Matt Connarton Unleashed: Andrew North and the Rangers

And we have some musicians here in the studio. We've got three members,

the founding members of Andrew North and the Rangers. So we've got to Andrew

North here at the news desk. How are you. I'm great, good

to be here. Yeah, it's good to meet you. Welcome. And

uh we got Chip and Dale on the couch. We've got uh and they

are the rhythm section of the band. Uh So, now Chip you're the

basis Is that correct? That is correct? Yes, I should have known

from the shirt and so Dale you're the drummer obviously yep. And who say,

do you guys all sing or who? Or do you do all the

whale sing? Um? We we try to spread leads singing duties around a

little bit. Everybody sings some harmony parts. I end up doing a good

tunk with the leads singing. But but we all sing. Okay, yeah,

you got you got some love. In the Facebook live chat while that

uh, while that last song was on, Miriam Banish was commenting how much

she liked it, and uh, somebody else said they had a chicken in

the backyard. Oh, Melanie Lia Liberty from the Great State of Vermas.

She says, Hey, I to check it in the backyard too, very

relatable too. Yes, yes, yes, So Andrew North and the Rangers

is here with us in studio. You know that when I first started to

become aware of you guys, I had seen um Fredo from Dank Sinatra.

He had, Uh you probably saw this he had. This was a while

ago. He had posted on social media something about he was thinking about Starry

in a band called Andrew South and the Rangers. I still hope he does.

I think that would be incredible. That would be great, and you

guys could tour together. Know I was gonna say, I would love to

be their opening act. Yeah, there you go, There you go.

Where does the name come from? Hey, well that's a long story.

Well we got time Andrew. When when Andrew first met us, he was

doing a solo gig, is just Andrew of the North. Oh yeah,

we were. We were still trying to figure out how to name the rest

of the band. And the first gig we were at at True Ru which

Sade no longer exists and conquered and we were Andrew of the North and Friends

or something. And Andrew introduced us to the crowd as and this is Chip

and this is Dale. Yeah, some woman out there goes chipping Dale like

the Rescue Rangers. So we're like, oh, we'll be Andrew of the

North and the Rescue Rangers. Oh way too long. That eventually got you

know, short to Andrew North and the Rangers. But that's where Rangers comes

from because some women screamed out Rescue Rangers. Oh okay, okay, that

makes sense. Um, you guys got a bunch of live albums. I

mean it seems like, um, I mean you're really are you kind of

really just more focused on being a live band, because it looks like you've

got a lot of live stuff. We're geared towards the live show. Every

every show is different. We improvise a lot, set list is always different.

We try to keep you know, a lot of new covers, entering

rotation, that kind of stuff, and so yeah, our our model is

to share as much of that as broadly as possible. And then the new

live album we have Thanks for the Warning Volume one is sort of a selection

of stuff that we thought was was really noteworthy from the last year. But

we also just we publish everything. So we record shows on our own and

put them up on bandcamp and on archived out organ things like that, just

to just share it. I don't think there's any benefit in this day and

age to kind of keeping that stuff close. I think it's it's nice to

put out. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I opened the show today

with Infinity Spinning, which was cool because I usually opened with a long song,

you know, let people get tuned in and whatnot, and yeah,

great stuff. Yeah. That's the challenge actually with this album and promoting this

album is every track on it it is like seven or eight minutes long.

Yeah. Yeah to radio shows and they're like, yes, a little long.

Yeah, yeah, we don't we don't mind that here, but we're

we're unusual. Yeah, you got a couple of shorter ones. Looks like

the shortest one on this album is Thing about the Woods. That's only four

and a half minutes. That's a good radio length. But yeah, everything

else, Yeah, you're right, a lot sucks. Now. We are

not known for our short songs. Yeah, but when you when you play

live, does that kind of vary with these songs because there is some improvisation.

I mean it is a lot of that just kind of feeling your way

through it. And then yeah, it depends on where things are at on

any given night. We don't buy into the pure jam band model where a

song is going to go like to the left and end up at you know,

eighteen minutes or something. But there's there's a lot of a lot of

padding built in where you know, if the vibe on a given night is

to take something and you know, make it a little weird or explore something

that we find while we're in the middle of it, we'll just jump right

into that and and go with it. And um, So that that puts

things on the longer side because I think we all as players really enjoy having

that room to explore, and I think our audience really likes it too.

Yeah, drives Chip crazy. So we like to do that. Appreciate that

question. Does it interesting adventure? I mean I I generally like it.

