High-energy rock n’ roll coupled with an even more energetic stage presence?
Trust me, no band does it finer.
From New York to California to the heart of Indiana, it’s been a long and amazing journey for this rock quartet. Though they may have released a few EPs, played countless shows, shared the bill with acts like Vanessa Carlton and Jon E. Gee, and spent even more hours perfecting their craft, one thing has never changed: their desire to “make incredible music and to make people feel good.” Now with the forthcoming release of their new album, it looks to be a busy summer for these self-proclaimed “music nerds.”
After seeing them in both an electric setting (the Battle of Birdy’s) and more recently, an acoustic setting (Acoustic Live Challenge) and being thoroughly impressed with their not only their sound, but also the way they can ignite the crowd, I just had to find out more about them. So I brought singer/guitarist Stacy Basner in to the IndyConcerts.com office to talk about the new album, life in the Indy Music Scene, band names, and more:
About Finer
Finer is a rock band and it was started by me and my husband, Ethan (James). We weren’t married at the time. We were living in California and we (were) playing with some really great guys and went through some pretty bad band names. If you want to know, I’ll let you know. Some very inappropriate, some just not good, and (while) we were out there, we had some success out there and…all the label interests and all that kind of stuff, and Ethan is from Indianapolis. Originally he grew up (there) and went to Lawrence North, and so we came back here and we were playing with a whole different bunch of people, and then more recently we met Robby Coleman on drums and Manny De La Rosa on keys, but we’ve been rocking it ever since.
Where did the name “Finer” come from?
Finer is a name that…you know I said, we had a whole bunch of bad band names and we were kind of arguing over what it was gonna be, and we were coming from our rehearsal studio in…Van Nuys in California, and I was driving, making a right onto Van Nuys Boulevard–Oxnard and Van Nuys Boulevard–and the moon was the the biggest moon I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, and it just came to me, “Finer,” and I said to the boys “Finer,” and they’re like “oh we love it!” I was like “I hate it,” and then we didn’t use it for almost two years, and then we were on top of a building in Hollywood, and right next door–we were on top of Ethan’s apartment and our guitar player, Reuben (Luke)’s apartment–and the apartment next door was on fire. There was a meth lab on fire, so no one was allowed to leave and there were cops and everything, and we were on the roof of a building, and the guys said “you know, let’s talk about band names,” and Reuben said “I like Finer,” I was like “I hate it,” and our drummer at the time was like “I like bands with one word,” and I was like “I hate it,” and finally they’re like “no no no, let’s do it.” I was like “okay, let’s do it.”
So how do you feel about it now?
I feel better about it, because it’s simple. It’s simple. I just find it a little condescending. So I think over time, I think it’s grown on me and it’s just a good word. Not so condescending.
From previous conversations, you’re very well-traveled. How did you end up in Indianapolis?
I know I keep telling long stories, but basically Ethan and I decided we wanted to play full time, like this is our life. We don’t want to do anything else. We’ll do anything else until we figure out how to do it full time. His mentor and a good friend of ours is Jon E. Gee from Mellencamp’s band, and we talked to him, and anytime I have trouble, I just call him and just ask him his opinion, and we just said, this is what we want to do, and he said well, if you come back here…it’s more affordable, and you can play covers. We’re big fans of James Brown and Bruce Springsteen, and…Tina Turner. People that put on these crazy live shows, but they’re from the bars. That’s where they kind of developed their talent, so that’s what we did in California. That’s what we’re doing here is just…you know, LA’s great, but you play for 30 minutes and it’s over because there’s so many bands. Here there’s more (of an) opportunity to play longer shows.
Is it more accessible here than it is out there?
Well you can play a lot. I mean, LA’s a great town. There’s a lot of good music, but because there’s so many people, your time slot is very fast, and there’s so much…I don’t want to say competition, because there’s room for everybody, but there’s not as much room for everybody to get paid and there’s not as much room for everybody–at least in my experience–to kind of build an audience if you’re not doing one of the more specific genres. We’re a little bit…our sound can go multiple ways. So we found that we kind of wanted to be in an environment where we can just…write the music that we want to and develop it and not feel pressure to fit into a mold.
So in a nutshell, it’s easier out here?
Yeah, I would say yeah. Definitely.
What do you like most about the Indianapolis Music Scene?
