Promise
Ring: Might Be Stars
by Monica Beilke
Portraits by Amanda Marsalis
Live photo by Ben Werth
This February marks the 5 year anniversary of The Promise Ring.
Some of you have no doubt been fans for most of, if not all
those years. Some of you might only have been turned on to The
Promise Ring with the recent release of their third album, Very
Emergency. But by now I’m sure that all of you have at
one point or another over the past half decade, at least heard
of The Promise Ring. And, whether you have chosen to label their
music as ‘emo’, ‘indie-pop’, ‘college-rock’
or some other hip, scenester catch phrase that grew stale five
minutes ago, you can’t deny that The Promise Ring were
on the forefront of a movement. A sound that would become not
only their own but a standard by which to gauge a sub-genre
that would follow.
What makes The Promise Ring different from the bulk of bands
before them or so much better than the wave of bands that attempt
to imitate them? Talent? Luck? Or is it the kind of honest sincerity
that I was pleasantly surprised to find when I interviewed guitarist,
Jason Gnewikow?
I always enjoy talking to people about what kind of music they’re
into. It’s a good icebreaker and you can usually tell a
lot about a person by what’s in their cd player. My conversation
with Jason made me feel better about my own habit of leaving
the same cds in the changer for weeks at a time. Of course now
I’m scouring used record stores looking for releases by
the Swedish pop band The Wannadies, who I’d long ago discovered
but absently forgotten about and I too have since been wondering
whatever happened to Weezer? But the most unexpected confession
came not when Jason divulged that The Oakridge Boys had been
his first record purchase, but that he was a big Sheryl Crow
fan. “She’s Totally respectable and it may not be
your thing and it’s definitely not something youth culture’s
going to embrace, but she’s a great songwriter and a great
singer.”
Youth culture as we look on it might not embrace Sheryl Crow
but it is certainly embracing everything.com/ click here to
download. One of the biggest waves sweeping the music industry
is MP3 technology. The kids seem to love it but what about a
graphic designer and musician? Not surprisingly Jason’s
biggest concern was packaging and the missed experience of poring
over liner notes but he went beyond just talking about how it
pertained to downloading a song or album to cover a bigger picture
that a lot of bands are overlooking. “I
love the idea of a band caring about everything they do and
putting everything they have into all aspects of their band
which is a big part about packaging. There’s a lot of bands
that are amazing songwriters but they just don’t care.
I just think that’s weird. But then there’s bands
that I respect so much like Radiohead. They have these great
songs. They have this really interesting artwork all the time.
They have these amazing videos. Nothing’s just thrown out
without thinking about it. Every single thing is deliberate
and has a point. I’m pretty into that.”
So what about the live show? Like most good musicians Jason
admits he’s a bit of a perfectionist and being in the studio
makes that more attainable but he’s spent the last five
years fine tuning his live performance. “I do love playing
live because it’s (pause) so fun. It’s fun to be there
and in the moment. Recording is really cool but a lot of times
you can’t have that spontaneous excitement that a show
can deliver.”
Jason didn’t skip a beat when I asked him what he was most
proud of when it came to Very Emergency, “Mostly the fact
that the songwriting was totally deliberate. That it turned
out the way we wanted it to turn out. You know, it’s like
for better or for worse. I wouldn’t say if it’s really
good or really bad but it’s what we intended it to be.
So if you like it then that’s good and if you hate it well
that’s good too because no matter what it’s exactly
what we wanted to do and that’s the thing that I’m
probably the most proud of about it.”
The Promise Ring have been with their label Jade Tree since
practically the beginning and I was left without a doubt as
to how happy they are with that arrangement. With the ever growing
sea of indie labels and the consolidation of the majors Jason
offered up some advice to the younger generation of bands starting
out, “Hopefully you find somebody that represents your
best interests. Whatever those may be. The biggest thing for
new bands is to plan on working for everything that you want.
Too many bands want a free ride now. We always get emails like
‘We’d love to do a tour with your band cause we really
like you, but we don’t want a shitty tour’ and it’s
like: Do a shitty tour because we’ve done tons of shitty
tours before we got anything that we have. You have to work
for things. There’s no point in having it handed to you
cause then you can’t appreciate it anyway.”
The Promise Ring have toured for gruelling stretches across
North America, done Europe 3 times and are soon off to Japan.
No one could question their work ethic but after 5 years how
do you measure your success? “We have managed to do things
that I never thought that in a million years we’d ever
get the chance to do. And it’s just been basically a steady
stream of crazy stuff that you never expected you’d do.
It’s been awesome! And I think that’s pretty successful.”
This February marks the 5 year anniversary of The Promise Ring.
Some of you have no doubt been fans for most of, if not all
those years. Some of you might only have been turned on to The
Promise Ring with the recent release of their third album, Very
Emergency. But by now I’m sure that all of you have at
one point or another over the past half decade, at least heard
of The Promise Ring. And, whether you have chosen to label their
music as ‘emo’, ‘indie-pop’, ‘college-rock’
or some other hip, scenester catch phrase that grew stale five
minutes ago, you can’t deny that The Promise Ring were
on the forefront of a movement. A sound that would become not
only their own but a standard by which to gauge a sub-genre
that would follow.
“I
love the idea of a band caring about everything they do and
putting everything they have into all aspects of their band
which is a big part about packaging. There’s a lot of bands
that are amazing songwriters but they just don’t care.
I just think that’s weird. But then there’s bands
that I respect so much like Radiohead. They have these great
songs. They have this really interesting artwork all the time.
They have these amazing videos. Nothing’s just thrown out
without thinking about it. Every single thing is deliberate
and has a point. I’m pretty into that.”