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Wednesday, December 11th
The Hot Sweat
Hana Pestle
Hana Pestle
These Green Eyes, a group of guys from New Haven, Connecticut and best friends since high school are breaking into the music scene. With loud and upbeat songs that make you want to blow your speakers out from listening to their CD a little bit too loud. With clear lyrics and awesome music these guys will go far. They stay close to their fans and think all bands should do the same. After they've been doing this for years they still have their feet firmly planted on the ground and plan to stay that way.

Spencer: Can you introduce yourselves and what you do in the band?
Colin:Whats up? I'm Colin, I sing and I play acoustic guitar.
Greg:I'm Greg, I play guitar.

Spencer: How long have you been playing together?
Colin:We've been playing together in this band for almost six years, it's been about five and a half. Thats with a couple serious years of touring and stuff though.

Spencer: How did you all meet and form the band?
Colin:Well Greg and Zach, our bass player, knew each other in high school. Uhm, thats when like, I guess the idea of the band started. And I knew him(Greg) before I even knew our bass player just through my brother he was friends with my older brother, I was friends with his younger brother. 
Greg:And so was our bass player.
Colin:And like growing up as kids, I'm a few years older, but I have friends who's little brothers, and he used to roll with those kids. So I kinda knew him.
Greg:Well actually, we kinda did the same neighborhood.
Colin:Yeah, same neighborhood for a while. Uhm, but yeah, no. They started playing together to see if they could do something in high school and it didn't end up working out, but after high school they were like well we don't wanna stop, we wanna see if we can do something with it. And after trying out a bunch of other people and different instruments, um, they settled on Mark, I mean you'd played with Mark before in another band right?
Greg:I've played with our drummer for almost 10 years.
Colin:And then I got a call out of no where. My brother recommended me cuz they were looking for a singer. And with a day to write lyrics, I didn't. I just kinda made them up on stage at our first show they were like what do you think, do you think you could do something and I was like Mm we'll see.
Greg:It was impressive, it was impressive.
Colin:I just kinda spazzed out and screamed.
 
Spencer: Ha, cool. As long as it worked. Where did the name These Green Eyes come from?
Greg:Well we changed out name when he[Colin] joined the band. It came from the saying, like someone being green-eyed, which is like jealousy or money hungry.
Colin:It's almost like a metaphor of how like everybody's envious.
Greg:That flash of rage you get when you see someone that's got a nicer car then you or something stupid. I mean it's kind of evolved over the years to be what it is, whatever it means to somebody. We're a long way away from where we were when we started as a band. You listen to our old demos theres like screaming on it and a lot of breakdowns and stuff. You listen to our newer stuff its just kind of evolved into something better. So it's kind of interesting.

Spencer: What's your favorite song to play live?
Colin:For me probably "At The End". It's our first song off our new record. Cause I get to play acoustic guitar. Before I hurt myself it was kind of fun because I got to jump up and down on the guitar and stuff and I haven't gotten to do that in five years, six years since my old band.
Spencer: And how long have you been playing this guitar for?
Colin:Almost ten years. I started my last year of high school. Maybe not ten years, maybe eight years, nine years. Something like that.
Greg:I like playing "Paramedic" just because of the energy.
Colin:"Paramedic" is fun.
Greg:All of the newer songs are fun to play. It's not like the stuff we've been playing for three or four years.
Colin:"Self Inflicted" is still fun.
Greg:Yeah.

Spencer: Have there been any funny incidents on this tour so far?
Colin/Greg:*laugh*Yeah.
Colin:When we were on our way up to Nebraska we blew a motor on our van. We had to rent one of those u-haul truck and it can like seat two people in the front, you know? So two guys road in the back, straight up to Nebraska in the back of a dark unlit U-Haul.
Greg:It was a 36 hour drive.
Spencer: Oh my gosh..
Colin:The funniest ones to look back on are van breaks. Its just miserable. That was a few years ago. On this tour so far, yeah there've been a couple silly incidents. We won't name names yet.
Greg:Let's just say theres been some unwarranted nudity amongst the bands. It's been kind of ridiculous.*laughs* A lot of tricking guys into looking at naked dudes, it's kind of crazy.

Spencer: If there was any band or musician you could go on tour with who would it be? and why?
Colin:Current or just in general?
Spencer: In general.
Colin:I guess current, I don't know, I always pick the Deftones just because I can pop in any Deaftones record and I love it. Just listen to the whole thing straight through, doesn't matter where it picks up. I've seen them live a bunch of times and it'd just be awesome. I get the feeling that those guys would be a lot of fun to tour with.
Greg:Alkaline Trio for me. I just love those guys. I have all their records and stuff. Just cool guys. You wanna tour with someone you like, you grew up listening to.
Colin:It's funny, it's like I grew up listening to the Deftones, so did Greg but Alkaline Trio was definitely more of an influence for him. So it's not surprising that either one of us would pick those two bands.
Greg:And I'd love to tour with the Deftones. I love the Deftones too, I'm sure he[Colin] wouldn't mind touring with Alkaline Trio.
Colin:No, it's different for everybody. I guess if I had to pick a band in their prime I'd wanna open up for The Who or something, for a couple dates. Or The Kinks.
Greg:Yeah.
Colin:That'd just be a riot. A drunken mess.
Greg:Motorcycles and hotel rooms.
Colin:Yes! Yeah Led Zeppelin.
Greg:Music has come a long way.
Colin:Partying has as well. I don't think anyone's done it the right way since they did. But then again it killed some of them so maybe.. we'll leave that one alone.

