SECRET AND WHISPER
interview by Livia
What happens when you take a successful band suddenly left without a singer, and a talented, dedicated singer recently parted from their own project, and put them together? You get a super-group, with both the knowledge and experience that comes from years in the industry, and the passion to re-discover what drew them in in the first place: the music. Enter Secret and Whisper, ex-members of the Kelowna, BC (Canada) based band Stutterfly, paired with Charles Furney, once the voice of The Bleeding Alarm.
Pay attention to these boys, with a new band and a new sound, we are joining them from the beginning; I can’t wait to see what’s in store. I got to witness this act live and in person, and caught up with drummer Ryan Loerke to chat a bit about the new project.
Livia: could everyone introduce themselves and say what they do in the band?
Ryan Loerke: Ok, well, Charles Furney is on lead vocals, Jordan Chase is bass and BGV's, I play drums, keys, and samples, Jason Ciolli plays lead guitar, and Bradyn Byron plays rhythm guitar.
Livia: Okay, and how old is everyone?
Ryan: I am 21, Jason is 22, Bradyn and Charles are both 28, and Jordan is 24.
Livia: Awesome, tell me a bit about how the band started, changes that have been made, and how things have evolved since then.
Ryan: Well, the band was started originally as Uncle Ed's Private Jet back in 1998... Bradyn and Jordan are the only original members from that. They started it with Chris Stickney and Craig Langerud. Two years later, the band changed the name to Stutterfly. In 2003, Jason joined on lead guitar, and shortly after that the band signed with Maverick Records. In December of 2003, I replaced Craig on drums. Our album came out on Maverick in June of 2005. In March of 2006, Chris quit the band, and we parted ways with Maverick, who went under a few months later. In July of 2006, Charles joined the band and we started writing for our new album. In January of 2007 we started recording our new album with Travis Saunders, and changed our name to Secret and Whisper.
Livia: Awesome.
Ryan: As far as label stuff goes, we have someone but we can't say anything just yet!
Livia: Exciting! When does that go public?
Ryan: Hopefully very soon! We just have the motions to go through, the usual stuff!
Livia: Of course, technicalities. So talk a bit more about your last album, and past tours you've taken.
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Ryan: As soon as we were on Maverick, in the summer of 2003 we did a tour with Story of the Year and Saosin; before both of them were huge like they are now! I wasn't in the band yet, but I heard it was a great time! After that, the band laid low and wrote for And we are Bled of Colour, which is when I joined the band. We recorded our album in Burbank, California with Ulrich Wild. He's worked a lot with The Deftones, Static X, and Bleeding Through. After completion of the record, we played a few random shows and small tours over 2004, and filmed the video for Gun In Hand in the fall, in our home town of Kelowna. 2005 was our main touring year, we started off with a tour stint all over the US with Letter Kills, came home for a few weeks, and then did a cross Canada tour with Bleed the Dream and Like Yesterday. Next, we did 3 weeks of Warped Tour, followed by one stop on the Mountain Dew Extreme Sports Tour, or whatever it was called, Haha! We took August off, and then did 2 months of US Touring with Bleed the Dream, Bedlight for Blue Eyes, Roses are Red and The Confession. For 2006, we did one tour with Lorene Drive around the west coast of the US. Following that tour, Chris left, and our band started writing new stuff. It went so well that we decided to keep on going without Chris, we tried out a few singers, but after hearing Charles had parted ways with The Bleeding Alarm, we sat down and talked with him, wrote some music, and we knew he was meant for our new project.
Livia: So does this mean you're going to release a new album soon?
Ryan: Yup! It’s going to be out in the new year... very soon in the new year, that’s all I can say!
Livia: Ooooh secretive!
Ryan: Haha yeah! I feel like an idiot not being able to say anything, but we haven't done our official release yet... our A&R would kill me if I leaked everything on your site first! Haha!
Livia: Fair enough, that's definitely exciting though!
Ryan: Yeah, it’s nice to be back playing music again!
Livia: Is the recording done?
Ryan: Basically, we are just finishing up the last of our mixing, we've been going back and forth with the guy mixing our album, getting everything how we want it. It's been awesome to see everything come together!
Livia: That's great! Tell me about this upcoming tour.
Ryan: Yeah for sure! We are doing this first part of the tour with 2 bands; Far-Less (Tooth and Nail) and Covette (Science). We have played 3 shows already and are playing shows all the way over to Winnipeg, after that we head down and play Chicago. Then Secret and Whisper and Far-Less go around the East Coast of the US, that tour goes ‘til October 27th. On November 1st we start playing around the Midwest of the US with Covette again, and another band Novella. We met them on Warped Tour back in ‘05, so it's gonna be cool to play some shows with them! When that ends, we will work our way down to California, and then play shows up the west coast, and then back home for December! As far as the new years goes, we're getting that worked out right now, but it's going to be busy!
Livia: Fantastic! Do any of the guys have favourite GodsGirls? What do you guys think of the site?
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Ryan: To be completely honest, Jason is the big fan! We've all heard of it and seen it... but he's the go-to guy. Since you and I started talking, I went and checked it out! Good looking girls and tattoos are never bad…
Livia: Very, very true. What do you tour in, and what can you guys not live without while on tour?
Ryan: Well, we tour in our 15 passenger van and big ass trailer... and we can't live without sleep, decent food, and Dr. Dre, The Chronic 2001, Haha!
