As soon as I met Caveman’s singer Matthew Iwanusa and drummer Stefan Marolachakis at Cobra’s Guitars, it was immediately apparent that this unique shop served as the band’s unofficial home and also as an inspiration. Caveman’s multi talented lead guitarist Jimmy Carbonetti runs Cobra Guitars, a custom guitar shop. Full of guitar experts, gorgeous guitars and shelves and shelves of vinyl records, Cobra’s Guitars is any music lovers dream and a perfect place for the band to hang out and experiment with new gear that has shaped their distinctive densely layered but breezy sound.
After releasing their debut album CoCo Beware independently last fall, Caveman quickly gathered steam and buzz that led to a sold out headlining show at New York’s Bowery Ballroom earlier this year. While explaining how they released the album on their own, Stefan says, “Knock on wood, so far, so good,” and that phrase works to describe Caveman as a whole too. So far things seem to be going well for Caveman, who are poised to establish themselves nationally as one of the most exciting and creative young rock bands. Today the band is relaxing at Cobra’s Guitars just two days before embarking on a massive tour that will see them cross the country and include multiple appearances at SXSW and Canadian Music Week.
Eventually we move outside to take advantage of the unseasonably warm spring weather with some basketball, but first we sat down at Cobra’s Guitars to discuss Caveman’s upcoming tour, critically acclaimed debut album, signing to Fat Possum and plans for a new album.
Let’s start off by talking about your big spring tour and SXSW. Is this your first national headlining tour?
Matt: We’ve done a few weeks here and there of headlining but this is our first actual headlining full sweep of the states.
Stefan: And it’ll be fun because the April tour will be after our record is being reissued by Fat Possum, that’s happening March 27th so we’re really excited about that. And then when it ends, I mean SXSW should be really fun, and when it ends we’re coming home, we’re playing a show at BAM Opera House so that’s sorta unbelievable. Yeah it’s a good 60 day stretch ahead.
You mentioned Fat Possum is putting out your record. You guys originally put it out yourselves and started your own label to do so?
Stefan: Yeah, Magic Man
What was that like?
Matt: Lotta fun
Stefan: Yeah it felt like a great idea. It feels like we were sort of taking the temperature around us and realized that the best thing would be to not sit around and wait to get the songs out into the world. And we had a lot of fun doing it. We played a ton of shows, and, now you know we met these guys who have a great label who wanted to team up and so far, so good.
Matt: We can take it to the next level.
Stefan: Knock on wood, so far, so good
What is happening to Magic Man, is that gonna stick around?
Stefan: Oh it’s still around, yeah. That’s the thing, we’re gonna work on the business plan for Magic Man…
Matt: We’ve got some ideas for Magic Man. It’s a good group of guys who work over there at Magic Man. It’s a great team. We’re looking to do something in Manitoba in 2015… with Magic Man. I’ll leave it at that.
Are you using it to put out music by some of your friends, maybe some smaller groups?
Stefan: Yeah that would be cool to do one day.
Matt: Once you know it seems right, we’ll do something like that, probably. This Manitoba thing is really cooking, but after that…
Stefan: We need to finish building the home before we build on the additions if you know what I mean. We can’t do renovations yet because we’re still fixing odds and ends.
Are you working on a second album for Fat Possum yet?
Matt: We’ve been writing and I think we’ll record in June. We’ll start recording in June and gonna record at this place called the Rumpus Room in Brooklyn. Great place. Now that we’ve been playing together for a long time, it’s just taking the music the direction that it should go, and now we all feel comfortable about what we’re doing and it seems like it’s gonna be really fun to work on the second record. Lotta dudes in a room hangin’ out.
Have you been playing any new songs live or planning to break out a few in the spring?
Stefan: Yeah we’ve been road testing a few.
Matt: We’ve been rotating four new jams live that seem pretty much done.
Stefan: Gotta remember to pepper them in, gotta salt and pepper them right in there because people still want to hear the record that they know, or that they’re getting to know. And you have to retain that perspective because we obviously know the record pretty, pretty well at this point.
Matt: I’ve heard it a few times.
So is your plan to road test these songs and let them grow on the spring tour and then get right into to the studio once you get back home?
Stefan: Yeah totally. Yeah and then there’s some time between the tour and studio where we can work on other stuff too.
Are you planning to produce the album yourselves or work with someone outside?
Matt: We’re gonna work with Nick Stumpf again. He did our first record. He’s an awesome man full of good thoughts, great vibes, good ideas, easy going times. He’s a good man. So he’s gonna record it and it’s gonna be fun.
Stefan: He knows what to do. He knows just what food we should go get when we’re on break. He knows how to set the mood.
Matt: And he knows when to call it quits for the day.
Those are the important things. CoCo Beware is such a lush, layered, intricately produced album. What was the process like recording it?
