s a really nice way of saying it.

Do they have a specific meaning to you?

Teal: Oh, definitely. Each song has a very specific meaning to me, and I don’t think I’m ever really asked to explain, because they seem so … I don’t know … enigmatic, that people can’t figure out what to ask about.

To me, it seems that certain words are chosen for the way they sound.

Teal: That’s really accurate for how songs end up coming together. Sometimes it will be a vocal melody that I’m thinking of and then just trying to fit words in that work in that way, but you never really select random words unless you do really select random words. What you pick it out of your mind is never really random.

Do you lose objectivity having listened to your album so much?

Dustin: I have to forget about it and come back to it.

Jim: I’m at the point where I’m kind of nitpicky, listening to it again. But I like how it sounds. It came out really clean. I think it’s a good representation of a moment of playing together. It wasn’t the most ideal situation, which would’ve been Teal singing along with us, but I liked how it turned out. Kind of like a snapshot, a picture, as opposed to a long process of overdubbing and recording, especially for a first record since that’s kind of how the songs were created too.

Teal: When it first came out, I couldn’t stop listening to it. I was so amazed. I would just put the CD into my car and hear all of these sounds. I wanted to hear it all of the time.

It must have been exciting to see the vinyl for the first time.

Teal: We actually got it on the first day of tour.

Jim: We listened to it in Dekalb.

Teal: Yeah, for the first time off the needle.

Tom: That was pretty cool.

Teal: Man, I feel like we’re getting all nostalgic.

How was touring?

Dustin: It was fun. Enjoyable.

Jim: Darren (Keen) is interesting. He’s just a really calm, soft-spoken man.

Do you remember a specific night as your favorite?

Jim: I’d say Charleston. We played a house show in Charleston, South Carolina. We played kind of in this kitchen with all these people around us. It was just chaos. There were probably about 50 people.

Teal: Yeah, I got up on people’s shoulders and went into the crowd and people carried me around. It was sweet. Where was that circular moving stage where there were like four people there? (Laughter)

Tom: It was at the trail end, somewhere in the South.

Jim: That was in Alabama. There’s like a NASA space station there.

Tom: There’s like a children’s commune there, too; it was really weird.

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Meet the Band: Spring Gun

That obnoxious ringing in your ears after a loud concert is the sound of high-frequency nerve endings dying. Remember that the next time you position yourself in front of the speakers at a Spring Gun show.

Spring Gun isn’t just about volume; they have a layered and nuanced guitar-based sound. That intricacy, and their ability to play off each other, especially in live settings, requires everyone in the band to be very attuned to one another. After spending time with them, it’s clear that their easy rapport with each other has a great deal to do with how well they function musically. They’re close…maybe even dangerously so. Case in point, guitarist Andy Koeneke recently got a third-degree burn from a tragic sparkler lighting incident at fellow member Micah’s wedding. Luckily, the hand is healing well, as recent shows have proved.

Spring Gun, originally from Lincoln, have been part of the musical landscape for a while. Previous bands of members include The Golden Age, A Dim Halo and Mr. 1986. Andy and Nick still live in Lincoln, while Micah and Nate currently reside in Omaha. The band is currently preparing songs for an upcoming record tentatively titled “The Mountain Horse” which they hope to record by the end of the year.

How do you all know each other?

Micah: Nate and I went to the same church together. Our families knew each other before we were born.

Nate: Yeah, Micah and I knew each other since infancy…or Micah’s infancy.

Micah: I went to high school with Andy at Northeast in Lincoln. How did we meet Nick?

Nick: I knew Andy.

Andy: I would talk to you at Dietze (the instrument store in Lincoln) because you asked a lot of stuff about 86 (former band Mr. 1986).

Nick: Yeah, that’s pretty much all we talked about.

Andy: And then I saw you play a few times.

Nate: I knew Andy by reputation. (Laughter).

What was Andy’s reputation?

Micah: When I met him in high school he was a bit wild. I remember seeing him down in the music room in Northeast…

Andy: Kind of the place to hang out at lunch for all the music nerds.

Micah: He had a harmonica entirely in his mouth and he was trying to drink water out of a drinking fountain and was listening to the sounds it was making. I also remember seeing him peel an orange with his keys and shove the whole thing in his mouth in one bite.

Andy: It’s those things that make you really want to be in a band with a person.

Would you say that being loud is an intent of Spring Gun?

Nate: Well, loudness marked the early Spring Gun days. Maybe even plagued them a bit.

Andy: Clint (Wheeler, their former drummer) played loud.

Nate: Yeah, and Nick plays really loud.

Andy: At one point we decided that it would be really awesome to have two drummers. We brought Nick in and then Clint was almost like, “Okay, I guess I can go now.” He just moves to Dallas.

Nate: I found out Clint was moving to Dallas literally five days before he was going to move. I was trying to call him because we were supposed to have practice and he says, (in a Texan accent) “Hey, about that…I’m in Las Vegas.” And then he’s like “By the way, I’m moving to Dallas.” (They all laugh). And I was like “What? When?” and he was like “Friday.” (More laughter).

Who were some of your favorite bands in middle or high school?

Nate: The first two CDs I bought were Weezer’s “Blue album” and Green Day’s “Dookie.” But really the album that flipped the switch for me was actually the second Blind Melon album “Soup.” Which, even today, I think is a really decent album. I think that album helped me to get into the idea of songwriting.