Livia: What would we find your van floor littered with?
Ryan: hmmm... fireworks, empty candy wrappers, Jordan’s video games, any one of us sleeping, and our old sound guy's ear buds that he could never find. Haha!
Livia: Haha, Great! Describe your sound, and what people can expect from your live shows.
Ryan: Haha every band’s favourite question… well, I’d have to say intense, full, dynamic, um, interesting? Haha! A lot different from the old Stutterfly stuff, you can expect to be entertained, hopefully? We put a lot into writing this album, so we hope everyone likes it!
Livia: Is the writing done by the whole band?
Ryan: Yeah for sure... we all sit down and contribute. We like to do it that way so everyone's influences and ideas can be thrown in, we all like similar stuff and have in mind where we want to go with our music, but our differences are what makes it all come together, if that makes any sense?
Livia: It definitely does, the dynamic! What is your writing influenced by?
Ryan: Hmm… as far as general sense, we're all influenced by bands like Mew, Bjork, Smashing Pumkins, In Flames, Radio Head, and stuff like great movie soundtracks and movie scores. Some movies have the most inspiring scores written for them that a lot of people overlook.
Livia: Yes, most definitely!
Ryan: It’s always a hard question, we just sat down and wrote the music we wanted to and didn’t really think about what it was going to sound like. It turned out... well, you'll hear on Saturday! Haha!
Livia: Yeah I am pretty stoked, actually! Do you notice a difference between crowds when you're touring?
Ryan: yeah, definitely smaller! Really, now that we've changed our name and our sound, it’s almost like starting over... but we've had a really good response from our stuff! From people at shows, from other bands, from our own friends that just come to shows to support us... they can actually enjoy the music too! Haha! We don't mind starting over even a bit, we've never been happier as a band, we are having a great time and it's only going to get better!
Livia: What are the bands future plans?
Ryan: I guess just tour as much as possible, put out our album, and see what happens with that. It's always a crap shoot when it comes to new releases, so hopefully people like it!
Livia: Hopefully! How much time do you guys spend together, is a lot of it spent doing band related stuff?
Ryan: We all hang out quite a bit actually! We are all really good friends, so it makes it very easy to go on tour... I mean we have our disagreements like anyone, but it’s pretty minimal.
Livia: Is there one person that gets ragged on?
Ryan: Bradyn has been dubbed ‘The Diva’, but its just ‘cause he’s the prettiest haha! Nah, we all know how to push each other's buttons and piss each other off, but we try not to… unless it's really entertaining! Haha! We all like to poke fun...Charles is never (and I mean never, one time), Jordan has less patience than a three year old, Jason floats in the clouds on occasion, and I have serious ADD, so we all have a laugh at each other's expense on a regular basis.
Livia: Haha, good! That’s the way it should be. Tell me a really good tour story!
Ryan: Ok, I have two good stories… one is from recording, one is from tour.
The first one... we had the tenants from hell living below us in our apartment complex in Burbank, while we were recording our Stutterfly album. After a month of dealing with their crap, it was our last night, and Jason was doing laundry. Mid cycle, they took his laundry out and put it on the ground (it was a public laundry area), J was mad and pissed in a bottle, then dumped it into their dryer full of laundry and turned the cycle back on. I bet it smelled great! We all left with big smiles on our faces! Haha!
The tour story, well, we were driving through southern Georgia and our trip fell off, like, completely detached and just nicely pulled over on the side of the road. That was interesting to say the least! I was worried that it had smashed into cars, but when we went back it was just sitting there like we had parked it. These cops drove by and they stopped, and because we were in the southern states, I had no idea what they were saying... it was all gibberish!
Livia: How did you handle that? Smile and nod?
Ryan: Haha, pretty much!
Livia: Who's the band slut? Haha!
Ryan: You know, to be honest, two of the guys are married and this will be the first tour that the rest of us are going to be single... so that's yet to be determined! We've all been good so far, Haha!
Livia: The first three shows... Haha!
Ryan: Haha, hey, it’s a start! We'll see if everyone stays out of trouble in the US…
Livia: For the married guys, does band life make things hard?
Ryan: I think it's a love hate thing... you get to go on tour, play music and do what you love, but then your wife is at home... but, as they say, "There's always I-chat," Haha!
Livia: Words to live by, Haha!
Ryan: Both Jordan and Bradyn's wives are very awesome and understanding, so that makes things easier.
Livia: Definitely.
Ryan: They have both been there since the beginning of their careers.
Livia: That's awesome! Okay, if each member was a mythical creature, what would they be?
Ryan: Jordan would be a Minotaur "’cause they slay ass", Charles says "Maybe a brave Pegasus?” Bradyn wants to be a TREX “’cause he's a ‘dinosaur denier"… it’s a little inside joke we have with the set, we’ve got a joke band called Dinosaur Denier. Haha! Jason really likes zombies? Wait, now Charles wants to be a brave Glow-Worm, I'll take the Pegasus.
Livia: No Pegacorn?!
Ryan: Sure, I’ll be a Pegacorn!
These guys are not only fantastic musicians, but great conversation and loads of fun. Check them out on Myspace (http://www.myspace.com/secretandwhisper), and make sure to catch a show if you are lucky enough to have them play near you. Keep your eyes open for their album release early 2008, and until then, keep on rockin’!
