For just a two-piece band, Brainstorm packs an incredible punch with their music. The duo, comprised of musicians Adam Baz and Patrick Phillips, has a unique feel in their music, combining playful melodies with erratic percussion for a high-energy experience that will appeal to a wide range of listeners. A little bit art rock and all sorts of rock and roll, Brainstorm is set on course to conquer Portland with their unstoppable charisma and vast amount of talent.
Daily Vanguard: Can you talk a little bit about how you and Patrick got started? How did the band come together, and who is currently involved?
Adam Baz: Brainstorm formed in the summer of 2008, when we were playing in Ohioan and the Native Kin. That’s our family’s church group. We split off as a devilish two-piece. We decided to keep the instrumentation to vocals, guitar, tuba, drums and keyboard, which is a lot for two people I guess. This is still our current lineup, though Becky Dawson of Au, Ah Holly Fam’ly and Saw Whet contributed vocals to our recent album Battling Giants.
DV: What kind of projects have you guys worked on musically, under the name Brainstorm or with any other bands?
AB: Prior to Brainstorm, [I] drummed for several other bands, including the Boredoms 88 Drummer Performance, Night Wounds and Carla Bozulich’s Evangelista. As for Brainstorm itself, we wrote songs and played shows until the end of 2008, at which time we took a six-month hiatus. Patrick [studied] flamenco guitar in Spain and [I did] an artist residency in San Francisco. We rejoined this spring, reworked our songs, wrote some new ones and recorded our first album. Battling Giants was released on Lasercave Records in the summer of 2009. We took the album on an awesome West Coast tour in August, which culminated at the Helsing Junction Sleepover (a three-day music festival on an organic farm in Washington, co-organized annually by K Records and Lasercave). We played there alongside Calvin Johnson, Why I Must Be Careful, LAKE, Old Time Religion, Desolation Wilderness and more. [It was] definitely a highlight.
DV: When you started out playing music what was your original intent as far as sound or style for the group?
AB: It’s funny—we started playing together without any real discussion pertaining to genre or sound, but discovered immediately that our musical aspirations and ideas were very similar. Our sound has developed mainly by experimentation, happy accidents and out of the conglomeration of our influences. I think we are both influenced by traditional music from around the world, and share the desire to acknowledge that wide range of influence in the music we make, rather than picking a stylistic identity and adhering to it narrowly.
DV: How has your sound evolved from your original intent and from where you started?
AB: Hard to say. The evolution has been pretty organic I think. We’ve talked occasionally about the direction of our sound, but the music seems to pull itself in its own directions as we write, without much conscious steering. We’re still young; the future is unknown.
DV: What is your song writing process like? What kind of work goes into crafting your songs and who is involved in which aspects of the writing process?
AB: Our writing process varies from song to song, but it’s always a pretty democratic collaboration. Sometimes Adam leaves me voice mails with a melody he thought up and doesn’t want to forget, and it finds its way into a guitar or tuba line. Sometimes the lyrics and vocals come first and other times we write them to fit the music we’ve already composed. Our songs always undergo revision and various forms. Some aren’t fully finished until after performing them for a bit.
DV: What has influenced your music and made you want to write and perform?
AB: That’s hard to say. In some ways everything we’ve ever experienced directs us towards music and performance. [We’ve] just got to rock out. Can’t help it. Musically, I guess we’re both pretty influenced by some weird combination of art-rock, African highlife, gospel, punk rock, gypsy songs, shameless pop, etc.
DV: Why do you make music and what do you think sets you apart from other bands in Portland?
AB: Music is fun. I guess you’d be better equipped to answer that second part than us.
DV: Where do you see this going or hope your music goes?
AB: We’ve been trying to get famous from day one. Heading straight to MTV2. It would be cool to play on the moon someday soon—or at least a Blazers halftime show. Do you have any connections?
DV: What are you working on right now and what kind of future plans do you have right now?
AB: We’re writing new songs and trying to keep it real into 2010. A spring tour, maybe. Some of the Portland music festivals would be great to be a part of, i.e. PDX Pop Now, Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival, the Bite of Oregon, etc.