Local Jam band The Heavy Pets has resurfaced after spending some time in California preparing the new sounds of the band. The five piece band consisting of Jeff Lloyd and Mike Garulli on guitars, Jim Wuest on keyboards, Justin Carney on bass, and Jaime Newitt on drums have been belting tunes since 2005. The focus of the band has changed since their last album, each member is more involved in the writing process, and there are more vocals than acoustics. I caught up with the Pets before their performance at the release party in Fort Lauderdale.
The Pets are known for their live performances of folk, progressive rock, reggae, and funk which are featured on their new albulm. For a band that’s relatively new, they have managed to gain a major collaboration. Blues Traveler’s John Popper made a special guest appearance on their release. The band is pleased to have someone of that caliber to contribute to their work.
Follow the Heavy Pets this summer as they tour the country to promote their new album. They have also recently announced their own festival, Pet Zoo, now in it’s 3rd year. The Pet Zoo has some great acts on the bill. Check out their website for more information.
PGM: How do you guys come up with your materials?
Jeff: Depends. You have some tunes that are group tunes and some that are a bit more structured. They are then brought to the group where everyone kind of fill in with their parts. Everyone brings their part to the table on their instrument. We don’t have any specific way that we go about the song writing process; we bring in each song to the stage process, sometimes it’s improvised to the way that we play. Sometimes one of writes the verse, the other writes the chorus or vice versa. A lot of times Mike and I write the songs while another person plays the guitar solos on it. That’s kind of fun, we definitely change it up all the time. One thing that’s awesome now, is that we have all five guys writing songs. We are very proud of the fact that when we perform we play multiple songs by each member.
PGM: What kind of materials will you be introducing to your fans?
Jeff: We have some new materials that we will be debuting with the album. We are pretty excited, we have not done that before, so it will be fun for us to do.
Mike: We will be singing a lot more on this album as opposed to the past. That’s the direction Scott Matthews have decided to take, with more vocal stuff. We are trying to come up to the bar we set for ourselves.
PGM: So you are transitioning from a Jam Band….
The Heavy Pets: We still have that there, but as far as this album is concerned we stripped that down. Songs a little bit over five minutes.
PGM: What are some of your influences?
The Heavy Pets: A lot of things like classic rock and things like jazz, rock and contemporary. We kind of taken the page out of the books of our favorite artists that are happening today. It was a real exercise for us in composition and arrangement. It gave us the opportunity for a band that’s kind of been specifically non specific with the way we play our songs for so long. It was kind of fun to change it up, and have the opportunity to really focus on arrangement, and see how we can make the first verse different, the second verse and so forth. It was really neat. It gave us a very clear direction, musically to go with the material.
PGM: Who were some of your favorite artists who influenced the band?
Jeff: Grizzly Bears, Dr. Dog and Wilco. When it comes to older stuff, obviously, Phish is a huge influence in terms of what they do with their arrangements, voices, and instrument-pretty amazing. Creed and Frank Zappa also.
Mike: I like to listen to the old stuff like jazz and R&B from the past…..I love motown, definitely-like Stevie Wonder. As far as song writing those are my influences. We have been interested in a lot of electronic music also, so look for that to be popping up in Heavy Pets.
PGM: Was there any special collaboration for this new album?
Mike: We actually have a very special guest on this release, John Popper. He plays on the second cut; rips up a mouth pop solo with us. That’s a really special thing for us to do while we were in the studio, another first for all of us to get someone of that caliber to contribute to your work-that’s pretty amazing-it’s humbling.
PGM: Do you guys have any special persons in your life?
Heavy Pets: No comments