August 2, 2018

Interview With No Soap Radio

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Being in their teens hasn’t stopped New Jersey’s, No Soap Radio from gaining traction over the past year. With the recent release of their music video for ‘New Leaf’ and album, “There’s a Floating Door in the Sky,” we caught up with them for an interview.

Check it out below!

Hey No Soap Radio! So you guys are based in New Jersey… I must ask, how often do you find yourselves at WaWa?

WaWa’s are hard to come by in Northern NJ, we’ve personally never been to one. Are we missing out?

Yes! Congrats on the new release of your album, “There’s a Floating Door in the Sky!” That’s a big accomplishment. How does it feel to have your hard work finally out to the world?

It’s quite a relief honestly. We’ve been sitting on these songs for 3 or 4 years and we’re so proud to be able to share them with y’all. It’s kinda interesting how we’ve played these songs so many times live but have never had a definitive, recorded version to reference. Most of these songs were rarely played the same way twice before the album release.

How much effort did it take in finding the right people to come together for No Soap Radio?

It was surprisingly easy, actually! We all met at a music school called the School of Rock; Drew, Jake, and Erica (guitar, drums, vocals, respectively) were all part of a performance group that was playing The Who’s, “Who’s Next” in its entirety. Drew and Jake often stayed past rehearsals and jammed on whatever Radiohead or Weezer song that came to their heads, and Erica followed soon after. We went through a few bassists but realized the best bet would be Drew’s sister Riley. We hope it doesn’t turn into a Gallagher brothers situation…

This is a loaded question, but if you could change one thing about the current music industry what would it be and why?

It seems that talent doesn’t mean that much anymore in terms of eventual success. It’s all about knowing the right people and sheer luck, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just a shame that there are so many incredibly talented and hardworking artists out there who will never get the recognition they deserve.

Tell us about the significance of your band name?

You don’t know how many times we’ve had to explain this haha. Basically, there’s a group of people and when one person leaves to go to the bathroom or something, another person tells the group that they’re going to tell a nonsensical joke that everyone has to crack up at to see if that one person will laugh too, just because everyone else is laughing. The joke usually consists of some elaborate set-up with the punchline of, you guessed it, “No Soap, Radio!”

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I’m sure you look at your sound as something unique. How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard it before?

It’s sort of like if the Pixies wrote songs about being a moody teen.

When the group isn’t playing in No Soap Radio, what do you find yourselves doing?

Sleeping.

Did you all grow up in the same area?

Yup. We are all Bergen County-ians who have never been to a WaWa.

Do you ever bump heads when it comes to making music decisions as a unit?

A benefit of having very similar music tastes is that we very rarely have creative disputes. When we want to get weird, we get weird.

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Your video for New Leaf is great! What new projects are you all working on at the moment?

We’re working on a spiritual sequel of sorts to Vulfpeck’s seminal 2014 masterpiece, Sleepify.

With the 4 of you playing multiple instruments… who is in charge of writing the songs?

Jake and Drew declare themselves the “modern Lennon + McCartney.”

Has alternative rock always been the band’s genre preference or have you tried your hand with different genres as well?

For our future releases, we want to stay true to our Alt-Rock roots, but we aim to eventually include elements of Pirate Metal, Vaporwave, Muzak, Hardcore Funk, and Speed Folk.

We ask all the bands that we interview, what is the best piece of advice that someone has ever given to you?

A short, green man once told us: “Do or do not, there is no try.”