Will Banana Chant Spark a 90's Rock Renaissance?
The Miami-based band wants to take us back to the era of the Chili Peppers, The Romantics, and more.
Happy Friday music fans,
What’s so great about 90’s rock music?
Well it’s the era of..:
Nirvana
The Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Romantics
Soundgarden
…is it necessary to continue?
90’s music has served as an inspiration for artists since, well, the 90’s. Some of us were there we to witness it, while some of us weren’t even a thought.
If you weren’t alive for the 90’s, then we have a special treat for you: an interview with Banana Chant.
Banana Chant is a five-piece band in Miami that makes music so eclectic that we’ll just deem is as “alt-rock”. They consist of Gio at vocals, Ander at drums, Tanis at lead guitar, Marco at rhythm guitar, and Vanessa at bass.
You’ll hear more about Banana Chant’s latest album in another newsletter, Paying Off Student Loans. It should drop sooner than we’ll pay off our loans.
Before we get to the interview, here’s some news you should know about:
Asheville and LA-based Harriers of Discord releases a punk rock cover of ABBA’s S.O.S. It’s super good. Don’t bop your head too hard. We’ve interviewed HOD, read it to learn more about their stories touring around the country.
Cincinnati-based band Dust by Monday releases new single Shadow of You. They apparently never use “more than four chords in a song”, which probably explains their single’s catchiness.
South Florida-based artist Kēvens releases Wine music video. Kēvens has made other music videos such as Sweet Lady Liberty. Check it out on YouTube!
Chicago musician Park National drops a new album, The Big Glad. If you like shawarma, you’re definitely going to love this. We were recommended to him by the Oolong bois.
Without further ado, give it up for Banana Chant!
The Riff: How many tracks are going to be in your new EP?
Vanessa: Five tracks.
Marco: For sure five, at least.
Vanessa: We are more focused on the production of the music rather than how much music we release. So even if we are only releasing five songs we put all of our effort and creativity into those songs for the new record, Paying Off Student Loans.
Marco: Also, we're pushing out quality; we're just not focused on quantity. We don't care if we had a hundred songs, but most of them are trash. Everything that we put out…
Vanessa:… Is the best of the best that we’ve been working on.
Some of them are very, very short tracks or extremely, extremely long. Every single musician right now is trying to be different and unique. So in this moment in time, I feel like our genre that we're creating, so said in alternative music, is kind of going to branch off into its own little style, I’d say; in the next coming years for sure. The Rock Alternative scene is going to be changing from less like pop, not like pop rock, but some more like the raw rock that we had in the 90’s. [Bands] would just release what they felt and not what the popular opinion wanted.
The Riff: I see. So are there bands that are following your lead?
Vanessa: We do perform with a lot of South Florida bands and what I've gotten by performing with backroom sessions, they would book us, Banana Chant, along with seven other bands, with all different genres and musicians. It would basically just be local bands that would come and perform. We've listened to a bunch of them like Miracle Dream; just a bunch of small bands that we find and what I think is, we all have such a different style and music, but we all are trying to get the same feeling across, if that makes sense. When we all perform, we all have that vibe and energy that the crowds feed off of, and musically, a lot of Pop artists and recording artists that don't perform live… like we are a live performing band. So that just changes from music heard on the radio, and then concerts when you go and you actually see the members of the band performing the music right there. So that would be the difference that I would say with us.
Marco: Yeah, we’re definitely in the process of setting trends. We're not necessarily followed yet, but it doesn't mean that they're not going to catch on to what we're doing. So eventually, all the bands that we’re around, I'm pretty sure would be paying a little bit more attention.
The Riff: Let's talk about how the creation of your first EP, the one about the Balloon Room. Both of you were members of the band when the Balloon Room was being recorded, correct?
Vanessa: I was not, but he was. We add a little flavor to the band.
Marco: The band's vision was in alignment with ours, so it's not like we're the reason the band is this way, it was like this already.
