If you’ve yet to give these Boston natives a listen, I suggest you get on that ASAP! They recently released their album “The Circus” and it caught the eye of Red Blue Records and later signed a record deal.
How did you guys meet and when did you decide to be in a band?
Joe: Well that is an interesting story actually..I know Chark, Sam and Ben have all been in bands, prior to this one because they are all from the same town. Me and Ben met…I guess you could call it, because I was banging his girlfriend and you know we were very fond of each other I guess you could say. Then we ended up meeting in college and hanging out; I don’t know why. So we started hanging out and I was in the band, but you know it was stupid. Then after their keyboardist was leaving, Ben was like ‘Do you want to join our band?’ and I was like ‘Yes, I absolutely do.’ And then we started getting more and more serious. The drummer at the time didn’t want the added responsibility in his already crazy life of being a touring band. So we set up auditions and one day Chris Constantino came, just raging. At that point we were already very serious and Chris just jumped on the bandwagon..and now we’re in a band, and that’s the story!
How is the Boston music scene? Was it easy to start playing shows and gaining a fan base or was it more of a struggle?
Sam: Back where me, Chark and Benny grew up, back in our small home town, there was a local scene around but we were the biggest part of our scene directly in our town. There were always venues around to play, there was a pretty active local music scene so it was easy to get started and get into it.
If you could tour with any band in the entire world, who would it be and why?
Joe: I would have to say two different bands, one would be Motley Crue just because the lifestyle they lead, we admire. They are just strong performers as well as them in their lifestyle aspect. Number two would be Bob Marley, no just kidding it’s not Bob Marley! I got yelled at as soon as I said that! We all hate Bob Marley. Chark wants to tour with him because he is dead.
During high school, were you into music as much as you are now? If you could have put yourself into a clique, where would you fit in?
Joe: I can say confidently that I might be able to answer this for everyone. In high school I’m pretty sure everyone was in their own little bands. Chark and Ben were in the same band back in high school, I was in quite a few awful, terrible bands. We’ve all been very active in music since we were younger, this is just the first one we’ve all collectively taken very seriously and tried to make something of it.
Your sound is very eccentric. Have any musicians inspired you to sound like you do?
Ben: It is kind of an eclectic mix…we go anywhere from like old ragtime songs, Scott Joplin, to like Billy Joel. We also like a lot of pop music; I think that shows through a lot of our core. It’s a real big mix, it’s hard to just point out one specific name, its more just different genres.
You recently came out with a music video for your song called ‘The Ringleader’. The video itself is pretty out there, did you guys have any inspirations going into it or did you just dive into it head first and let whatever happens, happen?
Ben: I’d definitely say we just went with it when we got there. We wanted to make it really energetic and our director was kinda throwing ideas at us the whole time and we would just say yes or no. Most of them were ‘yes’ mostly because we just don’t care what we do at all. We kinda just went with whatever he said, and it came out great!
Do you guys have anything you would like to say? Any news or things you would like to say to the fans of Back-Pocket Believers?
Ben: Absolutely! Right now we are on tour with Kiss Kiss, an unbelievable band. We are in Scranton, PA right now and we will be out with them for the rest of the month. Then starting March 1st we are going out on tour with a band called The Queen Killing Kings, who are also awesome. We’re going down to South by Southwest with them, and then after that is up in the air. We might have some cool news coming up but I can’t really say it yet, because we don’t know for sure. We can make up some news! Chris is changing his name to Ferrari Fedoli, Chark just got his doctorate and is now Doctor Mr. Chark. Sam loves to play with his dog and do construction. He is also eating peanut butter. He has also been playing Hitman for hours and HOURS a day and is soon to quit the band because he is getting frustrated with Hitman! And I am just doing nothing.
