COVERT FLOPS

COVERT FLOPS

What are your first memories of loving music, and what were your earliest favorites?

The first music I specifically remember liking was from listening to my parents records.  Gary Lewis And The Playboys was one I remember playing a lot. The first CD I ever got for myself was an Elvis greatest hits that I bought with birthday money in the 2nd or 3rd grade.  I don't even really remember why! Haha.

Under what circumstances did you make the jump from music lover to musician? 

As a kid, I never even thought that playing music or playing the guitar specifically was something I could do. There were a few things that were the catalyst for me wanting to play guitar and make music.  The biggest one for me was the episode of Pete And Pete called "Hard Days Pete", where little Pete gets a song stuck in his head and forms a band with other kids to recreate the song. That was the first time I saw kids, let alone non-rockstars, play instruments and rock out in a garage.  That just blew my mind! So I got my grandfather's old '69 Harmony Rocket and started plucking around with it. Took lessons from age 11 to around 16 or so and played a lot of blues and rock music mostly.

What was your gateway into discovering your own music, and how did you first become interested in pop punk?

Classic response for this one, I saw a TV show about the Ramones.  I think it was a VH1 Behind The Music or something. That led me to discover more punk rock and as I got into skateboarding and watching skate videos, I really started getting introduced to more punk bands. I went through a Misfits and Black Flag phase, but it didn't really click with me long-term. After that, I really didn't keep up with much punk music until the Blink-182 era where pop-punk was impossible to ignore.  The only punk band that stayed constant in my life was the Ramones. And since I was pretty terrible at discovering music for a long time, it wasn't until a chance encounter with The Jasons in 2015 that I even discovered Ramonescore and the many grass-roots pop punk bands in similar genres. I'm like a newbie to all this and I'm still discovering stuff I love daily! Ha

At what point did you begin playing music with others, and when did you begin writing songs?

Aside from a crappy metal band in high school, the first time I played music with a band is a pretty funny story.  It was in 2016 and I was obsessed with The Jasons(still am) and I had messed around with their songs a lot for fun. I had actually not played guitar for quite a few years at this point, so playing their style of pop punk was a good reintroduction to guitar again.  After Jason V broke his fingers at a show, I reached out to the band to see if they needed help for any shows. They replied a while later and invited me out for a small show in West Virginia which served as kind of a trial by fire. With no practices together or anything, it just clicked and that led to me filling in from time to time.  That whole experience just fueled the fire for me to start something for myself!

As a songwriter, how did you initially craft your songs? Were you using specific influences as templates?

I usually end up drawing inspiration from pretty random things. Spy Code 492, our first single from Something To Do Records, came from a random conversation at our local punk bar about Cold War spies using secret code numbers on shortwave radio. He just said "code 492" and it stuck in my head as having a cool ring to it.  The whole song as done the next day while I was at work! Riffs mostly come to me from just messing around with the guitar. Since this was so new to me at the time I started writing, song composition came from copying the structures of my favorite songs. It gave me a template to work with and made me more confident in a good final result. And using Ramones songs for some helped me find interesting tricks to keep listeners on their toes. Like cutting a final verse or chorus short or ending on a 4 instead of the 1.  Covert Commission for example came from being inspired by Russian Attack by The Lillingtons. I really liked how the chorus was just two words, and wanted to create my own song that had the same vibe and structure. I'm fine with really showing where I draw my inspiration from.

How has your songwriting style developed over the years, and what are your current songwriting routines?

Lyrically I write ideas down in no sort of order or rhyme scheme. Usually something that just has an interesting flow to it and I work through those lines, changing words or structure to make them fit into a pattern that makes a verse or chorus.  Once I get a good part of it down, the rest seems to come pretty easy after that. I feel that I fail miserably when I try to force it or try and control the tone of the song. If a song is coming out goofy, then I let that song stay goofy. I let the songs come out as they may, and try to do justice to that.  When I first started writing, I wanted to be as Ramonescore as possible, but I was getting nowhere with it. Once I let go and just started writing what came out, I got much more productive! Our drummer has come in with ideas that are just, for me, way out of left field compared to what I normally write. But working with him and Billy, we turn them into songs that rock!  It's fun to have that dynamic and have someone with his point of view!

What do you find most compelling about traditional pop punk as a genre and culture? Do you think our generation will be the last to celebrate it?

t's really interesting to see what pop-punk bands do differently from one another while staying within the "rules".  There's really only so many 1-4-5 riffs out there, and when a band can take that formula and add a twist that you don't see coming, it just really gets me excited.  Also, seeing how the whole community of Ramonescore and pop-punk supports each other is so inspiring! Seeing all the promotion that the fans do for these bands is just awesome.  It's quite humbling to see it happen with us. We're just some random dudes from Indiana that put out a goofy little 11 song album. And to see people in Brazil, Japan, and all over the US and Europe sharing our posts and being hyped over our singles is just insane to us!!  It feels cool to see these people really embrace the new bands like they do with the long time favorites.

How did you come into contact with Billy from The Putz, and how did you end up forming Covert Flops?