I mean I love the the level of talent in this band. Yeah,

it's probably the best most talented band I've ever played with, oh course,

which is really nice. Cool. So it's a lot of fun playing of

these guys. So so it started so the band, as far as it

being a band, it started with the three of you. But then there's

there's other but you have other musicians who play with you, right, Yeah,

we're six piece, okay, six piece? So yeah, because I

saw a couple of different pictures and I think, yeah, I think the

most reason why I had seen there were six of you, Okay, So

who else is there who's not here with us? And by the way,

I feel free to make up any crazy stories about why they're not here,

because we enjoy that. Have fun with it if you want to, it's

up to you. So I think the first the first to bring up is

Rob the mysterious Stranger O'Brien, who is um a saxophone player by trade,

but he also plays You may have seen pictures of it, this like silver

sci fi looking thing. Yeah, it's called an aerophone, okay, and

um it's been a real education for me is how win synths work. And

so it took us a little while because he would come in and like play

a clarinet sound or something and be like, it kind of sounds like a

clarinet, but not quite and it like when when we were first exploring that

turf, I was like, I don't know if this is cool or not,

and then it's sort of overtime has become the coolest thing ever, because

it's on stage and everyone's like, I have never seen one of those before,

I have no idea what it is, and we don't have a guitarist

in our band, and so we actually have him rip electric guitar solos on

that thing. Wow. Um, yeah, it's unique. Yeah. There's

always one person at the show who will come up, you know, like

either during a sepreaker at the end and say, what is that thing?

Oh I can imagine? Yeah, yeah that's cool too, because it gives

you, i mean, you know, to be able to to really stand

out and have something that nobody else has and nobody else does. I mean,

that's that's awesome. Well, and Rob just keeps getting better and better

with it as far as the sounds he finds and the spots he finds to

fit in where it's he has, you know, just these unbelievable, like

weird synthesizer sounds that are almost like sounds like it's through a bunch of effects

pedals, and oh wow, it's super cool. Yeah, you'll hear it

on on our songs. And now that you've now that we've said erphone,

you'll start to listen and go, yeah, oh, maybe that's that thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh that's cool. Yeah you said,

and you call them the was it the mysterious serious stranger? I have to

know that sounds like there's a story there. We have a concrete story.

You know. He's sort of ever evolving between uh, different stage attire that

he chooses, the different times that he does or doesn't show up for a

show. Um. I mean initially when we got started, I think it

was more the fact that he was not able to make practice a lot of

the time because his job took him away. Yeah, and so whenever he

showed up, he was the sort of stranger who kind of just popped in

and still knew everything. Yeah. Yeah. It would usually just roll into

a show without practicing at all, and we would be maybe send him some

stuff from practice, but like here's what we're working on. Yeah, you

show up and just slay at the show. He'd be like, okay,

cool, Like we don't know who that guy came out on stage and I

did his thing with his sci fi toaster and yeah, that's great. And

so that, that, in varying degrees, has continued. And yes,

Robbed is like he's a vibe. Like sometimes he'll show up dressed like mister

Rogers. Sometimes he'll show up dressed like like, I wouldn't be surprised if

he showed up in like shorts and an open leather jacket with no shirt on

underneath. Yeah that kind of thing. Yeah, Oh that's cool. All

right. So there's Rob and then Uh and then who else? And then

Jillian Rourke who plays baritone saxophone, and she, like most of us in

the band, is a recovering grown up ye who came to us what two

years ago now, just yeah, a little less than two years ago.

She met Rob at a Fourth of July party and she is a pediatric dermatology

USA. Um, and Rob was talking about our band and you know,

playing music, and she was like, well, I used to play baritone

saxophone a long time ago and I'm dying to do something with it. And

so Rob brought her to band practice, and um, she took that opportunity

and ran with it like I've never seen anybody run with anything before, like

just fall in personality, fed, absolutely perfect and just brings the best energy

that just it. It's um. They contributed so much to what we do,

and so it's been amazing to have her on board. Very cool,

Yeah, very cool. Um. And then we have Randy Honeyman, who

plays percussion and he's in every band and Conquered, which is kind of amazing.

And uh we initially we had you know, a big show at the

banking new Hampshire stage and Conquered and we were looking to sort of pad the

sound and you know, so we brought Randy on for that one gig and

he came to a few practices and we're all like, wow, we all

really get along really well, and it's really nice having this extra layer on

the sound. And so he um, you know, has really quickly gotten

up to speed on learning all of the material and the way that we operate

with again, you know, improvising or being ready to like take a song

in a direction you might not have expected it to go or it has never

gone in practice or at a show before. Yeah, and he's a really

good sport about that as well. Yeah. Um, So we've ended up

with this group of six people who are all very much on the same page.

