York is still fresh, playing venues where the stage is a platform inches from the ground and the kids crowding it are not yet jaded and take pride in new discoveries such as these. They are also getting opportunities to play for an international crowd of thousands on sites like justin.tv and live interviews on internet radio.
Diverse musical influence ranging from Brand New and old school Green day all the way to Taylor Swift and Rascal Flats may contribute to the promising sound of the youthful Boston musicians, York. Some would say the band has been plagued by turn-over of members, but they have made this evolution work for them; and while losing members has caused some stress on the young artists, it has left the most dedicated of the team still intact and working harder than ever to pursue their artistic goals.
How did you come up with the name York? It’s a pretty hard word to Google and get results for the band.
We named it after a town called York Beach in Maine. Its a place where we can go to get away from the town we live in.
Did you always have male/female vocals in mind from the beginning or is that just something that came together during the formation?
York was originally an all male pop/rock band. Before we entered the studio with David Adam Munroe of Time Bomb Studios we decided to co-write a song with now female vocalist, Emily Rickard. After getting great feedback for “Are We Built,” by our fans we decided to have Emily join the band.
You just did a big show on justin.tv, streaming live on the front page. How did that go?</strong
Justin went really well in a bigger sense, we had over 35000 views that night, there were just a group of 4 kids going chat room to chat room, and they gave us crap because we were in a church playing. We had a lot of fun doing it.
In the music industry today technology plays a major role in the distribution and exposure of your music. How do you feel about “file sharing”? Do you think that it hurts artists by losing sales or do you think that it helps artists by getting out to more people that probably would have never heard them in the first place?
Music shouldn’t be about the money, its about putting your voice out there and loving what you do. If someone was a true fan they would go out and by the cd.
Do you enjoy writing new music more or performing?
We’re a band of melodies and lyrics, we love sitting around trying to figure out the catchiest ways to draw people in. But we are stoked to start playing more shows to get our thoughts out and have people sing our words back.
What other new things do you have going now with band members? Have you set your minds to remaining a 3 piece, or are you open to other members when the timing feels right?
As of now, we are not really looking into additional members to be added, but who knows what the future holds. Were always open to change.
How has the member change effected your live show?
IN SO MANY WAYS. Mainly, now that we can only due acoustic sets, but we luckily added the element of piano. In this days scene, its difficult to find venues and shows that really suite our style. We don’t really look down upon the situation though, because we like what we play, so they can take us or leave us, but were very excited to start playing more shows.
What’s next for the band?
We actually have two new songs coming out, one titled “When You’re Gone”, which was our last full band song produced by Multi-Platinum music engineer Earl Cohen(Nelly, Pink, Lady Gaga). Our second song called, “Sparks” debuts our new sound, we are excited for people to hear what we’ve grown to be.
Are there any web stations you are streaming on that we can direct readers too?
myspace.com/thisisyorkmusic, radiovenom.org, purelygangster.com, jango.com, and were currently getting our purevolume up www.purevolume.com/thisisyorkmusic
Catch York February 15 at Angels and Kings in NYC.
~Alexis Paige~
you guys are amazing, i see you at the coffeehouses, and i love it so much, you're definitely the highlight to the night for me and a ton of my friends.