Interview — The Upcollar$

Skratch Magazine

The Upcollar$ have the construction of their sound down to a science. “Take a fast catchy riff, overdub with post-modern politically incorrect lyrics, add anger and a fast punchy-poppy-slappy bass,” the band begins. “Back it up by chugging guitars with everything from whispers and screams and sing-along choruses.” Then Nick (vocals), Chin (drums), Esplin (rhythm guitar), Hivner (bass), Roo (saxophone) throw in “guitar solos every other minute that don’t stop sweep picking, all held together by blasting drums, with a saxophone on top!” If it sounds like a wild ride, that’s because it is. The Upcollars live in Logan, Utah but it’s the stage they call home, where they’re known for their notorious solos and high energy.

Skratch: What influences your band and stirs up your creativity?

Nick: Well, what do YOU think!? We aren’t influenced by much other than the fact that we want to change popular and underground music. We’re trying to be as unique as possible. However, we’re not trying to be incredibly gay, like some of the modern experimental bands today. But really we like to do catchy riffs a lot! The sort of stuff that sticks in yer head that you can hum along too! Big ole choruses are another part! Pretty much the funniest part of live shows is when the crowd sings along during the choruses! Also the big solos from the instrumentations are just great, I think! The thing that really sets us apart is that we don’t follow the traditional verse-chorus-verse song style format. We have several different bridges and interludes that every song can really stand-out and be different.
Chin: I think anything in existence can stir up our creativity. It just comes natural to us because we improvise our songs every time we play them.

Skratch: Tell me about your favorite two songs and what they mean to you?

Roo: Of our own songs? Having a Good Day is one of my favorite. Griswold Street really revs my engine, as well. It has really good chord progressions in my opinion.
Nick: Having a Good Day because the lyrics are just so dang bad-A. The whole song structure is just SO cool! I mean I just feel like dancing and jumping and pushing some bad guys whenever I hear it! The thing about both those songs is just that I think they’re cleverly put together.
Chin: I enjoy playing Bloody Lips because of its diverse changes and it’s just a really cool song. It’s like a hard-rock-punky kind a song.

Skratch: There are many struggles being an unsigned band. Tell me what keeps the boat afloat?

Band: We’re really kept afloat by several constant fans. You know who you are. They’re the people that we get the most money from our live shows, and that’s how we get the job done. We keep getting a lot of crucial breaks too! Like being part of this magazines compilation. We just take any opportunity we can even if it’s not for us. We once played at an all Utah Ska showcase and we’re not exactly Ska, but the band that did the best and sold the most tickets ended up getting to play with Streetlight Manifesto. The people putting on the show obviously didn’t have a clue what they were getting themselves into when they put us on! We played our two most skaish songs and then pumped up the metal and trashed the stage! It was a lot of fun! Even though we did terrible! Haha. We didn’t end up playing with street light :(


Skratch: Where do you see the band in five years? What are your goals?

Chin: Dead. We crashed on a tour and a giant fat person fell out of a plane and fell on us.
Hivner: Personally, I like to be seen as an influential bassist to today’s young musicians who think bassists belong on the back of the stage. I’d just want to get rid of the stereotype of “bassist in the background” by then. I’d want to resurrect the funky “ flamenco-style” of playing bass, but mostly I just wanna tear it up and drop jaws. As a band, I’d like to see us doing bigger and greater things but still having as much fun as we do now.
Nick: I think Hivner is right! He brings such a cool new beat to the band, which is unfortunately not on our last album. I mean this kid works with our heavy sound and throws a bee-gees like bass in it with Flea-like solos. I think it’s just amazing. I, as well as Chin, love doing big ole solos too! Our live show is really where all that takes place. Unfortunately our last album missed a lot of that! Which is why these new recordings we’re getting ready to do will be full of them. Anybody who’s seen our live shows knows that we add entire sections to the songs just for the solos. If anything though I’d just like to be remembered for writing great songs. John Lennon or Kurt Cobain who weren’t particularly good at soloing, but were amazing songwriters.
Roo: Maybe we’ll be so big that we influence upcoming bands that would be in our position now. That would be so cool to me.
Nick: ultimately the end goal is world domination!

Skratch: Name one flaw of each band member.

Hivner: Flaws? (Laughs) umm... Nick has this weird mole on his neck, Roo likes to hold on to leftovers way too long, Chin is ugly, Esplin has lame come-backs, and I procrastinate.
Nick: Chin is ugly and gets off beat. Esplin can’t solo to save his life. Roo is still in high school. Hivner can never practice and I’m perfect! HA HA Just danglin’ your fudoogler. Really one of the main flaws is that we settle for less a lot of the time and that we don’t practice near as much as we aspire. A lot of the times we make really elementary mistakes that a band of our age should be past.
Chin: We’re all pretty much mean greenies! Especially, Nick who has the ability to alienate the most loyal fan.

