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History of the Band
Writing & Recording
Playing Out & Boston's
Music Scene
In Closing
Boston Beats: State your names, ages and
occupations for the record please?
...
John: John Appa. I’m in sales.
And I’m 26… No, actually I’m 39.
Jimmy: You have to say you’re
the drummer too.
Band: (Laughter)
John: And I’m the drummer too.
Adam: My name is Adam Ezra
Olshansky and I’m 27. And I’m just trying to do this music thing for my
occupation. I coach a little lacrosse on the side and do odd jobs to get
by.
Jimmy: I’m Jimmy Saulnier. I’m
the bass player in the band. I’m also 39 or 29 and I’m a firefighter. A
Lieutenant in Derry, New Hampshire.
Jeff: My name is Jeff Goulart.
I’m 35 and I’m the percussionist. I work at Saturn as a new car inventory
manager.
HISTORY
.
BB: How did the band originally form?
.
Adam: Well, I had been playing
by myself for a while doing solo acoustic guitar – folky stuff. I was
traveling around the country a lot playing, and decided it was time to
start playing with some musicians behind me. So I came back to Boston
where I grew up and had some auditions. In those auditions I actually
first met “Honey” John and Jeff who both came down to audition for
drumming parts. We were also auditioning a couple of bassists at the
time. We didn’t really find any bassists we wanted to go with, so for a
while I ended up just using Jeff out at my shows playing hand drums and
I’d play guitar. We did that for… How long did we do that for Jeff?
Jeff: Probably a year. Nine
months. Something like that.
Adam: Yeah, that was about two
years ago. And after that I went on tour by myself for a little while to
the west coast and the Midwest area. When I came back I was really jazzed
about the idea of getting a bass behind my music and a drum set, so I
started setting up some more auditions. John had kept in touch since his
first audition and we had clicked nicely so he came by and a… Do you
remember that day?
John: Oh yeah.
Adam: We just played together
and really clicked. We found this bassist, Kristin Ezbicki, who I
actually knew growing up. She is an incredibly talented musician and she
has a beautiful voice. So Kristin played bass and sang, John on drums and
I played guitar, for about three months or four months.
Jeff: About a week and a half.
Band: (Laughter)
Adam: Enough time to throw
together an album called Sessions. Released last March.
Jimmy: On sale at all Adam Ezra
shows.
Band: (Laughter)
Adam: So that was cool. But
unfortunately we took a little break, for a couple of months. I was doing
some relief work in Kosovo and Kristin in the meantime had gotten into a
graduate school program out in Amherst and the commute was going to be a
bit too much. So for a while, Johnny and I were scrambling for a bassist
with a couple different people. That was back when we were doing some
Nantucket Nectars shows, right?
John: Yeah.
Adam: But half way through the
fall of last year, Johnny said, “hey, I know this guy Jimmy that I used to
play with.” Sure enough Jimmy came down around… When? November?
Jimmy: No, it was probably about
September or October.
 Adam: Cool. It was just great,
you know? I mean one of the main priorities for me is that I need to care
about the people I work with, and these guys were all awesome. We started
playing out and momentum was growing, and about six months ago or eight
months ago I got back in touch with Jeff. He had been taking some time
off to help run a family business. His wife’s parents owned a restaurant
that he took over with his wife and he was just kinda miserable doing it
and he needed an outlet through music and called us up. I was very
excited to have him back in the band.
BB: What was that like, Jeff?
.
Jeff: Actually what happened was
that I came to see them to see how they were doing. I’m from Rhode
Island, and I don’t hang out too much in Boston. I was just itching to
play because I had been running this restaurant for a year because my
wife’s parents wanted to take a year off in Florida. And they were coming
back up and I was getting ready to come out of doing that. It was the
first time in my adult life that I spent that much time not playing
music. So I came up to see them and was really excited and we talked
about the possibility of me coming in to play.
Jimmy: Now we can’t get rid of
him.
Band: (Laughter)
Jeff: That’s right. They don’t
ask me to come, I just show up.
Band: (Laughter)
BB:
How did you guys get your nicknames?
.
Band: (Laughter)
Adam: Turtle (Jeff) got his nickname the first day he showed up for
auditions. Jeff gets out there and when he gets playing and gets into his
groove, his neck just… his head is just not attached to his body. When he
left my friend came up and was like, “I like the Turtle!”
Band: (Laughter)
Adam: And “Honey” John. Because
he’s sweet like honey. And actually it probably came to be because we
usually practice at his house and his wife Patty would call out “Honey can
you do this!” and well, “Honey” John.
Jimmy: He’s our honey.
Adam: And Jimmy gets “The
Lieutenant” for obvious reasons.
NEXT SECTION
Part 1:
History of the Band
Part 2:
Writing & Recording
Part 3:
Playing Out & Boston's
Music Scene
Part 4:
In Closing
*Pictures courtesy of
http://www.adamezra.com/
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