Interviews

Remedy Session

Interview with the whole band on Nov 30, 1999 by Archive Bot

Thanks to the Remedy Session for making this interview possible.

PB: First off, I guess just introduce yourselves, tell us who you are and what you do for the band.
Chris: I’m Chris. I play guitar and sing.
Lori: I’m Lori. I play bass and sing.
Alex: I’m Alex. I play the drums.

PB: You guys weren’t originally scheduled to play the dates with Dashboard that you have. So how did this opportunity come about?
Chris: I think ummm… well actually Lori knows more but I think Chris [DBC] just really helped us out. He spent a lot of money to like you know… which was really really nice of him cause he didn’t have to do that.
Lori: Yeah, like he said that…he wanted to get us like on the whole tour, but obviously it’s not up to him its like all these other people, like agents and blah blah blah so we actually had to try out to get on. It’s not just like Chris [DBC] said like, “I want them.” Cause you know whatever, there like a big band they don’t just let anyone I guess or whatever. We had to like send a press pack to Andrew Ellis and he had to OK it and then once he Ok’d it, they had to see where it would fit in… and then it kind of like didn’t fit in anywhere cause there we’re like four bands already but umm Ben Kweller actually dropped off the tour—but we were already booked to open before Ben Kweller dropped off—but it helped out that he dropped off because before we were only gonna be allowed to play like four songs and like we had to like play right when the doors opened. So when he dropped off we actually got to play a little longer…. and a little later.
Chris: Yeah we got to play for like 30 minutes almost.
Lori: But, yeah Chris [DBC] definitely is really really good… like Legends of Rodeo was like on 21 of his dates. He’s really big about helping out local bands.

PB: Well, you guys deserve it! You played really really good tonight.
Remedy Session: Thank You!

PB: So far for the shows that you’ve played for Dashboard, how has the crowd response been and is the biggest crowd that you’ve played for?
Chris: Yeah I think the first night [House Of Blues Orlando] was probably the biggest.
Alex: Yeah It was like sold out, like 22 hundred people or whatever.
Lori: But there was only like a thousand people there when we played, so like half.
Alex: Yeah so about half. We sold a lot of stuff…
Lori: Yeah we sold a loooot of stuff. We didn’t expect it though…
Alex: Like everyone was really nice and the place was awesome. It was very good stuff.
Chris: This is definitely the biggest crowd we’ve ever played for.
Lori: Yeah we opened for Rainer Maria and there were probably like 300 people there.
Chris: It’s weird though, cause once there’s so many people it’s almost like you’re not there. You know what I mean. Like when we played the show with Rainer Maria there were only like 300 people and it was like the first time we had actually played in a packed club and we were like, “Oh my god!” there’s actually people standing in the corners and stuff. You know? And when you get on such a big stage and they had like a curtain closed and then they like announced us and opened the curtains its like wow, “I’m at like a real show.” It’s like you see the people and all the nervousness just went away. We were like freaking out before.
Alex: It doesn’t feel like its real. It’s just kind of like a dream. You wake up the next day and you’re like whaaaatttt? You're like did that really happen… you know? Like that was just really intense. At the beginning I was really nervous before we played but once we started playing it just kind of flowed really well.
Lori:You could feel… you could get used to it. You could just see how natural it is…
Alex: You were just like wow, “this is I guess what its like.” I don’t know…
Chris: Well, were used to playing little holes whereit sounds bad and your like you know setting up and sound checking so it’s always a little uncomfortable. And here everyone was just so nice and so professional.
Alex: People were like carrying our equipment and we're like what are you doing!!!???

PB: You guys definitely have like a unique sound. There’s like a darkness to it-- which is cool…
Chris: Yeah yeah, that’s what we like.

PB: … and your melodies are really good too, but another thing about your music that stands out are the lyrics. Who writes those and what are they based on? Like the emotions and stuff-- where do they come from?
Chris: Alex has… actually we’ll like… we’ll write like stuff… it’s pretty even between me and her as far as lyrically. I think we just… she tends to write about just experiences. Myself, I kind of write lyrics about just stuff that I feel and think about not necessarily about like other people, but I think she might write about other people. I tend to write about just…. I like how everybody has like a dark side. You know what I mean? Everybody has that. And I like… when I try to write lyrics I try and like you know find that. Which is pretty cool cause I’m always upset about something. You know what I mean? I’m that kind of person. So there’s always some kind of turmoil like going on in my head so that’s what I kind of like to write about… and just like experiences and like maybe overcoming certain like… you know times in your life. You know like dumb things that you might do and like how you grow. We definitely like to write more about the darker side of things instead of like happy happy you know stuff like that.
Lori: Like painful experiences that you know they’ve gone through.
Chris: And like she [Alex] actually… I think she’s written probably the most intense stuff out of the lyrics that we have.
Lori: Yeah, like the lyrics for Recovery.

