From left to right: Sean Posila, Daniel George, Jordan Caulfield, Jake Shaker, Kyle McEvoy, and yr host, Chris Cappello.

Five of Connecticut’s most hopeful young musicians stopped by my house on Wednesday night for an interview. Representing The Guru and High Pop, along with a number of other musical projects, solo acts, and other bands, these five gentlemen were kind enough to speak to me about their past and future music, their place in the Northeastern indie rock scene, and their collective plans for 2012 and beyond. Towards the end of the interview, they revealed some really big news, so please listen and read on to find out what’s in store for their fans.

A complete audio recording of the interview can be streamed below via Soundcloud. This recording will be aired tomorrow on my radio show Left of the Dial, which starts at 6 PM Eastern time on WNHU. For your reading pleasure, it has been transcribed below. Read on and enjoy.

Chris Cappello: So we’re here with five young individuals from Connecticut whom some, including myself have described as the future of the Connecticut music scene. With your separate bands and musical projects, particularly The Guru and High Pop, from which a certain number of members are represented here today, you have all contributed a lot to indie rock here in this state and beyond, and it’s a huge pleasure having you guys here for this interview.

So first off, let’s start with your names. Would you five please introduce yourself for everyone listening?

Kyle McEvoy: My name is Kyle McEvoy. I play guitar in The Guru and I play drums inMadson.

Jake Shaker: My name is Jake Shaker. I write my own acoustic music and I play guitar in Madson.

Jordan Caulfield: My name is Jordan Caulfield and I play drums in High Pop.

Daniel George: My name is Daniel George. I play bass in The Guru and I’m just starting to play guitar in High Pop.

Sean Posila: Hey I’m Sean Posila. I play guitar and vocals in High Pop and I’m the drummer for the new band The Hiya Dunes.

(background: Gotta say, you play a mean vocal, Sean)

CC: So, let’s start with some questions about The Guru. Dan and Kyle, since the last time I interviewed you guys back in April, The Guru has made some incredible strides playing at B.O.M.B. Fest in May, releasing a full length record in June, and touring throughout the Northeast in the subsequent months. What were those experiences like for you, going up through the summer with such momentum behind you?

KM: After we played B.O.M.B. Fest, we were kinda just curious what was gonna happen after that, you know what I mean? And if any bigger things were gonna happen… B.O.M.B. Fest was probably the biggest thing we’ve done to date but after that everything seemed to just get a lot easier… our name was already out there and just playing shows itself got easier.  

DG: I feel like we’re very much the same dudes and stuff, but we’re more established now. We can act on our own now so all those experiences were I guess like a lot of hard work or whatever but they’ve been paying off recently and giving us more freedoms as a band and as people to have the liberties to choose shows and that sort of thing, so we’re really lucky to start going in that direction.

CC: Your new record Native Sun has been really well received by fans and regional critics alike, and it actually placed at number 28 on my Top Albums of 2011 list. Have you guys been surprised at the positive reception of the album and do you think it has played a big part in putting you guys on the map?

KM: Yeah, I mean, before we went to record it, we just went through this whole process of trying to figure out where we were gonna record it and how much money we were gonna put into it and we ended up just kinda going all out and going into a really nice studio. That whole time in the studio when we were getting the mixes back we were just really hoping that it was gonna come out the way we want. And then as soon as we released it, all the feedback that we got from it… I don’t know, I mean I guess you could say that it kinda got bigger than we thought it would be, but I’m just glad that we put all the time and effort and money into it.

CC: So two of you are absent today right? Not here? But all of you, for the most part, are still very young. But when school started back in September, the future of the band seemed kind of uncertain, at least for me. You know, the two members who aren’t here were going off to college — the singer and guitarist — and yet, from what I can tell, you always seemed pretty optimistic about the future. How has the band handled having its members more spread out and disparate over the past few months?

