OUT OF THE BEARDSPACE
Interviewer: Andrew Wendowski – January 2014
MM-Q1: Introduce yourselves & what your part is in the band?
OOTBS-A1: My name is Jeremy Savo, I play guitar and sing. I also help to manage the band and produce our recorded music. I am here with Ethan Feinstein, he plays drums, percussion, and sometimes sax. We all write music and contribute to compositions.
MM-Q2: How would you describe your band in one word?
OOTBS-A2: Eclectic.
MM-Q3: Why did you choose the name Out Of The Beardspace for your bands name?
OOTBS-A3: It takes a while to tell this story properly. First of all, back in our days as Sexoffice, we had built up a fairly extensive vocabulary of playful words that we either made up ourselves, or borrowed from obscure places. These words included the opposing ideas of the ‘meatspace’ and the ‘beardspace’. The Beardspace is a word used to describe the place you might go while stroking your beard, deep in thought. The meatspace is a word that is used to describe any idea that has been manifested in the real world. So an idea is born in the beardspace and manifests itself in the meatspace.
The members of our band have been playing together in many evolving forms since as early as 2004. We have gone through different lineups and different names, including Dynamic Monotone and Sexoffice. When the rest of us were in Sexoffice with Eric Manganero, Nick Lauria, we decided to put together a set including our friends Sam Gutman and Matt Oniel’s original music for the Caravan Music Festival in Maine. Matt and Sam had been our good friends for a long time, and they had been writing music for a long time, but they never really had their own band to showcase it. So we started throwing around names. One of them I remember was “Sam Gutman, In the Meatspace”. That basically means that his music was to be played in the flesh, or in other words by a real band, rather than just a computer. That name sounded rather gross though, and more and more the band was playing everyones music. So eventually we came up with Out of the Beardspace, which is really just a more elegant way of saying “In the Meatspace”. The band is our vehicle to express our ideas.
MM-Q4: Where is your band from & how did you all meet?
OOTBS-A4: We are from the South Jersey area, and most of us met at the Paul Green School of Rock.
MM-Q5: What is your writing process like?
OOTBS-A5: Our songwriting process basically works like this: an individual brings a song idea to the band. The idea may be very complete, with distinct parts already written for each member, or it could be pretty vague, like just chords and a vocal. But basically, who ever brings the song idea to the band is in charge of managing the birthing of that song. So basically, we have rotating band leaders. You lead your own songs, with your own distinct leadership style. The result is that our sound is very different from song to song.
MM-Q6: When your not making/playing music with OOTB, What are your hobbies together as a band?
OOTBS-A6: When we are not making music as a band, we love to spend time making music with our wonderful musical friends in all of our various side projects, we like to grow food, cook food, go on long bike rides, go for walks in the woods, and think about, discuss, and learn about the big picture and how we can make the world a better place.
MM-Q7: What & When was the biggest show you have played so far? Describe that experience.
OOTBS-A7: That is a tough question. In the past, as a part of the School of Rock All-Stars, we have played at Lollapalooza and at Zappanale in Germany. For Beardspace in its current form, I think that one of the most important shows that we have played was Beardfest. There have been shows with bigger audiences, but I think that Beardfest was the most consequential shows for us. It was our own festival, and we were surrounded by friends and people who were to become friends. The vibe was great and I think that that whole event really rocket launched us into 2013.
MM-Q8: Do you have any new music coming out? (Albums/Songs)
OOTBS-A8: Yes. We just released our new single “The Smile” on Tuesday 1/21/14 and we are getting ready to record a full length album at Drowning Fish Studios in Philadelphia with our awesome and dedicated engineer, Jason Dunkerley.
MM-Q9: What bands have inspired you guys to create music?
OOTBS-A9: We are inspired by Stevie Wonder, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Led Zeppelin, Miles Davis, The Beatles, Parliament/Funkadelic, The Mars Volta, Radiohead, James Brown, Herbie Hancock, Bjork, The Dirty Projectors, St. Vincent, Jesus Christ Superstar (the musical) and many many more.
MM-Q10: What are you hopes for the future of Out Of The BeardSpace?
OOTBS-A10: We hope to continue finding an outlet for our passions and ideas, both musical and otherwise through the band. We hope to make a meaningful impact on our community. We want to network with and perform with the best bands we can find. We want to continue to put on our festival, Beardfest. And hopefully over time, Beardspace will become more and more a way that we make a living.
To our current and future fans:
Thank you so much for supporting us! We think 2014 is going to be an awesome year. As the generation in our young 20’s, the future is in our hands. Let us all contemplate what kind of world we want to live in and take steps to make it a reality!
Out Of The Beardspace was recently Nominated for the tri-state indie awards & you can vote as often as every 12 hours for until February 10th 2014 at this link: http://awards.tristateindie.com/vote-2/
Check out their new single “The Smile” : http://beardspace.bandcamp.com
Website: www.beardspace.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/beardspace
Interview By: Andrew Wendowski of Music Mayhem
Photos By: Andrew Wendowski Photography,
While under the copyright of Break The Glass Photography
