Goin' Places is a great band from New York. I first interviewed these guys when MP3.com was Myspace. Since then a lot of great things have happened to these guys. They worked with my friend Joe from Queers and produced a great album and they have made fans of the Ramones and even appeared on a Ramones produced tribute album. I got Frank to tell their story...
Introduce yourself…
My name is Frank. I play bass in Goin' Places. The other guys in the band are Richie (vocals and guitar) and Victor (vocals and drums)
How did the band start?
The band started in May of 2000. At that time Victor and I were playing in a band called Robweoza. It was a lot heavier then Goin' Places. Richie was playing in a band called Yellow Teeth (they recently re-united and released an album called Polyrockism...check it out on iTunes or their website http://www.yellowteethpunkrock.com/). The three of us had been friends for years. We just started getting together in Victor's basement and writing songs one day and kept doing it for the next few months. Eventually we thought it'd be cool to record them. I guess that's when it became a "band" as opposed to just hanging out.
How did you come up with the name?
The name was kind of an inside joke with us. Anytime one of us would come up with an idea we'd reply with "oh yea, you're goin' places with that" in a sarcastic tone. So since we figured no one was going to be interested in what we were doing with this new band we decided to call it "Goin' Places".
Who would you say are your influences?
Between the 3 of us we listen to all kinda of music, but the one thing we all love is melodic music. Whether it be older bands like the Beatles, Beach Boys, Buddy Holly, Herman's Hermits or punk bands like the Ramones, Green Day, Screeching Weasel, the Queers, and Mr. T Experience. I could list tons of bands but the bottom line is if it's melodic we've probably been influenced by it.
What was the punk scene like in 2000?
The local Staten Island scene was pretty cool in 2000. We had a bunch of bands that I loved seeing play....Darien, Yellow Teeth, Big Wheel, Sydney, Vent. These days though we're pretty out of touch with whatever local scene there is here. Darien changed their name to The Amber Jets and still play. We'll go hang out at their shows, but other then that we're a lot less involved with the local scene then we used to be. As for the bigger punk scene in 2000....from what I remember it was around that time that MTX started slowing down and Screeching Weasel broke up, so that kinda sucked. I started discovering some other bands around that time like the Apers, the Manges and Darlington.
How do you feel it has changed?
2000 was kind of the tail end of the surge in popularity for pop punk in the mainstream. It started when Green Day released Dookie and for a while whenever a band along those lines would come through NYC on tour they'd get a pretty big crowd. But it slowed down over the years. There's been a bunch of great bands over the last 10 years from all over the country (The Ergs!, the Unlovables, the Copyrights, the Leftovers, Teenage Bottlerocket) but the pop punk scene just seemed to get smaller. I think there's still a lot of great music out there, but you just need to look a little harder then you did 10 years ago.
Describe the song writing process…
When we first started, the band was just an excuse to get together and have fun, so almost all of the early songs were written as a group. Someone would come up with a chord progression or a lyric idea and then all 3 of us would throw out ideas until the song was complete. These days most of the songs are written by one of us individually and then it'll be brought to practice and taught to the band. Richie probably writes about 75% of the songs with Victor doing the rest. Once in a while I'll contribute some music or work with Richie on lyrics to one of his songs.
Your first release was a demo, tell us about the demo…
It was called "Bigger Than The Beatles". We recorded 16 songs in Richie's basement and filmed a 22 minute movie to go along with it. The sound of the recording is pretty crappy, but it was a lot of fun to do and a bunch of those songs ended up on our first album. We made about 300 copies on CD-R and either gave them away or sold them at shows. It came out in December 2000.
You guys have received two phone calls that were turning points in the band, one from Mass Giorini, tell us about that call…
To be fair I don't think Mass called us....he emailed us. All our favorite bands had worked with Mass. When we were recording our demos we were trying to emulate his sound (we failed). I sent him our 2 demos and asked if he'd be interested in working with us. To our surprise he said yes. So we set up a recording date and made the long drive to Indiana in January 2002.
