In Session: ERIE

ALBANY – On August 24^th, ERIE will be releasing the latest single in their catalogue, “My Rusted Armor.” The song begins with just guitar, then full-band instrumentation soon joins in, including a very effective synth part that screams indie-rock nostalgia. During the verses, the guitar drops out, along with the synth, a tool that makes the ear focus by subconsciously noting a big gap in the sonic texture. On top of this, the offbeat bass pattern also draws the ear in, serving as an infectious and unrelenting groove. The push-and-pull characteristic of this song’s arrangement is extremely hard to miss: the palm-muted guitar part during the chorus is a nice dynamic change, and the interlude after each chorus serves as a great way to break up any potential monotony. There’s a lot of care spent in the construction of this song, and that’s easily shown by how each section has its own general pattern, but changes slightly on each pass through. The well thought of and gratuitous attention to detail in ERIE’s newest single’s instrumentation is matched only by TJ Foster’s (main composer, lead singer, and guitarist) inexorable honesty in the lyrics, and power with which he delivers the melody, facets of his music that he provides in whatever project he’s working on.

I had a chance to sit down with the majority of the band prior to release to discuss the single, as well as the music scene of the Capital Region, and more. What follows is our conversation.

Lucas Garrett: Thank you, everyone, for sitting down tonight and taking the time to talk about the band. How is everyone?

Levi Jennes: Doing well!

TJ Foster: Doing great, man. Enjoying this not so balmy weather. It’s lovely.

LG: How did you guys get started as a band?

TF: I kind of did things backwards. I made this record and started talking to Matt about it first. He was very interested in joining up. So, he and I started playing together. Our original bassist, Jordan, I’d been in bands with for a while. Our drummer, Chad, came on board via Craigslist, which is something I’ve never done before. But it worked out great, because he’s awesome.

Matt and I at various points in our lives have worked with Levi, and knew he was a phenomenal bass player. He was actually helping us out filling in for some shows. It ended up working out where it was natural to have him come on permanently. It’s been great. That all came about in 2020 about eight days before the pandemic hit?

LJ: Hahaha.

TF: Great time to start a band, hahaha. Here we are two years later.

LG: I hear through the grapevine that you have new music coming out?

TF: That is correct!

Matt Delgado: We do! We’ve been working on a new album. We released a first single earlier this summer (“Can’t Stop Runnin’”) and we’ve got our second single, “My Rusted Armor,” that’ll be coming out the 24^th of August. That’s the first song that we started writing together, TJ. I don’t know if you remember that.

TF: That started back in 2020.

MD: It was affectionately called, “WTF,” at that time.

LG: Very nice. I really like the vulnerability of the lyrics. I think people often hide behind metaphors but I like how honest you are with what you’re going through. I think it’s refreshing to hear.

TF: Thank you.

LG: I didn’t know you before the pandemic, but every time I hear whatever you’re working on, I don’t even have to know you’re in the band. I’ll hear it and say, “Yep, that’s TJ right there!”

TF: Hopefully that’s a good thing!

LG: Yes, it is! I really appreciate your voice and its quality.

TF: Thank you. I appreciate that.

LG: And, Levi, that bass playing is pretty awesome.

LJ: Thank you! Bass is just something I fell into. I failed at a lot of different instruments… I’m a failed trumpet player, a failed guitar player… I say that as a joke. Twenty years ago, my roommate at the time, his cousin needed a bass player. He said, “Hey, can you play with us?” I haven’t stopped since.

Playing with TJ and ERIE is great. I’ve been lucky, I haven’t played with bad musicians ever. The songs that TJ’s written really resonate and really grab me. I was happy when they gave me the call to say, “Hey, do you think you could come on full-time?” I had fun playing the songs and, for me, that’s what it’s all about.

LG: Did you write the bass part for “My Rusted Armor?”

LJ: Yep!

LG: It’s very interesting because you don’t hear – at least I don’t hear, often – a song in that genre with bass so predominantly on the offbeat.

LJ: I play off the drums. That’s my goal in life: to be locked in with the drums. If I can add extra stuff around it, I’ll go with it. Some of it was a conscious decision. But, that’s where I come from.

LG: Let’s start with you, Levi, then go through everyone else. What’re your creative influences on the instrument?

LJ: A lot of seventies prog-rock. I just picked up the Rush complete studio scores recordings. I’ve been working through a lot of those bass lines. So, Geddy Lee, with a little bit of Primus, and whatever 1990’s grunge is out there. But when you get down to the heart of it, it’s mostly prog-rock, and then I go from there. Geddy Lee, that’s my influence.

