1: How did you decide on the name, "Aberdeen"?
Matt: The easy answer to that question is that it’s a tribute to Nirvana, but there’s multiple reasons we chose it. My aunt lives on a street named Aberdeen, and so does a friend Jake knows, which is also the same street someone died on. Other than that we just thought it sounded like a sick band name.
Jake: Aberdeen was a tribute to Kurt Cobain and a street in our hometown.
2: What advice would you give to someone who wants to be in a creative profession?
Matt: Whatever creative profession it is you want to achieve, work at it every single day. If you want to be a song writer then write a song every day. There’s no short cuts, practice, work, and create relationships with people who have the same interests. If it’s what you truly love to do you’ll find ways to pursue it.
Jake: Practice, listen, and repeat. You have to be able to absorb music and study what other bands and musicians are doing before you can find your own way of doing it. There’s no way I could’ve found my way of writing without the discovery of countless bands. I owe the execution to practice, over and over for hours on end. It’s work and some people aren’t okay with that.
3: Do you feel open minded about what you listen to? Do you like going out of your comfort zone?
Matt: Yes, we are very open minded to new musical interests, but we also are very blunt about things and don’t sugar coat things we aren’t fond of. We go out of our comfort zones a lot, more so in the songwriting area or production of it.
Jake: I am very open minded when it comes to listening to music, I’ll listen to anything.. but I will also probably tell you how I feel about it too so that’s the deal you make with me.
4: What outlets do you find out about music from? (Record stores, magazines, samplers, etc.)
Matt: I find out about music from social media, word of mouth, wherever the talk is at.
Jake: I find most of my new tunes online or playing out in public. There’s a Walgreens that plays 90’s rock next to where I grew up! Music has its way of finding you.
5: What is your favorite format to listen to music on? (CD, Vinyl, etc.)
Matt: I’d say I mainly listen to music through my car speakers with Spotify, headphones, or my mixing speakers. I don’t really listen to music on much else.
Jake: Vinyl is obviously the classiest and most sonically pleasing way, but I can’t haul a record player around so I’ll go with C. Walkman.
6: How do you feel the internet has impacted the music business?
Matt: The internet and the use of social media has completely shifted the music industry. Record labels used to be the only hand that feeds, and artists relied on them heavily for any type of good quality recordings or marketing. With the use of social media and artists teaching themselves how to record and mix their own music, labels have realized that if they don’t adapt to new ways then they will lose money and be left behind. In turn they are having to accommodate to us instead of us accommodating to them.
Jake: It fucked us...it literally screwed us. I think it’s much harder now to make it off of just your music by itself nowadays, that’s why everyone’s coming up with new ways of selling themselves and in a lot of ways it ruins the music for me. I think a very positive aspect of it is you can also hear any song in the world anytime you want.
7: Who was the first band/artist that became your favorite band?
Matt: What got me into rock music and guitar was initially AC/DC and Angus Young when I was a kid. But what got me into the type of music I make today are bands like Green Day, My Chemical romance, and Alice in Chains.
Jake: Nirvana, after I really started listening in to them I was so hooked In my 12 year old brain nobody could tell me I wasn’t gonna be like Nirvana one day after I had heard Lithium play.
8: If you could go open a show for any artist, who would it be?
Matt: Foo Fighters
Jake: Foo Fighters
9: Do you have any hobbies or interests outside of music?
Matt: I used to play baseball for most of my life as well as music, I was a pitcher/outfielder until I quit and I don’t really watch sports. Other than that just playing video games with my friends, hanging with my girl, or going out and getting into trouble, but I don’t really do that anymore now that I’ve matured a bit.
Jake: I’m really good at magic...like really good. (odd flex but okay) I was obsessed with magic from a young age and I've actually met David Blaine 3 times throughout my life. Even learned a couple tricks from him too! If I wasn’t a musician I’d be a magician no lie.
10: What inspires you to create?
Matt: One of my biggest motivators to create is proving doubters wrong and to be able to do what I love full time for the rest of my life. There’s nothing that pushes me more than to prove the people wrong who said we couldn’t do it or anyone who hates me in general. All the hatred I harbor towards those who have doubted me gets channeled directly into my craft and our music.
Jake: LIFE. The soundtrack of life is the ultimate thing to listen to in my opinion. The sounds around you making up your reality. Sometimes people, things, or a feeling inspire a song, but more times than others it’s when all of these are orchestrated together that life truly sings to inspire.
11: What was the inspiration for your song “Fumes”?
Matt: Fumes to me is about being at rock bottom, and having nothing else left to lose. The only way left to go is up.
Jake: I was burnt out emotionally, physically, metaphorically and literally.. I was out of gas, and it felt I was stuck in the same loop every week. Overthinking everything, questioning everything. It felt like I was literally running on fumes for the first time in my life and it was hard.. but in a way it’s my victory song because with the help of my friends and family and of course my band mates, I bounced back and I think the song screams that the loudest.
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