Jon, Luke, and Ryan of Invisible Animals stop by the WBCA studio to perform their latest songs and talk about how they got together, their influences, and music as a family ordeal.
WBCA Podcasts
WBCA Presents: Invisible Animals
What's up y'all, we're Invisible Animals and you're listening to WBCA Presents on 102.9 FM Boston and this is Making My Way. [Music] [Music] Making My Way. Do you have a sphere while you're rolling down on my atmosphere? And there ain't no battery cleaning from the moon, huh? [Music] And baby, baby is meant to know, since the butterflies are in love [Music] And I'm not a girl alone! [Music] Making My Way. Do you have a sphere while you're rolling down on my sea? And there ain't no battery cleaning from the moon, huh? [Music] And baby, baby is meant to know, since the birds are chirping and I'm not a girl alone! [Music] And I'm not a girl alone! [Music] [Music] [Music] You are tuned in to WBCA 102.9 FM. I'm your host Tommy Shenifield and this is WBCA Presents. You just heard Making My Way by Invisible Animals. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you. Thanks for having us. So for those who don't know, we have John, Luke and Ryan of Invisible Animals in the studio. For those who don't know, how did you get started? John and I were roommates in college and well John knew Ryan before and we didn't know Ryan was a good guitarist. So we added him along, but John and I basically just played every Thursday, Saturday night trying to mingle with the folks in the college dorms. Trying to play some Wonderwall. How did the ningling go? Are we one of friends? A lot of friends. Basically we started back in 2015 I believe. That's it being Luke started writing songs just with my guitar and get a little drum set like trying to drum kit. So just started like writing some demos, getting it going and then I went to high school with Ryan who I knew played guitar. And then during the pandemic we were all bored and we started jamming out together and songs just started kind of coming together. So the chemistry was there and we were like we should start recording this was actually kind of good. That's how it came up with our first album The Over Under. Thanks to Ryan's grandfather. Yes we were recording at a local studio and Luke was long commutes for him and tough to nail down the timing so we decided my grandfather had an empty basement. So we just kind of built our own little homemade studio there and allowed us to get that The Over Under out. I think in the professional studio we had about three or four songs finished and got the other half done in about probably two months. Now as well as driving from PA up. Yes. And then you're in Troy, New Hampshire now right? She just loved driving. You know what should have been a driver should have been a truck driver but should have been my calling. No it's good out there. I escaped the city I come in I leave. It's great. Speaking of escaping the city I understand that your band name invisible animals is from an excerpt of The Tracker by Tom Brown Jr. Yes it is. I wrote down the line which I think is the right line from the book. Even in a small New Jersey town the landscape is as full of invisible animals as a child's puzzle. Yes. I found that line I don't know anything else about Tom Brown Jr. or The Tracker. So I'd be interested to know what is that how do you get the inspiration for your band name. A friend actually gave me that book because she knows I was obsessed with Native American folk lore and all this but Tom Brown Jr. ended up basically he's a tracker and he went and lived with a bunch of Native American tribes and learned how to actually track animals the right way. Along with that line he used it a couple more times to basically call the Native Americans invisible animals a night because they were able to just track an animal with ease in the snow with their bare feet without even making another track. It just stuck with me and it was hard to get these guys to agree with invisible animals. But have they all come around to it now? Oh yeah. Yes. Yeah. I got the hat off. We can't see it. We'll get a look later. It's a tongue twister though when you're trying to say it live but it works. Because I know that there's glass animals, there's ceramic animals and you're invisible animals so you're kind of you're in that animal echelon. Yeah. Imagine dragons. Yeah. So I'm curious with the timeline so it was kind of at the start of the pandemic you said that you kind of got all the three of you together. And then you were accepted like did it more accelerated more and got together more especially because I think the app band lab actually came out around that time so like more people who stayed at home were able to just like he was able to record a guitar part. I was able to do a