How often are you playing? Is music a majority of your lives?

This isn't a full time thing. I work at Northwestern University. I'm a clinical psychologist and a professor there. But I've been playing since I was fourteen, so it's kind of like a lifelong thing.

It's about 20% of my life, which I wish was a little bit bigger, but…

Yeah, I think I'm also trying to make it bigger. I still keep up with classical piano a little, which is what I played as a kid, but most of my energies musically are focused on the band, but I also work healthcare. We all work in healthcare! 

That is interesting. Favorite venue to play in Chicago — or any favorite shows you've done in your careers?

I love playing at The Empty Bottle. That's by far my favorite venue to play.

I like house parties, too. There was a place that we frequented that was a big house in Elmhurst and they turned their huge basement literally into a venue with like curtains and chairs, and you could smoke cigarettes down there, and drink beers. It was a venue that felt really big because it was so small, but it would always be packed. It was called Cafe Ballistico, and it was tons of fun. Those were my favorite shows.

I've never been in a band myself, but do you have— 

You should try it sometime! Do you play any instruments? 

No, I don't. I just have weird energy and sing (not well).

But I was wondering, Is it different playing a show versus going to see a show? Do you have venues that you love to see a show, but you're like it kind of sucks to play there? Does that make sense?

That's a good question.

You know, I had a really bad experience once at the Elbo Room. I like seeing shows at the Elbo Room, but the first time I ever played there, the sound guy was awful.

I feel like when I'm playing live, I'm a lot more compassionate and forgiving for what the venue is like than if I'm attending. Because if I'm attending, it's as an audience member, and so you're taking in the totality of the experience. But if you're on stage, you think about all the different things that you need to do in order to just make it like, not go wrong while you're on stage… which is an interesting thing I’ve not thought about before. 

Different perspectives.

Bucket list place to play? 

I'd like to play The Hideout. I haven't played a gig there.

I think one day we'll play the United Center. (Laughs) 

I love it.

Did we actually answer your question, by the way, because you asked what we played— 

Let's answer that. What do you guys play — What type of music do you guys play? 

Like what you said was absolutely right. We do kind of like twitchy, nervy sort of indie rock. It's like stuff that feels a little anxious, a little tense. Some of it is instrumental; some of it is vocal; it's got weird time signatures; it's got weird atmospheric sort of going through it; but there's also like a pretty strong sense of pop melody throughout it. It's sort of all over the place.

I think we’re actually pretty tight. Mark writes some really intricate baselines and melody lines. And Patrick is always doing cool things on drums and I think they both write different tunes, but somehow everything fits together.

We complement each other pretty well.

I think you can tell we've been playing together for as long as we have. It's probably about two decades [of playing together in different bands] at this point.

And when Rebecca joined the band, we got a lot of feedback about that after our first show together.

In what way?

Why are you looking scared? (Laughs)

Just how much it filled out the sound. We were a two person band. So recording we could layer stuff, gigging it was a little tougher. And so it filled out the sound a lot.

I like that. I'm excited to check out your music.

We have an EP coming out this summer.

Yes, I'm calling it a a mini album. It's half an hour.

And we're playing Montrose Saloon July 11. 

Awesome. Thank you guys very much. Anything you want to end on? 

Thanks for the photo shoot. Thanks for asking us questions. (Laughs)

Sweet, love it. Thank you guys.