Vanessa: We just got to join this wonderful thing that they made. I would think that they would not just want it to be them. They definitely want it to branch off and bring in some new perspectives because that's what grows the music as a whole. If you listen to the Balloon Room, which I know you have, most of the songs are about love and heartbreak and just different emotions that the singer was feeling at the time when he started Banana Chant. So those songs, I would say, is like more Pop Rock, it's very easy going to go with.
Our second album that we've been working on now, is so unique compared to that one, but you can see that with the songwriting and how Gio writes some of his songs, that it's very similar to the first. However, with the additional me and Marco and having different minds for songwriting, it's definitely just a whole new perspective of Banana Chant. If you go along our EPs, and maybe in the future, I feel like you're going to see the growth of us as a band through our music.
The Riff: You briefly touched on this but what are some of the differences between the older EP versus this newer EP? How is your EP going to be unique?
Vanessa: I like to explain it as psychedelic funk rock.
Marco: The best part of it is there’s psychedelic, there’s funk, there’s rock. I would say one of the bigger things is that it's more like the darker side of people. It's not just about the happy, happy; it’s not just that.
Vanessa: Yeah, it's about struggle, it's about fighting your demons.
It gets more into the inside of your head instead of what you want to show people.
Marco: It is deeper, in general. It's not just surface level.
Vanessa: It's very raw.
Marco: Not that the first one was surface level, it was actually experienced, but it's even deeper than that. It's very deep, detailed story writing.
Vanessa: Gio really went intense and it took months for him to write these stories, because our music is not based on personal experience. I believe the first album was. It was definitely based on what he went through in his love life and how he got through it. But this album is solely based on us writing stories about just things that happen in life and it's a story that anyone that has went through a hard time and a struggle, they can relate to it. Each song is a different weakness, in the sense, that you're fighting and our music basically gets you through it.
Marco: It's more describing general archetypes and during certain situations, how different people... You could generalize a certain type of person and we're utilizing that instead of a very specific thing, but very detailed at the same time.
The Riff: It's quite powerful. Are you comfortable sharing one example of a track that that has a story? We’d love to hear it.
Vanessa: Yeah, Bluu. Bluu is a song that started as just one riff that our guitars played and it has developed into a whole story with a guy. It's all about temptation, in a sense, right? He's getting tempted in the song by different things that happen throughout the story. All the songs in the album kind of intertwine because it's all about this man, going through different things like temptation, addiction, fighting death, like seeing death in front of him.
Marco: Especially in Bluu.
Vanessa: So Bluu has all these elements together in the album. I have no idea what got us to writing such intense lyrics.
Marco: Yeah, you have to hear it definitely, to experience it. It’s easier to hear it and understand it than to try to reiterate it.
Vanessa: It’s definitely a very unique song and I can say I've never heard anything like it. Like our music, I've always tried to put a pin on it; what is this genre? What are we doing? But every single song has elements of every genre. I have had classical training as a musician, on the Viola as a kid; I went to school for it. Then I broke out of that and I became a rock bass player. So with that training in my head, by making these songs, I add little elements that classic musicians would do and not a person that just picked up a guitar and started playing.
So Tanis has been playing guitar for a very long time and his father was a guitarist. So we all have music oozing out of us and when we all come together and make these songs you can really see it and you can feel it. Also, the energy that we bring to people, it’s always positive. When we play Bluu, every single person in the crowd is dancing and they're going through that journey and stories with us. So I feel like it's very relatable but at the same time, nothing has ever been like this. No one has released stuff like this, I would say. It's very, very hard to listen to. Some stories have made me very emotional, like writing the album and listening to the lyrics that Gio has made. It really does hit people to the core, but I think that's the most beautiful thing about it, is that everyone can relate.
This interview was edited for concision and clarity.
Photo by Eric Estrada.
Find Banana Chant on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music.
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