I’m currently on tour in California for January. During my downtime, one of my friends in a local band told me they couldn’t make it out to play a show in San Francisco on a Wednesday night. I said to give the touring bands my contact information, and that I would happily play as an acoustic opener for the night at the Honey Hive in San Francisco.
After hanging out with these guys before our set, I turned on the microphone and recorded our conversation. The following is an interview with both bands.
– Ending Left
Ending Left // Suburban Park Interview
Carson
What brings you guys out to northern California?
Ending Left
We wanted to come north just to share our music with a wider range of people than just San Diego alone.
Suburban Park
It’s all about getting out there and getting some exposure, making connections and meeting new people. Some of us are from this area, and we knew we had to play here. We played here last year and liked the vibes. Actually, a year ago two days ago we were here at the Honey Hive.
Carson
How did you come across this venue?
Suburban Park
Connections. Our friend from the band The Cause.
Carson
Oh no way! I grew up with those guys.
Ending Left
The Cause actually gave us your information to play, that’s right!
Carson
Yeah, those guys are super cool.
Suburban Park
Yeah, I’ve known Steven (their bassist) since sixth grade, so he told us about the venue and said to come up here.
Carson
So it’s like a word of mouth kind of thing?
Ending Left
Absolutely.
Carson
Have you noticed any big differences in the northern California music scene?
Suburban Park
It’s kind of funny. It seems we have had bigger crowds outside of San Diego for some reason. It’s more hit or miss for southern California. Especially San Diego, because there’s a lot of surf-jazz and surf-punk and stuff like that. Those are definitely the number one genres there. With the music we play, the farther north you get, people seem to just vibe with it a little more. People have their own cliques in San Diego, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s hard especially when you’re starting out to get yourself to a clique but to not be in one. If that makes sense.
Ending Left
San Francisco is chill for that. But there’s a lot of bands out there that are comfortable to just be in San Diego.
Suburban Park
Then we got up here and it just got really cold.
Laughs
Ending Left
We’re hoping to branch out more and paly on the East coast and keep going.
Carson
And how far from LA are you guys?
All
Two hours.
Carson
So, you’ve probably heard that bands reach a certain point and consider moving to LA. Do you play out there at all?
Ending Left
We have gotten a lot more people come to our shows in LA and come up to us and asking for our social media in LA. Lots of more face-to-face interactions in LA than San Diego. We would never want to live there but playing there is better for us than San Diego.
Suburban Park
We like being able to drive and play shows there.
Ending Left
It’s just like San Francisco. It’s a really cool place but we’d never want to live here – there’s so much traffic and it’s hard to get around.
Carson
That’s what got me half an hour late to load-in today actually.
Laughs.
Carson
So for both bands, how does the writing process work?
Suburban Park
A lot of times, one of us will come in with some material, whether it’s just a riff or an entire song. Sometimes we all get together and write something. Usually when that happens it’s accidental– we never plan to write a whole song together. Some of our best songs come from just one riff and we build around it. Sometimes one of us writes a whole song. It goes both ways.
Ending Left
I think we have a formula. We have a contrast between playing styles, and we base our playing on the left hand of the piano. Usually, one of us comes with a complete song that changes a lot. And we’re usually on the same page about things like instrumentation.
Carson
What is the most challenging part of being in a band today?
Suburban Park
The business.
Ending Left
And getting exposure!
Suburban Park
Definitely getting paid also.
Ending Left
Anything with music that doesn’t specifically have to do with music.
Suburban Park
The social media part is huge. Some bands get known more for their memes or how they present things.
Carson
Like who?
Suburban Park
Bands like Heart Attack Man. They have so many retweets for making funny stuff. It’s crazy.
Ending Left
A lot of bands will make it their full time to job to manage their social media page. We all have side jobs to make money, so we can’t focus all our energy on these aspects. So it probably the hardest thing about that is time management.
Suburban Park
That’s why having a manager is good.
Carson
Do you guys have a manager?
Suburban Park + Ending Left
We do not.
Ending Left
We’ve talked to booking agents. But a lot of them are super pay to play.
Suburban Park
Yeah, some venues are either pay to play or won’t get back to you because you’re not a manager or a booking agent.
Ending Left
You can’t lie to venues. But you gotta make it sound professional so they pay attention.
Carson
I had no idea.
Suburban Park
Another challenging thing for us is that we just lost our drummer– he’s moving to Denmark. And sometimes we have different opinions on things, but we work it out.
Carson
What’s coming up in 2020 for you guys?
Ending Left
New music from all of us! We have a new album that we’re in pre-production right now. When we get back from touring we’re gonna finish that hopefully by summer.
Suburban Park
We’ve got an EP coming up and a single in the works as well.
Carson
Anything you guys want to add before we go and play our sets?
Suburban Park
It’s not about making money.
Ending Left
Absolutely.
Check out Ending Left and Suburban Park on Spotify.