DG: It’s certainly different. I know, speaking personally, and probably for the other guys as well, that at the end of the summer, we really didn’t know what was going to happen. We were kinda in a funk where we couldn’t really write anything new. I mean, we tried to be outwardly optimistic but it was uncertain. But this new era of the band has granted us a sort of urgency with the band now, so when we’re home we always make a point of getting together, and we’ve been a lot more successful in writing and making full advantage of our time and doing that sort of thing. So it’s definitely a different phase for the band as a whole, but so far it’s been proven to be pretty productive. 

KM: When we finished up Native Sun, like the last song on it, “Kodachrome Daydream,” Ed (Godin) wrote it from his perspective of just being a songwriter in high school and at the end it talks about the four years and everything. So I think that song was… I think even you wrote about it in your review… just like, if it was the last Guru song, then it would be a very fitting song, you know? And that’s kinda just how we wrote it. And I think that was almost the end of the old Guru. I mean, we’re still like exactly the same guys but just writing songs has just come so much easier and just the songs themselves, everything about them is just so much more… the way it comes together is just in a much more professional way. 

CC: So you guys mentioned this “New Era of the Guru”. Would you guys say that you, for the most part, rallied from those difficulties that you faced? 

DG: Short answer, Yes. It’s tough to say. We’ve got about four tracks that we feel comfortable putting towards a new release of some sort, so for me that feels pretty significant in terms of a rally, but it’s still a little bit early. But we’re all feeling pretty good. We’re all really happy  with the direction that we’re moving in. We feel like it’s progressive and different and stuff, so that’s all good for us, I believe.

CC: Alright so all five of you guys are playing at a big show on Friday that The Guru is headlining. It’s actually going to be the first Guru show in Connecticut since the end of the summer, from what I’ve been told. So do you guys want to talk a little more about that show? Who’s playing it? What’s it going to be like? What can we expect going into that show? 

SP: Well we have White Savages starting it off. Then Madson will be playing, and they’re a new band. 

KM: I play drums in the band [Madson]. Jake Shaker plays guitar, Alexa Masi does vocals and Gunnar Wrinn plays keyboards. And Jake, you can talk about what Madson is. 

JS: I don’t know, sound-wise… I always have described it as twinkly jazz punk. But yeah, it’s got influences from math rock, it has a little bit of jazz in it, it has some of that late 90s really raw sound. I don’t know. The lyrics are very ardent and evocative and I’m really excited about it. Kyle, how do you feel about playing something that’s so vastly different from The Guru?

KM: I think it helped us decide things about The Guru too, just because like Ed’s doing the Hiya Dunes, and I’m doing Madson, and Dan’s in High Pop. There’s just more of a family vibe, and there’s so many different music types that we listen to that now it’s just more exciting to get to play all of them, and I don’t know it’s just different. 

DG: We need to get back on track. The show… The show. Friday. So the Hiya Dunes are up next. [Sean Posila] is the drummer in the Hiya Dunes. Do you have anything particular to say about The Hiya Dunes?

SP: Well, we all met at school, at Purchase College, and we kinda just jammed out, and we had a lot of time to make cool songs out there in New York. We kinda just did some stuff. I would say we’re kinda psych-y. We don’t really know what we sound like, but I think everyone’s gonna dig it, and it’s something you can really vibe out to, so that’ll be fun. And that’s new and fresh, and we’re working on recording stuff too. After that, High Pop will be playing as a four piece, which is kinda new and exciting. And we sound a lot fuzzier and fun. And then Lovers and Thieves, which is kind of an old favorite of all of ours. 

DG: They’re a bunch of Wolcott/Watertown area kids from a band that broke up three years ago. They played our CD release show and stuff, and it’s always special for us because they mean something personal. Yeah, certainly they’re influential for a lot of us. That and then The Guru, who I’m sure you’re familiar with at this point, so no need to elucidate on that one, but we’ll be there. 

