Unfolding Unrecovery

Cassie: How did your most recent show go?

Tom: Well we fucked up. I had one too many beers and didn’t tune my guitar for the next song. People love when the music sounds like that, like shit. It was a half step so it couldn’t have been worse.

Colin: Good show despite that.

Tom: Oh yeah, they give you THREE free drink tickets, if you play at The Happy Dog!

Cassie: Anyway, tell me about your most recent project, that split. How’d that collaboration come about?

Tom: Sundots, yes. We were friends online at first, the genesis was really that he wanted me to play League of Legends with him. From from that, we talked more on Discord. Originally, we wanted to do a collaboration of covers, like Blossom Dearie. But we found out we wanted to do a split instead, and when we were on tour we ended up meeting up with him. It worked out perfectly.

Cassie: Tell me about that tour.

Garrett: I don’t even have a funny story, my back was messed up. I don’t fit in the car.

Colin: Can we do a Garrett stat session?

Garrett: I’m actually 5’7″. But yeah, the tour was fun. Six months ago. We played some outdoor shows.

Tom: A hotel too! More of a cocktail lounge with five rooms to have an affair in.

Cassie: That’s the dream place to listen to Unrecovery!

Garrett: I was surprised, that was one of our best turnouts. Especially after driving six hours and thinking you’re playing a marriot lobby…please kill me. And I really hate playing bars. Like okay, now I’m going to play drums, you’re drinking and now I’m going to start hitting stuff. It started to rain on us.

Cassie: Makes the ears ring. If you had to make a split with anyone on this planet, who would it be?

Tom: Maybe John Maus, but that wouldn’t be a good split for anybody. Honestly, I’d really love to do a split with fairies in our house. But I need to do an actual album.

Cassie: When’s it coming out?

Tom: End of December. Or maybe January. Depending if I do a good job on it.

Cassie: Unrecovery is perfect winter music.

Tom: It is good. The no heat in your car but you have to have the window down to smoke cigs music.

Cassie: Do you guys have an album of the year?

Colin: I feel like I just listened to old stuff this year, this is bad.

Garrett: More footwork compilations. The last WOOSICK album, they’re like a techno group, more drum and bass and house-y.

Tom: I liked the fairies in our house release.

Garrett: Well I guess my favorite album was Shed Theory stuff.

Cassie: If you could have your music in any type of film, what kind of film would it be? For some reason I’m picturing stop motion claymation.

Tom: I know Colin’s answer, a nice little anime, where everyone gets along.

Cassie: Slice of life? Yeah, Unrecovery slice of life.

Tom: Something like 2001 Space Odyssey. *The band laughs* But really I don’t think my music would be good for movement, only for background noise. I would actually love to do scary movies.

Garrett: I would too, synths and stuff. Every time I touch a synth it sounds horrible.

Tom: He’s MUCH more than a drummer.

Cassie: Garretts the man. Breaking backs, breaking drums, breaking synths. I’ll get a tattoo of it. What would an Unrecovery inspired tattoo look like?

Colin: Maybe the girl off the last album, with the tilted face?

Tom: Or just all of my lyrics. As many as possible. Like the movie Memento, where you are constantly reminded of that guy who’s slightly scared on Christmas Eve.

Cassie: I had one of those Memento moments happen to me the other day. With some guy.

Garrett: Yeah it’s like one of those stories in different cultures. Where you pray your sin onto an animal and kill it. Maybe he did that to you?

Cassie: It was a nightmare. What was the biggest challenge you guys have faced making music over the years?

Tom: The biggest problem, a blunt way to put it, is thinking that what you’re making is dumb. Bypassing your own taste is impossible. The biggest thing I have overcome is being lame and saying, “Yeah…I can own this.” Making it wouldn’t be hard because I love doing this, but being done with it would be hard too. Like this is good for the rest of time and in ten years I’ll be happy with it.

Garrett: Yeah and reworking the drum parts live. I’m normally a busier player too so that’s been a challenge. Just making parts that move the song forward, not just filling in. I could play around others fine but soon as the mic is on it’s a nightmare.

