INTERVIEW WITH THE TEA CLUB
by Dan Moore

Dan Moore - Who are the Tea Club?
Patrick McGowan - My name is Pat, I sing and play bass. Dan is my brother and he plays guitar and sings. Kyle is our adopted son and he plays the drumset.

Dan Moore - What would you say your influences are?
Kyle Minnick - King Crimson, Alice in Chains, Tom Waits, Nike Drake, Miles Davis

Dan Moore - Any albums, EPs or show dates coming up?
Kyle Minnick - We have a couple EPs we’ve released in the past. In the meantime, we are recording demos of our new songs. That may be released, but we plan on releasing an album in the summer as well as playing an East Coast tour. We just signed woth a booking agent so we should be getting some lovely shows in the near future.

Dan Moore - What would you classify yourself as?
Patrick McGowan - I usually say we play Jazz/Rock. It’s the easiest label.

Dan Moore - Plenty of people think that cool music only happens in LA or New York when, in reality, there’s plenty of cool stuff going on around here. What’s your take on the local music scene?
Danny McGowan - Honestly, there’s only a handful of local bands that appeal to me. I’ve seen and played with so many local bands that are in it just to get girls because they’re bad at sports, and it tends to turn me off to the local scene. And it’s sometimes difficult, being in a Jersey-based band, to be taken seriously. A lot of people might just assume we’re another emo band. It’s just that like-minded bands, who genuinely love music and creating art, tend to flock to places like New York , and see it as this Holy Land where every band is actually good and people actually care. But there are some bands in the Jersey/Philly scene I’ve been impressed with and who are sincere.

Dan Moore - Any favorite bands or albums you’d like to plug?
Danny McGowan - Rexedog. Awesome, straight up rock n roll. And Good Knight or Sleep’s new stuff is cool. Oh, and The French Kicks, they’re very original and very cool.

Dan Moore - The Tea Club has a strong following in Glassboro it seems. Eleven East seems to have helped you guys the same way Calvin Hall has helped many local bands around here. Any thoughts?
Danny McGowan - Eleven East is our musical playground. We really feel free to experiment and debut new stuff. They’re very supportive of our eccentricities. Once, we were set to do a show, and we decided the whole set would be completely improvised. Kyle counted us off and we just played. I’ll just say not many people stayed for that. The people that did, would up playing with us. There were about 10 people playing at one point. We feel very comfortable at Eleven East, and we have a lot of fun.

Dan Moore - The Tea Club recently made the switch from a quartet to a trio. How has this affected your sound and what differences are there between the type of band you were and the type of band you’ve become?
Patrick McGowan - As a quartet we were really loud all the time. Now we’re much more dynamic and not to mention tighter. There are moments where I can actually hear my singing, and that is very nice.

Dan Moore - What’s the coolest band you’ve ever played with?
Danny McGowan - Rexedog. They’re a lot of fun. They rock, and they’re sincere.

Dan Moore - Any guitar effects or musical devices that are particular favorites?
Danny McGowan - I’ve become obsessed with experimenting with delay, to try and sound like I’m either playing ridiculously fast, or sound like there’s three guitarists playing at once.

Dan Moore - What can new listeners expect from The Tea Club?
Danny McGowan - Sincerity, Intensity, Bloody Fingers, Rabbits.

Dan Moore - Who writes the lyrics? Who writes the music? Where can the lyrics be found?
Patrick McGowan - Dan and I write lyrics and music together. Usually whatever I’m singing or playing is the part I wrote. The same goes for Dan. Sometimes we’ll have a whole song worked out and take it to Kyle and he’ll transform the whole thing. He’s very involved with the writing, He even contributed some lyrics to our last EP.

Dan Moore - Any bands or solo projects other than The Tea Club? Any old bands before The Tea Club?
Danny McGowan - No side projects yet. We always claim that will happen, but it never does. And I don’t think any of us would do a solo project. I have no desire right now to write music without Pat and Kyle’s contributions. Me and Pat have been in a few bands together in the past, that sort of involved into The Tea Club. They were us getting our craft together. It would be slightly less embarrassing for people to actually hear now what we did before.

On the web:
http://www.theteaclub.cjb.net
http://www.myspace.com/theteaclub