bill bodkin talks to the newly formed trio performing tonight at The Downtown in Red Bank …
Plus Plus Minus Is: Jed Higgerson — guitar/vocals; Quinn English — drums; Lisa Cusack English — bass
We Hail from:
Jed Higgerson: Red Bank, WEST SIIIIDE!
Quinn English: It’s actually the east side.
Lisa Cusack English: ES4LIFE.
We Came Together In:
JH: The blizzard of 2011.
LCE: Holy matrimony.
[Editor’s Note: Quinn and Lisa are married.]
QE: Mediocrity.
Our First Public Performance Was:
JH: Birth. I got a standing ovation from ALMOST everyone (thanks a lot, mom).
LCE: Actually, this will only be our second show, so we’re really looking forward to playing for everyone who didn’t make it out to the first show. (You know who you are).
QE: Drum solo camp.
You Can Find Our Music At (in stores or online):
JH: YouAreTheMinus.com or facebook.com/plusplusminus
QE: We will have killer vinyl. Eventually.
LCE: The Downtown this Wednesday night.
Our Sound Has Been Likened To:
JH: Queens Of The Stone Age, Fu Manchu, ’90s soft-core porn.
QE: Someone also said The Hives.
LCE: If you took the ’90s and put it in a blender.
JH: And then smashed it.
Awesome/Notable Acts We’ve Played With:
JH: As Plus Plus Minus, we literally haven’t played with anyone else. But we’re super psyched to share the stage with Cicada Radio at M.A.D. Wednesday. Their drummer, Mike Kundrath (Hero Pattern) has been a good friend of ours for a long time now.
QE: We three have all toured in other bands a ton over the past five years, playing with lots of other cool bands, but are happy to start over without all the headway and momentum and cool band connections that make being in a band easy.
You’ve Seen Us Perform In Other Bands Like: The Gay Blades, The Churchills, dibs, The Poconos, Boy/Girl, Hello Lovely …
Pop-Break: You guys come from some notable indie bands around the Jersey region. Would it be too much to call you an indie supergroup?
JH: No, it wouldn’t. But yes.
QE: No, but it would probably be too much to call us a super indiegroup.
LCE: That was actually going to be our original band name “supergroup,” but we found it too literal.
PB: Why did you guys come together to form Plus Plus Minus?
JH: Distance mainly. We live a block away from one another, so anything further than that would’ve been asking too much from any of us. But besides that, Quinn and I played together in Hello Lovely, and since then I’ve been looking for a reason to play with him again. Preferably in a manner where he would be forced to stare at my ass the entire time.
QE: These guys are jerks, and I’m a jerk, so it makes sense I think.
LCE: I wanted to play in a band with Quinn, but two-drummer bands have gone the way of the Dunkaroo, so having Jed be such a strong guitarist/vocalist and living right around the corner, me picking up the bass was the obvious choice. They were willing to put up with my learning curve and here we are.
PB: How does it feel to performing at the premier independent music showcase in the area, M.A.D. Wednesday?
JH: Larger than life. It’s like we’ve “made it.”
QE: I’m mad about it.
LCE: Awesome … I’ve gone to so many shows there as a spectator, it will be nice to be on the other side of the experience.
PB: How did you get involved with this night?
JH: I was introduced to the legend that is Sir Anthony Jude a couple years ago by my friend Melissa. He’s really taken the future of music in Red Bank under his wing and has been doing a great job with the M.A.D. Wednesday shows for the past year.
LCE: What Jed said …
QE: I’m still mad.
PB: How does performing in this band differ from your full-time bands? What do you get out of them creatively?
JH: [laughs] For me, this is pretty much dibs 2.0, but the things I learned from my time with The Churchills are priceless and evident in everything I do, on and off the field.
QE: The pay is way shittier.
LCE: I think having it be a casual fun experience between friends opens it up … no agenda … just having fun playing and seeing what we come up with.
PB: Any plans for a full length record? More tours?
JH: We’re actually so pleased with the way our “demos” came out while working with Lisa’s brother Matt Cusack, that we actually may just go do a few more tracks with him live and call that our record. And Quinn actually had a great idea to work with our buddy Dan Marter on a vinyl release. In terms of touring and playing out, this is really more for us than anyone — sorry — so we’re going to be a little bit picky and selfish with where we play. Try to keep it as local as possible. In fact, we may literally try to walk to our M.A.D. Wednesday show this week at The Downtown.
LCE: A local Red Bank tour is on the horizon …
QE: It is?
