Jill interviews Austin from the band Suckers.

“So we are sort of this band that plays a lot of instruments not in the traditional way and then sing a lot together. “

Jill Donenfeld: So, Suckers! How’d you get that name?

Huh, well we started off and picked the name Feelings at first and I don’t know; somehow feelings turned into Suckers. I think my cousin Quinn came up with it.

JD: So Quinn is your cousin?

Austin: Yeah. Quinn and I are Cousins. We grew up together down the street from each other in this weird little town outside New Haven. We were just collaborating and improvising. Eventually we got to New York and actually the two other guys wound up here around the same time we did.

JD: And when did you guys form?

Austin: I don’t really know. We first started as a three piece playing random shows… we’d get a bunch of friends together to play. We were all kind of doing a one-man band thing simultaneously—we’d all play a little percussion. That’s how we started but then we decided we needed some real muscle and got a drummer. So we lured Brian here. But now he plays keyboard too.

MP3′s:

Suckers - Hiding Behind Waterfalls (mp3)
Suckers – Afterthoughts and TV (mp3)

For more information about Suckers head over to their MySpace page.

Continue the interview after the jump…

JD: You all play many instruments, right?

Austin: Yeah. Pan plays trumpet, bass, and the sampler. I play guitar, keyboard, sampler. Quinn plays same thing as me. Quinn and I sing the lead usually but we sing a lot together as a group, too. It’s been like that since the beginning. It’s like music that we listened to growing up I think.

JD: Like what?

Austin: Well we used to obsessively listen to Oldies radio and the Beach Boys and the Beatles. So we are sort of this band that plays a lot of instruments not in the traditional way and then sing a lot together.

JD: And now Yeasayer is helping you produce your EP…how did you get hooked up with them?

Austin: Well, really early on, our friend set up this show at Happy Ending. And our friend invited the Yeasayer guys. We did two sets and when they heard us they got excited about it. It was a couple years ago when they were doing their demos. We were figuring it out. But we were friends instantly. We share similar interests, musically. And we sang on their record.

JD: Oh cool.

Austin: Yeah. And then Anand just produced the four songs for the EP. We worked with this guy Chris Moore who’s worked with Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs and TV on the Radio. And he mixed Yeasayers album.

JD: Tell me about the EP.

Austin: Well we recorded in Williamsburg and the West Village. We got a lot of our friends to come sing on it. We kind of brought in a chorus and did group vocals. Its pretty much done being recorded and now we are figuring out the next step.

JD: Ok. So while you are working on the next step, do you guys have day jobs?

Austin: Yeah, we all do. We really only got serious until this summer when we got focused. We were always making music but …Quinn bartends and he also does specialized painting for interior designers. Pan is a designer for a street wear clothing label. I work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And Brian does an office job. I’m not sure. Bt all the bosses know we are musicians.

JD: And you’ve got 3 shows coming up.

Austin: Yeah. We are playing with Amazing Baby and Yeasayer.

JD: I’ll be at the Yeasayer show!

Austin: Yeah! We played at their first show and now this will be their last show of the tour. I think they are going to start recording again soon.

JD: And for you guys, a longer tour?

Austin: Well, we don’t have anything like that planned right now. We are focused on finishing up this recording for now. And we are going to play shows that we want to play with people who we like like Yeasayer.

JD: So what are you listening to right now?

Austin: Ummmm. Well I started listening to that new Paul McCartney thing today. It’s this project he did with this guy from Killing Joke so I thought it’d be this techno Paul McCartney album but its just like psychedelic 60s. But I listen to a lot more old music than new stuff like Neil Young and Tears for Fears. As far as new bands go, I listen to our friends first. I’m not sure if we were friends first or if we became friends with them because we liked their music. Chairlift—we share a practice space with them. Ummm, MGMT. I like local bands like Grizzly Bear and Dirty Projectors. Cameron Hull is really good. He’s more Folk.

JD: Good to keep it local sometimes.

Austin: Yeah, it’s interesting. Whenever we get asked about from the press, it’s always about the “Brooklyn scene.” We did this French documentary and they interviewed our friends and us. It’s weird. We don’t sound at all alike. We are a lot of people doing different stuff—we all want to sound like our own generation.