HITTING THE ROAD: The Coming Weak. |
Cut from the earnest and emotional mold of bands such as Taking Back Sunday, Coheed & Cambria, and our own Monty Are I, the Coming Weak is one of the area’s fastest-rising combos. They have chops, both instrumentally and as songwriters, as well as the wisdom currently required by the music business. With a new EP, Consider This and some momentum behind them, drummer John Berard sheds some light via e-mail on the band, its history, and its ambitions. Jeff Langmaid, Tim White, Jamie Thomas, and Matt Tremblay co-star.
Tell me what inspires the coming weak as a band.
Collec¬tively, we draw a lot of our musical inspiration from the bands that we grew up with in the late ’90s/early ’00s — Saves the Day, Further Seems Forever, and Jimmy Eat World. We don’t pigeonhole ourselves into having a specific sound — the inspiration for a vocal melody might be lifted from a Beatles song while the underlying guitar arpeggio sounds like an Iron Maiden lick. Our goal is to draw from every one of our inspirations and try to create something unique out of all of that.
What prior experience do band members have?
Tons. I started out playing with the Double Nuthins when I was 16. Later, I was a member of the Magnums and Goat Island. I was a member of Suicide Liquors for five years, and I still moonlight with them. Jeff is from Coventry, but moved to Florida for school for eight years. He was in a few bands down there. Jamie’s experience has mainly been in the South County noise/grind band, Hogg. Matt played in the Gradual, and Tim has never played in a band, but as a theater major, he was classically trained and is a stalwart in the Bristol scene, often teaming up with Colby James to perform acoustic throughout the East Bay.
What are you looking to accomplish with this record?
We’re looking for our music to reach as many new and different people as possible. We knew that we needed a professionally recorded and produced record to be able to support with touring and sell at our shows. The days of the demo tape are pretty much over. We’re going to be sending the record to various labels to try to get their attention. We work really hard, so we don’t need anyone to throw tons of money at us, nor do we really want that. But if the right label comes along and is willing to work symbiotically with us, we’re definitely not going to say “No.”
What are your immediate plans?
Right now, we’re trying to play as many shows as we possibly can. We’ll be playing dates in New York, Con¬necticut, Pennsylvania, and Maine. We’re booking dates for our first-ever jaunt down the East Coast in June, touring for two weeks to Florida and back. We also have plans to record a limited-release seven-inch single in the summer, and we’re writing songs for a full-length record, which hopefully we’ll begin recording in early ’09.
