Many thanks to Joel Murray, he was great to work with and a great interviewer. Not to mention he is a great singer. Check him out at http://www.myspace.com/joelmurraymusic
It’s like a tiger, I say. Sleek and calm, beautiful and powerful, but sometimes wild and ferocious, full of fury. I make some snarling noises, clawing at the air with my hands, and the boys laugh. “Feline indie, then?” Matt asks. “Tiger pop,” Dane chuckles. “They’re grrrrrreat!” Laughing, hunched over my computer keyboard, I am surrounded by three of the four members of Red Beard, B-W’s own indie post-punk rock band who play the SAC this upcoming Saturday, April 4th. Drummer Dane Palmer sits with his girlfriend’s head on his knee, stroking her back. “That’s not a bad description of how we sound,” he tells me, and I smile. Dane’s shaggy red hair hangs in his eyes; as he brushes it away, I notice the bottoms of his shoes are patched with duct tape. Bassist Ben Meadors sits with his jet black Chuck Taylors resting on a desk to my right. Tall and lanky, Ben sports a messenger bag with a seatbelt-style clasp on the strap. Third member of the group is lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter Matt O’Shea, who sits quietly at a table across the room. A black cap floats above his waxy complexion and dark rusty red goatee. His eyes have a captivatingly intense, sincere quality to them. As we talk, he halfheartedly nurses half a veggie sandwich, slowly transitioning to his minitub of Ben & Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream, which the boys refer to as a “cookie abortion.” Matt speaks quietly, but in a manner than holds your attention in a vice. It’s obvious that even off the stage, he can capture an audience.
But let’s go back to the beginning.
Q: Where did the name Red Beard come from?
Matt: My grandfather was named Red Beard. I accidentally shot him in our living room. (We laugh.) Actually, I was on my high school’s tennis team. I was one of the few kids with facial hair in high school, and when I’m in the sun my hair gets really red. And my tennis coach, one day, he says, “Wow, you have a red beard.” Around that time, I had a talent show I was participating in, playing “Nebulous,” (a song from Red Beard’s debut EP released in early 2008), and I needed a band name. And I thought that’d be cool. And then I shot him. I’m wanted for murder. (We laugh again.) It’s just a band name now. When I came back after break and I had a goatee, Ben was pissed. (He chuckles.) But yeah, people can remember it, and I think it’s cool. It definitely provides us with some sort of identity.
Q: How did you guys become a band?
Matt: I started the band my senior year of high school in Buffalo, with temp players, since I knew I was coming here to B-W. I recorded “Nebulous” with my friend John. I was looking for players, and I knew Ben played bass from jazz band, where I played sax. I remember I asked Ben at a party. I had my iPod and I played him “Nebulous.”
Ben: I remember when I heard it I said, “It sounds like David Bowie, kinda.”
Matt: I think that’s because you had a half a beer. (We laugh.) Tim (Lewicki, Red Beard’s keyboardist) was in jazz band with us too. He was very classical. I thought “No way, he’ll never do it; he’s this uptight classical guy.” Then one day he walks in with this neck tattoo.
Ben: (He chuckles.) Yeah, Tim has this cool tattoo of a swallow on his neck.
Matt: I wonder if he has a swallow there because that’s where swallowing occurs. (We laugh.)
Dane: Yeah, I could see Tim doing that.
Matt: But yeah, after that I knew he’d be cool. We were debating on Dane for a drummer. My worry was that he was too annoying. (They laugh.)
Ben: Yeah, we debated for a while, and there were a few rehearsals when we didn’t have a drummer.
Matt: Then I remember I saw Dane while I was walking by the Rec Center one night.
Q: What happened?
Matt: We made out. (We laugh.) No, I talked to him, found out his experience. He expressed interest so I ended up sending him the songs.
Q: It’s not easy to define Red Beard to a single genre. You’re all very versatile musicians, and it’s apparent in your tunes. How would you categorize the music you make? What are your influences?
Matt: Well I dive really deeply into the indie scene. Growing up as a kid-
Ben: You were a big Nirvana fan, right?
