Razorcake: Interview with Two Cow Garage (2011)

Back in 2011 the members of Two Cow Garage gave an in-depth interview to Razorcake, here's some of that to check out:

Ian: How difficult are the times in between records and touring? When III came out, a recurring theme was, “How long is it okay to struggle for this thing you love. How long is it okay to live like this?”
Shane: Look, Van Gogh never sold a painting.
Ian: But with the band’s growing success, is that question getting harder to answer?
Micah: No, it just evolves.
Shane: It’s not like any of us sit around and go, “Look at all the things I’ve accomplished.” We’re just driven people trying to accomplish new things.
Cody: There’s no goal, per se. We’re just trying to keep progressing.
Shane: We’ll always have something to say.
Cody: That’s what drives our songs. If we lose that and the fire’s gone, then there is no band.
Shane: We don’t want to be Brett Michaels on a reality show looking for an excuse to keep wearing bandanas and eyeliner.
Ian: Shane, how does having a kid affect the answer to that question?
Shane: It just reinforces it, honestly. What kind of person am I if I don’t hold on to the key things that I’ve always believed in? What kind of role model am I to my son?
Andy: When Jack (Jackson, Shane’s son) gets older he’s going to be, like, “Holy shit, my dad does exactly what the fuck he wants to do.”
Ian: You’re all from small towns here in Ohio. How does that shape who you are as a band and as an individual?
Micah: Most of what we have been talking about just about sums it up for us. We’re all small town kids trying to do what we love for a living.
Ian: How does that impact going around the United States from town to town?
Shane: I’ll tell you exactly how. Because we work three times as hard as any other band day in and day out. There might be better bands than us, and I don’t care about that. I only care about what we can control and do as a band.
Micah:We don’t deserve anything. We work for everything we get and that’s Ohio to the core.

Video: History Now! by Two Cow Garage

Blabber 'n Smoke Blog: Two Cow Garage. Brand New Flag. At The Helm Records

Back when their 2016 album Brand New Flag was released, Two Cow Garage was among the "under the radar" bands that everyone wrote about but didn't seem to find their mainstream moment, which (to be far) most bands don't. Still, the band received international write-ups, like this one from Glasgow blog Blabber 'n Smoke with glowing praise. Here's a bit of it:

Brand New Flag is a raw album. It blasts from the speakers for most of the time. Churning melodies and amped up guitars hammer through many of the songs at times with the urgency of a Springsteen fist clencher, the clincher being Continental Distance which even has a Roy Bittan like piano break. This Little Light is a noirish account of a mugging and not a million miles away from Drive By Truckers territory while History Now could become an anthem for the Occupy movement as could the title song where they rail against the establishment singing, “I don’t believe in anything”. In addition they plant their feet firmly on the side of diversity with the life line described in the words of Let The Boys Be Girls, a defiant and proud refutation of “fitting in” as they dismiss God, schooling and military service with the defiant cry of, “we don’t need old white rich men to tell us who we can kiss goodnight”.

New Additions: The Death Of The Self Preservation Society album by Two Cow Garage

It's fun to watch a band develop and evolve in real time, and Two Cow Garage is one of them I've had the opportunity to observe. I recently picked up their 2013 album The Death Of The Self Preservation Society, though I had kept track of the band from their beginnings in the early 2000s when they were a new band just as the band I was playing with was over four years into existence. They were scrappy and rough sounding, but they had an identity straight away, and that made them instantly interesting as they navigated punk via folk.

Know Yer Band: Two Cow Garage

Band: Two Cow Garage

Members
Guitar/Vocals/Banjo/Mandolin - Micah Schnabel
Bass/Vocals - Shane Sweeney
Guitar - Chris Flint/Todd Farrell Jr.
Drums/Vocals - Dustin Harigle/Cody Smith/David Murphy
Keyboards - Andy Schell

Releases
2002 - Please Turn The Gas Back On album (Shelterhouse Recordings)
2004 - The Wall Against Our Back album (Sonic Rendezvous Records)
2007 - Three album (Shelterhouse Records)
2009 - Speaking In Cursive album (Suburban Home Records)
2009 - Split w/Jr. Juggernaut 7" single (Suburban Home Records)
2010 - Sweet Saint Me album (Suburban Home Records)
2012 - Geri 7" single (Last Chance Records)
2013 - The Death Of The Self Preservation Society album (Last Chance Records)
2016 - Brand New Flag album (Last Chance Records)

Dream Cymbals Interview with George Hondroulis

The always busy George Hondroulis, brother of Constantinos Hondroulis, was interviewed by Dream Cymbals a few years back, here is some of that:

In 1976, he moved to New Orleans where he first truly fell in love with music—a love he held on to when his family permanently relocated to Columbus, Ohio in 1987, just in time to begin both high school and playing music with punk rock band Our Flesh Party. This in mind, he started taking fill-in gigs with local bands here and there, picking up more music knowledge as he went. In 1999 George joined the retro group Jack Neat, leading him to branch out with more blues and just begin to flirt with jazz. 

In 2002 he and the other members of Our Flesh Party formed The Evil Queens, a heavy rock outfit bent on shaking the booty—and shake they did, charged with the reckless joy that comes from almost 15 years of camaraderie and a collective appreciation for loud rock. When he had time, George would fill in (and often wind up touring with) groups such as The Killionaires, The Shame-a-Lots, The Randy’s, The Good Kissers, Sweet Melons, The Razors, and Two Cow Garage, to name a few.