Email interview with Aidan Finn, vocalist and programmer of The Homecoming. Check out the interview and make to grab the free download of “So Loud” here.
First off, since you’ll be new to most of our readers, can you give a short back story of the band?
I was in a heavier band the early years of high school and I always loved jammin to stuff that was more listenable ya know, (not that hardcore isn’t listenable). So I just started fooling around with a music program and would make little minute and a half loops that were totally lame and made you feel like you were eating cotton candy. Pretty lame right. But over time a few friends Bucket and Mike started doin it with me. We’d just do whatever, play synths, bass, sing, play friends pool parties and school dances, it was rad. Its kinda been just a progression. Everything you hear is me learning more and more about music and some writing, so hopefully it keeps progressing! Hopefully!!!
Who are the various members of the band and what instruments do they play?
Eli plays the Bass, Mike plays the keys, and I do programming sing and play some keys as well!
Is there a story behind The Homecoming or is it just a name you picked?
I had the idea when I was like, in 8th grade, but I had to wait for the right opportunity to whip it out! Plus I hit high school and had a blast at the dances, like when they’d start playin ‘ We Didn’t Start The Fire’ I went wild!
How is the local scene in the Akron/Canton area?
Its changed a lot in the last like 5 years, a lot of places have shut down in Akron making a place called Musica the main thing goin on there. Canton has some pretty rad church venues however, and church venues always have a pull, doesn’t always matter who’s playing, they just show up for a good time! Lots of good music comin outta Canton for sure, so its cool, probably not as good as other places, but its got some good times.
Are you able to play shows regularly?
For the most part ya, we kinda put it before most of our other life activities, we all super enjoy traveling and meeting new peeps so its tons more fun then golf or movies anyways!
Do you find yourselves playing more Christian oriented shows or secular shows (or both)?
Mostly christian shows these days, mostly cause you are almost always guaranteed an audience, some merch sales, and some free Papa Johns. There just isn’t really a lot of good secular shows to play unless you wanna sucker all your friends into buying tickets to come see you and a band they might have heard of once ya know what i mean? We’re totally down with both though, it just seems that Church shows are way more fun and successful.
Describe your overall sound.
We got the synth thing goin on but are keeping from being the cliche pop colorful band. Try to add a hook in there that is somewhat interesting or fun to listen to / sweat to. right. right. I like to write stuff that i think would be fun to play live, so there aren’t too many slow jams about cute girls, just fast ones!
Who are your bands biggest influences musically?
Its all pretty different! But we listen to a lot of different stuff whether its indie or radio! We are fans of modern stuff like Relient K, Owl City and those types of bands, but there’s a lot of good stuff to learn from music that may not necessarily fall into the same genre as us. I think influence wise we listen/ look for what works for different songs or bands. We glean a lot from tonsss of different artists, even if its something like attitude or vision, there’s always something to learn. We play some 90s indie punk bands in the car sometimes, and sometimes we’re spinning some British pop stuff, its all over the place really.
I was impressed with the sound quality on the tracks you had up. Where did you record the EP? Was that your first time recording? How did the recording process go?
We did an EP like 2 years ago, then last spring we recorded out High School Legacy CD and both were done in the sun room of our good high school friend Dan Sheets. most of the awesome quality came from Voltage Mountain Dew and Burger King. other than that, we did a lot of things that sounded kind of natural and didn’t spend so much time on making it sound perfectly crisped and Grammy nominee perfect ya know. We threw a lot of dumb stuff like our friend saying his cats names and Mike rapping like Sean Paul, stayin true to our unserious selves. It was a super fun time for sure.
Have you been writing or recording any new material since releasing A High School Legacy (EP)?
Ya, I’m not the kinda guy who cranks a song out in 34 minutes, we spend a lot of time workin through stuff until we’re overly happy with it. We are gonna do a new EP on our own with a few older songs on it and a few new ones. But we have been writing some stuff that is super fun to dance in my basement to so hopefully we’re movin forward.
Do you feel the new songs have progressed or changed at all from the prior material? When can we expect to hear the new songs?
Most definitely! When we recorded the High School Legacy, there were some things that we had to rush n stuff like that, so I knew what I wanted to do with the new stuff. Its still the same us, but kind of enlightened from our last recording experience. I would say there is more thought lyrically and musically that’s going to go into the new songs. Plus we have Eli now and he’s funky! But if you liked the old stuff you’ll like the new stuff! Pinky swear. Hopefully have new stuff out in may so the kids can add it to their summer soundtrack!