Tom: You kinda have to have a dumb ego to be like, “Wow, I’m really glad everyone’s looking at me. They must think I’m great.” I’ve never done the underwear thing though, maybe I should do that.

Cassie: Picturing everyone naked?

Colin: Oh that’s a classic.

Cassie: Could you do that during a show or would you be giggling the whole time?

Tom: I honestly don’t have the imagination for it.

Cassie: If Unrecovery was a tea…what tea would it be?

Tom: I mean I don’t drink much tea. Honestly lemon tea because I really like that one right now. But if Unrecovery was a tea it would be a simple one. Chamomile, it’s sleepy.

Cassie: Maybe a london fog latte.

Tom: An Arizona Green Tea. That’s it. The ginseng one.

Cassie: Like Yung Lean?

Garrett: I definitely drank it in high school because of him. I liked when he talked about emails.

Cassie: Do you guys like to check your emails?

Tom: We are all office drones. In our outlook everyday. Me, Johnny, and Colin. I’ve been in a cubicle since 19, I’m used to it.

Cassie: An Unrecovery cubicle concert…would you do it?

Tom: Like a Tiny Desk! It would be cool, but the payoff wouldn’t be worth it. People would just say, “Okay you’re in an office.”

Cassie: *Laughs*. How’d you all even meet?

Tom: Colin went to highschool with me, Garrett in college, and Jon and I are brothers.

Jon: I learned the guitar for Unrecovery.

Tom: Yeah, he barely played before. But I told him we were going on tour and gave him the tabs and he learned. My soldier. (to Colin) I mean you barely even jam outside of the band right?

Colin: No, not really. I mean I’ll practice by myself when it comes to a show but besides that, no.

Tom: Well when you’re the Unrecovery bassist, you don’t need to. But that’s the key of a good band vibe. A bunch of people who aren’t competing.

Colin: Yeah, just some homies who want to play a show together!

Cassie: Do you have a favorite venue you have played a show at?

Tom: House venues. The Chicago one was tight; It was an apartment above an old bakery. Abandoned. And it was right next to a margarita bar that was POPPING. In order to get into the venue, you had to cut in between the bar line. And it was so loud, 100% blasting.

Colin: It was like 100 degrees in there too,  disgusting.

Garrett: That show was nice, it was good to get a house venue because we didn’t get a lot of those on tour. Not like we are playing an arena or anything.

Tom: When you’re small, it’s so much more fun to play than a bar.

Cassie: You get to know so much more people too.

Garrett: I was kinda worried of that though. The first band during that show was a “wake your mind up” band.

Tom: A little more spoken word.

Garrett: Didn’t think people would like as much as them, but they liked us too.

Tom: I got too drunk and though some guy’s Aphex Twin shirt was a Half-Life shirt. He was a fan too, probably never listening to me again. That’s an on paper thing that idiots do.

Garrett: Well Aphex Twin is underground, no need to worry. *laughter.*

Cassie: How about that new merch?

Tom: It’s been flying off the shelves. Cool to make something and then people would actually want to buy it. It feels weird still that people are willing to pay shipping costs for this. I mean the actual shirt is just a drawing I did, tracing because I can’t draw, of me taking a shit, my eyes glaring at the camera. The text is from a short story I did.

Cassie: Is there any other merch you want to make soon?

Tom: I was talked out of it but I wanted to do a negative pregnancy test on it. But I have been told that people don’t buy totes like they do shirts. If I’m gonna drop like 800 dollars I would need the tote bags to sell, you know.

Cassie: Yeah or else you’ll just have 700 tote bags laying around.

Tom: I would be 45 giving tote bags to my kid’s friends. But I do like that tote bag. Maybe a cool pair of Ray Bans. I like the idea of having completely useless over-engineered shit, like they are wasting time on this. It makes me laugh, over-engineered tchotchke. The Unrecovery keychain…like why would you need that?

Garrett: Like the keychain-flashlight combo that you get at every corporate event.

Cassie: Any last things you want to plug?

Tom: The new album whenever it comes and if it’s good. I’ll talk about it more when it’s ready.

band’s instagram:unrecovery_band

photos by Cassie McCoy