11/29/2004

MP3 Download: Watch Your Eyes

Brian is the vocalist/lead guitarist for a beautiful new band - Pallino. His influences are very pronounced in his music, Coldplay or Radiohead come instantly to mind, and yet, he seems content to be similar, Brian and his band are not trying to invent the rock'n'roll wheel, but they are doing a wonderful job at keeping it alive; and that, in itself, is extremely refreshing. I recently had the chance to talk with Brian about Pallino and their future plans in music.

Allalom Productions: First off let me say that it your music is very beautiful and stands out from the normal ‘alternative’ and it is a pleasure to interview you.

Brian St. Andre: Thank you very much. That’s very kind of you.

AP: OK, so how many people are currently in the band? Are they the original lineup?

BA: There are four of us. Brian St. André (singer and guitarist); Thony Andrews (drummer); Justin Houtz (bassist); and Jonathan “Yale” Sponsler (guitarist). When we started playing together at the end of last year, we were a three-piece. It was originally Thony and me and another friend of ours named John. Yale started playing with us in June and became an official member in July. The middle of July our original bassist left the band. Shortly thereafter, we asked a good friend of ours, Justin, to play a few shows and see how things went. He’s now an integral part of the band.

AP: Where did the name Pallino come from? And how would you label your music?

BA: We thought of a lot of potential names for the band when forming and we were for some reason gravitating to “p” names. Pallino is the name of the small white ball in the game of bocce that all the other balls are trying to get nearest to. We liked the name and no one else had it. The only other Pallino on the World Wide Web is Pallino.com which is a restaurant. Our music is pretty much straight forward rock with lots of elements in the realm of European rock.

AP: So what brought you into music and how long have you been involved?

BA: Music does something in me that nothing else does. It’s the same for the other guys. They get the same type of feeling. We’ve all been playing for a number of years in different bands and with different other artists.

AP: Your sound is similar in sound to more mainstream acts like Radiohead and Jeff Buckley – are they particular influences?

BA: You know, we do like both of them, but we don’t listen to them a whole lot to be honest - Radiohead only some and Jeff Buckley, even though we should, none of us have his recordings. It seems that no matter what we listen to, we just tend to gravitate towards playing music that sounds European. Vocally I have a similar timbre to Thom Yorke in some ways and so that lends to us getting that a lot where people compare us to Radiohead or Coldplay or Travis and others. Musically speaking though, minus lots of piano I think our music is very much the same genre as Travis and Coldplay and less Radiohead-ish. Long story short, we never worry about being in a genre or what sounds like what. We just work together to make every song sound like something we love when it’s done.

AP: Because the European sound is very slow in getting over to the USA and most people are only used to hearing that style from just a handful of bands - are you worried that people might brand you as Travis/Coldplay rip-offs?

BA: Not so much. If you see our live show, you’ll hear there’s such a wide variety even within our own unique sound and that really we don’t have that much in common with any one band or another. And as a songwriter, I don’t worry what something sounds like, so long as it is as original as possible. Whatever comes out comes out and we’ll play it so long as we like how it sounds after days, and hours of scrutinizing over how to best arrange and play the song.

AP: In the creative process does the entire band have an equal say in what goes into the songs?

BA: Usually what happens is I will write a song and have some ideas towards arrangements and then we begin rehearsing a song and even playing it out at shows and we change it over time. I greatly value the thoughts and ideas of all the guys. We all pretty much have the same idea of what sounds good and what doesn’t to us, so it works out very well.

AP: Does Pallino tour regularly, regionally or nationally?

BA: Pallino is now playing usually one or two choice venues locally in a given month and otherwise is small touring.

AP: If you could pick any band to tour with who would it be and why?

BA: Wow. We would love to tour with pretty much anyone who was glad to be touring and are down to earth types of individuals. We wouldn’t fit into the rock star crowd so much I don’t think so…some good old strange people like us who are always themselves even at the sake of not being cool.

AP: What are your future hopes and goals for Pallino?

BA: We hope to be playing music for a long time and eventually when the time is right to tour full-time.

AP: What bands are you currently listening to that inspire you?

BA: Thony has been talking about the Killers recently, and Yale about Jimmy Eat World, Just about Elbow and I’ve been listening to Lovedrug who we were supposed to open for a few weeks ago but we had to decline the offer as we were already committed elsewhere.

AP: Lovedrug is another one of these great American bands that deserves more recognition then they have received – have you ever played with them before?

BA: We had to decline the offer to play with them November 12 th in Blacksburg Va because we were already committed elsewhere. It was rotten. We listened to those guys record on our last mini-tour weekend while driving. We all love their record now.

AP: So what is in store for Pallino in the upcoming year?

BA: The release of our new single “Fantine”. We’re ecstatic about its coming and we’re excited about shopping it around to labels in pursuit of being able to release either a traditional seven song EP or even a full length LP.

AP: Do you see a different direction with this new song? Or are you continuing where you left off on the EP?

BA: I think people who have not seen our live show will be surprised with how different “Fantine” is compared to the style of songs represented on our Ep. Neither style is better than the other in my estimation. They just represent different segments or aspects of our entire collection of songs.

AP: Are there any specific record labels you would like to one day be associated with (major or indie)?

BA: Major, it would be cool to be on Capitol Records. Indie, we’re thinking of starting our own record label in maybe two years from now if we haven’t signed with another label by then. Who knows what will happen tomorrow? Today has enough worries of its own.

AP: Thank you for your time.

BA: The pleasure was all mine.

Be sure to check out Pallino’s website at www.pallinotheband.com for updates on the band and to check out more of their music.