Stubborn Strays Interview
Photo taken by Nathan Purchase of Psychedelic Eyes Photography
Interview by Mackenzie Tucker
Haleigh Potter, Alex Yeomans, Blake Bouwman and Chris Coble make up the Stubborn Strays, a campfire punk band out of Grand Rapids, MI. I recently met with them to talk about the record label they have started called No More! Records. I have coerced them into jamming for me twice now and both times I have felt as though I have entered a realm of comfort and unity. They are incredibly in sync with each other, and they seem to be having a whole lot of fun. It became very clear to me that I must inquire further into the methods of their succinct, self identified “musical mystery meat conglomerate”.
How did stubborn strays get together?
It's actually pretty rad and coincidental how everyone got together. Alex and Chris have been really close friends since 2nd grade and grew up in Comstock Park MI. Al and Blake met in California when they went out there for College, Blake grew up a few towns over from Chris and Alex in Wayland MI but the connection to the group was made about as physically far west as you can go in this country. We were playing as a three-piece when we made our first album and relatively recently gained our fourth Member, Haleigh; our rolling thunder and band mom, who hopped on for our newest EP and is here to stay. Now we all live together in the No More! Records house like one big happy nuclear family. So, essentially, long story short: We dem boiz (and girl).
Who inspires you guys the most?
One of the coolest things about the Strays is that we're pretty much a group of 4 different people with different influences and styles that work oddly well together. We've been branded with the moniker of "campfire-punk" which kind of best explains the music. We generally shuffle from melodic folkier stuff to punky tunes and back and around and forth and whatnot. Keeping ya guessing, ya dig? One of the things that makes this project so unique is that we all end up being influenced by others in the band more so than outer influences. P.S: Haleighs definitely influenced by Creed but you didn't hear it from me.
Tell me a bit about your process when writing a new tune.
We all have a part in writing and contributing to the process, general rule of thumb is if you write the song you sing it but we all live together in the No More! Records house so chances are there is some sort of 24/7 collaboration happening. We all play music together and all show each other new ideas where we'll harmonize and spit thoughts back and forth. We are the physical personification of a musical mystery meat conglomerate but instead of unidentifiable bits of animals, it's a melding of different musical strokes. That's something that we're really stoked about with our newest EP, Drinking Beer and Getting Angry. It's a 3 song EP that has 3 totally different styles on it but they all play off of each other. We're working on our next EP which will be out soon and shortly thereafter will be starting to lay down our second full length. We're all super jazzed about being in such close quarters and trying our best to wake up every day with a new artistic goal and not procrastinate and wake up at 1pm every day.
What's your biggest fear?
Besides the obvious top 3: The inevitable collapse of society, commitment, and bears, that's a tough question. We're in a rapidly growing community where there is a multitude of other artist to collab and work with. We just jumped into No More! Records which gives us the opportunity to connect and grow and gain traction. The only thing that plays into this as far as fear goes is the underlying worry that more people won't get into it. But that's minuscule, dismal. If we have 5 new people dig on our art or 500, we love what we do, we love the music that we make, and we love the business that we're forging. I mean, obviously who wouldn't prefer the 500 but you get what I mean. We're really looking forward to making new stuff and working with other artists through No More! Keep an eye out for us cause we are and always will be the most dangerous folk band in the world.
Find their work and more info about No More! Records here:
Bandcamp: https://stubbornstrays.bandcamp.com
Facebook: https://facebook.com/stubbornstrays
nomorerecordsgr.com