PB: Yeah. That one’s my favorite one. That one’s awesome!
Lori: Really? Yeah, the lyrics to Recovery are really good. That’s a tough song to play live though.
Alex: But yeah definately like what he said, the experiences, you kind of revisit experiences and it kind of helps you kind of deal with it. You know?
Lori: That’s like the whole purpose of our name, you know the Remedy Session. It’s like for us… for me I’m not so much a poet so it’s not so much the lyrics but just to play—it’s such an outlet.
Alex: Its everything tied together, like who we play with, the lyrics, the melodies, the vocals everything tied together it’s just kind of like this big... I don’t know how to explain it… it’s just like a big energy ball and you’re just kind of throwing it out and hoping people kind of understand where you’re coming from. We’ve talked to people and like I think that they kind of get it you know? They go, “wow you guys are really intense.”
Chris: The thing that I love about this band is I’ve played with lots of other people but this is the first band where people… I think like they understand what we’re doing. You know what I mean? Like the passion and like what we write about, it comes a cross. Maybe when I was younger, its like well I still had the passion but I didn’t know how to put it into a song where it would come across to anybody else. You know what I mean? Like it was still there, but this is the first band where when the three of us get together to write a song it’s awesome.
Alex: Its art. But it’s more complicated ‘cause there’s 3 people involved and its like anything, like writing a book or making a painting and after you look... after you make it somebody could visualize it and see it. Well it’s like the same thing if somebody heard the song… and they’d just go OK. You know what I mean? It’s like the same thing. 

PB: So you guys have the 3 song EP out, which was recorded independently. It came out really good, like the recording and everything. What kind of help did you have with this?
Lori: Matt from Morning Drinker records actually recorded the first EP we had out, like all three songs and now the new… its not a new one but we repressed it and the first song Overrated is actually recorded by Jeremy Debois at the Dungeon. That’s why its sounds kind of different cause we spent more money on it. So yeah, we put it out ourselves in the sense that we paid for it. But now actually we have a label behind us, Recovery Records, and that record label’s putting out our full length that’s going to come out hopefully in the next couple months. Were going in the studio within the next couple weeks.
Alex: Have you ever heard of Distant Rise records? There from Naples, they put out the Agent Felix and stuff. Well we kind of teamed up with the girl that runs it, Alexia, and we kind of started it with her to put out our stuff. Were putting out a comp with a bunch of bands and we might be re-releasing the Agent Felix stuff, but I’m not sure yet.
Lori: Its now kind of like Distant Rise is Recovery Records.

PB: Are you guys helping out with running the label?
Lori: Yeah, well Alex and the girl from Distant Rise, Alexia they’re like the two brains.
Alex: We’re kind of like doing it together… and we’ll just kind of see what happens we’d like to do a split with our friends Maypop, they’re from Boca.
Chris: Yeah that’s definitely gonna happen.
Alex: We’re recording a full length at the end of this month and hopefully it will be out by June and that’s pretty much what’s on the plate next after this…
Lori: …and hopefully a tour in August.
Alex: Yeah we want to do like 3 weeks… like 2 or 3 weeks in August.
Lori: Like just up the East Coast.
Alex: We’re not sure who with yet, but we’ve talked to a lot of bands.
Lori: Yeah we’re trying to hop on another band’s tour.
Alex: We’d like a little bit of each… on our own. But I’m sure it will be cool.
Lori: Yeah, we’ll see how it works out.

PB: Where can people get a copy of the EP if they aren’t at a show?
Alex: You can go on our website. I don’t have it up right now, but as soon as I get home… cause I just got the CD back. Like we were giving ‘em away for free for whoever e-mailed us but now that we pressed ‘em they cost a little bit more so I’m gonna set it up where you can buy it through PayPal. Like you can get the shirts right now online like through online ordering. But as soon as I get back you can order the CD also and it will be three dollars.