vocal. He was able to do a guitar part all while we were separated. Yeah. And we're like oh we have a good song here. Let's get together and actually do this. And then your debut album came out 2023 so I'm curious were you kind of writing on and off and then eventually it came to the album or was did it really ramp up at some point. It was more end of 2020 was when we we got in the studio for the very first time it was actually remember it was like the it was either New Year's Eve or the day before. So that was the first time we got in the studio my you know we had been playing together and kind of writing some songs and for Christmas my brother got us a gift card to the recording company and figured you know it'd be a good gift and let us try to actually get some of our songs down so we did a session there and then it was Luke noted he's driving up from Pennsylvania so it was intermittent with his schedule and also kind of availability at TRC. So it took us a while. Yeah it was also kind of learning on the go you know I had to do the engineer kind of registration course and then after that it was kind of we're on our own. So playing and trying to figure out the production and the engineer stuff kind of on the fly which I think probably impacted the timeline a little bit but you know we made it work and happy with how it turned out all kind of solve our own. Yeah exactly. So you had your brother and your grandfather involved. It's a family ordeal. Shout out to them. And what are some of your influences whether it's other bands or taking a long scroll in the woods. I got I'm ACDC straight out the crib but that was been my influences of drums and as noted when we started it was you know me drums and singing Flynn was the Orion sorry was guitarist and bass and we had Kelly doing just basically rhythm. Yeah it's just been ACDC. A lot of like lately it's been a lot of like more country or side of things more twangier side now that I'm living out in the country gets more of a better vibe out there. Yeah a little Tom Petty too. Yeah Tom Petty toad the wet sprocket a lot. A lot of like writing style like lyric wise is toad the wet sprocket I would say. Definitely rolling stones. Yeah we kind of all have different different influences I would say yeah especially on some of the earlier songs definitely a heavy stones influence you know Jonathan and I are both big fans of the replacements. So some of that placement's big star. I'm also big into the clash. Yeah the clasher my favorite band so kind of an album like London Calling where there's every song kind of stretches genres and styles I think I've taken that with how we approach songs where you know John comes up with a guitar part that you know could be more kind of country sounding and Luke kind of has more rock type lyrics and then you know I might do something on a guitar that doesn't necessarily you know wouldn't be what you'd necessarily expect but you know I think we have one that we'll be playing now where you know it started off kind of like a country American Gothic you know kind of country twang and then in the studio was kind of like oh you know it's kind of almost sounds like a U2 song so yeah hopefully they don't sue us for ripping them off with the delay the delay but we'll take the publicity how we can. Yeah well we're pretty mixed reverse. It all comes together like perfectly like I was saying that the other day to someone was just like how to have like the rock in the country and like meeting the middle is like I don't know because everyone always asks like what style are we and it's so hard to expand down. I'm a bluegrass alternative, indie twang but I saw that I saw indie twang the other day and I was like I guess I mean I have a I have a twang. Yeah I have a twang to my voice we kind of have like an indie vibe but we're still we're still borderline like are we getting on alternative rock or we should we be hitting up Nashville or not but invisible genres. Yeah there you go. We're about to have you perform two more songs do you want to tell us what are those songs and anything you want to say about them. The first one we're going to do is call an American Gothic and the second one will be Little Town which is on our Over Under album, our first album and it's about growing up in a small town so you'll be able to hear that. Why don't you tell them about your little town that you wrote it about. The little town it's about Shirley Massachusetts where I grew up and it's a population of 7,000 but 5,000 of that is prison. That's where I grew up Shirley so you'll hear the lyrics you'll understand. Well we can't wait to hear them again this is WBCA 102.9 FM you are tuned into the show WBCA presents with the very wonderful band Invisible Animals. What's up y'all we're Invisible Animals and