For our newest NoiseTrade One-on-One interview, we hopped on the phone with the adventurous garage pop duo *repeat repeat as they were prepping for their inaugural jaunt to Bonnaroo. During our chat, Jared and Kristyn Corder talked to us about their upcoming summer tour, their favorite songs to play from last fall’s Floral Canyon, their eclectic grab bag of musical influences, their 11 rescue animals, and much more!
NoiseTrade: As we’re talking, you’re headed to Bonnaroo to play a pre-party show and a full Sunday set. Since this is your first time playing Bonnaroo, what part of it are you most excited about?
Jared Corder: Yeah, it’s our first time playing but it’s not actually our first time going there. We were there in 2013 when Paul McCartney played and we had a blast. Living in Tennessee, we’ve always dreamed of playing Bonnaroo, so it was a total honor that we got asked. We joke around that we didn’t have to win a contest to play Bonnaroo, that we got asked outright. No shame and no shade to people that have played there by winning a contest. We know it’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll. It doesn’t matter how you get there, it’s just something we like to joke about to ourselves. As a band, we’re looking most forward to the Bonnaroo audience. I know our set is going to be fun and that we’re going to see a lot of our friends, but it just feels like Bonnaroo is its own environment that promotes positivity and excitement. Not many other festivals have the feeling of inclusivity and celebrate musical discovery as much as Bonnaroo really does.
Kristyn Corder: Plus, Bonnaroo is like an entire magical wonderland. A dirty one, but a very magical one.
NT: Your current summer tour features a cool mix of club shows and more festival dates like Summerfest, Sloss, and Open Highway. What’s that experience like switching between the different audiences and atmospheres?
Kristyn Corder: With festivals, it’s really nice that you don’t have to stress as much about the minute logistics, like ticket sales, advertising, artwork. All that kind of stuff is really a plus.
Jared Corder: Yeah, you get to just show up and they tell you where to go. I think they both have their highs and lows though. With festivals you get to hit a lot of people at once, which is really great. With club dates, you’re playing mostly for your fans or for the fans of the other bands that are playing, which typically are similar people because its similar bands playing together. The major difference for us is just the demographics. We’ll probably play to a lot more family and parents at Summerfest in Milwaukee than we would at say a Lincoln Hall show in Chicago. We want to try to gain the attention of everybody, so that mix is a good way for us to try and hit as many people as possible.
NT: Now that you’ve had a bit of time playing live shows after the release of last fall’s Floral Canyon, which songs are the most fun to play live and have any of them evolved into something else in the live setting from their album version?
Jared Corder: I think one of the most fun ones to play is “Girlfriend” because now more people know that song and the lyrics. That one’s become a really fun song because people are singing really loud and there’s also this back and forth between Kristyn and I in the chorus. Another one that’s been really fun for us is “Mostly.” As far as songs that have evolved, “Ghost” was actually written years ago and it evolved a little before we recorded it for Floral Canyon. For the longest time though, it didn’t really translate live for some reason. We scrapped it from the setlist for a good year or so, but then I had this idea to get rid of the bass by having our bass player switch to guitar and I would play the bass part on my guitar through an octave pedal. That seemed to make all the difference and now it’s become one of our favorite songs to play. It’s a really great opener to the set. Also, we started the band with just me, Kristyn, and a drummer and I played through that DigiTech Whammy pedal a lot out of necessity since we didn’t have a bass player. Now we do have one, but I still like to play a few songs each night with that pedal as a little homage to that time in the band. Plus, it just has such a mean tone to it, so I like using it like that.
NT: I love when bands have a sound that’s a bit unwieldy to pin down. I’ve read you guys described as “bi-coastal beach pop,” “romantic beach punk rock,” “Dick Dale’s snot-nosed grandkids,” and more. In your opinion, what are the artists and albums that have had the most direct influence on your unique sound?
Jared Corder: I feel like Kristyn and I listen to so many things and some of our favorite bands aren’t really ones that we sound like. But as far as direct influences, I’d say Arctic Monkeys, especially some of their older stuff. Definitely B-52s, I feel like my guitar playing is similar to their guitar sounds. Also career-wise, I like that you can’t really pin them down and I don’t feel like any other band is ever going to be like them ever again. As far as current bands, I feel like we’re influenced by The Vaccines and this band out of Canada called Mother Mother.