We all get along really well, we're all willing to work really hard

at something um that is a little bit ridiculous and a lot of fun for

us, and I am so grateful for it. It's such a cool thing

to be a part of. Yeah, and every every time we get buy

in from more people, it blows my mind a little bit because it started

as like my weird little thing, and then I had you guys in on

my weird little thing, and now we're like a go and concern. Yeah

it's really cool. Yeah, that's that's great. So with a band like

this and this kind of configuration, if like like you mentioned, Rob isn't

necessarily he can't necessarily make it to every show. So is that kind of

doing the kind of music that you're doing and with the ability to kind of

improvise, does that make it easier to kind of adapt to situations like that.

I've always wondered because you know, I'm a musician. I've played in

a bunch of bands, but I've never played in anything where you know,

you kind of had that flexibility. Maybe if somebody isn't there, that's okay,

you can kind of work around it and still have it be really good.

Is that kind of the situation with Yeah, we do that all the

time. Yeah, being we're eighty percent original. Yeah, yeah, so

doing that we can show up with anything from a trio to any of the

combination of quads to the full band and put on a good show. Yeah

yeah, Chip and I are the only people who've played in every anter North

in the Rangers show. Yeah, okay, I missed one. Oh really

yeah in five years? Was it was the other guy? Won't let me

forget it was the other guy who does percussion. I forgot. We go,

yeah there you go? Yeah, yeah, very cool. What about

on the on the live releases, I assume that's the full full that's everybody

on the UM. Some of those live releases on band camp are but again

by nature of publishing as much as we can, some of those are are

different configurations. And we've had um you know, we had a night recently

where we couldn't have either sax player. They weren't available, so we called

in, uh I do you know I'm at the sax I don't think so.

Um he plays with UM super nothing. Yeah, he's a great sax

player. I think he's going to be playing the national anthem at the uh

oh yeahs game coming up soon. I can't remember which one, but okay,

I think the fourth of July weekend. Yeah, yeah, he's an

amazing player, and he for years he'd come up to me be like,

I want to play a gig with you guys. Sometime I was like,

here's your gig. So he came like on extremely short notice and played the

gig with us and and killed it. And again, by nature of having

a lot of improvisation, there's a lot of room to just you know,

here's where we're at tonight, here's what we've got, and let's you know,

do do something interesting with it. Yeah. Yeah, it's really a

fun place to be as a musician to have the opportunity to do that.

Oh yeah, yeah, so you guys probably sometimes you'll fill a whole night.

I would imagine, right, like, do you could do like three

hours or something? If yeah, I mean we can, we can do

seven hours seriously. Yeah. Yeah, we got a couple of gigs coming

up back to back where we're gonna do two nights in a row. Yeah,

no repeats, Oh no, kidding. Wow, Wow, that's cool.

Yeah yeah, that's kind of been a goal. I mean, I've

been in bands all over the country and I've never had a band in the

what forty something years that I've been playing that could ever do that. Yeah,

this is a it's a fun milestone for me. It's yeah, whoa,

we'll play two nights and not repeat. That's very cool. That's very

cool. And you said it's like eighty percent originals. Yeah, yeah,

we um we add as many covers as we can. Those tend to get

second place priority in practice part because of working on original stuff is really fun.

Yeah, so we we tend to be a little more motivated towards that.

And then the covers were always working on sort of a cover that will

visit over the course of practice until it's where it needs to be to play

out, and so that that like those keep accumulating, but the original stuff

tends to be where we're motivated to move things along faster, So we're always

picking up new songs. What kind of covers do you do all anything?

I think our main like uh influence for covers would be like The Cure and

Warren Zevon, Ben Folds. We're all fans of those types of bandage.

Yeah, yeah, but we also do you know, some jazz stuff like

you know, John Scofield, some tunes off of the Go Go Ye,

things like that, So we try to cover some good range. I mean

that, you know, playing scofield isn't really going to get you a lot

of crowd buy in, But yeah, I would. I would imagine there's

probably something that you do that the crowd doesn't necessarily even realize that they're covers,

right, Yeah, it's nice to have a few of those, um

like, you know, and uh, I'm a big fishhead and we do

Wolfman's Brother and like, so for a certain set of people, they're like,

oh, I know that, you know you Okay, I got it.

