Photo by Justice Images
Pet Name began in 2016 as the home-studio recording project of Adam Hanson. Based out of Norfolk, VA, the band’s influences range from 80’s/90’s melodic hardcore (e.g. Lifetime, The Descendants, Split Lip) to 90’s indie rock (e.g. Pavement, Built To Spill), with a generous pinch of Gin Blossoms and Counting Crows. I sat down with Adam to talk about his first musical discoveries, how he started writing music, how Pet Name came about and the making of the new album “Lovebug”.
Visit the Pet Name bandcamp page here.
What was the first music that really made an impact on you as a kid?
The first music that really spoke to me were underground emo/hardcore/punk rock bands from the 90’s, particularly Split Lip and Lifetime. My brother had all their full length albums and 7 inches on vinyl, and I would pour over them for hours. I was in middle school, and up to that point I’d mostly just listened to whatever was on MTV. I remember listening to my Boyz II Men and TLC tapes on my walkman in private, because I was worried my brother would find out and judge my taste. I still love those groups. But hearing someone yelling their feelings over heavy melodic music really sent me down a path of discovery.
I feel like there was music I adored, like The Promise Ring and The Impossibles, and other music that just saturated me from repeated exposure. I still love Yourself or Someone Like You by Matchbox 20. Can’t help it.
When did you first start playing instruments and writing your own songs?
I think I was about 8 when my older brother first tried to make me learn to play guitar by mashing my fingers against the strings in a chord shape. I hated it. But when I was 12 I watched an MTV mini-series where Metallica played a show in some random fan’s garage, and I became obsessed with the idea of playing a show in someone’s garage. I’d tape songs off the radio and do my best to figure out the guitar until I was able to piece things together and play along, and occasionally I’d pick up a guitar magazine with some tablature inside, which helped.
I didn’t have many friends at that point, so I spent basically all of my free time playing. Song-writing evolved kind of naturally from that, I guess. Just simple punk songs with bad lyrics mostly. Now just slightly less punk and slightly less bad.
How did Pet Name form and how did you all shape your sound?
I’d played in bands since I was 15, and I always felt like I was holding back song ideas because I wasn’t sure what I wanted would be possible with either the lineup or the instruments we had available. Plus every time a band breaks up, I felt like I wasn’t ‘allowed’ to play those songs anymore, which always really bummed me out.
The idea of Pet Name was to have a project where I could write whatever kind of song I wanted and it would still ‘count’ as the same band. I never liked the idea that if I want to do a one-off pop punk cover of a Wilson Phillips song (which I did btw, and recorded, and it’s wonderful), I would have to form a brand new band. I wanted enough ownership to be able to play these songs for as long as I want, so I set Pet Name up initially as my recording project, with the idea that members can filter in and out, but it’s always still the same band.
I’ve had two people with me the entire time, Ashley Wright Drake and Matt Hillman, and it’s been my privilege to get to do this with such excellent collaborators and friends. We’ve been lucky to have had some other really wonderful musicians and friends play with us over the last few years, as well.
Photo By Justice Images
Your new album “Lovebug” is nothing short of stellar. What was the writing and recording process like? Any particular gear you all used that really helped shape specific parts of the record?
Thank you! I think you were the first person I sent the entire mastered album to. Some of the songs from this album were written back in 2016. I wrote and recorded a Pet Name demo of 8 or 9 songs I think, in roughly a week or two, at a friend’s home recording studio. I had very little idea of how to engineer home recordings, so the whole thing was basically unmixed, with no EQ-ing, effects, panning, or mastering. I played all the instruments, and the way they sounded live was exactly how the album sounded. I re-worked some of my favorites from that time for this album, with the help of Ashley, Matt, Bryan Lewis, Travis Horn, and Stefan Skeeter.
A lot of the songs on this have been written in the last few years, and because of the pandemic, I ended up playing most of the instruments on those recordings, which was disappointing, but I was going crazy at home and I needed something to do. Ashley came in and added vocals to those, but otherwise all the vocals and instrumentation are me. For better or worse, this album has a lot of me. I used Studio One recording software, and spent a ton of time learning some basics of recording and mixing. This album took a long time to finish in part because every time I learned something new, I realized I had to go back and fix something on every track. Oh, I also bought an electronic drum kit during the process, and the ability to tweak drum sounds in such a granular way definitely impacted how song ideas formed.
Tell us about the effects pedals you make.
Aw, thanks for asking! Initially I’d just wanted to build a mic preamp for recording, because it’s SO expensive to buy a great one. But even the DIY kits were like $300 on the low end. I had no experience building electronics, so I bought a guitar pedal kit for like $50 to try and get comfortable soldering components, etc. I completely botched that kit, and it drove me to the brink of madness. The more I failed, the more I insisted that I had to successfully build a pedal. So I started buying components separately, rather than kits, and building whatever I could find instructions for online.
Once my builds started working, I got pretty obsessive about understanding how they worked, and I was frequently staying up most of the night, working on circuits or learning about them. I started designing the enclosures for the builds, and selling them just to make enough money to keep building them. It kinda took off a little as a hobby, and now I sell them on Etsy and Reverb under the moniker Porkchop Guitar Pedals, after our dog who passed away last year (RIP, sweet girl).
What other bands from the Norfolk area would you recommend checking out?
Ooo. Great question. There a lot of really awesome bands around here. Recently I’ve been digging Dayripper a lot, and I’m excited to play with them this coming weekend. I always love Berries and Community Witch and Shake Your Baby. Oh and I just discovered You’re Jovian, 10 years too late haha.
What’s next for the band? Any new recordings/shows etc etc?
Welp, we’re playing as part of a tremendous lineup at the upcoming August 27th Lava Minifest at Toast in Norfolk, VA. We haven’t played one since pre-pandemic, so we’re really excited. We’ve even got some guest musicians – Elliot Malvas (You’re Jovian/Obscure Son/Gone) and Jimmy Held (White Laces). We’re also playing “Take Back the Beach” at the Smartmouth Pilot House in Virginia Beach on September 10th.
As for recordings, I’ve got a couple really neat 70’s-sounding songs that I’d like to build out a little bit into an EP. But either way, I’m definitely feeling ready to get back to writing and recording.
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