By Amy Szmik, Copy Editor

[Photo provided by Plastic Lemonade via Facebook]

Q&A with Nathan Cain (vocals, guitar and harmonica), Damon Bonar (electric guitar), Kyle Willison (bass), Kaitlyn Markert (vocals and ukulele) and Joe Ash (drums) of  Plastic Lemonade

First of all you guys did a great job! Were you nervous? Is there any pre-show rituals or just hope for the best?

Nathan: Oh, I have a cool rock in my back pocket.

*laughter*

Kaitlyn: Nathan has a rock!

Nathan: Always in the right pocket. This is my big thing and I also always joke about peeing myself right before the show. Because you know we gotta be number one, you gotta do number one.

What can you tell us about your EP coming out in December?

*laughter*

Nathan: So I just lost all my music on my hard-drive. We’re currently battling that right now, but if we can get it back then it’s definitely coming out soon as possible! It’s just 3 years of my life I won’t cry. Furthermore, the EP is called I Am Deathly Afraid of Fish. The tracks are “I Am Deathly Afraid of Fish”, “Spunk Man” which is a jazz song and our first release and first song we wrote as a group. Then we got “Otis”, which was on the first single but we’re going to be doing a new version of it, the album version. There is “Owed to the Squirrel I Hit Three Years Ago” that’s going to be on there, and lastly there is “No Room in My Room” which we wrote this week and performed today. 

Can you guys tell me about your song titles? I think they’re very interesting. We were talking about the EP name and I thought that was unique. You also told me your song title “Owed to the Squirrel I Hit Three Years Ago”. 

Kaitlyn: That was my idea! I was driving and I almost hit a racoon. I texted Nathan and was like “man I would have cried, I said I should write a song about this”. Then he wrote a song about the squirrel he hit, many years ago.

Nathan: Most of our song titles Kyle and I come up with. But you know “Car Song” is called that because we wrote in the car. It’s such a sad song because my Macbook froze and died in the car. 

What’s your song-writing process like? Who comes up with the lyrics and what’s the inspiration behind it.

Joe: Instrumentals on the fly and then realize we have to write lyrics.

Kyle: Well, “No Room in My Room”, me and Nathan went to a Front Bottoms concert and we were like, we should make a Front Bottoms-like song. Instead we came out with a Bob Dylan-like song. That’s how it goes.

Nathan: Typically, me and Kyle sit down and we just go we’re going to try to make this idea happen. And then we do something completely different.   

Kaitlyn: We rewrote “Plastic Lemonade” and then also

Nathan: “Water and Pills”? 

Kaitlyn: Yeah “Water and Pills”

Nathan: Most of the songs are done the week of our shows. Most of the time we go “we need more music” and it’s a lot of improv.

Damon: Speaking of improv, the music writing process on my part tends to be like I show up in practice and they’re like “hey, I wrote this by the way”. I’m like “okay” and they’re like “we’re playing it tomorrow by the way”. I go “what key is it in? Oh, it’s in B. Okay, I can work with that”. 

Kyle: “Please Clap” was literally written like 3-4 days ago? 2 days ago I think. That was finished by today 

How does the recording process go?

Joe: Nathan walks into the room and goes, “Joe, I made this drum part, can you replicate it?” and I go “no”. 

*laughter* 

Nathan: For the rest of it, Kyle, Joe and I live together currently. Kyle and I spend most of our time downstairs sitting on the couch and just making things. 

Kyle: “I Am Deathly Afraid of Fish” was written and recorded in one day. Same with “Owed to the Squirrel I Hit Three Years Ago”. Most of our stuff was done in a day.

Nathan: Mostly it’s just like a one day process. I’m a music production student soo I have a whole recording setup in our living room.

What would you say your musical influences are?

Joe: I only listen to folk music that doesn’t have drums in it. I listen to acapella, Stan Rogers, don’t listen to anything that’s drum heavy.

Kaitlyn: Phoebe Bridgers

Kyle: I listen to bands like Propagandhi, Skating Polly, and Allegaeon. Punk and metal mostly.

Kaitlyn: And Beach Bunny! Kyle will not tell you that but he’s a Beach Bunny fan.

Kyle: I do enjoy Beach Bunny.

Damon: That’s the thing about Kyle and I, we listen to literally every genre.

Nathan: I listen to a lot of modern-indie and stuff like that. I like a lot of 90s bands. I’ve actually been listening to Smashing Pumpkins and the band Live. I also like a lot of jazz.’

Damon: I like remarkably technical artists. One of my favorite genres is probably melodic metal, melodic death metal. My favorite artist is Gojira. I listen to literally everything like Beach Bunny. I really like Post Malone for a lot of interesting, emotional reasons.

Find Plastic Lemonade’s music on YouTube, SoundCloud and BandCamp.