PB: When I was reading your message board there were a couple of posts on there from people from California that are interested in you and want you guys to come over there and play. Are there any plans for that?
Lori: Yeah, eventually.
Chris: Yeah. The first tour is probably gonna be to like NY and back. It depends. If an opportunity arises, we’re ready to go where ever so you never know what’s gonna happen. But the way it looks right now is probably in August…
Lori: It’s probably not financially feasible for us to be out that long.
Chris: Yeah. So you never know. I’d love to go out there cause I’ve never even been to the west coast. But the way its looking right now it will be like the East Coast and then well try…. and well see what happens.
Alex: But you never know man. Everyday that goes by like things change so much for us. Like where were gonna live and what were doing. So maybe we’ll be there… who knows!
Lori: We’d like to be there as soon as possible… just whenever it’s financially feasible.
Alex: Yeah we’d like to be everywhere as soon as possible! 

PB: So besides the LP and the east coast tour in August and the possible California shows are there any other exciting plans for the Remedy Session… as if that’s not enough!?
Chris: Yeah. Write records, write songs. I would love to write music for movies.
Alex: We’ve been talking to the girl from Distant Rise, she’s friends with like people or whatever and we met this one guy that does independent movies or whatever and we might team up with them and do some stuff like for movies that he’s independently putting out and stuff and maybe helping him out.
Lori: That’s a really cool job prospect that we might move to New York for. We’re not sure.
Alex: Like I said everything changes so fast. He’s coming down at the end of the month were going into the studio at the end of April… like the last weekend…
Lori: …and he’s gonna come film us.
Alex: Yeah ‘cause we want to do like an informative video type of thing where we talk to put it on… to go along with the LP. You know you get your 10 tracks or whatever and then at the end is like a Quicktime movie or something and you can watch it on your computer or you can download it from our website and then…or I’m sure well find other ways to get it out to you. But umm, he’s gonna do… we’re gonna do like a 5 minute video, kind of like clips of shows and clips of us just talking about what we're doing and stuff like that and then I think he’s also gonna do like a video of a song. He’s coming down like I said at the end of April so well find out what the deal is. We’ve never met him or anything like that but he seems to be all about us. So we’re like all right! You Know?
Lori: So at least the video thing is gonna happen for sure instead of just making music.
Alex: I don’t know about that, but yeah that’s up in the air… and then also trying to get the label going, trying to get the name out.
Lori: That is something that we’ve always talked about would be cool, like working for la label and we were dealing with like other… cause a few labels were actually interested in us to do this long… this full length but we were just like really hesitant cause you know I’ve seen a lot of stuff happen too my husbands’ bands and stuff so I was really scared. ‘Cause some of the same labels that were talking to us were ones that had screwed him over so I was like really really hesitant and some of the labels, we were like look we want a contract saying blah blah blah and they wouldn’t even give us a contract and we were like this is just such crap. You Know?
Alex: And some of them like want to just do EP’s…
Lori: They didn’t really want to do a full length. They just wanted to do what they wanted to do… like what would make them the most money and its not really what you want to do. You know?
Chris: We just want a full length!
Lori: Yeah we just want to do it!
Alex: We have the songs!

PB: So, you guys sound like you’re happy with what your doing and where you're going.
Lori: Yeah It’s not like we’re like, “Ohh, lets be rockstars.” This is what we loooove to do… and like it would be awesome if we could just do this and not have to have our stupid day jobs.
Alex: Its just… all three of us have been in bands for sooooo long…
Lori: Yeah, but not with each other. Like we just started playing out like a year ago. Like Chris and I played in bands for about 5, 6 years and we broke up the bands and we got back together… we looked for Lori for like 3 years before we finally found her!
Chris: That was a trying process! We tried out…oh my god soooooo many people…
Alex: Yeah, but anyways it took us like 2 or 3 years or whatever to be able to find Lori. Finally to be able to put on tape what it was that we’ve been trying to do all along, it’s just the most satisfying thing. And then just like you said to be able to play in front of a lot of people or even press a CD and be like this is what you know we’ve been trying to do. You know?
Lori: Yeah that’s never even happened… I’ve never even had a finished product before. In all my other bands we’d go into the studio and we’d fight.
Alex: Same thing with our bands. Like we’re on the same page… like everybody’s on the same page with this band. We know where were going and what we want to do.
Lori: We’re older now too. I think that has a lot to do with it.
Alex: Yeah that definitely helps. Remedy Session: We love each other! We’re like a happy family…hahahaha
Chris: I don’t care you know, I’ll do this forever! I don’t care if we get big or if we don’t get big.
Lori: Yeah… I just hope that one day we just don’t have to work…
Chris: If I didn’t have to work a day job that would be nice!
Alex: That would be the ultimate!
Lori: I have to be to work tomorrow morning at 7:30!

PB: Well I think that’s it. Thanks sooooo much for giving punkbands.com and I the opportunity to do this interview!
Remedy Session: Thanks!