CC: As I understand it, the scene that bands like The Guru and High Pop have helped establish here in Connecticut has always seemed kind of insular. It seems self-contained. But ever since the big show announcement about The Guru coming back to Connecticut, and all the other bands that have sort of come along with that, it seems to be sort of expanding. A lot of new side projects, new bands, you know… new stuff that bands are doing. What would you say led to this expansion? Do you guys sort of know what I’m getting at, and are you working to perpetuate that?

DG: I know what you’re getting at and it was something I was thinking about going into this interview. The Guru and High Pop and I guess all the tendrils coming out of those bands… I don’t know if we fit really neatly into some of the more established scenes in the state. You know, in the emo scene there’s some stronger bands. There’s some pop-punk/hardcore scene… There’s a scene built up around it, people that are into it and stuff. So for us it’s always kind of been a matter of what shows we fit onto most, rather than exact matches. So I don’t know if it’s try to solve that problem a little bit.

JS: I think that just the fact that we’ve all been playing music together as friends in some form or another in different arrangements… It doesn’t really seem like something that we actually thought of. It’s just, “these are all our friends, these our our new bands, these are our old bands. Let’s have a show together.” Because that’s how our old shows were. We would just book a venue some friday night and have all our friends’ bands play. And I don’t think there was ever one continuous sound within a set or in the larger scheme. It was just a very… again I’ll use the word… “Familial” vibe.

CC: So I actually do want to talk a little bit about some of those new bands and side projects and everything, because there are some really interesting sounds coming out of the scene that you guys established and coming out of sort of what that has led to in places like Purchase.  Sean, you’re probably best known as the guitarist and frontman for the lo-fi group High Pop, but this year you started a solo project called boy crush. How did that come about?

SP: It was really wacky how that came out. Well I’ve always been making songs in my room, and that’s just kind of been something that I’ve always done. But then with High Pop, I started doing stuff with Jord (Caulfield), and we started working together. And even now as a four piece, it’s even kind of a larger project. So I always wanted to have just that place I could go in my room and just record stuff. So that’s sort of how boy crush came around. Not to mention I got to record in a haunted house, which is really true, and that was a lot of fun. It had a haunted theme to begin with, but we’ll see where it goes from there. 

CC: That record Hauntr has a really fragile and, I would say, more mature sound than most of High Pop’s stuff. Where did that sort of change in style come from? Was it conscious or did it just sort of happen as a result—

SP: Yeah I mean I’m growing up. I’m just a little older now. I got High Pop, and we just like to be loud and have fun and make people dance, but with boy crush I kinda tore things apart a little bit, and kinda dissected things a little bit, and kinda thought of what I was planning and just did things a little differently, which was refreshing.

CC: So I would like to talk a little bit about High Pop as well. You and Jordan, the drummer, both went to separate colleges, as I understand. So did High Pop face similar difficulties to those that The Guru faced going into the school year and sort of separating a little bit?

SP: Yeah Jord, what do you think?

JC: Naturally it was tougher when Sean was in New York and I went to Boston for school. So it was tougher to get together to write songs, tougher to get shows, but we made it work. We did it. We’re working on New stuff now, so we fit it in.

CC: What sort of plans does High Pop have for the future? I mean, you guys said you’re expanding to more members, right?

SP: Yeah, we have some more members now, just for a fuller sound. But we’re in the writing process right now. We’re hoping to put something out this summer. That would be really cool.

CC: And Jord, you started your own solo project [Major Bummer] while you were in college as well, you wanna talk about that?

JC: Yeah, I mean I recorded a couple songs right at the end of the summer in my basement in Thomaston. I just wanted to make some really fuzzy tunes. 

SP: I would say Jord always keeps it fuzzy and fun no matter what.

JC: That’s my rule. 

CC: So, if I could turn the attention to Jake for a bit, I understand that you and Kyle formed a new band with some of your friends that you guys were talking about called Madson. As someone who has written and released music and played shows primarily as a solo artist for a while, what has it been like playing in a full band setting?

