"Destiny Bond" - An Interview With tenmonthsummer

tenmonthsummer are a Chicago based shoegaze/emo band made up of Nish Ahmed, Luke Smith, Charlie Edwards, Sam Koone and Dawson Schmidt. The band recently released a really impressive record titled “Old Songs, New Takes”. I sat down with the group to talk about their earliest musical memories, how the band formed and the making of the record which you can get here.

CMM-What was the first music that really made an impact on you all growing up and what artists and bands did you all enjoy the most?

Charlie Edwards (he/him – Rhythm): For me, it was seeing a friend’s older brother’s high school cover band (that’s a mouthful…) when I was in 8th grade. I can still remember some of the set list because it was the first time hearing the kind of music that became the basis of my musical taste for the next…20 years? The biggest standouts were covers of Brand New’s “Sic Transit Gloria…Glory Fades,” and Taking Back Sunday’s “Cute Without the ‘E’ (Cut from the Team)”–I was instantly drawn to the emo/pop-punk styles and hooked by the melding of catchy, emotive lyrics with dynamic guitars transitioning from sweet & clean to in-your-face loud. These songs lead me down a rabbit hole and allowed me to find some favorites growing up like Say Anything, Motion City Soundtrack, and Fall Out Boy. I’ve expanded my tastes as I’ve grown but that style of music is still what I find myself drawn toward.

Dawson Schmidt (they/them – Bass): Classical and jazz made the deepest impact for me because they were so fluid and any piece of music from either classification had the ability to tell deep, kaleidoscopic stories in a way I never got from many other genres. Shostakovich, Charlie Parker, Ray Charles, Tom Waits, Count Basie, are just a few individuals from those genres that made a big impact on my love for music. Some bands that I fell hard for are Primus, Mudvayne, The Dopamines, Soundgarden, and CCR.

Sam Koone (he/him – Lead): The first band to really resonate with me was Weezer, funnily enough. Their nerdy, poppy hooks and grungy power chords really caught my attention and they were my favorite band for about half of high school. After that I had a thrash metal phase, which really made me want to work to get better at guitar. Once I started college, I got into mathy emo adjacent stuff like Tiny Moving Parts, TTNG, and Chon. Now, I listen to a pretty solid mix of emo and shoegaze. For this project, my primary influences are bands like Gleemer and Ben Quad.

Luke Smith (he/him – Drums): One of the first bands that had a large impact on my musical taste was mutemath. I enjoyed how they embraced unique song structures and a variety of instruments which culminated in calming yet energetic music. My dad was always enthusiastic
about supporting my musical interests, and he took me to see them live when I was still in elementary school which was an awesome and memorable experience.

Nish Ahmed (he/him – Vox/Lyrics): I was late to the game in terms of music, so I found music around the era of the 2000’s pop-punk wave. I will always credit Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Paramore, and the other bands of that time to be what got me into music. I still listen to alot of those bands now, but the new generation (The Wonder Years, Carly Cosgrove, Spanish Love Songs, Sweet Bike, Hot Mulligan, so many more to name) are swinging hard and paving new successes for what bands in the genre/scene can do! My taste mainly lives in this space still but you can catch me on some Bad Bunny when the sun is out.

CMM-When did you all first start playing instruments and eventually playing in your own bands and how did you all meet and start tenmonthsummer?

CE: It’s a tale as old as time: a friend asked me to learn bass when I was in Junior High because he wanted to start a band and bass was “easy.” We formed a terrible band that (poorly) covered Green Day and Alkaline Trio, but the feelings of camaraderie, excitement from playing, and how fun it all was always stuck with me. I had a family friend who learned I was in a band and wanted to give me their son’s old “bass” which ended up being a guitar. From there, I grew to love playing guitar and played in bands all through high school and then off-and-on throughout college and afterward. As for tenmonthsummer, I found a post Nish made on Reddit and the description seemed right up my alley, so I took a chance! Nish has been the Nick Fury of this group, finding the right pieces and gathering us all together.

DS: I started playing trumpet in the 5th grade. Eventually I switched to bass and guitar, preferring bass more, and in high school I started a band with some classmates and did a small tour around parts of Iowa. I saw that the dudes in tenmonthsummer were looking for a new bassist on Reddit, so I sent them an email and eventually did a try-out for the bass spot. I know, that’s some Steven King story telling right there!

SK: I started playing guitar at the beginning of my junior year of high school, on my 17th birthday. I didn’t play in real projects until my junior and senior year of college, and only recorded one EP with a group called Texas Shade Factory. I didn’t play a real show until February of this year with my other band, Pulitzer Priceless. I met the tenmonthsummer guys from a facebook post.

LS: I started playing “drums” around 5 years old. I say drums in quotes because I actually started playing buckets from the hardware store, I was inspired to do this after seeing the drummers you used to find downtown Chicago playing on buckets in the street. Again shout out to my dad for being supportive and awesome despite all the racket I was making. Later on he bought me a real drum kit to play and started taking me to drum lessons in 5th grade. Soon I was playing in every band program available to me in middle and high school where I also played the snare in marching band all 4 years. In junior year of high school I joined my first non-school band, first called Upon the Cavalry and later A Minute's Worth after we swapped bassists and changed out style. Before transferring into University or Illinois, I was reaching out to local bands in the suburbs offering to record an EP for free. This is how I first met Nishat and his band Ocean Glass. I recorded their Track by Track EP, and then didn’t talk to them much for awhile. When I finally transferred to UIUC, I saw Nish post that they were looking for a new drummer. So once I saw my opportunity I tried out and made it in. For the next few years I was in Ocean Glass with Nishat until last summer when we unfortunately had to put the band on hiatus. After it was clear Ocean Glass wouldn’t be starting up again any time soon, Nishat and I got together this past winter and decided to start a new project, and this is how tenmonthsummer got started.