Matt: Yeah, it was a lot of just going in as groups, sometimes as a full group and then sometimes as just a few of us and get the basic things down and then find the right sounds to layer with other things and just basically find sounds that complimented each other. So it’s eventually layered up and turned into this thing.
So how long did you spend in the studio?
Matt: We were off and on for about 4 months. But a solid 2 months of recording I’d say.
Do you feel with Jimmy making guitars and being into gear opens up more possibilities in the studio?
Matt: Yeah I mean, they’re really great guitars too and they all have their own specific sound. If you build it, then you know so much about it and you know every sound and every component of it. So that helps out a lot.
Stefan: Having a few guys, having not only Jimmy build guitars but he and Jeff (bassist) and Sam (keyboardist) all have experience having worked at the great guitar stores of New York. That helps a lot.
Cool, so you guys all have experience working in music stores, and you guys were all part of the New York music scene for years before putting Caveman together. Can you talk a little bit about those days and when you decided to form a band together and make it happen?
Matt: Yeah, all of our bands broke up that we were all in. Stefan and I had played in a band together. We played like two shows, it was just some fun, quick thing we did and I played in a band with Jeff and Jimmy and Sam you know, just randomly, a jamband. And so we were all just playing tons of music together and Jeff and Sam were playing together cause Jeff has his own band too called Starcrossed Signs. So they were playing, and then Jeff and I would hang out at the bar he was working at. He was liking the songs and then Stefan and I were hanging out and so it all just kind of came together at the right time with all this not being in bands at that moment but all playing enough together and wanting to play shows together for a long time. That brought us all together.
Did you get together with the idea that you would write new music with that group of guys?
Matt: We started to write new music together once we all came together. Before that we’d occasionally write… well Stefan and I were writing some songs together but not anything we were taking serious, we were just joking. It was more about the idea of playing together and that was the same thing with the other side things we were doing, excluding obviously Jeff’s other band, which he does really have a direction for.
Stefan: Yeah, me and Matt it was something where he was the one who actually came to me because we’d had so much enthusiasm to play music together but the short-lived project we had was just for kicks.
While we’re talking of about pre-Caveman projects, in terms of songwriting, the songs on CoCo Beware, were they songs that you wrote together or were they brought from previous projects?
Matt: A lot of the first record is like half songs that I wrote and half songs that we came up with together. And mostly just like an idea, you know a small idea that I brought to the band, but nothing really was anything that was part of other projects. It all kinda started when this project started.
You would bring in an acoustic skeleton?
Matt: Yeah it depends. It could be just a quick chord progression, a quick melody and then it’ll turn into a four minute song when everybody plays it so it’s gotta start somewhere, it’s gotta end somewhere.
CoCo Beware received a ton of critical praise including a rave review from the New York Times. Do you feel any added pressure for a second album after so many great reviews?
Matt: No. I mean we’ve all done records before that have gotten like zero press. So whatever, we’re gonna write another record, if it doesn’t get any, we’ll write another one. I’m not worried about it.
Stefan: It’s more inspiring and exciting, getting the hometown support.
Matt: It’s great to get it, there’s definitely nothing better than it, but at the end of the day, we’ll still write records and try not to worry about it.
What was it like selling out Bowery Ballroom, speaking of hometown support?
Matt: It was crazy.
Stefan: The best.
Matt: I would go there as a kid and see shows, and remember thinking “that’s the place, when you do that you’re doing something” and nowadays, it’s so cool, what an amazing place to be able to play.
Stefan: It feels like a real benchmark, that place.
Matt: Our first show ever was at Bowery, opening for The White Rabbits. But yeah it was an amazing moment, just cause I always loved that place. Definitely means something in your hometown, cause you’ve got the hometown behind you.
Stefan: It was incredibly exciting.
One of your favorite experiences as a touring band?
Stefan: As a person. Probably one of my favorite experiences as a person.
While we’re on the topic of live touring, I wanted to ask about opening for The War On Drugs and what that stint was like?
Matt: Oh it was great. Although Stefan didn’t have as good as a time.
Stefan: We had the best time, halfway through I got sick and had to go off the tour but I’m better now. But it was the greatest. They’re definitely one of our favorite bands for sure. And they’re the best dudes.
Did you take any lessons from them in terms of how they perform and approach their songs?
Matt: I think they just like to be relaxed and have fun playing and we could really relate to them on so many levels, with music and just as people, which was great. And that’s what made it a really cool experience.
Were you fans of their music before touring with them?
Matt: Yeah, totally.
Stefan: Yeah it’s just like double after that tour. They’re making such good records.
You guys both have a dreamy, jangly sound going for you. Are they a bit of an influence or just good friends?
Matt: Yeah just good dudes. I think we’re all influenced by similar things.
What are some of those bands?
Matt: They love Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, they are all about that era of music, they’re into feel good jams. Emotional feel good jams.
