The village of Schuylerville, New York in Saratoga County is home to a growing tourism, arts, and culture scene. In a garage or on a local business’ patio, you’ll find Shortwave RadioBand. It formed as a duo in 2019, playing acoustic rock covers. Andy Scullin and Lonny Eaton eventually added drummer John Woods, Abby Stone, a trumpeter, and guitarist Ryan Shaw. This Thursday, the band is celebrating the release of its first album at NoFun in Troy. Scullin says the band has been on a journey to write its own songs and blend ideas as a group.
It has gotten a lot easier because my role in it has diminished. Lonnie and Ryan are both very, very good at, you know, writing songs and being like, well, you know, this would work here, and if it's in this key, then we should go to here. And, you know, when we started working on newer songs, like their ideas just floated to the top. And we kind of made, like, a conscious decision where I was like, why don't you guys, you know, start communicating with each other, and start building this cat so they would communicate back and forth, and then throw a demo to the rest of the band, and then we'd add our parts to it, and then, so that's kind of how the new album is. Like I wrote one song on the new album, and like, co-wrote the rest of them, I guess, but certainly back seat to like the first three were, like my songs that were, you know, came to fruition, I guess.
This is going to be your first full length album. What was the process of creating it and making sure that it was what you wanted and that it fit the vision everyone else in the band had?
It was a lot of demos like, that's how like, because we wanted to, like, the name of the album is frequencies, and we wanted it to represent a lot of different styles. Because, like, if, when people are like, what style of music, are you? It's hard to say, but we always say, like, it's kind of like throwback 90s style, you know, because we're all in our 40s and 50s, like, you know. So, we're children of the 90s and 80s and my in my case. But it's different styles, but they all have that root in music that we grew up with, you know, so, like, there's a reggae song on there's a song that sounds like, could be like Weezer or Pixies, and then there's our garage rock songs, and then we even have a jazzy hip hop song with JB, aka dirty Moses, doing the vocals. And you know, we're not even well Abby, our trumpet player and vocalist, she sings on that as well, but it's a duet with her and JB, and the rest of the band is just laying back playing the music.
I could sit here all day and tell you what I think it sounds like, or, you know how it's different than other things from you guys that I've heard, but I'm not in your head. You guys created this with your own thoughts in mind. So, we talked a little bit earlier about how this is different than things you've released previously, but let's talk about that a little bit more in detail.
I think it's probably actually it is because of Lonnie and Ryan's approach to the songwriting, whereas I'm an old punk rock guy. Like, I'm like, three, three chords, maybe two, you know, like, maybe a fourth one, if we're getting crazy. But like, you know, I'm like, let's write them fat. I like short songs too. Like, I don't like songs to be more than three or four minutes…
I feel the same way. I feel the same way.
Like, if you like it that much, just listen to it again. Like, you know, I don't need the I don't need the artist to repeat the refrain 72 times. I'll just listen to it 72 times and we'll be good. No. But like, my songs, like I said, are very much written in an urgency. It's like, write them here they are, you know, like here they are. Whereas Lonnie and Ryan, it was very much like a dissect everything. It was everything took time, everything, you know. I mean, we thought when we, uh. Ian initially set out to do this. Our initial goal was to release it last fall. So, we were like, Yeah, we could probably have it out by October, because we started in, like, June or July, and now here we are in April, and we're like, okay, you know that was done. So, it took almost a year, and it was because it wasn't just gonna be, you know, if you listen to, like, ‘Don't Care, or, I mean, ‘Someday,’ to a lesser extent, but so long the hopeful, those are three note songs, and they're both, like, G as the root note, which is like, you know, like, those songs are very similar, and they're very just thrown out there, and then it's punk rock song, and their songs are more refined.
How do you make sure that, you know, you started as a cover band so you're playing other people's songs, learning how they play it, learning how you can play what they can play, and now, writing your own songs and playing your own songs live, how do you make sure they sound like the 90s, 80s, punk rock that you want, but that it's you?
