By Alan Ho-- Chief Head, Chief Editor/Publisher
It has been a banner year for this young, dynamic alt-rock quartet from Poughkeepsie, New York going from studio project to getting quickly signed by Hopeless Records culminating in a plum spot on Warped Tour, traveling on the tour through its entire length. Throw in a well received EP, "Guaranteed to Disagree" and already a handful of tours under their belt, the future burns bright for We Are In The Crowd. Chief head/chief editor Alan Ho puts one half of the dual vocals of the band, Tay Jardine in The Hot Seat...er bathroom for a hot seater...
Alan Ho: Hi, I’m Alan with Musiqtone.com and we are here with...
Tay Jardine: Tay from We Are The In Crowd
AH: What do you play?
TJ: I sing
AH: It has been a whirlwind year for you guys.
TJ: Yeah
AH: So have you guys had the chance to sit down and go “Wow”?
TJ: No, not at all, which is good. I think if we have that time to go “wow” then we might fall behind. I think that the fast-pace of our band is just something that we’ve kind of grown to get used to and it makes us stronger in that sense. In December we got the call saying, “Hey, you guys are playing on Warped Tour,” and I was like “Okay, how do we do that?” *laugh* You know, we just started.
AH: How did you come together at first?
TJ: At first it started as a studio project with me and another person, who is not in the band anymore. We just had two songs on the internet and the response was really good. We just decided to roll with it. Eventually, the other guys knew each other through high school and stuff like that. We came together that way, and we decided we wanted to take the next step and become a full band.
AH: It wasn’t too long ago that you guys scored your first record deal. How did that come about? That’s pretty fast!
TJ: I don’t want to say it was an accident, but I will say it was an ironic situation. Our Myspace got hacked and we were freaking out like, “Oh my God,” and at that point our Myspace wasn’t good yet. It was the only thing we had to reach out to fans. We were like, “Okay, well, now we’re screwed. We have nothing.” The internet was where all the fans heard of us before. After that, they helped us out. They posted a little blog about it saying, “Hey, help these kids out. Their whole Myspace got hacked.” Hopeless saw us on there and checked us out. It was a strange situation; definitely a blessing in disguise. If our Myspace never got hacked then Hopeless would have never found us.
AH: Describe your music to our readers
TJ: It’s pop. It’s fun. We have two singers. There is a girl and a guy perspective on a lot of songs. There is disagreeing and conflict between both vocalists, which is easy for us to illustrate through everything because of the two different visions. It’s just really fun. Our EP we decided to write, we released in June.
AH: The dual vocals-boy and girl-when that came together, did it happen overnight?
TJ: It was always that way. We wanted to do something different. At first it started as a band where two people can sing and we decided to keep it like that.
AH: Your album that came out in June, can you talk a little about that?
TJ: It’s called “Guaranteed to Disagree,” which is kind of like the concept of going back and forth and the conflict of it. The title reflects the way we write as a band. The way we structure it is we all write together. There isn’t a mastermind or anything behind our music. Everybody does it together so we literally disagree and fight until we are all happy with something. It’s kind of cool. It’s one of those upbeat things. We released it before leaving for Warped Tour and during in the summer so we wanted it to be really upbeat and something you can listen to in your car.
AH: Speaking about Warped Tour, how has it been? It’s your first year on the tour...
TJ: It’s awesome. We are really grateful to be here. We weren’t expecting it. We were expecting to be pushed around and being the rookie, but everyone has been really welcoming. We’ve made so many new friends and are having a good time.
AH: Any stories to tell? Anything interesting?
TJ: The guys have a lot of stories. Our guitar players went swimming in sewer water on accident. *laugh* That’s the most recent thing. We buck a lot of people at bus stops because we aren’t used to being in a bus, we are used to being in a van. So it’s like, “Oh yeah, they are in their bunks sleeping. Sure,” and we get a Tweet because nobody has their phone. They are like, “Can I use your phone?” We are always Tweeting from other people’s phones.
AH: To wrap things up, what’s in store for We Are The In Crowd? Is there going to be a full length album? Any tours?
TJ: We want to do a lot of support tours before we headline our own tour. Right after Warped Tour we are going on a one-week tour with Amely. That should be really fun; it’s going to be quick. We are going to write for a long time, about three weeks in Florida. Then we are going to go on a really big tour, but it hasn’t been announced yet, so stay tuned!
AH: Awesome! We can’t wait. You are off the Hot Seat. Thank you for your time |
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