Micah: I didn’t listen to music until late middle school. The first three CDs I bought were Foo Fighters “The Color and the Shape”, which I’m proud of, and the other two I’m not so proud of, they were Third Eye Blind self-titled…

Andy: Hey, we listened to that not too long ago…

Micah: That’s more of a guilty pleasure. I still think that record’s a good pop rock record. All the hits are on that. I also purchased 311’s “Transistor.”

Andy: I got into “The Color and the Shape.” When I was really starting to get into music, it was all about The Foo Fighters.

Micah: You liked punk rock too.

Andy: Late middle school I got into Metallica and Green Day. I’m involved in this after-school program where we teach kids how to play rock songs and it’s so funny how many kids are still learning those Green Day songs that I grew up on.

Nick: Growing up, I listened to what my dad listened to, which was Jimi Hendrix and The Doors.

Micah: Mr. Cool over here.

Nick: The first album I bought was Nirvana’s “Nevermind.” Dave Grohl was one of my favorite drummers. I tried to learn every song on that. One of the first songs I attempted on drums was “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

Micah: That was one of the first songs I learned too.

Nate: I think everybody who started playing guitar after 1991 learned “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

Micah: (to Andy) What’s the first song that you learned to play?

Andy: I don’t know. Probably something off “Nimrod” or some really bad “Reload” song.

If you could tour with any band who would it be?

Micah: Grizzly Bear…but I don’t know if that would be the best thing for Spring Gun.

Andy: Besnard Lakes. We played a show with them not too long ago and Jace (Lasek) was awesome in so many ways.

Nate: It would’ve been sweet to tour with Lift to Experience.

Micah and Andy: Yeah!

Micah: That was probably one of the best shows I’ve ever been to.

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Meet the Band: Kyle Harvey

Kyle Harvey is a busy man. When he’s not performing solo, he plays bass in Reagan and the Rayguns. As if that’s not enough to keep him busy, he’s currently adding another band to his roster, a shoegaze-inspired outfit with artist Jessica Levy called Husband and Knife. When he’s not eating, sleeping or making music, you might find him bartending at Benson bars Jake’s and Barley Street Tavern.

Harvey recently added another notch to his resumé: film composer. He wrote and performed three original songs for the locally produced film, Oscillations, directed by Evan Blakely. The film premiered at this year’s Omaha Film Festival.

Despite his hectic schedule, Harvey still has time to lend an ear. At least four people came by our table during the interview. Whether it’s hardware store advice or simply a hug, it’s clear that Harvey is the local go-to man. His affable, laid-back demeanor makes him approachable. Listen to his music, however, and you’ll discover there’s a lot going on behind the surface of his easy smile or humble hello. Emotions rise and plunge, scratching the surface and then falling back under. His recent work charts this emotional tide while employing his ability to create texture and mood from sounds.

How did Oscillations come about?

Evan approached me about doing the music for the film probably about a year ago and he gave me a script. I read it, and I was like, “Absolutely.” I had seen his other artwork, some of his paintings and stuff. I was a fan of his work, so it was kind of a no-brainer.

How was the experience of watching the film in the theater (at the Omaha Film Festival)?

It was cool. It was weird. It’s different than most things you do as a musician because I didn’t actually have to be in front of anybody so no one really knew that it was me. That was good. I’d like to do more film soundtracks.

Has the project influenced your other songwriting?

I was kind of leaning towards writing more cinematic music to begin with. So I guess it kind of reinforced what I was already doing, or pushed me further in that direction. Generally people in town come to see me because I write songs, but my true love is just making noise, messing with different sounds and manipulating them.

I’m going to be recording a bunch of orchestrated 4-track cassette stuff. I’m going to incorporate a lot of the same type of elements, using different sounds and creating a mood and atmosphere as opposed to just putting the songs down.

You’re self-recording that?

Yeah, I prefer doing it on my own or with a couple of good friends that I trust. I recorded a bunch of stuff in Nashville that I haven’t released. The only track that was released was “Innocent” on that sampler [One compilation]. But I recorded a full album down there. I still might release it, I don’t know.

How long were you in Nashville?

Roughly about 7 or 8 months. I was moving down there with the idea that I was just going to get out of town for a while. I didn’t really have a plan. I ended up coming back because I had a friend [Justin Lamoureux of Midwest Dilemma] stop through on tour and ask me if I wanted to do some shows with him on the road, so I said, “Yeah, if you have enough room for my suitcase and my four guitars.”

What did you think of Nashville?

It was awesome. A lot of people are under the assumption that it’s all country music, but it’s not. Certainly it’s the country music capital of the world, but it’s a big city and there’s a really great underground type scene and really nice people. It’s a lot like Omaha but without pretension.

Do you still get nervous before you perform?

No, not like I used to. I guess I’ve done it so many times. The Rayguns backed up Daniel Johnston and there was a certain amount of being nervous. It wasn’t that I didn’t think we could handle it, it was just getting to play with someone that I looked up to that much and knowing that people were going to be critiquing what we were doing and if we did it justice or not. More than anything, we wanted Daniel Johnston to think it was cool and enjoy it.

How was the whole experience?

We never got to practice with him, we didn’t even get to sound check with him. We just got out onstage and played. There were key changes that he called last minute, and he changed the songs onstage in the middle of the performance. That’s the stuff that makes you a little uneasy. It kept us on our toes. But it was awesome. It’s something I’ll never forget, for sure.

Do you remember what your first concert was?

It was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Vanilla Ice. (He laughs).

That’s awesome. Did the Turtles break-dance?

Oh yeah. They danced, they rapped. I think it was at the Civic, and I was really little, like early-grade school, maybe second or first grade.