1. Hey Margaret Hooligans, super nice to have the chance to chat with you. What first got you into music?
Meg: music has always been around in my life, but the first impetus to want to learn an instrument came from a commercial in the 80s that showed a young girl playing the piano. I saw that, and thought, I can do that. So at age 5, I convinced my parents to buy me a piano. I took lessons for years, and went through a flirty flute period, then switched to guitar at 14. But I was in my church’s children’s choir, as well as chorus at school, and tried out for all of the school musicals, so music was always in the background.
Mr. Strontium: The Who’s first “last” tour of 1982 got a lot of attention from some of my classmates and so I got into The Who, which is a great band to bring you into the music world. A buddy of mine started playing guitar and I started up with the drums.
2. What’s your favorite 80’s artist?
Meg: I honestly don’t think I have one. To me, the 80s is when music started getting all synthesized and computer-y. I have never liked that sound and still don’t. If hard-pressed, I would say that I was a child in the 80s and Madonna held a strong appeal for me as a strong female singer, though nowadays, I would find her too pop-focused for me.
Mr. Strontium: I totally agree with Meg, except that U2 was a strong and creative group until Joshua Tree, where the drumming as a driving force basically disappeared from the band.
3. Do you sing in the shower? What songs?
Meg: I don’t sing in the shower, but I sing everywhere else whenever I feel like it. Usually it’s stuff we’re working on, or songs from our favorite indie band friends like 9oclocknasty, Avresa, Molosser, Bones in Butter, I Am the Unicorn Head, Golden Plates, Everything but the Everything, Otara, or The Qwarks. But I am known to get an ear worm in my head or sing something from a musical too. When Wet Leg hit the scene, I could not stop singing any of their singles, especially Ur Mum. I also get stuck singing whatever Strontium is playing at the moment, or songs I am teaching to my students. Strontium is very random about his vocalizations and we never know where they come from. Right now, he’s singing along to Alligator from The Grateful Dead. He finds a kinship in PigPen’s vocal stylings.
4. What is it about music that makes you feel passionate?
Meg: Music is the ultimate mood changer. If you’re feeling shitty, you can put on something to either reinforce that mood if you want to sulk, or you can put something on to make yourself feel better and it has the power to do that. I find singing to be very cathartic. Even when we’re working on new music and I am grumpy about something unrelated, I find that working through the music can make me feel better, like a weight has been lifted. It also has the power to bring people together in a cool way. You and I might have nothing in common, but if we’re sitting together at a concert and the band starts playing our favorite song, all of a sudden we’re very chummy because our shared love for the music creates instant common ground. People in the U.S. are feeling very divisive right now, I am glad to know music can still do that.
Mr. Strontium: Power, volume, speed, control. Music is a more skillful and creative way of revving up that loud motorcycle.
5. What’s your scariest experience?
Meg: Hard to say really. The scariest moments in my life have always been when I have had to confront something I didn’t want to because I knew it would be life changing and the illusion of having any control was gone. So fear for me is more about a fear of fear rather than being afraid of anything in particular. I think my scariest moment was when our daughter was very small, maybe 4 or 5 and we had taken her to the beach. Strontium likes to do some evening swimming, as the sun sets and the lifeguards have gone home for the day, and my daughter and I usually go get dinner while he swims. This time, after we ate, we came to the beach to find him, found his shoes and towel but couldn’t find any sign of him up and down the beach near his items. She was small enough to realize something was up and kept asking, “Where’s Daddy?” And I didn’t know what to tell her, because as the minutes went by, I am frantically scanning the ocean for any sign of him and coming up with nothing. My panic kept deepening as I imagined how I would raise our daughter alone…and then we see him far down the beach walking towards us. So the very real moment of considering that I might have to parent alone and might be widowed to a fickle ocean was indeed scary.
Mr. Strontium: I threw a baseball at my father, he failed to catch it, and it hit him squarely in the eye. After 8 hours in the E.R., I thought he was going to be blind in that eye. He’s made a miraculous, if not completely full recovery, but that was definitely the worst day of my life.
6. Do you consider yourself a music - nerd?
Meg: Never. I think I would need to know way more than I do to qualify. I do think of myself as a music snob, though, because there is some music I would never listen to and frankly, look down on.
Mr. Strontium: No, because it’s all about feel for me instead of technique or musical knowledge.
7. Have you ever taught or mentored another musician?
Meg: Mentored, not really. Taught, yes. I currently teach ukulele and guitar.
Mr. Strontium: Not officially mentored, but I like to have my way in bands so I steer the ship from the rhythm section.
8. Will you tell us something embarrassing about you?
Mr. Strontium: We’re beyond our own embarrassment, however, other people might not want to see me urinate on the weeds in our backyard. Also, if I were to go to Europe, I’d try to hide the fact that I was an American.
Meg: Yes, I am embarrassed by the thought of having our neighbors see Strontium pee in our yard! And I agree with Strontium about traveling abroad. One of my proudest moments was in Mexico when I was continually asked if I was European because I spoke Spanish.
9. What’s the best decade for music?
Meg: Great question, and hard to answer because it would depend on what genre we’re talking about. I would probably say the 60s because I love the wall of sound in the recordings made back then, because of the rise of rock n’roll into the mainstream, and the way it mashed with the counterculture at the end of the decade.
Strontium:1965-1975. Those ten years were loaded with greatness but you don’t have to go much further than The Who’s Tommy, Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew, Jimi Hendrix and James Brown.
10. Do You Agree with the Pigeon?
If the Pigeon wants to declare our band the most exciting band of the decade, who am I to argue?
The Pigeon added the new single to his Weekly Gems playlist on Spotify.
You can check out the released music below. If you like what you hear, make sure to follow along so you can stay on top of future releases.
Words by The Pigeon
Discovered via http://musosoup.com
This coverage was created via Musosoup
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