Interview: Ivan & Alyosha
MYATS: You have named your band after the Russian novel “Brothers Karamazov“, considered as one of the supreme achievements in litterature. How did this novel appealed to your music ashethetic ? Who would be Ivan and who would be Alyosha ?
Tim: Hmm, that is a good question. Well, the name was given to us by a friend a few years back, and we kinda liked the name, and it kinda stuck… but I wouldn’t say the characters relate to us specifically… I would say– in kind of a thematic way, we write a lot of similar themes and subject matter, similar to what the book deals with.
MYATS: Oh cool! So were you guys all fans of the book?
Tim: (band laughs) Well, yes… We are now! I mean, in the beginning it just started off as a name, but now it means different things to each of us; the band started off as just Ryan and I. So like I said, it started off as a name, and it’s now taken on a life of it’s own!
MYATS: Your songs talk about dreams, hope and faith which is rather uncommon to indie music but not to folk music. How would you actually define your music? Like, in what category– Even though Indie music isn’t even a genre! I don’t know why people use it as a label…
Tim: Yeah. No, honestly at the end of the day, I think we just write pop songs; I think we’re a pop band, but that may mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. At the same time, I think that a lot of the people we know in indie music are writing about similar things, are writing about spiritual issues, and they all have families; they all have kids… so it’s not that uncommon. It may seem so for people from the outside looking in, but when you’re kind of inside it, everybody’s got a wife, everybody’s got kids. We’re all going through the same thing, you know?
Ryan: We’re a pop band, even though it just sounds weird sometimes to say that. Haha.
Tim: I don’t understand where people get the folk reference, what with the harmonies. I guess it’s the acoustic guitars. I don’t know. Pop music is just kind of a universal thing. It’s just what we do. We try to write popular music. We try to write popular songs.
MYATS: Where do you get your inspiration for writing songs? Who would you cite as influences?
Tim: (pensive pause) …I think a lot of the people we’re surrounded by, you know? I think a lot of what we do has to do with people and a lot of what we do has to do with our families. But musically, I always say, everything goes back to The Beatles.
Tim: (to band members) I don’t know, what do you guys think?
Ryan: Yeah! I mean, as far as musically, we draw our influences from older stuff, like The Beatles, Bob Dylan… but we listen to a lot of new stuff too that inspires us, like The Killers are big pop music inspiration for us… even some of the aspects Kings of Leon have for us; like their songwriting. I don’t know, it’s all across the board, there. I don’t think we can pin down just one. I mean, The Beatles are obviously every band’s go to!
MYATS: I was talking to Active Child last week and turns out his biggest influence as a child was Hip Hop music, because his dad worked for a record label that worked with Hip Hop artists regularly! It’s so weird, you wouldn’t think so.
Tim: I heard that about the Black Keys; or one of them, that said he always listens to blues, and hip hop! Yeah, haha. It is pretty strange how different styles can influence your music.
MYATS: Ivan and Alyosha got major recognition after being scouted out by NPR during the coverage of SXSW in 2009. How have your lives changed since?
Ryan: Lots of money!
Tim: (Laughs) More like we’re losing money!
Ryan: We’re just on the road constantly now. It went from being at home, and having our home lives, and doing this more as a hobby that we really loved, to “we need to quit our jobs”, in order to do this full-time, and be on the road, and basically sacrifice everything back at home.
MYATS: Are you happy about it?
Tim: Yes… Yes! (Laughs) Luckily, the three of us in the band that are married have really gracious wives that are cool with what’s happening, so that makes it so much easier to be on the road, and they get to come out on the road with us sometimes. We try to make being on the road less like 80′s rock’n'roll, and more like the 2011′s-rock’n'roll-family-lifestyle.
Tim: (Laughs) I don’t even think that even exists these day!
Ryan: Oh I don’t know man!
Tim: We don’t see that, you know? Even on the road with different bands. I think if the band is serious about what they’re doing, that kind of ”party” element, or those self-destructive tendencies, or whatever… You don’t tend to see it in people who are really successful, you know?