JS: Dude, I love it so much. It’s cool ‘cause I don’t have to sing at all and the attention’s not as me, so I get to keep focused and I’m in my own little bubble, and I don’t know if it’s like that for all the other non-frontmen out there, but it’s definitely a refreshing feeling. And it’s definitely cool to just have a full band, ‘cause I never have had that. I mean I’ve tried that with my own solo music, but it’s never felt right. 

(background: It’s a different style)

Yeah, no, it’s different. Cause I was in a band called This, From Jacques with literally all the members that I’m sitting down with right now. And I’m sure they could expand on that experience and how it’s shaped their musical paths.

KM: Yeah, I mean Madson’s just really relaxing. It all started off… there was a great jazz piano player from my school, so after school I went to his house and we would kind of just jam on jazz music and just play little school functions and stuff. It was funny too because I played in The Guru and he was in this jam band, and we were kind of like rivaling bands, and like freshman year it was Battle of The Bands, and like, “Who’s gonna win?” And I mean now that we’re seniors we’re just like, “Let’s just try to make a band and see what happens?” It’s just like a more intelligent sound. Everything’s just a little more technical and the lyrics are just really raw.

CC: Yeah, I mean I’ve listened to the live demo and the songs are really fantastic. It’s definitely going to be interesting to hear what that sounds like with guitar as well. Anyway, you guys have all sort of posted on your respective facebook pages and blogs about big plans that you guys have for the new year. You know, [laughs] I was wondering, would you care to expand upon those big plans at all?

KM: Tomorrow night, or actually well, this is gonna be on you know… well…

(Background: We should do a thing where we all finish each other’s sentences. [laughs])

So we had an idea…

JS: …that we could all…

JC: …come together…

DG: …and make something truly unique.

SP: So we did.

KM: Sea Green Records.

JS: 2012.

KM: Yeah, we decided to make a record label. It just made sense, seeing that we all had different side projects now. Pretty much the idea happened from it ‘cause there was just a bunch of leftover money from Guru shows. I’m being completely honest! [laughs] What? Just from all the album sales of Native Sun and everything, just we had like tons of money saved up. The people want the truth! We just had tons of extra money saved up, and so we just decided that, why not put it into our friends’ records and put out CDs with it. We’ve never taken money personally from The Guru and we decided, why not put it into our friends’ bands? So now it’s just easier. We are on Sex Cave Records… and it was just kind of a hassle to drive up to Amherst, Massachusetts and pick up the CDs and do all that so now it’s just going to be easier ‘cause we can release anything on our own when we want. 

JS: I think on the forthcoming records from all of our projects, you’re going to hear a lot more of each other on each others’ records. And it’s going to be very interconnected, and it’s gonna be a nice vibe.

CC: So what kinds of releases can we expect on this new label in 2012? What sorts of things are you guys planning?

DG: Well, our first planned release is going to be released on February 14th, 2012. It’s going to be titled Singles on Valentine’s Day, and it’s going to feature new tracks from The Guru, from High Pop, The Hiya Dunes, Madson, and possibly some of our solo projects like boy crush, Major Bummer, Jake Shaker… We’re still sorting that out, but that will be our first major release. Then after that, the next planned one is probably a Hiya Dunes casette. Then something from each of the bands thereafter.

CC: So does that mean we can expect a new Guru record in 2012?

DG: Yeah, certainly. We’re taking it as it comes. We’re still in the writing phase, so it’s a little early to say anything really really definite, but we’re aiming for the end of summer/beginning of fall. I’m thinking it’s doable at this point. But we’ll see, for sure.

CC: Alright well I guess we can wrap things up. The future is looking pretty bright for you guys, so to everyone out there listening, be sure to catch The Guru live at the Woodbury Town Hall this Friday with White Savages, Madson, The Hiya Dunes, High Pop, and Lovers and Thieves. And to the five of you guys, thanks for stopping by.

(collectively: Thank you Chris)

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Follow the brand new Sea Green Records website HERE. The Guru and High Pop are also on tumblr.