Editor’s Note:  Jon Reine is a wonderfully charming, animated, and descriptive person, and so this interview has been shortened in certain segments to maintain specific clarity.

Schwaz: The band Greycoats was once called North, right?

Jon:  Yep!

Schwaz:  Did you guys initially get together and start up the band here in Minnesota, or somewhere else prior?

Jon:  Yeah, we started it here.  Mike (Smith) the drummer and I played music together since high school, and after taking a break, and realizing that we still really wanted to do this, we started playing with Titus (Decker) the keyboard player.  So it was us three, and then we kind of came up with the name North, it being kind of a short, strong name.  We played under that, recorded our album, and then decided to re-record it, and since we had known Matt (Patrick) from previous bands, we knew he was a great producer and engineer, and he also played a variety of instruments, so we had him fill in on some base parts.  It felt really good, so we asked him to join the band.  About then, we were realizing (and this was about a year ago) that there were a lot of other bands named North.  We needed a different name for the band, so from the point when Matt was with us, we decided to go with the name Greycoats.

Schwaz:  I remember listening to a track called “Epicurean Fashion”, which I think is a really great song.  Any plans on releasing that song on a later album?

Jon:  Yeah, we’ve talked about older stuff Mike and I’ve worked on, and I feel like thematically, it might work with what we’re working on now.  It’s one of those where we think it’s a good song, but another one of those depressing, dower songs that we kind of dabble in anyway (laughter).  It’s always easier to write slow, brooding songs, rather than upbeat, puppy-fist songs (laughter).   But who knows, we might pull that one out and work on it some more.

Photo by Chuck Pittman

Schwaz:  Coming back to your latest album, Setting Fire To The Great Unknown, I’ve listened to it several times and really hear a very distinct sound that is a mix between Radiohead and Muse… are these some of the influences, or are there others that Greycoats is inspired by?

Jon:  Yeah, sure I think Radiohead is up there, and Muse I think has grabbed a lot from Radiohead…  They are also a great band.  I would say I’m also influenced by Morrissey, but The Smiths and Radiohead are probably my two favorite bands.  I also really enjoy The Pixies and I know Matt, from a production standpoint really enjoys the Yankee Hotel Fox Trot.  But me being the principal songwriter, things tend to lean more towards the Brit-pop, Brit-rock type of thing… any band with a singer that is crooning… and kind of epic and anthemic I tend to be drawn to.

Schwaz:  The lyrics to some of the tracks off of your album, seem to have a spiritual influence, or rather dealing with good versus evil, like for example “That Great and Terrible Day”  “Revenge”, and also “La Resistance”… how would you describe the meaning of or what inspired you when writing these tracks in particular?

Jon:  Thematically, the album deals with polarization and propaganda, and one side versus the other.  Especially in America, probably in other places too I’m sure, but we’re such an argument culture.  We have TV-shows that are trying to sell soap that are one side versus the other.  Politics is such an easy thing that we can go to, and people get so fired up every four years, and it’s so easy to vilify the other side.  But also things that don’t need to be politicized somehow become that way, like for example, I like an orange table in a coffee shop, you like blue tables, let’s get on a talk-show and fight about it (laughter).  You have people calling in “Grr! We like blue tables!” (laughter).  Maybe it’s something primal, or tribalism, where people want to attach to something. (i.e. I totally associate with this group rather than this group etc.)  I think a lot of this was going into the album, that spiritual language is this existential language, is a way of trying to grab language that’s big enough to describe all the things that you’re feeling.  Trying to figure out if there is a third way to deal with some of these issues.  The song “Revenge” can be about the political situation in Israel, but can also be about your personal life, like in a marriage, or in a friendship, somebody hurts you, and you’re going to hurt them worse, it being this cyclical thing.  I feel like we’re all implicated in these sorts of situations.  That Great And Terrible Day, came out of me being in Burma a couple years ago, and in Thailand at a Korean Refugee Camp…  I was really affected by the political situation there… there’s a joke in Burma that George Orwell wrote a trilogy about Burma, he wrote a book called Burmese Days, Animal Farm, and 1984.  Even though he didn’t necessarily write those books about Burma, it could totally apply, because there has been a military junta there since the 60’s so the country’s been shut off to the rest of the world.  It’s this brutal dictatorship, there was a protest back in 1989, and 3,000 student protesters were killed, and it wasn’t really televised, because the country was closed off.  So finally with all the pressure from the U.N., the government decided that they were going to have democratic elections, and then afterward nullified the elections….  So, there’s this huge epic struggle going on there, and then about two years ago, there was another protest and uprising, and there were a lot of monks protesting.  The government rounded them all up and you saw these pictures on the news of these priests lying face down in the river…  it’s totally an Orwellian society there, and That Great And Terrible Day kind of deals with that.

Schwaz: Another track that stands out is (and I really like this song), “Make Me Like The Moon”… you have a great voice by the way.

Jon: Thank you.

Schwaz: The track definitely reminds me of Radiohead… and is very rich in symbolism.  How would you describe “being like the moon?”  What is that?  What does it mean to be like the moon, in this song?

Jon: Boy, I don’t know. (laughter) What do YOU think it means? (laughter)

Schwaz: No, you go ahead! (laughter)

Jon: Okay, Okay…. I saw it kind of as the moon being something that reflects the sun’s light.  You’re in this dark place, and yet you’re still trying to hold this candle of hope.  Rather than being a dark thing, it’s more of a hopeful thing.

Schwaz: You guys have been performing steadily throughout most of the Twin Cities venues- most recently at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis.  What are your future plans?  Any tours on the horizon?

Jon: Yeah, we are going on tour in May.  We’re going on a west coast tour.  We’re stopping by Lincoln, Denver, Albuquerque, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, LA, Santa Cruz, Portland and Seattle, and we’re driving two stinkin’ long days home.  In San Francisco, we’re playing with a band that we toured with back east last year, called Loquat, another great band, you know a kind of cyclical thing… and we’re currently writing our next album.

Schwaz: Lastly, if you could be any kind of animal, what would it be, and why?

Jon: Oh man!  Hard to say, because my brother and me would play this game when we were little…. And I think I always picked the chinchilla… because I thought they looked cool, but a chinchilla is probably not a very cool looking animal.  It’s like a little guinea pig! (laughter) I would probably be some kind of bird, like a sparrow.  Kind of like this every-day, common man trying to wrestle through.

Schwaz:  Thank you very much for sitting down with us, and we look forward to seeing you guys perform again!

Jon:  Thank you too!

Photo by Chuck Pittman

Links

Greycoats – Website / Myspace

Also visit Greycoats on the Borangutan downloads page to listen to “Goodbye, Sweet Youth, Goodye.”

posted April 7th, 2009 at 10:02 am Interviews, MN Rock, Reviews Greycoats, Jon Reine