Could you tell me a little about your songwriting process?

Kris: Usually Cy or I will come to the table with an idea, but that’s not what happens every time. Someone else might come to the table with an initial idea and we all just kind of toss ideas around and just sort of throw stuff around till something sticks, you know, trade ideas. That sort of thing.

Have you guys worked on new material since your album {which came out in September 2012]?

Kris: Oh yeah, we’ve got about at least half an album’s worth of new material. So hopefully around next spring we’ll go back into the studio again and knock out another full length. I’d call it heavier.

Cy: The new stuff is— we’re trying to tap in to some of the more progressive, technical, aggressive kind of Umphrey’s-esque stuff. We’ve been playing those tunes for a while now. I think that’s better for us, because we can get ideas out and when they’re like 75 percent done, we’ll just throw them out and feel out a crowd, see what works, see what doesn’t work.

Kris: They [the songs] kind of grow with the live shows.

So how’s touring been going for you guys? I know you said you’re trying to do more shows around the south and then maybe move beyond the region.

Cy: Yeah for sure. I mean right now, I guess our game plan has been mainly college towns in the Southeast— Atlanta, Nashville, but we’re definitely ready to expand that. But I feel like it’s probably best for us to build a base in the southeast first.

I’m kind of backtracking here, but I wanted to ask a couple of more questions about forming the band. Cy what were you working on before you guys got together?

Cy: I had just recorded a solo album, I had been basically doing singer-songwriter type of stuff I guess. At that point I didn’t really know I was going to join the band full-time. It was really more of “I have these songs, wouldn’t it be cool if I had an album.” From there I really started getting more serious about it. I wanted to do like a legit, real band instead of just having musicians coming in and playing on my songs.

So what exactly do the letters stand for in the band name?

Cy: Uh it doesn’t really stand for anything, we let people make up their own ideas.

Do you guys have anything you’d like to mention that maybe I didn’t ask you about?

Cy: Ah no, we’re just grinding in the Southeast playing improv rock and roll. That’s where we are.

Kris: We’re very excited about our second album. We had a lot of success with the first one, it was really well received. I really do think we’re gonna kind of out do ourselves with the next one.

Speaking of cruising around the Southeast, would you say you guys are pretty comfortable working on the road now?

Kris: Oh yeah.

Cy: We have a big van that we just throw everything in the back.

Kris you said when you guys got together you started touring out of state?*

Kris: It was fairly soon after, we played some shows in Tuscaloosa for a while, and we played together and cut our teeth. But a handful of us are really no stranger to the road before this band, so that was kind of the direction we were going for from the start.

Cy: We definitely want to be a live show band and not really rely on other things.

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