Patrick Kearney and Chris Lane Talk The Future of Station
Tori Bilcik ’17 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer
It’s not every day that a band tries to revive a style of music lost in generations of musical revolutions – forget about seeing a band actually doing it well.
But that’s exactly what Station is doing. Hailing from all across the country and coming together in New York City, the four piece, classically driven rock group is making waves in the city’s diverse music scene, and their debut EP has earned the band worldwide attention. Emertainment Monthly caught up with vocalist Patrick Kearney and guitarist Chris Lane to discuss the band’s origins, the recording of their soon-to-debut full-length album, and the band’s future plans.
Emertainment Monthly: First can you each introduce yourselves with your name, where you’re from, and what you do in Station?
Patrick Kearny: My name is Patrick Kearny. I am the lead singer of Station, and I’m from New York City.
Chris Lane: My name is Chris Lane. I play the guitar in Station, and I’m from Long Island, New York.
For people who haven’t heard of Station’s music before, how would you describe your sound?
PK: Big, loud, good old fashioned rock and roll. I think that sums it up in the best, most descriptive way because we’ve got a lot of energy, we’ve got a lot of volume, just like our hair, and we’re really passionate about rock music. Just really good, raw rock music that I think is missing in a lot of today’s music. Just real musicianship, real craft in songwriting, stuff that really influences us from the times of old, I guess. It’s something that definitely needs to be reintroduced, I think.
Who specifically are you influenced by or who would you compare yourself to?
PK: We’re influenced by a lot of arena rock. That’s the best word for it. We’re influenced by songs that sound like they’re supposed to belong in a giant arena, not just a club.
You guys are currently based out of New York City, but did all of you come from New York originally?
CL: We’re all originally from different areas but we all came together and now we live in New York City.
PK: Yeah, more or less. Mike’s from Texas.
CL: Brian and I are from Long Island. Pat’s from all over the place.
PK: Yeah, I lived in Syracuse, I lived in Connecticut. It depends on how you define where I grew up or where I’m from.
So now that you’ve all come together in the extremely large New York City music scene, how would you say your music fits in there?
CL: We don’t. There is no music scene in New York City that has a predominant genre. The scene in New York City is very much that of diversity. If you go see a show in New York City, you go to a venue that has 3 or 4 acts that night, and I guarantee you they will all be different kinds of acts. Very rarely do bands play together in a thought-out kind of way. The thing that makes it even harder for us is that our style of music is not played by a lot of other bands. And I mean we’re at a show right now with a band called Tempt, who are also from New York City, so that’s why we play together. We’re going to be doing a huge “goodbye for now” party in March in the city, and Tempt is going to be one of the bands on the bill because they’re our friends, we all fit together, and that’s kind of the way the city works. It’s very hard to find a night that’s devoted to one specific genre, which is usually the best way to build fans up.
How long has it been now since you released your first EP, Wired?
PK: Almost a year.
CL: It was around March last year.
And now you guys are going back into the studio?
CL: In April we’re going to go back into the studio for several months and you are going to get the first full length Station album.
How is that going to be similar or different from the first EP? Are you doing anything different or is it going to be more of an extension of the EP?
CL: It’s going to be Station. It’s all us. I would say that the EP was a taste of what Station is. It’s 4 songs, and it’s really hard to find what your sound is with 4 songs. The album is going to be significantly longer and that will give someone a very good spectrum of what we are into, what we’re influenced by, what we like. So, on one hand, I say yeah it’s an extension of the EP in the sense that it’s where the EP left off to show you who Station is. On the other hand, it’s not like the EP because we recorded the EP in a couple of weeks whereas the album will take a couple of months. And the amount of stuff you can do in a couple of months compared to a couple of weeks is quite astonishing. So I would say that if someone was looking forward to our album, we’re hoping they’re not disappointed because we’re going to put a lot into it.
Where are you recording it?
PK: We’re going to be doing this full length album on Long Island. We have this great guy named Anthony Lopardo, he owns the studio on Long Island, and he is awesome. We’re really into working with him. It’s nice, it’s local, and we wanted to still capture that New York feel in a way.
CL: It’s important for us to be around the stuff that influences us.
PK: We’re from New York. We’re not all originally from the city but we all met in New York and it’s kind of a part of us. The New York music scene in general is part of who we are and we like to fit in that. So to capture that vibe we thought it was important to stay in New York or as close to New York as possible. Andy is such a great guy, he’s really smart and he really likes to listen to music with depth.
CL: He’s a fan of music and he understands it, which is very important for us, especially since we’re basically having a residency of several months with him. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to have the business relationship, but a band is a family and you become family. It’s important to work with that element of the band. So we feel very comfortable with him, and I’m anticipating a really good time and productive time, and I’m really excited.
Now tonight’s show with Nasty Habit and Tempt was a one-off show, but it seems like you all work well together musically. Do you have any plans to play together coming up?
PK: All 3 of us are actually going to be at Rocklahoma this year.
CL: They just announced the lineup and the headliners are Kid Rock, and Five Finger Death Punch, and Staind. We’ve played many shows with these guys [Nasty Habit, Tempt]. Nasty Habit is from Syracuse and Tempt is from New York City, and we all get along, they’re all good guys, fun guys, I’ll tell you that. Our styles of music are all within the same world. So even though we’re all different kinds of bands in that genre, we work well together. If you’re going to come see a package of some kind, it’s a good package because chances are if you like one of us, you’ll like the others, but we all offer something different.