Matt: Yeah, well, what I took away from Nirvana, I loved Cobain’s presentation and all that stuff. I started writing songs on piano from listening to Coldplay, listening to The Killers. After we play a show, sometimes people come up to me and say, “We’ve never heard anything like that before,” and I’m like, “Really?” That’s not all though, I mean…I don’t know, there’s a certain spark of insanity too.
Dane: (to Matt) Well, I can always tell your hardcore influence because of the guitar sound you always want. For Ben, I can tell he’s into indie and jazz. Me, well, I listened to a lot of what I think now is processed garbage, but some things hold true in terms of drumming. For Red Beard, my drums are a watch; they provide colors, keep time. It’s not all about me. And we definitely all have our own ears for what we’re playing. Matt provides notes, but it’s how we each present it individually.
Q: How about a genre?
Matt: Post hip-hop. (We laugh.)
Q: Listening to your music, I kind of see it like a tiger. It’s sleek and calm, beautiful and powerful, but sometimes wild and ferocious, full of fury.
Matt: I like that. Feline indie, then? (We laugh.)
Dane: Tiger pop. They’re grrrrrreat! (We laugh again.)
Q: What’s the songwriting process like as a band? Do you rely mostly on Matt, or is it more of a group effort?
Matt: I really enjoy writing from different angles. Doing music growing up, I wasn’t always in a band, but I always wrote all the time. I learned to write what I want. During my Nirvana-nut phase, I just wrote for guitar. It was all power chords, and really limiting. I got stuck. Then I started writing with piano, eventually synthesizer-
Dane: Then four. (They laugh.)
Matt: The piano put more ideas in my head. One song can start from an idea–a vocal idea, an idea on piano, guitar, maybe synth, from just a sound. “Nebulous” started from the opening guitar riff. “To the Earth,” piano. “Brittany Come With Me,” the chorus vocal line. I actually wrote that in my dorm room at three in the morning last year. I had these chords, just an idea, and recorded it on my computer. I went to bed at two thirty, thinking I’m done for the night. I’m just lying there and bam, the melody pops into my head. So I got back up and recorded it. See, it can come from anything. I usually have an idea, and I try to put a structure together, get ideas for drums and bass. I present my ideas to them, and they fill in the rest of the pieces.
Ben: Matt is a very meticulous writer. He knows exactly what he wants everyone else to do.
Dane: Really, the first thirty minutes of writing a song we all hate each other. It’s one big nonverbal argument. (They laugh.)
Matt: Sometimes when I don’t have a song idea–no chord structure or melody line, I just listen to new kinds of music. I never want to learn a song on guitar. I hear a song and I’m like, “That’s cool. I want to write a song like that.”
How do you promote Red Beard?
Ben: Red Beard is on Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube–we have a big Internet presence. And word of mouth too. We talk to people. Matt and Dane have gone to shows and passed out CDs.
Dane: Our first gig was at Beachland Tavern. Matt and I talked to Ken (Beachland’s manager) at a Stars show a few weeks before, and passed out CDs as the crowd left. Less than a month later we had our first show in Cleveland there.
Matt: I mostly like talking to people who are managers and club owners. I have trouble talking to everyday people. Dane’s got the everyday people; he’s so personable. Ben’s got the Internet down. I could never do that. It’s so impersonal; it frustrates me so much.
Ben: You could say it’s really a group effort.
Q: Tell me about the upcoming show in the SAC.
Ben: The show is April 4th at 7:00 pm, in collaboration with the Arts House. We played there recently, at their Jams and Java. It was a great time, and we’ve formed quite a relationship with them that we’d like to continue to foster. Motter Flynn, Stomp the Condor, and you (yes, me, Joel Murray) will also be playing. Really, we’re looking to develop a relationship with people on campus. I feel like a lot of kids don’t know about us. I mean, we’re trying to develop relationships with Beachland and Grog Shop, and trying to bring people down there. And not too many people know about us here. We’d definitely like to start getting our name out there more.
Red Beard will be self-releasing a follow-up EP this summer. Check them out on Facebook, at redbeardthemusic.com, or at myspace.com/redbeardthemusic. And be sure to make it to the show in the SAC next Saturday; it’s bound to be a great night of great music.
Written by Ben in: 
Written by Ben in: 