you're listening to WBCA presents on 102.9 FM Boston and this is our song American Gothic. [Music] Mother, sitting on the porch tonight in the house I had a change of mind. Daddy, been the bottle again just trying to drown the love of life. There's some satisfaction and no pain, there's some satisfaction and no pain. There's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain. There's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain. There's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain. There's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain. There's some satisfaction and no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain. There's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain. There's no satisfaction and no pain, there's some satisfaction and no pain. There's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain, there's no pain. There's no satisfaction and no pain. What's up y'all, we're Invisible Animals, you're listening to WBCA Presents on 102.9 FM Boston, this is our song "Little Town". I couldn't believe 23, I'd be saying goodbye to another close friend. I guess weird is a little town. I couldn't believe 25, I'd be on the hands and saying goodbye well. I guess weird is a little town. Every day I see this face, another empty glass, another empty bar well. And I wish they were here to see this. And every night I think of the times that lost their fight to end their lives. I wish they were here to see this. And every night I think of the times that lost their lives. This comes in life where you want to quit, comes in life where you just don't fit in when that starts happening. But just start thinking about the days of the little town, days of the little town, days of the little town. [Music] Lost and remeld, my first kiss was upon that beauty with big blue eyes well. I wish I could go back to my innocence. Lost and remeld, my first fight it was so hard to be first in life but I wish I could go back to my innocence. And then Jake, member of the days we were rather biked through the cemetery gates but haven't seen that place in a long time. And then Mike, member of the nights we would sneak out and run through the park but haven't been there in a long time. [Music] This comes in life where you want to quit, comes in life where you just don't fit in when that starts happening. [Music] [Music] You are tuned in to WBCA Presents on 102.9 FM Boston, Boston's community radio station. I'm your host, Tommy Shenifield. And we have John, Luke, and Ryan of Invisible Animals here in the studio. Thanks again for being here. Thank you, it's been super fun for us too. So you just performed your songs American Gothic and Little Town. Have you been performing a lot out live? Little Town has been like our staple song to play when we live. We usually have our other friend Jeff Stately who added in a good verse, a couple verses there at the end of the song. Shout out Jeff Stately, yes. American Gothic is actually our newest song should be on Spotify by the time this is out. Yeah, in American Gothic, we just wrote that one probably in like March. So we honestly haven't really performed it. Actually, we haven't performed it at all. That was our first live performance. You're releasing a couple of songs as of late. Is there an album on the way or these are just singles on their own? I think we're going with the single route. I saw the artist Russ posted one time. He was like, "I'm not going to put out an album when no one's going to listen to it." I'm going to put out some singles so people can actually listen to it and enjoy it. So I think for now we're going to go with the waterfall, single technique. Just trying to build a little bit of a credibility listener base too. And where can people listen to your music? We're on Spotify. We're on Apple. We're on YouTube. We're on Twitch. Yeah, it's on TikTok everywhere. If you want to make a song, if you've eaten a sandwich to our song on TikTok, feel free. Well, I'm sure somebody's going to take you up on that. You know, songs like "Little Town," are you performing in a lot of "Little Towns"? Yeah, I mean, it is a big song. We've played a lot in my hometown a couple of times, just, you know, we had to get the money gigs, you know what I mean. "Little Town," we've also played in New York City. So we've kind of played it in again next to Times Square. That was a great show. But, yeah, it's just been like our stage. It's a fun song. We try to, like, relate with the crowd. We also play around, like, Cambridge. We've done the jungle. We've done Midway Cafe in Jamaica Plain. Yes. We've played Bill's Bar in Fenway. We're playing the Middle East upstairs. So, yeah, we're kind of all over the city. Venture out to Shirley. Venture out to New York every once in a while. Yeah, we