MD: Of all the places to be, that’s a great spot! I’m kind of all over the place. I started my musical journey at the age of eight playing violin. So, I’m a huge fan of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky… Some of the stuff kind of plays into what we do, but in terms of rock, I came up in the late 1990s and early 2000s, so a lot of the indie-rock, punk scene, gets lumped into that emo-genre. I don’t think that fits a lot of it, but Saves the Day, Thursday, the Get Up Kids… Things like that were really influential, and segue into things I’m into now: that Midwestern feel of telecasters, open-tunings, hammer-ons and pull-offs… That interesting, technical stuff that adds flair to the great progressions TJ builds on.

TF: For me, my favorite band that I draw influence from is Death Cab. But in this project, the biggest influences for me are… thinking back to when I was a teenager falling in love with and playing music… having fun and that loose, fast feel of the pop-punk bands of the day. Blink-182, Green Day, that sort of shit. I don’t think we tap into that from a sound standpoint, but from the spirit I very much feel that.

Even when we play a not-so-great show, I tend to leave with a smile on my face. I end up leaving thinking, “I just played forty-five minutes with these awesome dudes.” That was the main driving factor for this band. Like, this might be our last gig, or some global pandemic might happen. Who knows, this shit might just all go away, right? We’re just trying to enjoy every minute of it.

LG: You have a mini-tour coming up on the heels of that single, correct?

TF: Yes! We’re hitting Manhattan and then a couple dates around Philly. We have a date in Northern Jersey, as well. Four shows in four days, connecting with a couple bands on our label, which will be fun. We’ll be hanging out just four dudes in a Kia Sorrento. Hell yeah!

MD: Really angling for that sponsorship money, eh, bud?

LJ: Haha.

TF: Gotta afford the tour somehow!

LG: Is there anything else you’d like to talk about that I may have missed?

TF: “My Rusted Armor” is the second single we’re releasing from our next record which we don’t have a date for yet, but we’re in the process of wrapping it up. We’re looking forward to wrapping it up: we don’t want to keep ourselves or anyone else from waiting. We’re really excited. You’re actually one of the first people to hear this song that aren’t in the band.

LG: Well, now I feel very special.

TF: You should! Hahaha.

MD: It’s been great coming back and out of the pandemic and seeing the camaraderie. I’m sure with arts in general, but especially with music. The bands that we’ve played with and people we’ve met: the folks coming out and supporting the arts. And, the restaurants and bars that are booking and people like yourself, and Nippertown, and Jim (Gilbert). Everyone’s coming out and saying, “Hey, we’ve got such a special thing, here.” It’s really exciting to be a part of that.

LG: I couldn’t agree more.

TF: Absolutely.

LG: When I first came back from what was, and remains to be, the pandemic – I don’t know if you guys have experienced this – not only are the venues that were already there wanting to pick up where they left off, but there’s also new rooms. And, those new places are like, “I don’t know who the f*ck you are, but sure! We’ll have you play!”

MD: New rooms with people who give a crap about treating artists right.

LJ: Lark Hall!

TF: Yeah, Lark Hall’s fantastic. It’s all been great. If we had this interview a week ago, I’d say we haven’t had a bad experience. Now we’ve had a bad experience, but it wasn’t in Albany, so it’s OK.

LJ: Ha.

TF: To Matt’s point, it’s been really awesome. Again, like I said, we’re all about going out and playing shows, having fun and making connections with these bands. I think in the past – it’s definitely not exclusive to here, but to music in general – there was a certain sense of competition, you know? Just inherently because you’re playing with all these bands and every band wants to get on the bigger shows, and this and that.

I think nowadays, at least from our perspective, there’s just no point. Why are we competing? We’re all doing the same thing; we’re all grinding.

LG: I feel like there’s a lot less d*ck wagging than there used to be…

MD: Yep!

LG: It’s really nice that everyone wants to play on a bill together, or collaborate on that song… I really enjoy what I’m seeing in our area right now.

LJ: Yeah.

MD: A hundred percent. We’ve got another song we’re finishing up. We just played a release show with Thanks! and we’re going to have their horn section on the song. It’s like, let’s just have fun and make good tunes. I’ve never felt as in a group and on a team as I do now. I don’t know what the right metaphor is, but it feels more cohesive now than it ever has.

TF: Sports!

MD: Sportsball!

LG: The pandemic was a big reality check for me as well as a lot of people I knew. I don’t want to go back to the way it was.

MD: A hundred percent.

LJ: It’s tough ‘cause we are the keepers of the culture, hahaha. At some point it’ll probably go back to how it was, but hopefully twenty years from now instead of two days from now.

LG: It really is a nice cohesive area. I feel that.

MD: Agreed.

LG: Well, thank you, guys, so much for taking the time…

LJ: Thank you, Lucas.

LG: I always enjoy making new contacts and meeting new people.

TF: Thank you very much for this. Hopefully when things calm down in our schedule we can get something booked together.