Most of the world knows Mean Creek as an indie movie that touched all of our hearts. Bostonians know Mean Creek as the Americana/folk/yo babys mama band (not really the last genre, but you get the idea). Back in the day it was guitarist Chris Keene and Aurore Ounjian on harmonica, playing in hotel rooms for record labels and the like. The band got themselves some drums and a bass player, but lets have a few words with lead singer Chris Keene, who was probably that one guy in high school who carried a guitar, but nobody really got (and everyone on the internet goes, that was me!) Keene raps about the easy stuff like religion, dive bars, anti-fashion and the music biz.

 

 

With the song “It’s good to be back again” you pull a bit of an Elton John and claim “God is dead or was he always in my head” – does this point back to a religious household and all the goodness that comes from that type of upbringing?

I didn't really have that strong of a religious upbringing. My parents sent me to Sunday school as a kid, but it didn't last long. They weren't really into organized religion. That line, along with many other lyrics on the album, are just me thinking about God, religion, existence, and an afterlife. Trying to sort through it in my head. What it all means if it does or doesn't exist. Lines like that will hopefully shake the listener into thinking about these things too. I think it's important to question your beliefs whatever they may be. I would hope that even an extremely religious person could listen to that line and consider the possibility that God doesn't exist and try to work through it in their mind. At the same time I would hope an atheist could listen to this song/album and spend time thinking about the possibility that maybe there is a God. Personally I believe there's no way for any of us to know for sure how we came to be here, so I think people sell themselves short when they deal in absolutes with this subject.

What is Germanic Was So BlasÈ and how does Jasper Scuttleman fit into that?

Haha, that was actually a joke article written about our band by a very funny blog called Enough Cowbell. It was written as a fictional ex-band member who is not happy with us after being kicked out of the band. Unfortunately, there never was a Jasper Scuttleman in our band. Although hopefully this character is out there somewhere playing a dive bar in the mighty Germanic Was So Blase.

I read this piece on your band and it was praising your music, but on a higher pedestal was a whole lot of noise about your fashion sense. Do you guys really go out of your way to dress a certain style or does it just happen to be that you’re all shopping at the same second-hand boutiques?

We all feel very uncomfortable when anyone writes or talks about our "fashion sense", or lack there of. We much prefer the focus be on our music. None of us go out of our way to dress a certain way, I think we all just wear what we like and feel most like ourselves in. I think a lot of people whether they realize it or not express their personality through the way they dress. It's sort of a subconscious thing i think.
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The band sounds so 90s, but you have a certain type of country tinge and my friend mentioned Americana and then – does that get annoying, when you’re put into every genre category or is that more of a compliment?

Trying to categorize music is always a tricky thing to do. I love that people get different things out of our music. I'd hate to always fall into one category. All my favorite bands made all different kinds of sounds. †

While not on tour what does a normal day-to-day diet consist of and what happens to that diet while on tour?

The majority of the band is vegetarian. We eat all kinds of things, i know we all love Mexican food a lot. Mikey likes French fries so much he is sometimes known as "Mikey French Fries". On tour it's always harder to eat healthy. We go to Subway a lot. Sometimes there's nothing but fast food on the road. Thankfully most places have started incorporating salads and healthier things like that into their menus.

So, back in the day it was just a duo and then you played at a festival and you had to play in a hotel room to a group of five or so people. And then it wasn’t really a gig, cause there was a memorial for some dead guitarist and you were there to just provide acoustic lovin. Doesn’t something like that make you want to quit and become lawyers of some sort?

It definitely does. We've been through a ton of shit like that, as I'm sure most musicians have. Along with it making you feel like quitting, it can also be used positively though. The anger and hopelessness I feel from those situations helps fuel the music and gives me the drive to work harder. It wouldn't be the same without those experiences. The sweet moments wouldn't be as sweet. Anything really truly worth dedicating yourself to is going to be difficult. There's tons of things that are out of your control in the "music business", but if you believe strongly in what you're doing and love doing it, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It's a very freeing realization.

When the material for The Sky (Or The Underground) was written/compiled were you in the mentality that ‘we have to distance ourselves from the previous album’ or was it more of a natural progression to where you ended up?

It was definitely a natural progression. You can't really ever force those kind of things to happen and expect it to work and end up sounding genuine.

Are we, human beings, the wild beasts in Wild Beasts? If so, what type of pets should we keep?

Yes, we are the wild beasts. We shouldn't keep pets. All living beings are the world's pets. We need to learn to co-exist with nature instead of constantly fighting against it and then wondering why things like global warming are a reality.

Come to L.A. and find the best/worst Mexican food ever.

By Nathan Solis