But like a lot of people are just like, oh I like that

song. Yeah. So you know, sometimes you're you're visiting like little camps

of music fans with the way you choose covers. Yeah, and then you

know, we also have a few that are like right down the middle,

like we do you know, call me out? Oh really, you know

everybody knows them love that song to be yeah, just two whatever. Yeah,

we've got a weird alt tune on our Oh I have to know what

what song? Oh really? Uh it's almost a two for one cover because

you get the Kinks fans. That's true, that's true. Yeah, yeah,

yeah, we have we have Andrew North and the Rangers here with us.

In studio, But we can play another another song? Should we do

something from Thanks for the Warning Volume one? This is the newest one,

right, the newest album? Yeah? Absolutely? Um what should I'll let

you pick. But I'm kind of curious to hear something where Okay, so

rob's what's the name of the instrument again? It's an aerophone. Is there

a particular song where the aerophone really stands out? Because now I want to

hear something where it's prominent and I can listen for it. Yeah. I

see a song called epiphone, but I don't see one called aerophone. Yeah.

It's a very straight up saxophone type song, is it. Yeah?

I Want to Be a Ranger's real long. But that has a lot of

cynthy stuff from the aerophone on it. Yeah, uh yeah, we have

time we can play that one. Cool. Yeah, well all right,

let's let's do that, all right. So this is I Want to Be

a Ranger. This is from Andrew North and the Rangers. The album is

called Oh by the way, why is it? Why is it called Thanks

for the Warning Volume one? We're still figuring that out. Thanks as a

reference to um, we got a wonderful right up from Matt whit Hoouse at

the Hippo. Yeah, for the studio album we did, and he likened

it too. It was like Frank Zappa meets Chicago Transit Authority slash something else.

What was the third one? Do you remember? Yeah? Um,

but anyways, those two are enough to give you the gist of like what

he mentioned, and we're like, oh, that's amazing, Like we're really

proud of that. We made like Facebook post, you know, with that

quote pulled out and like the first comment immediately with somebody who's like, thanks

for the warning. Oh really. I was like I could see that.

That's funny. But we'll run. We'll run with that stuff. Yeah.

Yeah, so that's bring it on. Yeah, it suck with us.

Yeah yeah, that's cool. All right. Here it is this is uh,

this tracts called I Want to be a Ranger. M This one's true.

M h M. Seriously, it's true. I know you guys believe

me. I'm not sure Kyle believes me. That's okay. We still love

Kyle. It's a good guy. I wanted the arranger draw the forrest in

my truck, then poaches out of love. I wanted the arranger a laser

skates in ms Cheek, I had drinking by score three. I wanted the

arranger. I'm arranging, roping tough, I don't take no go. I

wanted the arranger. I'm all with powers never known a send a reader repulsed

the hole, raining farn line, y'all mess upside, raining farm wide,

y'all bess sapside. Wanted the arranger like Chuck Orus, I could be walk

with Texas ranger Free. Wanted the arranger because I shall ray when I said

arranging, my k range across the plains, range new mountains, high mountains,

ranging in the sea of sand in skye, ranging plain crime, rang

new mountains, high out an just see the sam in sky You want the

rain across fain across the ranged town in the mountains, rained in the sea,

books high beside, rain across faint across the regional town strange in this

scene the sky. I want to be arranging. What do three? I

want to be? Oh? That is cool. That is I want to

be a ranger from Andrew North and the Rangers here and they are with us

in studio. That is from the album Thanks for the Warning, Volume one

Live in twenty twenty two, Do you guys. Um, are you guys

recording anything this year as far as live live albums are U. We're gonna

sort of see what we end up with at the end of the year.

We always get as high quality recordings as we can for everything we play,

and then we can sort of assess at the end of the year what we've

got and what we want to share as far as at a level of you

know, getting it properly mixed and mastered and putting it out as a compilation

album like this. Yeah. So I don't know what we're gonna end up

with for this year. I hope we end up with something that we can

do a volume two. Yeah, for twenty three, but that is yet

to be determined. We keep threatening to work on a new studio album,

which we need to get going on. Yeah. Yeah, no, that

that's uh. Yeah. We did play um I played earlier in the show

one of the studio tracks there. Well, yeah, from Phosphorus. I

can't say that word Phosphores and snack Um. Is that the only UM studio

album so far? Everything else is live. Yep, that's what we've got

so far. Okay, okay, cool, cool. If you're just joining

us, we do have Andrew North and the Rangers here or half the band,

the founding members here in studio with us we have of course Andrew North

and uh Chip and Dale or with us. What is the what is the

songwriting process like? Because and again I've I've never played in a band where

there's a you know, some improvisation and whatnot. I mean when when you

guys, well who writes the song? Do you guys write together or do

do you come up with individual ideas or We've worked just about every possible way

that you can approach that, and we're always open to approaching it whatever way

is gonna work in any particular time. So there's a little bit of improvisation

of that aspect too. Yeah, I just write a lot by nature.

