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Chumped – Anika Pyle Interview on Teenage Retirement (New Noise Magazine Issue #13 – Nov 2014)

Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There may be errors. Chumped have created the soundtrack to your future up all night singalong drink-a-thons with your best friends. The band have crafted simple, elegant and most importantly catchy pop-punk songs about the ideals that we hold dear in our youth and yet will resonate with those of all ages: friendship, growing and loss.  The band’s first two EP’s have garnered them extraordinary praise and an already intense following. Their full length debut, Teenage Retirement, is one of the most anticipated records of the year. We talk to vocalist Anika Pyle about relocating to New York City from small town Colorado, dealing with the praise, gigantic festivals and returning to The Fest 13. Teenage Retirement comes out this fall.   How does it feel to have come from small town Colorado, all the way to one of the largest cities in the world and to have found success, and more importantly do you view your current praise as success? Wow. Success. How do you measure that? I’m really proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish as a musical unit. If you had asked me 5 years ago or 2 years ago if I would be making a record and  doing what I love with my best friends and sharing a bill with bands that literally changed my life I would have laughed in your face. I think I measure these small  but amazing things we do as success.    You guys came out of the gate and garnered a ton of praise for yourself titled debut. How does that early success effect the work you put into Teenage Retirement? Teenage Retirement was a succession of beer drinking and Cheetos eating that began with the Chumped EP…a natural progression if you will. No, I think we put out that EP, with full intention of pressing it ourselves and giving it to our moms and when people other than us even paid attention to it, it floored us and really inspired us to keep making more music. I think we were all truly shocked that anyone other than us gave a shit. We wrote a full length record because we weren’t done writing songs, we had more things to say and more music to make, but it felt good to have one under our belt. Plus, there are way more Cheetos to be eaten.    It’s 2014 and we need to shed the idea of Male or Female songwriters and focus on just being songwriters, how do you work to continue to work to blend those lines? Do you have any interest in being a “role model?” and does that title frighten you? I’m a woman in a band. There are many others. Get over it. I’ve never really thought of myself as being important enough to be a role model and thinking that someone might look up to me is a little terrifying. However, I had a lot of people in my life who shaped who I am as a musician and a person. So I guess if I was that person for someone else I’d be humbled by it.    You guys are a band that is right at home in my basement, yet you opened up Riot Fest Chicago. How was your experience being part of that gigantic machines?Riot Fest was maybe one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. I think we definitely felt like a tiny blip in a giant universe but getting to see so many of my favorite bands while getting turnt with my best friends? Anytime. We were totally honored and would do it again in a heartbeat.    With so many of your contemporaries playing more and more of these larger festivals, how much is playing Riot Fest Chicago a kind of “Ghost of Festivals to come” experience for you, and what do you learn playing these giant festivals?We were totally blown away when we got asked to play Riot Fest. There were zero expectations. It was definitely the biggest stage we’ve ever played to a big crowd of people we’ve never met before and I think we learned a lot about our comfort levels. It was a really different experience but honestly super inspiring.  The biggest lessons we learned were “don’t be scared” “bring beer.” Our set time was so early that even the bars weren’t open.    This October you are returning to your proving grounds of the Fest, but with a lot more time, experience and fans under your belt. When returning, I imagine the band being like a bunch of kids going back to school after summer vacation. What are you going to be most proud of to show or tell all your friends?We are incredibly proud of Teenage Retirement and we’re stoked to be able to play some new songs in Gainesville. Fest is a really magical weekend and I can’t wait to tell all my friends that despite the fact that they’re all idiots, we love them. 

