Apollo Trigger

 

www.apollotrigger.com

 

Jesse Larick - Vocals, Guitar
Douglass McKinnon - Bass
Tony Pennington - Guitar
Ryan Coscia - Drums

 

Interview by Andrew Platts

Apollotrigger are looking good. They have been seen all over California in the past year. They have found the bassist that they needed. They are respected among their peers. And now, they look for yours.

 

I sat down with Apollotrigger recently. They were kind enough to offer themselves as the first band interviewed by theBehemoth.net.

theBehemoth: Where did Apollotrigger come from and where do you see Apollotrigger going?

 

Apollotrigger: (Jesse) Really, I guess the main part was finding all the right people. We are in a period of time where we are exactly where we wanted to be with our lineup. Once we found the fourth member (Douglas) things just really came together, tightened up. We have become a lot more serious about our music, a lot more serious about taken the shows seriously, and about presenting ourselves, and just trying to put on a cohesive show… with a definite sound.

 

And a lot of the beginning work was just me messing around on a computer so everything was all my input. But now it’s a definitely at a place where everyone is contributing to song writing. Stuff we are doing now I am not really writing anything. Everybody else is presenting new music. My job has been just writing words for the music. Doug’s really stepped up and wrote a song right off the bat and I really love it. Tony is doing the bulk of the song writing right now.

 

As far as where we hope to go is just bigger and better. I mean we don’t play real rootsie indie rock. We play big guitar rock and… that’s the kind of stuff you’d to take to a stadium. A huge, big Marshall half stack kind of sound.

 

(Douglass) And even though there is variation in our songs, they all have the same kind of feel, on the same page basically. They don’t all sound like one main riff but they are complete when put all put together.

 

Collectively you guys have been in many different bands over the past years, with likes of Scenic Route, Fiver, Maus, Long Division, and American Holidays to name a few. How would you differentiate Apollotrigger from your past projects?

 

(Jesse) Well, again I would probably have to say cohesiveness, real common goals for the music. Not… there’s not that power struggle where somebody has been listening to one particular band and that’s what they’ve deciding they want to sound like this week. And somebody else is trying to write this type of song. Or going back and forth about who is the leader. Cause it’s not that kind of a project. Like, we all have this idea of our sound. It’s hard to describe sound, but it’s like, when we hear it, we are like yeah, yeah, yeah! Let’s play it like that. Let’s work on that.

 

(Douglass) Or we all know whether or not its going to sound good with the rest of our songs.

 

(Jesse) Trying to make songs that are unique and can stand out so it doesn’t sound like we are writing the same song over and over again. But when you hear, you know, all the bands that I really love, they have this continuity to them… not always continuity from each album, but you know, on there sets and within each album.

 

This next question is for Doug. Having recently come from Seattle, how would compare Modesto in general and the music scene between Modesto and Seattle?

 

Generally I think there is more potential then where I’m from. I think in Seattle it’s a scene that’s kind of come down and people are trying to bring it back. But I think here there is a hint of a scene that could be great if the right components come into place. You know, with Greg Edwards in the scene, the Behemoth coming around, I think there’s stuff that could really come alive now.

 

I like the musicians in this area. It feels like there is a comradery. In talking to people in different bands, it seems everyone gets along a little better. There’s not people getting butt hurt over someone getting a better show. Everyone just hangs out. It’s cool.

 

What bands are turning you on, as a band, lately?

 

(Tony) A lot bands, um… The Fire Theft, Joy Circuit, Year of the Rabbit, Queens of the Stone Age, Autolux, and... um Failure (laughter from whole band). That’s just probably the surface. I mean, all of our influences are more than just that, but those are ones we all share.

 

(Jesse) And The Cure!

 

(Tony) And The Cure, so...

 

Locally, what are you guys digging here in Modesto?

 

(Jesse) Well, Duncan Booth. I would have to let the other guys handle this. I don’t know what bands exist right now. All the bands I’ve loved have broken up. I have been just hearing names but I have not heard who these people are. Whatever Will Taylor is doing I’m into.

 

(Tony) Thing is like, a lot of bands around here want to be known but they don’t put in the leg work to make a name for themselves. So it’s hard to like any bands or even find out about any bands.

 

(Jesse) Who have we played with that’s local?

 

(Tony) Duncan Booth really is the only one I can think of.

 

(Jesse) Yeah, I mean, we are playing with a band tonight that I’ve heard about but I haven’t heard them yet. There are California bands that we are really into... just not from around here.

 

What might be some of the pros and cons of the music scene in Modesto?

 

(Jesse) Pros are... Well, here’s one that’s a pro and a con. You can decide that you want to play a show locally pretty quick and get it setup. Problem is, it’s the same two places over and over again. It’s really debatable whether we want to actually show up. Another pro is that there is a very big pool of musicians to work with... but the con is nobody really wants to do much of anything. They just want to put something together and play a couple shows and not really do anything after that. It’s incredibly hard to find people that are like "wow I seriously want to do this". And beyond that, it’s hard to find people that want to do the same thing that you want to do.

 

(Douglas) Every step you take just narrows the field down by a hundred, you know.

 

(Jesse) Another pro is that we are fairly centrally located in California. We are in a good spot to go north, south, to the Bay and the L.A. area.

 

When can we expect a new album for Apollotrigger?

 

(Jesse) May or June kinda area.

 

(Tony) Late June or July. It’s long process of mixing and mastering.

 

(Douglass) This is going to be an E.P. We are excited about it because it is going to the stuff that we all collaborated on. Cause the other CD was basically Jesse’s solo stuff with the new band.

 

(Jesse) We are looking at budgeting and just timing in general. We are hitting the studio in May and then just gonna work our butts off trying to get it out from there. We really want to make something that we put a lot of time into and can have a lot of pride in when we put it out.

 

(Tony) If people are going to give us money for a CD we want to give them what they paid for. Not some garage rock recording.

How do you guys write the Apollotrigger sound?

 

(Jesse) I think what we try to do when were working on these songs is try to find the core of the songs and then make it where it’s almost a pretty pop song and then kind of ugly it up a little bit. Take that half note down, make it sound like there is a little touch of evil almost. Not metal, you know, it’s just like the idea of dark heavy pop such as The Cure.

 

(Douglass) I don’t think we necessarily try to stay within those guide lines. I think it’s just we are all on the same page.

 

(Jesse) Defiantly we do try to keep things fairly straight ahead on the songs. We don’t do a lot of weird time signatures and really odd things going on.

 

(Douglass) Something with definitive beginning and end.

 

(Jesse) Yeah. It’s like it is a process that we analyze...

 

(Tony) We write good songs we enjoy.

 

theBehemoth: That’s all have I as far as questions. Thanks for taking your time with me. Is there anything else you would like to say?

 

Be excellent to each other. Party on dudes.

 

-theBehemoth