So I bring a lot of stuff to the band and at the level of

all right, here's how I play it by myself on piano and sort of

what I'm going for, and then everybody else in the band takes that and

runs with it and we end up where we end up. So I'll never

come in and be like and the base part should go right like you know,

mostly I'll come with it and be like, all right, here's what

I've got as far as you know, words and chord changes, and usually

it's in a state where it's going to end up fairly close to where I

started from, not always, and that's been a really rewarding process. It's

really good practice for me letting go of being a control freak about some of

that. It's great practice. We also do write as a group, as

some of our favorite stuff has been stuff that we all wrote together, like

Mary's Chicken Thy Money was this weird shamble process of things that came out of

band practice, inside jokes and then we're all of a sudden that it turns

into a song. Yea. And Chip writes as well, I'm always hoping

that everyone else will write Dale, I'm still waiting for your songs. Our

policy is to always have sort of a yes policy, Like when people bring

songs or covers they want to do or things like that, it's always like,

yes, we'll try it. It may not stick, and it may

be something we try and we're like, yeah, that didn't really get to

where we wanted it to be. But we're always willing to try things.

And I think that's really important in a band to give everybody space to express

themselves and to use, you know, to have it be the same creative

outlet that I'm lucky enough to have it be where I'm like, you know,

I wrote a bunch of songs and here they are, and now we

play them all and to That's the coolest thing ever, and I hope that

the band can serve that function for everybody. Right right, we have a

call. Somebody wants to talk to you. Hey, this is Rob.

This in the kind of plays that roophone. You were Rob. I heard

about you. I heard You're very mysterious. I tend to be. That's

that's why I'm not there in person. I usually don't show my face unless

i'm I'm at a performance in full costume. But right I just wanted to

thank you since I couldn't be there personally, for bringing us on the show

and you know, sharing our music with the area. Oh, happy to

do it, Happy to do it. I really like what you guys are

doing and uh fascinated to learn about the aerophone. I'm saying that right area.

You know, you can search for it online. You know it's it's

gonna bringed some sketchy like North Korean website but through all of the spam filters,

you'll find some documentation on it. I gotsha is that? Wait?

Is that how you bought your aerophone? You bought it from North Korea?

Is that even legal? I thought it was legal if you're in North Korea?

Right right? I understand. So you went to North Korea to gain

I mean, you know, you're mysterious, so you can make up whatever

story about it you want. So you went to North Korea to get the

aerophone? Is that correct? It's actually it's a it's a it's a rolling

product. It's it's very fun. It's what kind of got me re energized

back into music after I found these guys. Oh no, kidding, my

little toy that keeps things interesting. Yeah, yeah, no, that's very

cool. That's very cool. Yeah. I don't know if you were listening.

I don't know if you've been listening from the beginning, but yeah,

I was asking these guys for a song where you can really kind of hear

the aerophone, and uh, yeah, it's fascinating. I'm gonna have to

because obviously there's some live videos too, right on YouTube. Yeah, I'm

gonna have to look up some of those and watch some of those and I

want to. I want to see the aerophone in action. That's pretty cool.

Oh you'll you'll see some stuff. I got that impression. Yeah,

thanks again. I'll let you guys continue listening from Afar. All right,

all right, Rob, thank you for the call. I appreciate it.

But bye, all right, very good, very good. So uh,

when you when you write something, uh, and you you know, you

bring it to the band and you know, like you said, you don't

try to control what everyone does in terms of of their parts. But do

you ever find that what you had in mind or how you heard it in

your head, what it comes out as ends up being just wildly different from

what you had envisioned. Always to a matter of degree, it always ends

up different from where I thought it might have been going, and sometimes it

does end up extremely different. Um. And I find that's a big part

of the fun and really a rewarding process. And that's like I used to

have a really hard time with that with bands, where I would write something

and I would be very committed to what I thought the song should be like.

And everybody, you know, you've you've been in bands, you know

the nature everybody brings what they bring to it, and you sort of find

navigate to where it's going to. And it took me a while to appreciate

that process. And you know, especially with this band, the verse alts

are consistently so good that I really trust that process a lot more than I

have in the past, or in past bands where it's like you know I

and sometimes it is it takes a few weeks for somebody to really dial in

the part and you have to trust. You're like, all right, I

hear sort of what you're going for, and even though it's not there yet,

we'll keep working on it, and I know what's going to get there.