I've known Billy for a few years now just being a fan of The Putz.  They're one of the very few local pop-punk bands around Indiana, so I rarely miss a show when they're around here.  I had been posting on Facebook and Craigslist for just about a year trying to find people who were wanting the same thing I was with a band.  I met our drummer, Adam, from his Craigslist post. He was wanting to play drums in a punk band and was wearing a Ramones shirt in the ad. I got ahold of him and we jammed shortly after, and the chemistry was there right away.  I think we had about 3 songs done that first practice! Billy came in later after he saw my Facebook post looking for a bass player. My jaw dropped when he told me he was interested in sitting in on a practice. We must have somewhat came off that we knew what we were doing, seeing as how he decided to stick around!  He's opened up a lot of doors for us and gave us the image of being a legit band right from the get-go.

Indiana is known in the pop punk world for Sonic Iguana, The Brass Rail, and Sloppy Seconds as well as other great bands from our own scene such as The Putz and Flamingo Nosebleed. Do you enjoy living there? What's your take on pop punk scenes worldwide compared to what you have at your disposal in IN?

The scene in Indiana has been great lately.  Pop-punk isn't huge in Indianapolis where we're based, although there are quite a few punk bands.  The Indy pop-punk bands that are around however, are really solid! It's really cool for the fans of the genre because when a touring band comes to town, they usually end up getting a killer show!  Punk Rock Night Indianapolis has been going on for almost 2 decades now, which is a weekly punk show every Saturday with special shows when touring bands come to town. We were one of two cities to host The Mr. T Experience in January and it was an honor to play the show, and really speaks to the kind of person Rich Barker(Punk Rock Night host) is when it comes to taking care of bands. Both national and local acts alike.  Even though there are cities out there with more thriving pop-punk scenes, Indy has just been awesome to play for and to be a part of a group of truly passionate musicians and fans!

Covert Flops gained instant momentum with the release of the single for Something To Do and now the full-length on OUTLOUD! Records. How did you plan out these releases, and did you have specific goals in mind? How has the band been received overall in your view?

Having Billy tagged in a lot of our posts really helped!  Matt Ostrom from Something To Do Records saw a video post of ours from Billy's timeline.  He really enjoyed the songs and reached out to him about having one of our songs on his monthly singles collection.  I was thrilled to do a song for him and let him release something that you can only get from his label. Matt has been a pleasure to work with and definitely look for a couple of our releases from him down the road!  We also thought it was a good way to get a song out there with decent exposure, way more than just releasing it ourselves. We were really proud of the recordings we got back from Mass at Sonic Iguana and wanted to have as many people hear it as possible! My main goal for the band was initially to just record an album. I wanted something to always look back at and say, "I made this".  We have all been really humbled by the response so far. It's not often that a new band picks up traction like this and gets accepted right off the bat. Now the goal is to keep it going as long as we can keep being creative and coming up with songs that we're proud of. I can honestly say that the stuff we're working on now is a head and shoulders above DEFCON 1-2-3-4!

Who are your favorite traditional pop punk bands of the past and present? Which songwriters (pop punk or otherwise) do you admire the most?

Older favorites for me are The Queers, Riverdales, Huntingtons, Lillingtons, and Groovie Ghoulies. Joe Queer and Ben Weasel are two truly amazing songwriters in our world and they have done so much to inspire the sound of today, but my favorite songwriter would have to be Mikee Huntington.  The quantity and absolute quality of his songwriting is on a whole different level. Although there is a huge difference in sound between our bands, he definitely is a huge inspiration to me. I think this is a good time for pop-punk with so many bands out there making killer tunes. Horror Section, The Putz, Flamingo Nosebleed, The Jasons, Amuse, and Black Russians are all putting out amazing records! I've been listening to a lot of The Windowsill recently and their take on pop-punk is really inspiring!  They have some of the catchiest melodies out there right now! Even the old guard are coming back out with new music like Huntingtons and Mcrackens. It is an exciting time to be a punk fan!

As an adult with many responsibilities, do you find it difficult to allocate time and energy to your passion for music? How do you strike a balance?

It's always a challenge to find time to get together for a practice or to schedule shows with us having professional jobs and families.  Finding time to create can be tricky too, but I make do. I have included my 10 year old daughter in the whole process as well some times.  She's super creative and is great to bounce ideas off or ask for help finding a cool rhyme here and there. She also was with us in the studio and added some claps to a song!

To date, what has been your greatest accomplishment as a songwriter/musician, and what are your ultimate goals for the future?

The greatest accomplishment so far has been the completion of the album.  It was so exciting to get the mixes back and hear what we did. This was the first time I had ever been in a studio, so seeing all that goes into tracking songs was an awesome experience.  All the little things we did in the studio like tambourine or claps just really added so much to the songs, and hearing it all come together was the best. Opening the first order of 30 CDs was such a good feeling.  Matt at Outloud! did a killer job on the layout with the artwork that my amazing friend, George Durbin III did for the cover. The next goal is recording more songs for the second album and hopefully some compilations or splits would be incredible.  I'm still at the point where every little thing that happens just blows my mind! Just like doing an interview! Never thought things like this would happen!