The Novel Ideas, a band with members currently enrolled at Boston College and Tufts is playing a show at the Church on January 29th. Their sophomore album, The Sky Is a Field, is full of
carefully constructed, folk-influenced rock songs, with male/female
vocalists and lighthearted, easy-to-relate-to lyrics. Self-released in
October by the Newton-based quintet, a download of the entire album is
available for free on the band's website found below.In this recent interview with On A Friday, singer Daniel Radin discussed the influence the summer ("it's not just about going to the beach and surfboards"), the Boston music community ("there's definitely these cliques within bands"), and the band's decision to distribute the album digitally for free.
LINK: http://www.thenovelideas.com/
Full interview below...
How do you describe The Sky is a Field to someone who hasn't heard your music?
I say "rock-folk" because it's more rock-centered than folk-influenced. It is a basic rock lineup with two guitars, bass, and drums, plus some other orchestral type instruments. But there's also an acoustic guitar, and folk-influenced male/female harmonies.
What is the album about?
It's about summer. Most of the songs are written about summer or were written during one particular summer. I don't like listening to music that reminds me of winter or writing music that reminds me of winter. But it's not the best summer. It's not just about going to the beach and surfboards. Other Beach Boys-type bands tend to idealize summer. This is more about like, a summer that you expect to be amazing, but it wasn't all surfboards and babes in bikinis.
Why do you think so many bands write about summer?
I think summer is inspiring to bands everywhere, but I think to bands on the East coast it represents something more. I haven't lived in California but it's always warm there. People are more laid back there all the time. Here, the warm weather and the break are something you're always looking forward to.
What's your favorite song on the album and why?
I really like "A Breath of Fresh Air." It was written by Alex, who is a relatively new addition to band. Plus, I get to play electric guitar on it, and I really like playing electric guitar. So it's a fun song to play live, but also I think he's a really good lyricist. It's fun when you know exactly who/what someone is talking about in a song.
What did you decide to give your album away for free instead of selling it?
Our first album wasn't free online, and it didn't go as far as we wanted it to go. We ended up eventually giving up and giving it away for free, so we decided to just go with that. It can only get to more people, right? It didn't cost us that much money to make, which was definitely an incentive to give it away for free.
You guys have gotten some attention from a bunch of different music blogs right?
We reached out to some blogs. Bradley's Almanac was the only one who actually responded to our email. We have gotten written up by a few other music blogs though, probably because they found our album posted on various illegal download websites that I've been posting download links on. One of the reviews came from a music blog in China. One was in Germany. I've been proactively illegally leaking the CD to people, and then these random bloggers have been writing about it, so if you look on last.fm we have listeners in different places all over the world.
What do you think of the music community in Boston? Have you found it to be supportive?
We actually don't really have any friend bands in Boston. It seems like in Boston there's definitely these cliques within bands, that are friends and go to each others shows and play shows together and don't necessarily seem interested in playing with new acts. It's unfortunate, I think.
I say "rock-folk" because it's more rock-centered than folk-influenced. It is a basic rock lineup with two guitars, bass, and drums, plus some other orchestral type instruments. But there's also an acoustic guitar, and folk-influenced male/female harmonies.
What is the album about?
It's about summer. Most of the songs are written about summer or were written during one particular summer. I don't like listening to music that reminds me of winter or writing music that reminds me of winter. But it's not the best summer. It's not just about going to the beach and surfboards. Other Beach Boys-type bands tend to idealize summer. This is more about like, a summer that you expect to be amazing, but it wasn't all surfboards and babes in bikinis.
Why do you think so many bands write about summer?
I think summer is inspiring to bands everywhere, but I think to bands on the East coast it represents something more. I haven't lived in California but it's always warm there. People are more laid back there all the time. Here, the warm weather and the break are something you're always looking forward to.
What's your favorite song on the album and why?
I really like "A Breath of Fresh Air." It was written by Alex, who is a relatively new addition to band. Plus, I get to play electric guitar on it, and I really like playing electric guitar. So it's a fun song to play live, but also I think he's a really good lyricist. It's fun when you know exactly who/what someone is talking about in a song.
What did you decide to give your album away for free instead of selling it?
Our first album wasn't free online, and it didn't go as far as we wanted it to go. We ended up eventually giving up and giving it away for free, so we decided to just go with that. It can only get to more people, right? It didn't cost us that much money to make, which was definitely an incentive to give it away for free.
You guys have gotten some attention from a bunch of different music blogs right?
We reached out to some blogs. Bradley's Almanac was the only one who actually responded to our email. We have gotten written up by a few other music blogs though, probably because they found our album posted on various illegal download websites that I've been posting download links on. One of the reviews came from a music blog in China. One was in Germany. I've been proactively illegally leaking the CD to people, and then these random bloggers have been writing about it, so if you look on last.fm we have listeners in different places all over the world.
What do you think of the music community in Boston? Have you found it to be supportive?
We actually don't really have any friend bands in Boston. It seems like in Boston there's definitely these cliques within bands, that are friends and go to each others shows and play shows together and don't necessarily seem interested in playing with new acts. It's unfortunate, I think.
Love them.