And that is really cool to watch every you know, as Chip was

saying that we're so lucky to have this just a phenomenal group of musicians,

and watching everybody sort of work things out in real time and challenge themselves and

get better. I think it's a big part of what keeps us all energized

as a band and keeps making those songs better. And that's another thing is

that we're never officially done with a song. Songs are always sort of open

to revision. So if you know, we can have a song that we've

been playing for two or three years, and in practice we're like, you

know, let's try this or you know, change this around about it,

and um, that's also sort of a fun process and a nice way to

let songs move along with us as a yeah, because I personally, I

get really bored playing stuff that's on the rails exactly the same every time,

and here's the fill right after the first first It's always the exact same notes,

and that's not how my brain works. So I'm really glad I've found

a group of other musicians who uh are willing to put up with that.

We're all off the rails too. There you go. Well, it's like

we were talking off air while that song was playing. I want to be

a ranger. You guys were talking about how there's multiple different there's what three

different possible endings for that song, right, and and it kind of depends

on that happens once a show, uh Sirens every every day. I never

know when in the show it's going to happen, but it happens. Looking

forward to it, yeah, yeah, yes, yes, but yeah,

I mean that I would imagine that helps, you know, kind of keep

it fresh and exciting when it's you know when the songs kind of change and

evolve over time, and UM are there are there a lot of UM songs

that go back to when you like pre band, pre meeting these guys.

While one a couple of those tunes go way way back epiphone on the on

the on the album goes back to uh I Will Stay two thousand four or

five. And I actually didn't write that one. A band made of Mind

named Jeff Rhodes, who's a guitarist wrote that one, and I always liked

it so much that we kept it going, you know, almost twenty years

later now, which is crazy. Yeah. And then Electrostatic Chills, which

tends to be the song that we put at the end of every show.

But again, we improvise a lot, but we also play the same song

at the end of every show. I'm not sure exactly why, but it's

fun. And I wrote that one. That was a really early one when

UM in college, I would go down to like the basement in the music

department and just like hang out of the piano rum just noodling around for hours

at a time because I didn't know what else to do with my time.

Yeah, and I was starting to write, and I wrote that song in

that in that stretch, which was almost twenty years ago that it might have

been, oh three or four, and it's it's really cool to let a

song like that keep going. I played that in my college band, in

my band for a couple of years after college, and yeah, so to

be able to still be doing it and to have added so much to it

in that, you know, we have new vocal parts that we've worked up

over time, and having saxophone parts that are really specific in it, and

there's sort of little things that line up with the lyrics that have evolved over

time. Is really cool to have sort of a song that is almost old

enough to drink get stuff added to it, right right, Yeah, Yeah,

And we were also, I think this was just off air, we

were talking, but it's interesting to me Dale, you were saying that,

um live, you're playing electronic drums. Ye, and uh, it's it's

remarkable how good they sound like. And I haven't asked you. At one

point during that during that song, I said, so, this is all

electronic, but that's that's pretty amazing. Yeah, it's funny because people a

lot of times we'll play in front of audience where we've got um audience members

that have not seen us play yet. Yeah, And I can see on

their face, especially if they're old school or if they're drummers, they'll look

and go, yeah, yeah, electronic set. Then by the end of

the first set they're coming up to me like, oh my, I cannot

believe that's an electronic set, you know. So then I'm explaining about all

the new Roland technology and they're just so into it because it's it's amazing how

the yeah technology sounds Roland since daylicheck, every month they do. One of

the great things about an electronic drum kit is that you can actually pick different

sounds for different songs, yeah, which is one of the you know,

it's yeah, a lot of different variety there. And the other awesome thing

about it is we can control our own sound level from stage, so they

can play indoor in breweries or small venues. Everything goes through the board.

No amps on stage, because that's usually dictated by how love the drummer is.

Yeah, And so we're literally mixing everything through the monitors first and then

out to the mains and whatever level the venue wants we can do. We

get a lot of compliments. Oh, we can listen to you guys and

still talk. This is awesome, right right, Yeah, no, that's

very cool. Um chips as the bass player, where you skeptical at all

at first with with about the electronic drums or well, um, it was

a little bit getting used to because I hadn't played with anybody who had played

electronic drums before. Although yeah, I mean Dale and I had played together

some at one of the open mics Up and Conquered before we actually ended up

in this band together. Okay, So I mean I knew, I knew

we was talented. I knew you know, we got we clicked very well.