The Indianapolis Music Scene, I like that it’s so intimate. It’s so personal. You can be kind of out of it for a very long time and then go to three or four shows and then you know a lot of people already. So it’s really good in terms of relationships. It’s really good how bands are kind of supportive of each other’s bands specifically in their genre. Like for instance, we have a lot of friends who are in the jam band scene and I swear to you, every day on Facebook I’m getting emails about another jam band from someone else. Do you know what I mean? So that’s a really really cool scene. That’s a really cool thing. The other thing that I like specifically about Indianapolis is how even though it’s not a big market, the artists here in their minds think it is and they treat it as such. Like we have a lot of friends who are in the hip-hop community and they produce record after record, single after single after single, and they’re not concerned–not that they don’t want to have success outside of the state–but it’s like they’re making their music regardless of how far it gets to go, and that’s important.
Who are some of your favorite artists from around the scene?
I would say my favorite band is definitely The Post Script. I definitely love those guys personally, but I just really enjoy their music. I’m friends with Brad Real and I just think he’s a great lyricist and a great rapper. We’re friends with the guys from The Waldemere Revival. I think that’s really cool, but one of the bands I really, truly enjoy is Max Allen Band…because Ethan played with them for a while and I really think that Max…I think he’s got a great voice and a great sound, and I love Shaan (France) on drums and Dace (Robie) is playing bass right now. He’s doing a great job, and honestly…in my opinion, one of the best bands in town is The Last Good Year. I mean, those guys are just amazing. They’re an amazing band.
You’re working on a new album?
Yes.
What can you say about it?
I can say it’s pretty rockin’. I could say it’s pretty rockin’. I would say that it’s taken us quite a while to figure out how to get the sound that we want in recording. You know, live we’re getting pretty close to what we want to be and who we are, but recording, it’s been…quite a journey. We have our new single online right now. “What You Do Today Matters,” and it’s (a) kind of “blow your face off” kind of thing. I would just say it’s rock and it’s groovin’ as heck. I mean, Ethan is awesome. Robbie is awesome, and…Manny played the crap out of the keys. It’s pretty bad ass.
What’s the progress on it?
We’re basically finishing a single like every second week. So the first single’s done and this next tune, “Fun and Easy” that we have…a couple fun videos of online for them right now, that one’s gonna be done hopefully by the end of the weekend, but it’ll probably be (done by) the middle of next week, and I think we’re gonna do five or six songs total for the EP.
Is there an expected release date?
Well I think–and Ethan kind of made the decision–that we’re gonna be…releasing it as singles throughout the summer. Because if we did it as a full EP it really wouldn’t be done until the end, because he’s doing everything. We had a great friend, Kiel (Whitted), helping us with the initial tracking, and he’s a great engineer, but Ethan’s really taken the reigns and kind of spending every minute of the day on it. So we wanna just kind of feel like we can get it done the way we want it to get done instead of…stress the whole summer.
Just knock one out every once in a while rather than push it all together and say “there, now it’s done?”
Yeah, exactly.
You have another EP out?
Well, we have two other EPs out. One with Robbie and Manny, and it’s awesome. It’s called “Never Gone,” which has got some great (songs). “Better Love” is kind of a fun love song on there, and “I Never Wanted To Be Alone” is on there, and our big show tune “Silencing of the Moon” is on there, but we have another EP that we played with Richard “Sleepy” Floyd…he’s a great, great drummer. Actually Richard wasn’t on the EP. He was playing with our band live. It’s Ethan playing drums on the recording actually, and Ethan played keys, and do you know John Harden? He’s a saxophone player. He’s like my favorite guy. He’s on that record, and that one…that’s on our site for free. I don’t think it’s for sale on iTunes, but that one is on our site.
What’s been the biggest difference in all of your EPs as you’ve gone along?
Well I would say it’s a very back-and-forth thing. I think when I was originally in California. When I was playing by myself and auditioning band members–I was playing acoustic–it was a very singer/songwriter type of sound, and then as soon as I put my first band together, it went more rock, and if you hear some of our singles from California, they’re heavy. They’re very heavy, and when we did our first recording out here, our intention was for it to be heavier, but we really just were figuring out how to capture the sound, so it sounds a lot nicer and a lot sweeter than we had intended, and now they’re getting more rock. It’s still melodic. That’s our core, but it’s a back-and-forth between heavy and light and we’re trying to make it just kind of really strong.