You also recently had MTV license some of your songs for use on the channel. Do you have any more info on what shows that might appear on and when?
No idea, but they were pretty clear about using it soon and it not sitting on a desk somewhere so that was encouraging. having a song on Jersey Shore would be pretty much life satisfaction right. wrong. 🙂
Let’s talk about your songwriting process. Is there a main songwriter in the band or do you write as a group? What about the lyrics?
I (Aidan) come up with pretty much all the skeletons of the songs, and some organs, then Mike & Eli add in some different muscles and tendons and before you know it the song is up walkin around! But if we were one or the other, its more of me doing most of the writing, musically and lyrically, but it definitely wouldn’t come out as good without those muscles and tendons. And ya, lyric wise, its pretty much me, but having the mindset that its all 3 of us trying to express the same thing, I don’t write about things that they think would be pointless to convey to people, right. right.
It seems that The Homecoming is a part-time thing for you guys, but are you looking to do this full-time?
Definitely wanting to head in that direction. We’re in that getting feet moving (faster) stage where its becoming more of a reality and we’re all down for making it full time in the near future. Our dude Bucket who has just recently left the band was still in high school so that restricted us to a certain extent, but we’re definitely ready to revamp the lineup and hit the road!
What do you guys do other than playing in the band?
Mike and Eli are both in college (art and business majors). I am working at Sterling Jewelers home office (hahaha) and I work at an ice cream stand in our small town. Mike works as a waiter and made 14 dollars off of cha cha ( that thing you text questions to and it answers them for you). But Eli has the dream jobs of carwash, life guard at a kiddy pool, and he was a wrestling coach as well! We’re all involved at church too if its helpin with the youth or playing on worship bands and what not. Mike has a girlfriend. She’s cool. right, right.
Last summer you guys traveled to play Cornerstone Festival, through an invite by RYOT Entertainment. What kind of response did you get there? What did you think of the festival itself? Will you be hitting up Cornerstone again?
It was super rad! 6 bros just drivin, eatin, camping, being bros in the summer, it was cool. I think we had a good response there due to the fact we didn’t scream, us and this other polka band were probably the only bands who didn’t (terrible joke I know). But we played 5 times in 6 days, and by our last show there were about 100 peeps there waiting for us to start which was super rad. The festival is just a sweet atmosphere, you make sweet friends and see some pretty cool bands. You stink bad and everyone else does so its sweet. I definitely hope we can make it out this year again.
Are you planning on touring again this summer?
With the lineup kinda changing its gonna take some work to get ready for the summer but we definitely hope we can get out a lot this summer. It may not be like tour as in 14 shows in a row, but hopefully we can just spend a good chunk of the season being in the SUV eatin steak n shake driving to shows.
Who are some current bands that you’d like to tour with?
There’s a sweet band called Leo that we are good friends with, it’d be tons of fun to be able to get out some with them this summer. But we love makin friends with fellow bands so anyone who’s friendly would be sweet.
Do you consider The Homecoming to be mainly for entertainment or is it more of a ministry?
A ministry for sure, but people love being entertained so routing Christ through that is an awesome thing. Ever since we started we just wanted people to enjoy them selves and have a good time, but not merely for the sake of a good time, but they could see why we’re having a good time. A lot of times how you come across depends solely on the Holy Spirit, so a lot of times its a trust thing. But keeping the mindset that its God your glorifying and not ourselves is always hard but is super fulfilling if you keep it there
What are a few things that you would like to accomplish with the band?
Just getting out and meeting as many sweet people as we can is just so satisfying so if friendship is accomplished we’re happy! But its every musicians hope that they can just rely on doing music and not work at kiddy pools and car washes, so if we could accomplish that it’d be rad. But when its all over, hopefully we touched at least 1 kid somewhere along the line. To do this and all we ever get is a ‘ you guys are good ‘ it just isn’t satisfying enough.
Anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
My mac is saying I”m spelling words wrong, so if some of the longer words are the wrong word, call Steve Jobs and tell him his products have faulty grammar. Then again maybe I’m just not used to seeing the words being spelled right. And check out myspace.com/thehomecomingmenu
We’d LOVE to chat!!!!