Interviewed: Freemartin
Originally posted 09.07.03

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Originally, I wanted to do the interview with Freemartin at an outside location, but considering all the recent rain storms, I figured indoors would be better. So, we did what, apparently, any red blooded South Floridian would do on a Saturday night. We went to Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart (the Sawgrass Mills location) is too fluorescently bright and too filled with people in pajama bottoms (seriously, this place is surprisingly busy for a weekend night) for my liking. But band members Shawn (bass) and Mike (guitar and vocals), joined by their friends Lisa and Jason, seem content to wander the aisles and dig through the DVD bargain bin after the interview, so I'm not too worried that they hate this entire concept.

Freemartin has two histories. The preferred history, which they tell most people, which will be going on their newly designed website, is simple: how they went from a four-piece, to a three-piece and then back to a four-piece. Freemartin was a trio, featuring Mike, Matt (drums, also drums for the band Into the Moat), and Adam (guitar). All three had been in other bands ("Nothing worth mentioning," says Mike). They recorded a few demos ("Not worth mentioning," says Mike). Last year, Adam went away to UCF. Mike then asked friend and band supporter Shawn if he'd like to join.

"I was always around anyway," Shawn answers when I ask why he decided to join. "And I knew all the songs."

"He's a really fun guy to hang out with," Mike adds. "We can't hang out with someone who's going to be Mr. Serious all the time. When you see Adam, Matt and I together, we're like three Down Syndrome kids in a playpen. Then you add [Shawn] and it's like four Down Syndrome kids, just running around. He fit too perfectly in the band. It's incredible...He used to go to our shows, wearing a Freemartin shirt and kids recognized him. Kids knew him before he was in the band. They knew us only through him." [Now that he's in the band] we go to a mall and people walk by [and say] 'you're the bassist for Freemartin.' And the rest of the [band] will be standing around him but they only recognize him. He's certainly brought us a lot of attention."

That's all well and good, but I am curious to hear the full history. Asking about the band name gets me all the details of Freemartin's entire three-year existence.

"This is the part of the history that we cut out 'cause it's not really necessary. The band used to have other people in it and, in fact, it originally had a female singer. Most of her lyrics were political," Mike explains. The singer and another band member were looking through political books and websites for a name. They narrowed it down to Freemartin. They couldn't find the name again where they had originally found it. What they did find was information about the disease freemartin (a condition that causes a cow to be born with both male and female organs, and if you don't believe me, just do a yahoo search on it).

"We thought about changing [the name] but we just let it go. I'm fine with it. I'm comfortable with it," says Mike. "It's a name. I don't want the band name to make the band. I'd rather we make the name."

Mike continues with the background of the band. "There's been a total of 8 people that have played in the band, but it's mostly been bass players that have switched out. I'm technically not an original member, but I would consider myself [one] because when I came in, the band took it in a different direction than before. Once Adam got in, it kicked it into high gear. We started getting serious and writing stuff that we really wanted to go further with."

And it's not just line up changes and level of seriousness that set the current Freemartin apart from its original incarnation. They've also seen a progression in the music.

"The older stuff seemed more pop, a lot more simplistic compared to now," Mike says.

With band members having a variety of influences, everything from mellow alternative to metal, it can be difficult to classify the sound. "People like to throw [rock bands] in with Creed and I don't ever want someone to compare us to them," says Mike. "People are going to call it emo-core. Call it what you like."

"I used to think let's just call ourselves a rock band but I think that's just selling ourselves way too short. I think we've worked way to hard to just call ourselves a rock band. [A friend] called us a technical melodic band and I've just stuck with that...It's everything. There's math rock in it. [There's] even a little hard core in it. A little of everything," Shawn says. "[There's] more musicianship in the band now than they was before. [We] pay attention to what we're doing [with] timing and stuff like that."

"We put a lot more effort into making it more, in some aspects, unpredictable and just not too generic, not too watered down. We're trying to make it fun for us and interesting for us to play so we don't get bored with playing the songs," Mike adds. "Every time we write a new song, we're adding something different, crazier, adding different elements of music into it."

The band is currently focusing on writing new material. They plan to record a full-length soon, but they find the process slows down a little with Adam away at school.

"I don't want to write songs as a three-piece and then just say Adam, you put something in this. I want to include Adam in the writing," Mike says, adding that a full-length should be done sometime in 2004.

"We just have to get our act together," Shawn says, joking that a full-length should be available sometime in 2007.

They do know for sure that they will have a four song EP available in the new few months (either in October or November). It was recorded this past April at Studio 13 in Deerfield Beach with Jeremy Staska."If any of you [bands] want to record and you're not ska, record with Jeremy Staska," declares Shawn.

The EP will be released through Pumpkineater Records, a indie record label based in New Jersey. Pumkineater will be helping with distribution and promotion of the band. They are in the final stages of contract negotiations with the label.

The band chooses to play out locally once or twice a month and now faces a new problem of doing shows with a band member who lives several hours north for most of the year.

"Adam's only been back in the band since June. He was down here, so every time we had a show, he was here and available. We're really going to experience what it's like to have him away now in these coming months," says Mike. "We have a show coming up the 19th at the Factory [09.19 with Adam's Out, Set Trigger, Break 27 and Cru Jones at the Factory in Fort Lauderdale] which he's going to drive down for. Then the following Tuesday, we're going to be playing in West Palm with the Stereo [09.23 at Ray's, downtown West Palm Beach] and he's probably going to stay down here, skip school Monday and Tuesday so he can play that show. He really wants to be around for that. But there's going to be shows where he probably won't be able to make it down. We can't expect him to drive down every weekend to play a show. We going to try to schedule shows up [in Orlando]."

The band is also planning a tour. Shawn says, "We're working on a tour for December, up through the east coast"

"We're planning on doing, not necessarily tours, but runs through Florida," adds Mike. "Little runs through Florida every other weekend. But things have been going good for not having played out too much. I always get random emails from kids in states like Ohio and I'm just like how the hell did you hear about us?"

I have to ask what they think of their hometown, what they think of the South Florida music scene. It's become a staple question of the Mixed76 interview.

"The scene is the scene. A lot of kids are just worried about what people think of them. It's stupid. I wish more kids would come to shows instead of waiting for the big bands to come around," says Shawn. "I love the scene...but [it'd] be a lot better if you just went to every show, no matter who was playing."

"Or [the scene would be better if] they just appreciated music," says Mike. "They only like the band because they have friends who are in it. No matter how terrible the band is, they're going to say that they're amazing just because their friend's in it. Or if they go to a show, they can stick around for the whole show."

The work the band has done to promote themselves has gotten them a great deal of online exposure. Most recently, the site Emotional Punk wrote a glowing review of the band, stating that Freemartin is "simply an unsigned band who need to be signed."

"Anywhere your name appears and somebody gets intrigued and wants to look into it more, it helps." Mike says, "The Emotional Punk [mention] was a huge thing for us. A lot of people heard of us through there."

They're realistic about the goals of the band. Recording, touring, meeting people. And if a major label deal happens during all that, so be it.

"I just want to do as much as I can and have fun with it. I'm not going to cry if we make a small following for ourselves [as opposed to a major label deal]," Mike says. "We've met a lot of people we never would have met [if not for the band]. All that stuff makes it so cool and worth it. We're going to talk to anyone and everyone who's willing to say something about us anywhere and hopefully, we can just spread like an infection and take over the country."

Pics from the Freemartin  interview


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Interviewed: Freemartin
Originally posted 09.07.03