Yeah, and so it was interesting singing that and yeah, I mean

I got used to it pretty quickly. It was fine. Yeah, yeah,

yeah, cool, a lot of fun. Yeah, no, it

is amazing how far the technology has come. Um, what is the gigging

schedule? Like are you are you guys you play out a lot pretty consistently

or yeah we got um as Dale said, we got back to backs coming

up next week on Thursday and Friday. So Thursday, the twenty second,

we're at Panucci's Up and Conquered. It's gonna be a really fun show.

And then on the twenty third, on the Friday, it's the Market Day's

Festival and Conquered this week, which is um, you know, kind of

a festival of everything. Oh yeah yeah, and it's it is like the

conquered music scenes time to shine. So we always really look forward to it.

And if folks don't know, the Bicentennial Square stage by the coffee shop

there, uh Brothers Quartado. That stage in there is like like New Hampshire

band Central and you can just post up and hang out there all day and

see so much incredible music. So we're playing on that stage on Friday at

six thirty. We're really looking forward to. We did that um last year

on the Saturday and night and it was it was such a good time.

Yeah. And then let's see the week two weeks after that on Saturday,

July first, we're a Feathered Friend and conquered and is that one week?

Okay, I can't tell times is that new Feathered Friend? Feathered Friend they're

pretty new. They've they've been around for a little more in a year.

But in that time they've gone from like little startup brewery too like all right

now we took over the back parking lot and we're gonna have music back there,

even though there's no shade and it's a million degrees whatever to they've built

this crazy stage and patio set up in like like sound system. It's really

cool and UM and even we played there a couple of times last year and

this year they've upped their game really. I've seen a couple of shows there

and it's UM really stoked to get back there. They're really committed to doing

like a live music thing there. Yeah, and their beer is really good

too, So UM recommend stopping buy that one UM wearing Conquered is that it's

in the in the South End. It's on Top Street, okay, kind

of buy Vinie's Pizza. Oh yep, yeah, And I grew up in

Conquered, so I know that area. Well, what's the data in the

Hanneker concert series is at the eleventh, that's the eleventh, July eleventh,

we're playing at Hennecker for their summer concert series. UM. And then on

UM July fifteenth, we're playing at Litherman's Limited and Conquered Librewery gig and they

usually put us outside on their patio, which is another UM actually surprisingly lovely

parking lot. Yeah yeah, and so we played there a couple of times

a year as well, and we always really look forward to it. So

summer tends to be pretty busy for us. Yeah. Um, we have

not been able to maintain a schedule that lets us get too far afield right

now. You know, we're always looking for gigs to get um out of

town, but logistically it's really hard to pull off with six people. So

yeah, we we've been having a great time playing Conquered, and because every

show's different, people keep coming to see us. Yeah. So it actually

works out pretty well for us to be able to just play a lot and

have people get to know our music better and get to know our weird sense

of humor and our inside jokes, and so it kind of builds on itself

in a really nice way. Yeah. So it's always the more people we

can bring in, the better. Yeah. Yeah, that's excellent. One

other thing real quick to mention that we should do is that every month,

first Wednesday of the month, we actually host the open mic at Area twenty

three up and Conquered. Okay, yeah, I mean we'll play a few

songs ourselves, but will also back up of the musicians if they ask us

to yes. And that open mic thing has really become a thing. Like

when we first talked to Area twenty three about doing that once a month,

I figured it would be you know, pretty casual, open mic, pretty

chill. We you know, we we'd get through the list of singer songwriter

guitar folks and then we would have you know, a couple hours at the

end to just basically have an open band practice. Yeah, and it very

quickly ramped up to people found out we were hosting, and now in Conquered

there's like one hundred and ten people out on a Wednesday night and they're there

from you know, six thirty pm to like ten thirty pm. Yeah,

and people don't go out and Conquered, So it really like blows my mind,

right, Like we get that every month and it's so cool and it's

a really like fun and positive community that's grown in that. So it's super

cool. And now we're getting full bands that want to come and debut that

have never played in fun of people before our host night. Yeah. Yeah,

it's just become a really cool thing. For some reason, it's worth

their time to try. Like we had a guy drive from Maine last time

to play with his band there and we're like, we're like, I know,

I know, it sucks, but you get three songs. Yeah,

that's it. Yeah, and like they they're all super stoked on it.

Wow, it's really cool. And I learned about a ton of bands and

musicians through that. And seeing people come out of the woodwork and just blow

my mind with how talented they are is yeah, amazing. Yeah. Area

twenty three seems to have really caught on. M Kirk was on my show.