Spencer: Were your friends and family supportive of you the whole way up till now?
Colin:Yeah my parents have been very supportive. My brother Ian has been a huge fan since the first time he saw us. He would always get like thirty kids, round them up, and they would pick a theme and dress up as that theme. They did Indians one time. They crashed the set of our first music video "Self Inflicted" dressed as warriors from Brave Heart. Cardboard swords wrapped in duct tape. TGE Celtic flag. So yeah, theres been a lot of support from my family. Greg's family has been really supportive too.
Greg:It's tough. They've been really supportive, but at the same time it weighs on your family too. And I feel like maybe I might have hit like a year and a half rut with my family. But they're really supportive of doing something different. I didn't go to college he[Colin] didn't go to college, this is what we're doing but everyone else in our family just works. Does their own thing, we do our own thing, and they're cool with it.
Colin:I think my mom understands it because she's put herself through college while working, like she worked at Subway and put herself through college to get a degree to get a better job cause my dads been sick. This is kinda parallel with the band, like the past five years shes been doing that.
Greg:Graduated first in her class.
Colin:Yeah first in her class. So I think that going through that, her own personal kinda thing, and the fact that she genuinely loves music. Theres definitely been a lot of support. I actually lived at Gregs house for a year, so his family has been awesome.
Greg:Everybody in the band has lived at my parents house.
Colin:Everybody but Mark. But wait till we get home.
Greg/Colin:*laugh*

Spencer: Is there any advice you have for aspiring artists?
Colin:Make connections. You can record a really good demo or a really crappy demo. It can be cheap, but the most important thing that you gotta do is to make those connections. Not only just with your friends and your peers and kids at shows, but get some bands too.
Greg:Make friends with them. The majority of guys in bands, there haven't been many that I didn't get along with. I mean there've been a few but the majority of them are all really nice guys and they have all been through the same stuff so just talk to people.
Colin:Do it for the right reasons and it takes a lot of work. The best thing you can do, and this actually, this is really good, if a band needs a place to stay, you put them up for the night and then the next time they come through it's like, 'Hey, remember when I let you stay at my house? Wanna let my band play like five songs real quick?'
Greg:Or have them crash again.
Colin:Yeah or have them stay again. And then you need to find something that sets you apart from everybody else. Everybody else has a MySpace these days, songs up, friend adders or whatever that they are doing to get the hits up. What you need to do is leave an impression, so comment back, reply to messages. Get to know your fans like as if they were your friends because starting out you have to look at them as friends.
Greg:Yeah if someones gonna support you and your crazy ideas and like you for it that says a lot about a person.
Colin:A lot of times when a kid latches on to a band its because they identify with it in someway. If you have that happen to you then that means that the kids who are coming to your shows are just like you. You lose touch with your fanbase then you kind of lose touch with what you were doing it for in the first place.
Greg:Yeah. You gotta try and keep your feet grounded and a lot of bands have egos and stuff like that. You just gotta talk to people as people. Like I said I get along with a majority of bands but the ones that I don't they treat other bands and their fans like crap.
Colin:Yeah like, 'Oh you paid to get in?.. Oh you didn't? Okay, fuck you.' It's weird.
Greg:They don't care.
Spencer: Is that how you guys stay grounded? Relating with your fans?
Greg:Yeah and we've been doing it for a long time.
Colin:Yeah thats a good point.Like heres the thing, the bands had highs and lows and then highs and then lows and theres been like constants. Kids that are there in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, the United Kingdom, like weird places that we've never been to,
Greg:That's right.
Colin:That are like 'oh good to see you guys are still doing it.' You know, theres kids that stay in touch and they don't forget about you even though you might forget about them.
Spencer: Right.
Greg:The music we write, they relate to. So you can have conversations with them about your music. We go out to eat with kids all the time after shows and hang out and stuff like that. I think thats important. Like if one night you don't want to do it, you should still do it because they made the effort to come and see you hang out and you need to give the effort back you know, to hang out. It's important.
Colin:I think being totally broke helps us too.*laughs*
Greg:*laughs*Yeah thats right.

Spencer: What is your philosophy on music?
Colin:Play what you feel.
Greg:Do it for the right reasons.
Colin:Play something that, if you hear something in your head, play it. Play something that makes you feel something. Whether it be anger, whether it be love, whether it be sorrow.
Greg:Feel inspired. Write something that you are inspired by. If you're inspired by a pop song, write a pop song. Whatever you wanna do, I mean I respect all music and I respect all song writers.
Colin:It's an art, play what you feel. Play what makes you happy.
Spencer: So you guys listen to every genre?
Greg:Pretty much, yeah.
Colin:You check out our iPods I got hip-hop, really really cheesy pop, metal core, pop punk, jazz, classical, swing, I got everything on there.
Greg:Audibooks.
Colin:Yeah, oh my God, we listened to The Hobit. For like seven straight days on our last tour.
Greg:He[Colin] does sound effects.

Spencer: Is there anything that you'd like to say to your fans at Musiqtone.com?

Greg:Thanks for supportin' and checkin' it out. Thats how we get to do this so we just wanna thank everybody for supporting us.
Colin:And yeah, we'll see you soon. See you at a show.
Greg:Come say hello.
Colin:Check out our new songs at MySpace and pick up our new CD in March.
Greg:Thanks for having us.



Rachel DodsonSpencer Abbott is a staff writer in the Midwest region at Musiqtone. You can reach her at spencerabbott@musiqtone.com.





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