By Henry Netherland

This article originally misattributed some of the quotes to other members of the band.

Henry: I’m Henry Netherland here for 90.5 KCSU Fort Collins. I’m here with The Able Dogs here at JB’s Drive-In and Diner in Greeley, Colorado. How you guys doing tonight?

Band: Good. Great. Thanks for having us.

Henry: Cool. So what are each of your guys’ individual names and what do you guys play in the band?

Tyler: I’m Tyler, I play bass.

Patrick: I’m Pat, I play guitar and sing.

Matt: I’m Matt and I do the same thing.

Henry: And you guys are missing someone tonight right?

Tyler: Yeah, we’re missing our drummer, Troy. He’s back home in New York.

Henry: Why did you pick this restaurant to come to tonight?

Tyler: It’s just a cool, local Greeley restaurant. I kind of think it fits our vibe. It’s just very old school and it – I don’t know. It’s just it’s a good time. Food’s good.

Henry: And how did the band come together?

Matt: So actually we were all on the club baseball team together. Me and Pat. I found out he played bass and I was like, “Hey, do you wanna jam sometime?” and he was like, “Yeah, hit me up.” So we started playing bass and guitar together. And then we were like, “Oh we need to find a guitarist. Another guitarist and a drummer. And then he was like, “Well I play guitar.” So then we were both playing guitar and then we just happened to find Pink (Tyler) and Troy played instruments and that they wanted to play with us. So we just started playing shows together. It all just worked out for us.

Henry: Were you all originally from Colorado?

Tyler: I was, yeah. I grew up here. Went to high school at Peak to Peak.

Henry: What town?

Tyler: It’s Peak to Peak it’s in Lafayette.

Patrick: And then yeah I grew up in Colorado Springs. I went to Coronado High School.

Matt: Yeah I grew up in Westminster, so I’ve been in Colorado all my life.

Henry: And what style or aesthetic are you shooting for in your music?

Patrick: Something definitely more vintage. We kinda look at bands like you know Rolling Stones, Beatles. For me personally, Velvet Underground. I grew up listening to a lot of Grateful Dead, so like that kind of music, that ‘60s era of music like was really influencing me like my whole life. And I think with this band we kinda just try to capture that old sound again. Cause there’s not many bands doing it, and so we’re just trying to find our spot.

Henry: What topics do you cover in your music?

Band: Girls. Haha.

Matt: There’s a lot of stuff about girls. Also just feelings, emotions. Pettiness is a theme at some point.

Henry: Describe your experiences with the album creation process. How was that?

Patrick: Oh, you take this one.

Henry: Was that your first album of all (time)?

Band: Yeah. Uh huh.

Matt: So we really didn’t know how to go about making an album at first. We knew we wanted to make an album, and we were like, “It’s gonna have this many songs. We’re gonna do these songs. And we’re just gonna record it.” Didn’t know how to record. We just started looking up different microphone equipment. You know we found these cheap mics. We recorded this album on two really cheap mics, both under a $100. And we did this on GarageBand.

Patrick: Straight into GarageBand.

Matt: Yep, figuring out how to mix guitar and mix vocals. None of us knew how to do this. And another hard part is two of our guys were gone for most of it. And you know there was a rush at some points to get stuff on the album recorded. But, overall I think we just figured things out and we found a sound that was good for us.

Henry: And what’s the name of the new album?

Tyler: “Twisted Kiss.”

Henry: We kind of talked about this a little bit earlier, but what we’re y’all listening to specifically for inspiration for this specific project?

Patrick: We can just go around.

Matt: Yeah, personally I think our biggest influence is probably Twin Peaks. We listened to that a lot. It just has a kind of vibe that we really dig. I listen to a lot of Hinds, Soccer Mommy. Newer stuff like that, more upbeat type stuff.

Patrick: And then again a lot of the older stuff I listen to like got Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground, Grateful Dead. Listened to a lot of Pixies, White Stripes. Just anything either garage or just ‘60s rock and roll was what really influenced me on this album.

Tyler: I mean yeah like they were pretty much involved with a lot of the writing process. So I was just there to kind of like play. And I guess my roots were kind of like classic rock and just like really loud, loud stuff. I never actually played bass before this. I’m a guitar player at heart. So they threw me the bass and I like I play it definitely a lot heavier than most people …

Henry: And what can we expect from the going into the future for the band?

Band: Just more music.

Tyler: Yeah more dope music and live shows and you know just rock and roll. I think we’re just going to keep doing what we enjoy playing and if people don’t like it oh well, if they do like it then awesome, but I think we’re trying to just find our sound and gonna keep rolling with it.

Henry: Have you guys done any live shows before?

Patrick: Yeah, over the summer we played at a couple bars here. And then, we got a show coming up. What? You know what shows that we’re doing.

Matt: We’re gonna have a show. It’s at a festival at the Walnut Room in June. That’s gonna be probably our biggest show. We have another little hour set we can play at this taco truck event coming up in April. So yeah just playing anywhere really, getting our name out there. (5:50)

Henry: Any idea as to how you hope to evolve musically on future projects?

Patrick: Just get better at guitar. We’re gonna get more mature like songwriting, lyrics wise, instrument-wise and I think the music’s just gonna get better and we’re just gonna mature more, like we improve.

Henry: Is there anything else you’d like to tell me or the listeners at home?

Tyler: Go listen to small bands.

Patrick: Yeah.

Matt: Small bands like us and you know. If they got under a hundred monthly listeners on Spotify, check them out. They make good music.

Patrick: These bands, Seymour, they’re a good band.

Waitress: Hi there, how’s it going?

Everyone: Good how you doing?

Waitress: Not too bad. Is that medium fries?

…

Patrick: But yeah just small bands out there you know you got. Some bands that we’ve been listening to lately, you got Seymour. They’re a group out of Nebraska. Bailey Tamarius?

Matt: Tamarius.

Patrick: Yeah Tamarius she’s cool. Who else?

Matt: Tidepools.

Patrick: Tidepools, they’re cool. And yeah just small bands. It’s fun. The music’s good.

Henry: Alright well I’d like to thank The Able Dogs for joining me tonight and we’ll see you next time.