Image via Facebook / Black Belt Theatre
After three no-nonsense albums, the “proudly, very mid-western band” adds a lighter four-song EP to their discography. Almost Never Give Up will be released January 26.
The band’s previous album, Power Petting was a big project for the band and as the title implies, Almost Never Give Up is tongue in cheek. The idea is the EP removes any sense of needing to outdo the last release. It pairs two originals, ("Almost Never Give Up” and “Fast Times in Brookfield”) with two covers, Ace Frehley’s “Rip It Out” and “She Bop” by Cyndi Lauper. The video is for the single “Almost Never Give Up.”
Bassist/vocalist Tim Cook and guitarist/vocalist John Kucera spoke for the band.
How has the lockdown affected your creativity?
Tim Cook: Creatively…a bit, I guess. Isolation can be good for creativity, in some ways. But for real productivity—it’s been difficult. At times we’ve gone weeks without being in the same room together. So, there are limited opportunities to jam together or work through new ideas.
John Kucera: It’s tough. I'm better working together with everyone. My cats are horrible songwriters.
Do you have a routine or schedule for staying in practice or working on new material?
T.C.:- No set routine. We just do what we can, when we can. We spent the first lockdown posting a series of videos for a staged break-up where we all “supposedly” quit to start our own versions of the band. Just something to make people smile for a few weeks. And we could make those videos remotely.
Somewhere in there we fleshed out the two original songs that are on the new EP, and got the demos done. Plans and schedules have been in a constant state of flux.
Are you making plans for when you can resume playing in front of people again?
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T.C.: Also tricky. We played a show in February that was on the eve of first big outbreak, and everything started getting cancelled the next day. There have been a few show offers, but we have to gauge those against virus numbers and everyone’s comfort level. The only time that worked out was for one gig in September.
We have a couple more studio projects that could keep us busy for all of 2021, if needed. So, we’ll be busy enough either way.
J.K.: It sucks. We'd love to be playing as much as possible but out of an abundance of caution and respect we're not pushing it. As soon as we're out of the woods I want to get back out there and have fun. We have the luxury of a great place to demo songs and practice. We'll stay busy.