Is that like an environmental thing or more of a natural progression?
It’s a natural progression, and honestly, Ethan laughs because we used to play with this guitar player, Reuben, who is amazing. I don’t know who he’s playing with in LA right now, but whoever is playing with him is lucky. He could do anything from classic rock to shred or whatever, but he is from Singapore and used to go home for like maybe a month or two at a time so then it would just be me playing guitar, and Ethan said the band got heavier when he would go home. Because I would be like just pounding it kind of thing. So…I think the more…we’re heavier when I’m the only guitar player I think. Not that Reuben can’t play heavy. I mean, he’s awesome. He can do everything, but I think they were just catering to the songs I was writing, which were sweeter, but then I was like “no!” (laughs). I don’t wanna pound this, you know? A lot of it has to do with your drummer. If you get a strong drummer, I mean Robbie’s a big, strong guy…and his kick and a snare are just…outrageous. So when you have that power behind you, you can make the songs go.
On stage, you’re very energetic and you know how to get an audience involved. What’s your philosophy for live shows?
The philosophy is just give everything you have and it’s about love. Like I’m not…it’s something I came to the conclusion. I don’t wanna quote a band that was…not with us, but a bigger band, but they were talking about “this is war…I’m not here to defeat anybody. I’m not here to be better than anybody. I’m not here to…make anybody feel less than. Like I just wanna like get everybody amped as…the highest feeling that you can feel without drugs, you know what I mean? I just want everybody to feel love and I think Ethan, he was a dancer growing up. He’s a bass player. He’s (playing) multiple instruments, and we knew right away we just want as big and as bad as it can be and as awesome and as much energy and it’s…always from the heart, never this premeditated energy. Just…we kind of try to respond to who is there and give that energy there.
Just go with it?
Yeah. I mean, we…work out a lot of rhythmic things and breakdowns. Like that’s very important to us. We’re all big music nerds. Like…every measure is very important to us, but we change things a lot. Rhythmically live, we change things a lot. Interactive-wise, we kind of are just developing how much more we want to go. How much more we wanna get the audience kind of…making them perform with us. You know, because they want to. Not because it’s (being held at) gunpoint.
As I’ve now witnessed, you can also do it acoustic.
Yeah. That was fun. The Acoustic (Live) Challenge. That was a great time.
Do you prefer electric or acoustic?
I think it depends on the day. I think at the end of the day, I love playing with the band because it’s bigger and it’s stronger, but acoustic is more intimate and you can kind of make a different kind of connection…I played clubs for many many years in Boston and LA and New York, and that’s kind of where I…got my start so you never forget that, but we wanna rock.
So what’s next for you?
Well, we have a couple of shows this summer, but the truth is our main efforts at this point are gonna be making videos and doing…online (stuff) blogtv kind of stuff. I write every day, and Ethan and I just spent every penny we had on new computers and stuff like that. So we can be producing stuff at home. So we’re gonna be producing our singles and we’re gonna be doing online (stuff). That’s the near future.
Do you shoot your own stuff?
Yeah, well we had Kiel help us out on that “Fun and Easy” video, which was a lot of fun. I don’t know if you saw our Edward Sharpe video, but that’s Ethan. The recording is live and the footage is live, but we just had to keep playing it over and over and over, and then we just took the best shots that are with it. So a lot of times, we do it ourselves, but we take our photographs with Sierra Hoffman…She did our pictures on our site. She’s a real talent. So we might be working with her for video, but I’ve been taking a lot of video editing classes. I’ve been working on that kind of all the time. I’m trying to get better at that so we can…work with what he have and…make the videos that we want.
You’re also a part of Slamology this year?
Yes. We played last year. It was awesome. It’s a huge stage, and Rob Snodgrass and all those guys put on a great event. Gauge Magazine. We had a great time. Kind of hang out with everyone. We made a lot of friends. It’s gonna be a great weekend.
And when is that?
That is the June 18 weekend. Saturday and Sunday.
Anything else you want to add?
We’d love for you to just kind of come hang out with us online. That’s kind of our next exploration that we’re trying to…create that energy and make it translate to the world wide web.
Want more Finer? Check them out on:
Official site
Myspace
Facebook
Twitter