Staten Island’s Goin’ Places last released an album in 2002 (Girl Songwriting 101), but the band has finally readied their sophomore release, Relationship Sneakers. It’s due out Valentine’s Day from Bright & Barrow, home to fellow pop-punkers the New Rochelles. It’s a digital-only release for the low, low price of $3. Although, if you’d like something tangible for your money, there’s a t-shirt and download combo for $10. Marketing music in the modern age, people. We spoke with their bassist, Frank, via e-mail about the new album.
Has anyone ever told Richie that he sounds like Phil from Limp? Seriously, halfway through the first track, I thought I’d found a lost outtake from Pop & Disorderly.
I’ve never heard that comparison before, and I’m pretty sure none of us have ever even listened to Limp. I’ve heard the name for years but never checked them out. I just went and quickly checked out some songs on YouTube. Seems like a cool band. I’ll have to look into getting some of their stuff.
The keyboards on “Be With Me” and “Tongue Tied” really make those tracks stand out. Tell me a little about who played, and how that came to be.
On our first album both Richie and Victor played keyboards. On this new album Richie took care of all the keyboard tracks. “Be With Me” was one of the last songs Richie wrote for the album. He said he added the keyboard solo because the rhythm sounded like a good fit for a happy keyboard solo. “Tongue Tied” was a song that I wrote. When the band worked out the arrangement I suggested putting in a keyboard part instead of the usual guitar solo. Richie wrote the solo that he ended up recording.
The press release for Relationship Sneakers says that the band took a break to “to slow down and let ‘real life’ take over.” What parts of “real life” took over from the music – school, work, girls?
Mainly work and girlfriends/wives … and all the stuff that comes along with that, like bills, mortgages and children. Also, in 2010, Richie spent some time recording and releasing an album with his other band, Yellow Teeth. But, I would say the biggest thing that took over the music was our own laziness. Some of the songs on the new album were originally recorded as demos back in December of 2002. Then, we just started getting lazy and the album got put on hold for a long, long time.
What are “Relationship Sneakers,” anyhow? Are they like “big boy pants”?
Relationship Sneakers (not to be confused with Drinking Shoes) are sneakers that your girlfriend buys for you because she doesn’t like the old, dirty sneakers you’ve been wearing. It started out as an inside joke with the band, then turned into a song and finally became the name of our new album. Some people have their own meanings though. One of the first times we played that song live was at CBGBs … a few days after the show we got an e-mail from some kid saying his favorite song was “the one about the magic shoes that help you get laid.”
Will there ever be a physical release of the album, or are you just doing digital?
As of now it’s only being released digitally. When Ryan from Bright & Barrow contacted us about releasing the album he was worried about sinking a lot of money into a physical release since CD sales are so bad these days. He came up with a good idea, though: to sell the download itself for only $3 and also offer a package deal with a t-shirt and the download for $10. We thought that was cool cause at least people will feel like they are getting something tangible for their money instead of just computer files.
We’re totally open to doing a physical release though. I think a LP version would be awesome since the artwork came out so good.
What sort of plans does the band have for the future?
Right now we’re just focusing on promoting this album as much as we can so people can check out the new songs. We’re filming a video for the song “Nobody Gives A Shit About Us” soon. That will be posted on our sites when it’s done.
Also, we’re in the process of getting two songs from the album made available as downloadable content for Rock Band on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Those should be available in about 4 months. It’s a lot of work to get all the individual tracks ready and then the programmers have to author the songs. Finally, if history repeats itself and we follow the same release schedule as we did between our first two albums, our third album should be released in 2022 … so keep your eyes peeled for that.