play all over. Yeah. Whether you're performing, you know, in your hometown or New York City or somewhere else, how does that feel to, you know, be performing live and having an audience hopefully connect with you? It is surreal if they're paying attention. Yeah, but it's nice. It's nice to see that my past, my songs are getting out there and people are hearing it. I don't know how they feel about this stuff, but it feels great that my words are getting out. And if they're listening years, they're listening years and they hear it, I know a lot of people in my hometown love Little Town. Yeah, it feels good. When we come up with a song and you release it and you're not sure how it's going to be received, and then, you know, your friends text you. Like, that song's awesome. It's a jam. Send your videos to them, jam it out to it. It's an awesome feeling. And live, it's just, it's a surreal feeling when people are bopping and kind of like, you can tell they're getting into the song as you're playing it. It's just, it's an adrenaline rush. Pretty sure we got a couple tears on Little Town once. I think it was at the jungle, I'm sure. Yeah. It's a little emotional in this time. It's a long way from three of us playing in my living room. That's what it is. Yeah, it is sure. Yeah, we're so glad that we could have you, you know, come down to the WBCA studio to perform all these great songs. Unfortunately, we only have time for one more song. Could you tell us a little bit about what your last song is going to be? This one is trainwrecked. This is actually one I wrote a long time ago. Back when we first tried to start on BandLab. This was like our first song trainwreck, and I was kind of iffy. I was like, I want to hold it to myself. I don't know if I should give it to these guys and let us, let us roll with it. But it obviously worked. It got us here. It was our first song on the radio on WBCA. You guys accepted us. First song written by us all together or I guess Luke wrote the lyrics. I wrote lyrics came up and then yeah, we kind of just built it. I forgot a lot of how I played the guitar and he actually figured it out. Yeah. And then our latest release. So it's been a little time since actually writing it to releasing it. It took quite some time, but it got there. And then we hooked up with Steve Alaperta, Alaperta, out of Kennedy Studios. Kennedy Studios in Burlington, Mass. Yes, correct. Burlington, Mass. Yeah. And he was great. We came in. We had the idea. We already had the song. We already been playing the song. But to come in with what we already knew and had and then him, you know, branch it off, say, "Hey, let's go here. Let's go here with the Oregon. Let's go here with this." And just finally flushing it out a little bit more. Flushing out with an actual producer and mixer was actually amazing. Sounds spotify train wreck by Invisible Animals. That's what you're saying is the first producer wasn't very good. No, I mean, you're still in class, right? Well, this has been WBCA Presents on WBCA 102.9 FM Boston. I've been your host, Tommy Shenifield, and we've been very lucky to have Invisible Animals, John, Luke, and Ryan here in the WBCA Studio. And here's one more song from them, train wreck. What's up, y'all? We're Invisible Animals. You're listening to WBCA Presents on 102.9 FM Boston. And this is our song, Train Wreck. I'm asking, "What am I dressing?" Maybe tonight won't we feel right? Maybe seeing me on my shoulders dancing in the new. Take your problems somewhere else, where? Honestly, it came to me, I wanna be a shadow cast in a new room. Yeah, let us lie down, one down. I keep missing the train, I keep falling over back over. I keep missing the train, I keep nipping down my problems. I keep missing the train, I keep falling over back over. Yeah, I keep missing the train. Break up the song, it's always easy. Here's a Tennessee on the moist green. I wanna be a night to cast in a new film. Yeah, I'm sorry as my virtual feelings. I want you to know, I had to go. I wanna be the star that shines in a new film. Oh yeah, let us lie down, one down. I keep missing the train, I keep falling over back over. I keep missing the train, I keep nipping down my problems. I keep missing the train, I keep falling over back over. Yeah, I keep missing the train. Yeah. (music) Whiskey ball, I'm lost on the ball. I can't get my hands out of the sharks mouth. I'll take your problems somewhere else. I'll say to myself, I need to get help. There's nothing in my head that sharks mouth. Oh no, I wanna fall down, one down. I keep missing the train, I keep falling over back over. I keep missing the train, I keep nipping down my problems. I keep missing the train, I keep falling over back over. Yeah, I keep missing the train. (music) (music) (music) (music) [BLANK_AUDIO]