You guys then received another from Joe Queer, tell us about the call
Kinda the same thing. We're huge fans of the Queers. I sent Joe our 2 demos. This was before we even knew we were going to work with Mass. I remember that before he called me he wrote me a letter saying he liked our songs and I thought that was really cool. Then once we knew we were going to record with Mass I wrote to Joe and asked him if he'd wanna sing on the album. A few weeks later, I was sleeping in my parent's basement one afternoon and my phone rang. I picked it up and heard "Hey Frank...it's Joe from the Queers". Kinda weird to wake up to that voice after listening to his band for so many years. He said he'd wanna record a song. So the next time the Queers played NYC we gave him a CD of the songs we planned on recording for the album and asked him to pick the one he'd wanna do. He chose one called "Can't Get A Girl? Kill Yourself".
Your first album was ‘Girl Songwriting 101’, tell us about the album…
That's the album that came about from the recording session with Mass. We drove out to Indiana intending to record 16 songs. We lived in the apartment above the studio for 7 or 8 days and ended up getting 15 songs recorded. Phillip Hill from the Teen Idols ended up working on the album with Mass too. That was a nice surprise since we were all fans of his band. After we left Mass mixed the album and sent the track for Joe to sing to Boston. Joe recorded his vocal and sent it back to Mass. Once we had a final, mastered version from Mass we started showing it to labels. One night after I got back from playing a show in the Bronx Brett from Coldfront Records called me and said he liked the record. We talked for the next few weeks and he ended up releasing the album minus one of the songs. All in all, it was a really cool experience for us.
In last few years you guys a have been making movies, tell us about the movies…
Like I mentioned earlier, we've been into making films for a while. We did one for each of our 2 demos, one about our recording session with Mass and one called "A Goin' Places Tale" which we released online in 2002. After that we didn't film anything for a while, but we were always coming up with ideas. In January 2008 we started coming up with a lot of ideas for a new movie and decided to finally do it. We started writing a script and it quickly turned into two scripts. So from April 2008 through August 2008 we filmed "Goin' Places: Tony Holes Strikes Back" and "Goin' Places' Yesterday And Today". The first one was released in December 2008 and the next one came out in July 2009. Both are available on our website (http://www.goinplaces.com/) along with a few of the older movies too.
The two new movies contain parodies of all our favorite films...The Godfather, Goodfellas, Back To The Future and more.
Tell us about the current lineup…
The current lineup is the same as when we first got together in Victor's basement. The only change was that for a about a year or so in 2003-2004 our friend Sammy joined the band as a 2nd guitarist. We played a bunch of shows with him and also recorded some demos. Prior to that, Richie's brother Tony played 2nd guitar in the band for a few months when we were starting out, but it didn't work out.
Who are some of the bands you have done shows with?
We played with all the Staten Island bands I mentioned earlier a bunch of times. As for bigger name bands, we've played with the Queers, Huntingtons, Teen Idols, Misfits, Groovie Ghoulies and CJ Ramone. Maybe some others that I'm forgetting.
Do you prefer to do shows at large venues or small clubs?
It really just depends on the crowd. I'd consider CBGBs to be a "larger venue". We played there to a handful of people and it's pretty boring. We've also played there to several hundred people when it's sold out and it's really cool. I think our best show ever was with the Huntingtons at a place called Dock Street in Staten Island. There was maybe 75-100 people there but they were really into our set and there was a lot of energy in the place that night.
Where have you toured?
Unfortunately we never got to tour. We've mainly played in the NY/NJ area.
Is there a favorite band you like to do shows with?
Anytime we play a show with one of our friend's band is fun. Other then that, anytime we play with a band that has a crowd of their own is cool cause we get to play in front of new people.
Is there a favorite place you like to do shows at?
CBGBs was fun to play when it was still around. I'll always regret that we never got to play Coney Island High.
What do you see is the future of Goin Places?
We just recorded a new 15 song album. Right now we're trying to find a label to work with us on getting it released. If no one wants to then we'll release it ourselves through all the digital distributors and maybe print up some CDs too. We're excited to let people hear some new stuff from us...it's been a long time.
How can people contact the band?
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