Kristyn Corder: Our current favorite band is Alvvays. We draw from their songwriting a lot but we’re pretty opposite sonically and performance-wise. Sometimes we love the exact opposite of the kind of music we make. Broncho and Cage The Elephant are incredible as well. If you check out Mother Mother, listen to the song “Monkey Tree” or the album O My Heart.
NT: At the risk of asking a clichéd question about married couples in bands, what’s been the most rewarding part of having this shared creative outlet as a part of your relationship?
Kristyn Corder: Jared and I threw a music festival together as were dating and engaged that grew from a 200-person thing to like a 3,000-person thing. Through that process of being together and being newlyweds, we just learned how to work really well together. So when people ask us if it’s hard to be in a band together, we have to remind ourselves that working together as a couple is all we really know. We met under working conditions and immediately started doing something creative together and watching it grow together. That built such a base for how we operate as a band together now. Luckily, we already had good insights into exactly what it takes to kick ass together.
Jared Corder: For me, the fact that we can share the same struggles is important. The highlights are great, but either one of us could get that being in a band without our partner. But to have a partner that knows exactly what you’re going through because they’re going through it to is really cool. You both know exactly why you were up so late working on something and exactly why you’re both so tired the next day. Being patient together and having to spend money on things, it’s hard at the time but being able to share in those things together makes it more bearable. It’s like no one will know exactly what I’m going through as much as Kristyn will. It’s those tough moments that I’ll cherish so much more than the highlights. The hardships just feel so much more intimate to share together.
NT: Finally, to close things out on an interestingly unconventional note, I wanted to ask you about your connection to and passion for rescue animals. What are your thoughts on rescue animals and what is your current personal brood up to?
Jared Corder: We have 11 rescue pets – 5 cats, 4 dogs, an African grey parrot, and an off-the-track thoroughbred race horse. So we have a full house. Honestly, it’s a lot of work but it seems like it’s less work than what my friends have to do with their kids. We have really good pet sitters for when we go out of town. All of the animals love each other and that’s one of the things we learned really early on. Any person can handle multiple pets, they just need to learn where their own line is. We’ve definitely drawn our own line at 11. That’s the most we can have right now. We’re eventually going to buy a house with some land and add some goats and chickens and farm animals like that. Another thing is they all have to kind of work together. We learned that from fostering early on. Sometimes we’ve had animals that we knew needed to be adopted but they may not have been a great fit in our specific house because of how they interact with our animals. So we’ve helped a bunch get adopted to other homes because of that. We recommend that people get into pet adoption because there are so many animals out there that need good homes. Also, don’t get hung up on specific breeds. If it’s cute and it fits into your family, why not adopt it from the pound?
WED 06 JUN – Manchester, TN @ Official Bonnaroo Pre-Party
THU 07 JUN – Manchester, TN @ Bonnaroo Music Festival
WED 13 JUN – New York, NY @ Highline Ballroom
THU 14 JUN – Oxford, OH @ Uptown Music Concert Series
FRI 15 JUN – Washington, DC @ Union Stage
SAT 16 JUN – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
WED 20 JUN – Los Angeles, CA @ The Roxy
THU 21 JUN – Santa Cruz, CA @ Catalyst Atrium
FRI 22 JUN – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
SAT 23 JUN – Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar
WED 27 JUN – Denver, CO @ Globe Hall
THU 28 JUN – Austin, TX @ Stubbs Indoors
SUN 01 JUL – Milwaukee, WI @ Summerfest
MON 02 JUL – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
THU 05 JUL – Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
FRI 06 JUL – Montreal, QC @ Le Ministere
SAT 07 JUL – Toronto, ON @ Velvet Underground
FRI 13 JUL – Macon, GA @ Hummingbird Stage & Taproom
SAT 14 JUL – Birmingham, AL @ Sloss Music & Arts Festival
SUN 05 AUG – St. Louis, MO @ Open Highway Music Festival
THU 09 AUG – Charlotte, NC @ Stage Door Theatre
WED 12 SEP – Savannah, GA @ El Rocko Lounge
THU 13 SEP – Athens, GA @ Georgia Theater Rooftop
FRI 14 SEP – Greenville, SC @ The Radio Room
SAT 15 SEP – Atlanta, GA @ Vinyl
more info at www.repeatrepeatmusic.com/tour
