Getting to Know… Long Autumn | Interview 🎤

In our 163^rd interview, we gain insight about Boston, Massachusetts nu alternative/dark pop band Long Autumn from lead singer Johnny Mark. 

“We’re not the kind of band to stay stationary in one spot for an hour looking all bored and shit.” Hell yeah, Long Autumn 🤘! “We move around the stage, we jump, we bang our heads and our passion for what we do shines through each of us when we play live.” Rock TF on! Moving on, the five-member, nu alternative/dark pop collective from Boston, Massachusetts is comprised of 🎙 Johnny Mark (lead singer), 🎙 Tim Donovan (bass), 🎙 Nick Harvey (lead guitar), 🎙 Jam Templeton (rhythm guitar), and 🎙 Conor Moran (drums). Johnny answers all of our burning questions on this enthralling 163^rd edition of the Getting to Know… Q&A series.  So, without further ado, here’s 🎤 Getting to Know… Long Autumn: Interview No. 163.

Starting things off right. For those who may not be familiar with Long Autumn, what would you say makes your band distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

🎤 Well, I’d start with our sound as a whole.  From the beginning, we’ve blended a variety of essences in our music into one core sound that too many is hard to put a finger on.  We’re a very effect-heavy band, we love our fair share of guitar pedals.  We’re atmospheric and spacey, but also hard-hitting and bassy.  That even rhymes.  Our live show is high energy.  We’re not the kind of band to stay stationary in one spot for an hour looking all bored and shit.  We move around the stage, we jump, we bang our heads and our passion for what we do shines through each of us when we play live.  Our sound on stage is very big.

Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did Long Autumn form and what were some of the goals or the visions you had as a band early on?

🎤 We formed in the August of 2019.  Tim, our bass player, found my solo project that I was releasing music on prior to Long Autumn.  He found me on one of those sites where you meet musicians and saw that he and I lived just an hour away from each other.  I guess he dug the music I was making, so he reached out to see if I wanted to jam sometime, which obviously happened very shortly after the conversation.  His best friend, Nick, who’s our lead guitarist, lives with him and at the time was also interested in trying to get something going, so we all jammed one night, just freestyling over a backing track type drum beat.  The vibes were awesome.  Then we found Conor online, and he shot over a video of him playing our first track 🎵 “Hands in The Soil” (which at the time wasn’t released yet, but we sent it to him to see how he played).  His drumming was incredible, and we recruited him immediately.

Jam, our other guitarist, joined the band just a few months after we formed.  I decided to give playing rhythm a break and just focus on my talents as a singer, and so he hopped in without hesitation and completed the puzzle.  Our goal since day one was and has definitely been to make music that didn’t quite sound like any other, or at least many other artists.  Something of our own.  We would love to do this full time for a living, and we’d welcome it with open arms.  I want our songs to impact people and make them feel a certain way or emotion, whatever that might be for them.

Let’s talk more about goals. Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

🎤 We’ve really stayed true to just trying to consistently improve both our written music as well as our live show with each passing week & month.  We have just begun work on a brand new, hot-out-the-oven batch of Long Autumn music.  We want this year to be really big for us in terms of putting out new noise.  That’s our main goal right now, since shows are still mostly out of question (although we do have a festival lined up this summer).

Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Who would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

🎤 My favorite band, in all aspects and all ways, is The Neighbourhood, an alternative band from southern California.  Those dudes turned me on to making the kind of music that we do, and they’re probably one of the few bands we could be compared to sonically in a sense.  They changed my life sort of.  But we have tons of influences and listen to bands of all sorts.  Collectively, we love everything from John Mayer, to Slipknot, to The 1975, to Cage The Elephant, to the Foo Fighters, Arctic Monkeys, Nirvana and so many more.  All bands that have fully dedicated their living being to the beautiful art of music.

Ah, the fun stuff. What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance? Feel free to be creative.

🎤 Man, that’s tough to say.  I mean, we trip over our shit and spill beer 🍺  constantly.  Kind of our thing.  Jam’s kicked over his amp mic without him or any of us knowing and went a whole show without his guitar coming out of the sound system at all, which sucked.  Nothing too crazy so far, I guess.  Our shows are just a blast, and the crowd we tend to draw out is always on our vibe and wanting to have an awesome night.  Even if you’re not super into the style of music we play, you will have fun at a Long Autumn gig.

Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

🎤 Wow, that’s hard!  Recorded, I would say one of our new songs called 🎵 “Hard One”.  I’m really proud of that song, and of the melodies I wrote.  And it’s a BANGER live; we open with it and it’s super heavy.  Favorite to perform for me is our track 🎵 “Poison”, which is also on the heavier, darker side of our music.  Makes you bang your head and want to jump.  Real fun.

Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

🎤 Let’s see.  We ALL love watching 📺 The Office, it’s sort of our Saturday morning ritual after a late rehearsal.  The rest of the boys aside from me occasionally like to gamble, they have poker nights and sometimes hit casinos and stuff like that.  We’re a tall band, we’re all over six feet.  A couple of us golf 🏌⛳, a couple of us are in relationships.  Oh, and Jam loves anime.  There’s that.

Closing things out, what is Long Autumn currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure.

🎤 Well, right now we’re heavily promoting our second EP 💿 Change that we just released last weekend.  It’s doing quite well so far & we encourage anyone and everyone to give it a listen!  The vibes are very chill and set a nice, but very distinct atmosphere with a lot of different moods mixed into one.  And, as I said before, new music is very much in the works right now.  We have a couple demos cooking and we are very excited to put out a solid quantity of new sound this year.  We’re improving, and we’re growing, and we’re evolving.  We’re becoming more comfortable with each other.  And we’re just so unbelievably stoked to begin the next chapter of this band, and to have you all come along the journey with us.

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Getting to Know… Long Autumn: Interview 🎤 No. 163 [📷: Long Autumn, Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype]