By Sean Maldjian, Contributor

Meet strayfare

A self-portrait by, strayfare

Would you rather…

Would You Rather…be best friends with a generic rainbow hedgehog or lambchop the puppet?

Rainbow hedgehog all day. No offense Lambchop, maybe we can all go bowling on weekends.

Some questions with strayfare

Hi hello, thanks for doing this interview with us. What can you tell us about your project?

Hey my name is Teddy and I always wanted to be in a band. I tried several times with some friends back in school and just as we were getting close to having some songs together, everything would suddenly stop. It’s funny cause looking back no one said anything and we all still hung out. The songs were probably downright awful and we each had come to the decision of sweeping them under the rug like they never happened. strayfare is just me still wanting to be in a band.

Do you have an unpopular opinion you’d like to share? What is it?

Not really, no. I like dry toast.

Can you tell us a little more about your latest EP ‘Cold Weather Tapes’? What was the creative drive behind it?

Cold Weather Tapes is I guess a journal of this past year. I didn’t go into it with that mindset, I was just writing and noticed a common thread as time went on in this entry or logging sort of style. It all came about through winter and it sort of named itself. Music is an escape for me as it is for a lot of people, it happened naturally or at least started that way. Growing up I would have a blast just listening to blink-182, it was the only thing I needed back then. Now I find myself listening to everything, it’s cool seeing older stuff that I missed like Snowing, Midwest Pen Pals, Lifetime, and newer bands like Shag Lab and The Casper Fight Scene get me just as stoked in all these different ways. I want to make something that I enjoy playing regardless of everything else around me.

What was going on in your life while you were recording the EP?

A lot of things haha. Hopefully it doesn’t come across as like this off putting bummer woe is me thing, that wasn’t my intention. I know I’m being overly self-conscious but I want people to have a good time, besides there was a lot of that too. And if they get something out of it then that’s more than what I asked for that’s for sure. But yeah, as you get older things just happen I guess you know. People get hurt and sick, I lost my cousin, family drama and what not it’s par for the course as harsh as that is, not trying to downplay anything at all. As much as you know and tell yourself that, it still sucks. You

hate to see everyone go through it and you feel like you could’ve done something to prevent it. For me, it opened my eyes to how powerless we are when it comes to these things. Especially when it’s all unfolding right in front of you. I don’t want to still be rowing the boat when there's a hole letting all this water in, but sometimes that’s all you can do. Things could be worse I guess. 

Oh, and we had some cats randomly show up on our porch that was fun. Well a lot of cats, we tried to find them homes while they were running around the neighborhood. We built these houses for them out of storage tubs and everything, some stuck around but we were able to find homes for a few of them. It felt like a reminder to keep things light and try to make the most of it, day by day sort of thing. They’re pretty funny too, I like them.

How do you feel now that the release is finished?

I don’t know, I always feel oddly indifferent when I finish something. I’m definitely glad the EP is done, and personally I feel way better than I think I did so I consider that a win. I get so wrapped up in a project or song I tend to forget everything. Nowadays I’ve been better at making an effort to pull myself out, say hi to everyone and not be a total hermit. When I finish a song I go through this vicious cycle of really loving it to thinking it's garbage up until it gets released, often on the same day. I let it get to me this time around because I found myself rewriting songs that I knew were completely finished and that I was happy with. I think I was just bored of them and looking for the same satisfaction I was getting from the other songs I was working on at the time. I was too deep in my head, so towards the end I had to let the chips fly and pull the plug once they landed, otherwise the EP wouldn’t be done. Just like other releases though enough time has passed where I’m proud of how it came out, but I have ideas of where I want to go next that I’m more excited about.

You had mentioned on a previous release that your friends and family are a motivator to continue to create music. What is your creative relationship with your friends and family? Are they people you go to bounce ideas off of?

Apart from sound, music is largely dependent on people, relationships and all the associated feelings that come with them. They resonate together and influence one another whether you’re aware of it or not. I’m thankful that I have family who like and support me doing this, that’s hard to come by. I’m going to be doing it regardless but it’s nice to know that they care. It’s also taught me to be that support for others too, not just in music but in life. I mean I’m not over here going, “Yo Mom, check out this riff!” they’re more of a reminder to be myself and to stay true to that. I’m going to start doing that now, she’s probably got some ideas. My family has always been a weirdly creative bunch, some say we’re just weird. I’m lucky to have them.

Can your music be broken down to a mathematical formula?

I’m more of a guitar player than a songwriter and definitely more so than a singer. It's where I feel at home. Sometimes I’ll have a strange rhythm in my head that I want to use for like a verse or something before everything else. But generally, I amass a collection of guitar lines and very loose ideas that I string together depending on the vibe, then I write drum parts to compliment them and assemble a skeleton. Sometimes I go back and adjust the guitar parts to fit the drums or I’ll swap the drum parts around and change those. I slap a vocal melody on top and I make sure it meshes well with the guitar parts. The words aren’t that important to me depending on the song as they generally are the last things that I add, though they do sometimes help with melody. From there, the rest is all just fine tuning until I like it. I generally like fast, rhythmic and short catchy bits that fit together like a puzzle that also stand out at points. The vocals act as a sweetener to everything.

What is your current technical set up when recording? Do you think this impacts the way you write music?

I got a Line 6 Spider IV, a Snowball mic and Studio One 3 is my DAW that the mic came with. I know some recording tech guitar wizard is probably hunting me down right now. Disclaimer: I have no idea what I’m doing. I experiment with what I have until I come across something I like. I think it’s cool to try to make something with whatever you can get your hands on. It’s fun, not trying to throw shade or anything. The drums and bass are MIDI as much as I want to have other people in the band, I'm doing what I can and I like how it sounds, there's no rules. If it sounds good go for it. There is a lot of clipping, like my waveforms are literal bars of sound but I’m all for it. It reminds me of all the bands here back in the day who recorded scrappy demos on a 4-track or something, I find that exciting. I noticed myself pivoting a song’s trajectory in weird and unexpected ways by utilizing all the raw energy. I write everything on acoustic guitar, if it sounds good there it’ll sound good plugged in. When I’m ready to record it all just gets loud and every little detail just screams. To me those sound qualities are natural, the energy matches how I feel and that’s what I like.

Where is the best place to get pizza in NYC?

No idea, I don't go to the city really and when I do I don’t usually get a bite to eat. Even then I rarely eat pizza now. I promise I’m human. Out here though my family has a spot we’ve been going to since we were kids. Shout out Branchinelli’s.

Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)

Yeah I want to say thank you for having me! This was fun, I enjoyed it. Sorry for rambling on, I don’t usually get to go deep into this stuff so I appreciate it. I guess just do what you like, be cool to everyone and try to enjoy everything life has to offer. Especially what’s in

it right now. In terms of the EP, I’m looking to release Cold Weather Tapes digitally on October 7th so keep a look out if you’re interested. Peace and love.