NA: I played piano when I was younger but I’ve completely lost all of my musical talent. Truthfully, I wouldn’t call singing a forte of mine either, but I grew up in choir and also love spoken word poetry, so that’s probably what’s been driving my love to give voice to the words I write (and thanks to the fine folks in this band for allowing me to do so!) As for writing, I’ve been doing that for a long, long time, and wanting to put melodies to my words is part of why I started Ocean Glass back in 2012 with my brother and some friends. About half a decade ago (wow. weird to type that…) Luke joined us on drums and when OG hit a pause last summer, we knew we still had the itch to create and get our music out there. With that being said, we took to the internet to find the other golden pieces that make up tenmonthsummer.

CMM-The group recently posted a live demo titled “new songs, old takes”. What was you all’s approach when writing this batch of songs?

CS: For how fast this batch of songs have come together, I think it’s somewhat surprising that we’re still learning how to best write with one another and how to nail down our “approach” or our “sound.” These songs each started with one of us bringing a riff, or a guitar part, or an outline for a song to the group, running through that part on a loop while everyone else tries to find what fits until we get a working draft of that section. From there, we’ll expand by throwing other ideas out or possible directions to see what sounds catchy and is fun to play. I’ve written songs this way in past bands and it can be a repetitive, time-consuming process, but this group has a real knack for quickly finding what works and how pieces can fit together!

DS: For that Demo, much of the bass credit goes to Scott Myer, for he was the original bassist when we started writing those songs. The band has been very open to idea of me bringing my own sound to the mix, even with regard to the recently released songs, and I’m grateful for the flexibility and openness. I wanted to pay respects to Scott’s contributions so I’ve done my best not to change them too much, but the feeling is generally still his efforts, I think. Ultimately, the parts are a conglomeration of both of our tastes, but I can only speak for myself. Unfortunately, I know little about the approach that was taken, although I will say that this is the first band I’ve been in where the communication is really good. So far, it’s been very seamless for me to write and play with the group. I don’t think we’ll have a hard time cranking out some more bangers in the future!

SK: We usually start with one good riff, then build off of that until we have something we feel good about.

LS: Our writing approach has essentially consisted of someone bringing a partially complete song idea, or even just a single riff, then we jam for an hour or two to come up with the rest of the parts as organically as possible with everyone contributing.

NA: Something we stressed at the beginning of all this was that we wanted everyone to have a part and a fair say in the writing process, especially for the parts they’re playing. Nothing sounds more torturous than having to go up on stage and play something you don’t believe. I don’t think the band or the fans want that. When it comes to the songs themselves, like the others have said, it’s usually a catchy riff or some chords that pique the ears, and usually on the spot I’ll start writing some melodies and words that, I hope, capture the story the music itself is trying to tell. Of course, I insert my experiences and emotions to that as well, but there is an intrinsic language the instruments and the songs speak, and while we are not perfect translators, the talent with which the others play their instruments make it so we get pretty damn close to the heart and soul of the instruments. Now, this might sound like some shaman nonsense, but it’s trusting in the emotive core of what the music says that’s really allowed us to be so prolific in just about two months of jamming together once a week. The writing process involving a musically-dud vocalist/lyricist and really talented musicians is a complicated and intimate one. In my personal life, I’m writing on what it means to be a person of color (and also just a person) navigating the madness we call the world in one song, the deranged clutches of capitalism in another, and the beauty of being able to fall in love with an amazing human after going through a divorce. These are not small or quiet things, and for me to have been able to access these feelings and words so freely with a group of people who are basically strangers to me (minus Luke, love you bud!), I think that says something really important about what this band is doing — I hope anyone wholistens to us hears it too.

CMM – If the band could compose a score for any film director who would it be and what would the film be about?

CE: I think someone like Kevin Smith or Jon Favreau would be awesome (but the “Chef” kind of Jon Favreau, not the “Avengers: Endgame” kind). The type of music we write would lend itself well to movies that focus on the human condition with examinations of characters and their relationships with an emphasis on introspection and character growth. So, something with a focus on the ups and downs or the trials and tribulations of a main character as they try to navigate their relationships and find meaning in their life. I guess what I’m trying to say is I basically imagine High Fidelity as directed by a tag-team duo of Kevin Smith & Jon Favreau. Or we could just be the soundtrack to a new Marvel movie!

DS: The Gen-Z addition of “This Old House,” but the title would be changed to “This Old Flat That I Share With Five Friends Because We Can’t Afford A House,” that way it would relate better to the younger intended audiences.

SK: I would want us to compose a score for David Lynch. The film would be a coming-of-age story about a young punk that wants to leave his rural Texas hometown, but is trapped there by otherworldly forces.

LS: Wes Anderson if he makes a sequel to Isle of Dogs.

NA: Okay this is really exposing how much I do not know about movies/how few I’ve seen but I don’t know, maybe throw us on some A24 film about the trials and tribulations of everyday life in all senses? Something like “Everything Everywhere All At Once” but with some really sad midwest emo guitars over it.