Not he's never been on this iteration of the show. He was on

the old version of the show that I had when I did the TV show,

but uh, yeah, it seems like they're really thriving. Just good

to see. Yeah, good to see and you know, and it allows

local music to thrive and uh, you know that's that's fantastic. So um

yeah, so you guys. Uh And then at some point, I can't

remember if we talked about this on air or off are at some point you

might do another studio album. Yeah, we were always working on it.

We have more songs than we know what to do with for that context.

And what's really nice is that with the electronic drums um and all that it's

actually really easy to self record without a lot of lead or things like that.

So we Phosphorescent Snack. We did you know, the basic tracking on

our own, and then got some professional help doing the mix and master to

get it you know, where it really needed to be YEA. But that

that kind of process, and again, I think it's really enabled by the

electronic drums allows us to take the time that we really need to tinker with

things or to to do it in our own time and to get to a

result that we're really excited about, which I think, you know, I've

I've recorded studio albums in studio and that I've paid for myself and things like

that, and that feeling of being under the gun, I don't feel like

it's really Sometimes it's great for the creative process for me personally, I stress

too much, and it was not I'm not happy in that process, so

much happier being like, all right, let's try this song and we can

play it, you know, fifteen times over and over and over again and

sort of see where we end up with it and not have to be watching

the clock or anything. Right, once we have that bundle together. Then

it's much easier to take a project that's a discreet size and scope and you

can go to an engineer and be like, all right, can you help

us, because I'm not an audio engineer, can you help us make this

sound amazing? Yeah, we were lucky to have folks, oh yeah,

and we're fortunate to live in a time where you have so many different options

as far as recording and um, you know, I've I've talked to bands

who you know, they never even were in in the same room when when

recording albums, you know, they would like during the pandemic, you know,

they would email tracks back and forth and you know, just just uh,

it's it's incredible what you can do now. And you know, and

of course there's still plenty of great studios around too where you can go and

you can pay the money and and uh and spend the time there. But

but you can do a lot on your own these days. It's uh,

it's changed a lot from when I was growing up, or when any of

us were growing up. Really well, definitely, on some of the songs

on Fuss for Us and Snack, we'd be doing stuff and then Rob would

come in and he'd record, like eight different tracks for the same song,

different instruments on his erophone to a bit of an orchestra, and to himself.

Yeah yeah, it's true mysterious stranger fashion. We just gave him the

tracks, he gave him back to us, and we're like, oh my

god, what did you do later? Yeah, yeah, well it's gonna

have options. I guess right. We're gonna in a in a couple of

moments, we'll we'll start to wrap up. We'll play one more track from

your live album. Thanks for the one of your live albums, I should

say thanks for the warning volume one. But but before we begin to wrap

up, I want to make sure that everybody knows where to find you guys

online, so they can keep up with everything that you're doing, and uh,

I keep up with shows and and uh it sounds like you've got a

busy summer ahead and all of it, and of course where to find your

music, so anything you want to make sure everyone knows. Oh yeah,

yeah, we I mean we we um Dale webmasters our website at under North

and the Rangers dot com. So nice, nice website. Thank you.

Yeah, I'm a I'm a website geek. So I noticed these things,

and then you know, we keep up with our Facebook. You know,

we keep that really maintained if you want to know what's going on, and

that's probably a great place to go to. Search North and the Rangers on

Facebook. Yeah, uh, you know on Instagram at Andrew North and the

Rangers. Those are probably the primary ones. Um as far as keeping up

with output. Band camp is a great place to We post almost every show

up there for folks to keep up with it, and and do go to

Andrew North on the Rangers dot com and go to the contact page. We

just have like a little four or five field contact form. Yeah, and

we'll get you on the email list. And Andrew is awesome at putting out

basically a monthly newsletter and a preh like calendar session update when we have a

bunch of shows lined up, and he'll get emails out to everybody. We're

cool, We're very communicative. So just go on there and sign up for

our email list. Excellent, excellent, All right, well, gentlemen,

thank you all so much. Andrew chip Dale. I appreciate the three of

you coming in. This has been wonderful. But guys, thank you again

so much. Andrew North and the Rangers. This has been cool, and

I'll let let you guys pick. I'm gonna play one more track to close

the show from Thanks for the warning Volume one? What should I? What

should I play? First off? Thank you so much Matt for having us.

Thank you it was so much fun pleasure. I'd say play Okay,

alright, cool, there are absent saxophone players, gotcha, gotcha? All

right, we will close out with that. Okay. So this is epiphone

from Andrew North and the Rangers, and I'll talk to you all a little

bit later. By everybody, the bore the name the Fou