Wednesday, January 28, 2009

'You can’t have an idea unless you have a thing.'

“We have no frontman, we’re not good at talking to crowds and our stage presence is absent,” Lee Boyle of local post-punk/indie rock band Third Class said as he sipped on his drink at Caribou Coffee in Boardman.

Lee, along with his brother, Jack Boyle and lifelong friend Pepe Parish, make up this trio. They’ve had very little formal music training — Lee took one week of snare drum lessons and Pepe had one piano lesson — which is why you’ll see the them switching instruments on stage.

They do this throughout the show, mostly because as Lee put it, “We started off with instruments that were stupid and we learned wrong.”

Pepe agreed: “We all learned how to play the crappy instruments we acquired because they were in the house.”

They said they used to write set lists so they weren’t moving around as much, but they’ve gotten away from that. All members of the band play bass, drums, keyboards and two-string guitar.

“The strings broke, and we’re not musicians, so we just never fixed it,” Lee said.

The trio agrees that most people dislike their music on first listen, and that it takes five or six shows to gain an appreciation for their sound. They said negative feedback doesn’t bother them, and that nobody’s opinion of them is ever wrong.

“We’re never afraid to put humor into everything,” Pepe said. “People tend to not take us seriously, but we’re OK with that. Whenever we try to be serious, we can’t get away from making jokes.”

Lee said that they decided to be a band before they played or owned instruments. Third Class formed in 1997 with influences such as the Beastie Boys and Diddy. They said their first show at Cedars Lounge was in 2001, and they were asked not to come back until at least one of them was 18-years-old. Pepe and Lee were 17 and Jack was 15.

Fast-forward eight years and Third Class is still playing regularly in the Valley. Whether it be at a locally-owned bar or a coffee house, this band seems to always be working.

On Valentine’s Day, Third Class will release their second full-length album, “The Red Wheelbarrow.” Inspired by the writings of American poet William Carlos Williams, the overall theme is, “You can’t have an idea unless you have a thing.”

“The point of [this theme] is to get people to be more open-minded,” Pepe said. “A lot of people ask us what the meaning of the songs are, and we’re reluctant to answer because we want them to make their own meanings. I think people are scared to use their imagination when they listen to us.”

Williams' poem, “The Red Wheelbarrow” is featured in the album art, and is the major influence of their release. Pepe said the poem itself is so minimal that it forces you to use your imagination. There’s so few details, you have to make up your own when you read it, he said.

“I keep thinking that it’s kind of ironic that the poem is a rejection of symbolism,” Jack said. “Like a call for realism that’s more real than realism, and we’re using it for something commercial. I don’t think it’s wrong, just funny.”

“The Red Wheelbarrow” features 11 songs including “Tell Me You Love Me,” “Egypt then Roswell” and “Party in Your House.” “Party in Your House” is the first track, and Jack says it’s one of cheesier, more fun tracks featured. He said they used to do shows in their living room for friends, and it’s a good example of their shift toward being a little more accessible. For Lee, the song means a little bit more.

“It’s a song of reassurance,” Lee said. “We’re on the verge of moving out of the house we grew up in together. It’s a farewell song for our house.”

They say the CD is a little more pop-influenced and easy to listen to, but there’s still a certain weirdness to it. Lee said they still threw in drum parts that don’t seem to fit, but overall, Pepe said it’s a little more understandable for the first time listener than their 2006 release, “Chloe’s Epitaph is Chloe.”

“I think we’re playing more into the hands of artistic people than we were before,” Lee said. “Before, it was a zany fun thing. Now we’re trying to reach the avant-garde thing more than ever. We’re trying to find our crowd.”

When they’re not writing songs or playing shows, the guys from Third Class work on their side project, Bull Skit Productions. Third Class, along with brother Steve Boyle, and childhood neighbors Craig Beight and Brandon Hull, have been creating and producing skits since before Third Class was a thought.

“We refuse to sit still,” Lee said. “If the three of us aren’t together, whatever combo it is, we want to do something creative.”

They said Bull Skit officially started in 2005 because they had too many jokes and nothing to do with them. They say it is a productive, creative release for them.

“All of it is a substitute for getting drunk and getting high,” Lee said. “We grew up in a small town and it was either like die of an overdose or be creative.”

They agree that their most popular video “Shakes Dat” is a hit because it makes fun of a typical rap group and anything that goes along with it. Steve, who plays a solo piano act, said they got into music by doing music skits, and the band got first drum set the same year they got their first camera.

With Bull Skit, the group takes everyday experiences, exaggerates them and records them. Jack says they’ve made it a habit to play themselves, rather than characters, because their acting skills aren’t the greatest.

“I think we play up on our bad acting a lot,” Pepe said. “We don’t claim to be good at anything we do. We have hundreds upon hundreds of horrible skits. We just put them out there. It shows that all of us just have to be doing something.”