Ryan: That’s because all those guys died in the 80′s!
Tim: Or they’re just not a band anymore– When we’re on the road, we’re just trying to keep it simple, because it’s what you have to do to keep it going and keep your energy up.
MYATS: What has your best experience been, from touring across the States recently?
Ryan: I think in general, playing music is the best part of us touring. Also, seeing a lot of great states, and realizing that a lot of American cities are, well, pretty weird… and there’s no one in them. (Laughs) Just hanging out with friends and doing something you love is what makes it great, really.
Tim: On the first tour we went on, we were playing in really small rooms, not a lot of people, and then we started doing support dates with bands like Hey Rosetta!, and we toured with Brandi Carlile for a few months in the States. Aimee Mann is another artist we’ve toured with. I think it makes all the difference in the world to actually play in a room full of people.
MYATS: Yeah, i was going to ask if you prefer playing to an ambient crowd and headlining, or opening and playing to a bigger crowd where people don’t really know your music?
Tim: It’s always fun to kinda have that challenge to win people over, and I think honestly sometimes people are surprised that they actually… like us? But i think it’s kind of been our bread and butter; you have this opportunity to make a fan out of someone in half an hour. It’s been great for us, because every night you’re playing for about a thousand people, and those thousand people don’t necessarily know your music, and if you can reel them in and compell them in some certain way, that’s great.
Ryan: Especially in Canada. I mean, we’ve never had this many shows in a row in Canada! So this is really cool for us to be able to get on the road with Hey Rosetta!, and The Jezabels, because it’s such a completely different market than the U.S. So it’s been really nice!
MYATS: You came out with a first EP, “The Verse, The Chorus”, in 2009. What was the creative process behind this debut album?
Tim: Oh my gosh… Divine intervention? (Laughs) I have no idea! I think what started this band was, I was writing a certain type of song, a certain type of pop song; and Ryan was more inclined musically, and production-wise. So we just started playing music together and it was pretty naive at the beginning… And the first EP we made, I think we were pretty surprised a label picked it up. I’m just thankful the songs didn’t get lost. It’s exciting to get better at what you do, but when we started maybe four years ago, it was such a humongous learning curve, and we didn’t know what we were doing, but I think we knew what we wanted to do, and we knew that we had to do it, so we just went for it. But I think at the end of the day, the songs speak for themselves, and just shine through. I also think the relationships that we have within the band have made us last as long as we have so far.
MYATS: Do you find it weird, touring as brothers? Is there any friction?
Tim: I’ve spent most of my life with him, so it’s just natural. It’s great, you know, to keep it in the family.
MYATS: So how was your second EP a departure from the first one?
Tim: I guess we kind of continued to develop our sound. The second EP we did on our own. We recorded it at a barn, at Ryan’s parents’ place. His parents have five acres, just up-north from Seattle. I think in some ways it was musically a lot more specific than the first record, and I think you might hear that even more on the full length, just kind of refining what we’re doing as a band. I think the songs on Fathers Be Kind are just really great, I’m really proud of them.
MYATS: I think this will be our last question. What are you guys planning to do for the next few months, after your tour is done?
Tim: We go home and we record our full-length! I think we’ll be back on the East-Coast in January for a week of tour… We’ve already written all our songs, we’ve been working on them for a while now; it’s been about a year since we recorded the last record– We played like 3 or 4 new songs tonight from the upcoming full-length tonight, actually. So the plan is, we’ll go home and record ’til Christmas, but we have to go to Los Angeles before Christmas for a benefit show… but then we’ll come home again and record a bit more ’til Christmas, then we’ll record a bit more in January, then go back on the road, and maybe have a bit of time off afterwards, because things tend to heat up during springtime!
-Interview conducted by Amelia Robitaille
We would like to thank the members of Ivan & Alyosha for taking the time to answer our questions that were kindly prepared by Christelle St-Julien. We’re looking forward to their full-length’s release in January!
