When I’m in the mood for some bloody Brooklyn punk/rock, it’s nice to know I can turn to The Sweet Ones, an emerging three piece from the Borough of Homes and Churches, and their new album, Stay Low. Here’s a video that shows the band in action, followed by our interview with the group…

The Sweet Ones Promo

Who are The Sweet Ones?
Doug Cote, Matt Brundrett, and Mikey Straus

How would you classify your sound?
An 8 Ball, an ice cream head-ache, and a quick wink from Jonathan Richman! Actually, we all have a wide range of musical tastes. What I can tell you is the sounds that we all tend to agree on! Like, 70’s brit-punk bands, Lee Ving’s voice, Pete Townshend’s guitar through a Hi-Watt, most Early So- Cal punks bands. Mike Watt’s bass. I guess our sound is Garage/Rock/ Punk. All I can say is our record max’s out at 23 minutes of music in 11 tracks.

How do you guys mix with other bands in Brooklyn?
Well….. we don’t have a girl drummer, and there’s no laptop or keyboard on stage, and none of us are skinny or wear bandanna’s or reference Grizzly Bear, but we do like Deerhoof! Actually, Brooklyn is cool, I truly feel that there really is some progressive and amazing music coming from it’s streets. I’m not quite sure where we actually fit in yet cause we are sort of new? Maybe we never will., and that’s fine too!! But, lately we’ve been playing some really cool shows with great bands.

What makes you stand out?
We stand out because no band in the whole country has front man in a punk band that does fucking dandruff commercials! Speaking of dandruff, some of these Brooklyn kids could use some shampoo- JA JA JA (did you know that JA JA JA is the Mexican’s version of lol)

What was the recording process like?
Well, we were able to use our friend Jay Braun (The Negatones/Mooney Suzuki) to produce/engineer it, and he knew we wanted a really live sounding recorded.
We all love the Neil Young’s records, so we kept that in mind. So it was all of us together live in one room. And not a ton of takes, That was pretty much it. No over dubs- just us playing

The first track on your new album, Stay Low, is called “Building a Spaceship.” What’s that song about?
When I was a kid we got a new refrigerator, and the boxes they come in are huge! They make perfect spaceships- So one day my dad comes home from work and there’s me out on the front lawn building my space ship. He asked me what I was doing? I was like “duh…… I’m building a space ship dad” (insert bratty voice)

What’s a Sweet Ones live show like?
Fun, fast, a lot of sweat, maybe a beer or two spit on you! Ask the guy in front row wearing a golf shirt who was at the Block Island Music fest show.
As a side note he left and his girlfriend stayed for the rest of the show.

Alongside the review album you sent me a Built to Spill concert ticket from earlier this month. What’s your favorite BTS album (mine is Ancient Melodies of the Future, btw)?
Keep it like a Secret!

Anything else?
Well I hope everyone smiles a little more…. and remembers “Hunger has nothing to do with your stomach!”