I think that's all just like, technique that like, and I always say, like, I have a podcast, a local music podcast. And I always say, you know, like, nobody makes music in a vacuum, like people that that are, like, afraid to say what their influences are, or, you know, get offended if you're like, oh, that sounds like, you know, a Blink-182 song. What do you mean? You know, like, that's my song. I wrote that. And it's like, you didn't write it in a vacuum, though you wrote it because you heard all this music, and us like, you know, we're very rooted in, like, the 90s music. Like, I'm a huge like, punk and ska guy, and we're all different too, like, and Lonnie did not really know a lot of punk and knew zero ska. Like he was a classic rock and when we were, like, in high school, he was a straight, you know, hair metal, metal head and like, So, all these different styles come together, but they're all rooted in the same decade, I guess so, like, and that's again, coming back to frequencies. It's like, if you, you know, obviously, turn the radio dial, you get a different station, and that's how we wanted the album to be, like, you know, it's all these different frequencies, but it all sounds like they could be when you're in your car in 1996 driving down the road.
One who influences you. Don't be shy. You just said you can't be scared to admit it. But also, what do you think you're most proud of with this new album?
I mean as far as influence, do you mean like playing style?
Playing style, writing style, who you look to when you're getting dressed for the show?
Oh, well, I mean getting dressed like nobody I got. I've got my own, my own whatever, whatever this is going on. But no playing like the band, NOFX, Fat Mike, the bass player and singer like the front, like, he's who I base a lot of my bass playing off of, because he was who I was most excited to learn, you know, being like a fan of his, like, for 35 years, you know, like when I was switched to bass and was like, I'm learning this instrument, but and I'm gonna learn it In a way that I want to. I basically studied his playing in the way he does. And like, you know, I play with a pick, and I play very fast, and, yeah, so I would say style, that's it. Would be Fat Mike. And as far as what I'm the proudest of, I think it's how we all came together on because, like, in the early stages, like before, like, we even started writing for the, you know, like, I was nervous, like, because I've heard so many horror stories of like, bands that are go in to make an album, and they end up breaking up because it's too much tension, and somebody wants this. And somebody. Wants it to sound like that. And like, I was, you know, I was like, I don't know what we're gonna do when we get this, you know. And TJ Foster, from Erie [Productions], he produced it, and he, you know, he's a friend of the band. He's a friend of all of ours, personally. And he, like, you know, guided the process. But like, at the end of it, like, I'm really just proud of how the entire band, you know, came together and had give and take, you know, because, like, there's, there's parts, you know, be like, well, you know, maybe this baseline doesn't really work that well, you know. And it might be one that I'm like, I really kind of like that one, but then I'll be like, oh, all right, you know, okay, yeah, and it does make the song better. And I think that's like, where bands get into trouble is ego, and we don't really have that, because we're not, we're not those people, you know, we have fun when we hang out, we respect each other, we like each other. We laugh like and yeah. So, I think the way we all came together and crushed it and made an actual album of original music, which is crazy to think of.
What kind of adventures has the band taken you on? You know, this is your first album, so, you know, it's not like you've done, like a big tour for anything yet.
Yeah. I mean, as far as adventures, it's, it's, it's mostly been, I think, internal adventures, you know, like growing as a unit. And, I mean, we don't really have, you know, we were a local band, and, like, we don't really have any aspirations to tour, necessarily. We have found that we really like recording. So like, you know, playing around here locally, like, it'd be nice to and that's a good thing too. About this area is that there is plenty of room for us to grow as a local band. You know, there's plenty of bigger venues that we can't even touch now, that we can aspire to and, you know, so I think that's like our focus is, is locally. But I think as far as adventures, it's just, you know, doing, doing what we're doing, coming out of nowhere. Nobody really had any experience. We're just a bunch of yokels that are like, ‘Hey, let's start a punk rock band in your garage.’ Just like, OK.
Shortwave Radio Band’s Andy Scullin. The band is celebrating the release of “Frequencies” with an album release party at NoFun in Troy on Thursday, April 24 at 8.
"Frequencies" is available April 24 on Band Camp and May 17 on other streaming platforms.