Skratch: What animal best represents the band and why?

Band: We’re like an eagle raised by bears that was abused by rattle snakes as a child, but overcame adversity to become the best band animal ever seen! I mean we’ve had a lot of trials, what with being dicks and all (Band: actually just Nick is) and being really goofy that a lot of people don’t really take us seriously. But we’re still here to kick some bottom (Chin: You mean ass)

Skratch: If the band agreed on one thing, what comes to mind?

Roo: We don’t have an answer for this question. (Laughs)
Nick: Ya we pretty much are just rockers and we love to rock. We don’t agree on hardly anything outside of being badasses! (HAHAHA) But we all come from very different political and socio-economic backgrounds so we’re all just really different, but we do it in a way that we harmonize to make something absolutely beautiful (sighs)!!
Esplin: We all like being unique - the actual unique. Not the puffed-up “underground” world’s idea of unique.
Hivner: True uniqueness is hard to come by these days. To me there’s a big difference between ripping off ideas from major songs and changing them just enough to have your own song and using the bands and artists that have influenced who you are to be your foundation in creativity. We just like to keep it real.
Chin: We pretty much never agree on anything...EVER! It’s constant arguments and fighting that usually ends in laughter.

Skratch : Tell me it's more than sex, drugs, and rock n roll! No?

Chin: Actually, that’s exactly what it is. It’s about 20% marijuana, 10% LSD, 95% sex, and 100% rock n roll. (Tee hee)
Nick: well when it comes down to it all we really wanna do is rock! Cuz the whole reason I’m in a band is so that my music can influence other people to think like I do! So that’s why I’m in!
Hivner: I’m just here to have a good time doing what I love! I love making music and I love my amazing girlfriend, Barbara, so yeah, I’ll do both. (Laughs) No drugs though. That ain’t me.
Nick:! Like we’re not all big into drugs! A lot of that is just being in Utah, but ya we’re not edgers by any stretch of the imagination! Hivner and I just don’t need that to have fun.

Skratch: What are your thoughts on the current political elections?

Roo: It’s pretty rad that the US of A is finally living up to its title of equality. I’m not necessarily liberal, but I think it’s great that we’re getting some new general ideas in the White House. It’s been a while since we had some less conservative ideas in there.
Esplin: I think it’s cool that for the most part, we’ve moved past the idea that a black person is inferior to a white man.
Nick: Mark my words we’ll never have an Asian President! (Laughs) Haha. Jk! Ya know, I really don’t care much about the politics its all special interest groups these days Republican or Democrat, their all full a crap!

Skratch: What bands would you love to share a stage with? What bands would you not?

Hivner: We’d love to play with anyone that thinks the same about music as we do. Personally, I wouldn’t want to share a stage with anyone that thinks they’re better than us, cuz it’s not about us or them, it’s about the people there at the show who we play for.
Esplin: I’d want to share the stage with Dinosaur, Jr. Or Pavement, or any of the cool indie bands from the ‘90's.

Skratch: Are you all good friends or more bandmates only? Tell me about your relationships.

Esplin: I’d say we’re all good friends. Me and Hivner and Chin go way back, and when we got into the Upcollars we made some new friends easy.
Nick: Ya, I’d agree whether we’re just hanging or rocking out we’re pretty good friends! The other boys were in a different band called Nine Month Media Blackout and then I commandeered them and we all became hard-core rockers and friends! Roo actually just barely joined a few months ago when our previous bass player/saxist Alex Chanson left for Berkley! I remember seeing Roo and Esplin at some of our shows a few years ago and watching them rock out! It’s funny that they’re in the band now!!
Chin: I think it would be great to share the stage with any musician, big or puny. It’s just a great experience to meet other musicians and chill out with them and just have a party.

Skratch: Your next live shows are?: Well we got a big show coming up at our home venue called the whysound in Logan on May 15th! We also are planning on at least one if not two tours this summer! One of the West Coast and the other of the mid-West, but we’ll so what happens we’re still hammering all the transportation details out!

Skratch: Last words/final thoughts/Anything you would like readers to know about you?:

Band: That we’re gonna keep on going for as long as we can and that we love what we do. Our live shows are absolute chaos and we love it. We always leave an impression whether good or bad that’s for you too decide, but we’re not afraid to speak our minds and we’re not afraid to be the minority! And we’re going into the studio May 2 for some brand new recordings that should be up on our myspace within a week or two after that! Don’t be afraid to hit us up! We love talking to new people.

For more on The Upcollar$ visit www.myspace.com/theupcollars

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