I caught a few words with Nate Patterson, bassist for TREOS after their set at the Give it a Name Festival this Sunday.
Punktastic: Welcome back to the UK. What have you guys been doing since you were last here? It’s been a while!
Nate Patterson: Yeah I think it’s been since the Fightstar tour last year! We just finished up recording our second record. We’ve been recording for about six week straight, so we took 12 days off to do the family thing, then practised for a week solid before we came over here.
PT: You’re just preparing for ‘The Heart and the Synapse’ to come out over here, even though you’ve got the new record coming out in the States at about the same time.
NP: Haha, it’s weird. It feels like ‘Between the Heart and the Synapse’ came out in the eighties, and our new record is coming out in the nineties. It was supposed to be released a while ago, but the timing with the labels and everything just didn’t work out.
PT: Around the same time you’ll be back over here supporting Funeral For a Friend. Looking forward to it?
NP: Ahh man we can’t wait for the Funeral for a Friend tour in May. Oh my God, those guys are awesome. We toured with them on Warped Tour and Taste of Chaos and they were nothing but supportive of our band. Big ups to those dudes from all of us!
PT: They requested you personally as well, didn’t they?
NP: Yeah they did, and it’s the biggest compliment to have other musicians loving what we do. Whether anyone sees it or not, this is still a competition – all the bands are still competing against each other, so it feels great to have these bands genuinely wanting us to go on tour with them.
PT: So how have you been enjoying your first Give it a Name experience?
NP: This festival is dope. When we played in Birmingham the kids were amazing, and no offence to Birmingham, but tonight has been even better. Kids are so pumped in London that’s just it. It’s really been such a great tour all round. It’s been dope to play on the same stage as some of these bands.
PT: Who have been the personal highlights for you?
NP: Brand New last night were amazing. Even though we didn’t play the same day as them, we got to see their show and they’re just awesome musicians. MxPx as well – I got into those guys before I even knew what punk rock was, so it’s great to be playing on the same day as them too!
PT: ‘The Earth sings Mi Fa Mi’ is your new album. How does it compare to your debut?
NP: Well ‘Between the Heart and the Synapse’ was recorded almost three years ago now, and us as musicians and music fans have grown up – obviously as you get older your music tastes change so much. It’s not too different though. It’s definitely a lot more mature lyrics-wise; you don’t have to dig as deep to find meanings to the songs. It’s still definitely got the TREOS sound though!
PT: You’ve had a few line-up changes in the past, most recently with the loss of Casey Crescenzo and Brian Southall stepping in on guitar. How has that affected the band as a single unit?
NP: We wouldn’t be who we are if we didn’t experience these things. We all feel now that this is where we want to be as a band – this is the final line-up. We’re all genuinely happy individuals now. Honestly, what breaks up bands is people not getting along and egos getting in the way, and we’re lucky not to have to deal with that.
PT: AND with a long-awaited UK album release, things are starting to look very good for TREOS.
NP: It just makes me smile to think that we can have a career over here as well as at home! It blows my mind that we can write songs that can potentially mean something to someone, or Brendan can write lyrics that can have a positive influence on someone so far away.
PT: So what about the rest of 2007. Can we expect a TREOS tour over here any time soon?
NP: I can’t say it for definite, it’s still tentative, but we’re planning for a headlining tour over here in the Fall.