Elway – Tim Browne interview on Leavetaking & moving to Chicago (New Noise Magazine Issue #2 – May 2013)

Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors. There are three things that should immediately spring to mind when thinking of Fort Collins, Colorado: The Blasting Room, Surfside 7, and Elway. Elway, or the band formerly known as 10-4 Eleanor, have taken their small town roots and have grown into a healthy body of excellence. After six years of growth in Colorado, a place that holds the band’s namesake as sacred as Jesus Christ himself, Elway have packed their bags and sailed the seas to the concrete ocean of Chicago. We join Guitarist/Singer Tim Brown just days after recording the follow up to their 2011 debut, Delusions to talk about the move to Chicago, recording with Matt Allison and their new album: Leavetaking. You’ve moved the week of recording from the snowy mountain town of Fort Collins, Colorado to the third largest city in the states. The name of the album, Leavetaking alludes to moving on. How much about it is leaving Colorado? Leavetaking does in part refer to my moving to Chicago and the experiences that lead up to my doing so, but the overall theme of the album is not so solipsistic.  The album is about parting ways with the past, and the sort of ups and downs that that entails.  Of course the lyrics reflect my personal experiences to a certain extent, but in writing them I tried to focus on the emotions and thoughts that frame situations like my own rather than the unambiguous minutia about my life that may or may not be relatable. What do you hope to gain by living in Chicago vs. Colorado? I lived in Colorado for most of my life and I spent the last six years in Fort Collins.  It’s a small college town. I graduated college and started touring a lot of the time. It seemed every time I was back in town more of my friends would have moved away. I just sort of receded into this pattern of drinking a ton to pass the time between tours.  I don’t want to make it sound like I was at some rock bottom and I needed to get my shit together because that’s nowhere near the case. I still drink all the time; I just do it in a locale that is still exotic to me.  I won’t hit rock bottom for years!  I don’t resent the times I spent in Fort Collins, but after a certain point I felt like I needed to move on, you know?  I moved to Chicago because I love this city and had the good fortune to meet a ton of great people here over the years.  It’s always felt like a second home to me, and I’m currently quite happily exploring what it feels like to have it as my first.  I suppose I am hoping to gain good times and meet different folks in a different part of the world.  Same reason why we forgo financial security to tour with a punk band. You guys seemed to benefit from being one of the few punk bands in the small Fort Collins scene. Will you miss the Big Fish/Tiny Pond aspect of the musical scene in Fort Collins? Because the town is so small, the music scene in Fort Collins has a real ebb and flow to it.  The only music that is constantly popular and successful in that town is jam/newgrass/dubstep or whatever is the college genre du jour.  DIY punk and indie bands are a constant as well, but being able to consistently play great shows is tricky there.  Our band is a byproduct of a high water mark for the DIY scene in Fort Collins.  When we started playing in 2007, it seemed like there were tons of house show spots and everybody was really enthusiastic.  We cut our teeth playing basement shows and Surfside 7 at a time when there was a lot of enthusiasm for what we were doing.  Over the years, that feeling came and went and shows got worse and better and worse and better in infinite succession.  The truly great thing about Fort Collins is that it is an easy place to have your home base.  It wasn’t until we started touring really consistently that we started to garner momentum as a whole.  Our friends in Fort Collins have always been very supportive.  I don’t know that we were ever big fish in a tiny pond there though.  There is no real punk ‘scene’ to be on top of.  We built a scene playing alongside our friends in indie bands and alt-country bands to whoever in the narrow demographic of ‘music-savvy drinkers’ would listen.  It was a great way to start out. With a new start there is an excitement of the life you can create in a new city. How did that excitement show itself in Atlas Studios? The prioritizing and task-management that any move requires was something of a stress factor during our time recording at Atlas.  Joe and I were frenetically searching for jobs during the day before our sessions would start.  We ate microwaved spaghetti and shitty white bread because we were broke and had to be a little spendthrift.  The upside was that it was incredibly liberating to know that after we finished the record we could crawl out of the windowless sound cave at Atlas and get to know a new city.  I certainly hope that the urgency comes across on the record.  Many of your favorite records have been recorded by Matt Allison at Atlas Studios. Is there something magical in the air of that room? Is there a residual vibe from the previous artists that have shared that room with you? Before we ever came to Atlas, the thought of doing a record there was extremely intoxicating. The stuff that has come out of … Read moreElway – Tim Browne interview on Leavetaking & moving to Chicago (New Noise Magazine Issue #2 – May 2013)

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