Discovery is a beautiful thing. Sometimes when you head out to a fest the bands you’re unfamiliar with are the bands you end up falling in love with. This Saturday at the Hop Sauce fest on Long Beach Island, New Jersey you may just end up falling in love with The Yetis. No, these aren’t some big dudes with shaggy beards playing post-hardcore tunes of love and loss. The Allentown, Pennsylvania’s band have this wondrous throwback sound harkening back to the idyllic days of the British invasion – where harmony, melody and musicality truly mattered. Yet, there’s an air of a modern, ‘now’ sound that make them sound like they’d fit in the Summer of 2015 as they would the Summer of Love. We recently got the chance to speak with the band’s singer Nick about the band’s origins, being on the radio and their favorite craft beer.
The Yetis Are:  Christian (lead guitar, singer), Nick (bass guitar, singer), Patrick (drums), (Stefan, our bassist, just quit the band last week for personal reasons and so I (Nick), the rhythm guitarist and singer, switched to bass and we are now searching for another permanent 4th member!)
We Formed In: Christian and I have been writing songs together since high school, so around 2009, but late in the summer of 2014 is when we got Patrick, my 16-year-old brother, on drums and recorded our first professional songs and played our first real gigs! The birthplace of The Yetis is an attic above Christian’s dad’s garage with vintage motorcycles that are being restored. It’s overly hot and muggy in the summer, drenching us in sweat, and absolutely freezing in the winter since there’s no heater, which has us dressed in pea coats and scarves dreaming of warmer weather and California girls.
We’re Based Out of: Allentown, Pennsylvania, positioning us between Philadelphia and New York City. Allentown used to be a thriving 1950s town with a vibrant British Invasion-inspired garage rock scene in the 60s. Some classic Allentown garage bands are The Shillings, The King’s Ransom and The Young Mods (my great uncle was their drummer). Allentown is no longer the city it used to be, but growing up in the suburb gave us a sort of 50s-esque childhood — we went to a big, fun high school and we had our first dates at the amusement park or a school dance. There was nothing to do around town so we just hung with friends, drove around listening to music or we messed around on instruments covering and writing songs.
The Story Behind Our Name: When we started out we were mainly covering The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys. Christian and his friend came up with the name The Yetis, but it was probably a subconscious nod to our heroes, Arctic Monkeys. We just stuck with it.
You’ve Seen Us Before In Other Bands: We made music as children/pre-teens under different band names, but we better not mention those (laughs).
Our Sound Has Been Likened To: The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Jonathan Richman, Twin Peaks, Arctic Monkeys, Girls.
How did The Yetis come together?
Stefan and I met in 5th grade and whenever we would hang out Stefan’s older brother Christian would sort of try and persuade me to play guitar with him. Eventually, Christian asked me to join his high school band The Yetis. After years of different line-up changes we decided my brother Patrick would be a perfect addition to the band.
What has been the proudest moment in the band’s history?
Every opportunity is a new experience and a honor to us, so we would have to list a lot of things: recording professionally in a studio with Kyle Slick Johnson, reaching 10,000 listens for the first time on “Little Surfer Girl,” being featured in the NME and any other blog, those first e-mail replies, all the kind and inspiring words that blogs write, being listened to in countries around the world, self-directing and editing our first music video, the first fan art, opening for Hinds, filming with Ryan Ohm of Weird Life Films, being talked to by major label scouts and managers, being on the radio and all these major things along with just the excitement and communal love we feel from friends and fans about the rock ‘n’ roll we play.
You recently had one of your songs played on Radio 104.5 which is a pretty big deal. Can you describe hearing one of your songs on the radio?
The coolest thing was to just have friends be driving home and going, “Wait, The Yetis?” and then texting us “Were you just on the radio?” Our parents and grandparents were really, really proud too, so that felt great! Being on the radio is a classic rock ‘n’ roll achievement and it really felt like that.
You’re playing the Hop Sauce Fest this Saturday – a fest about craft beer and hot sauce — what’s your favorite craft beers and how spicy do you like your food?
We really like German beer. Augustiner Helles and Franziskaner Weissbier are the best beers in the world! Some of our favorite foods are Vietnamese and Thai. In the studio we order pho a lot. Also, massaman curry, which is Thai, is one of our favorite meals in the world and both massaman curry and pho can be spicy so, yeah, we go for any kind of spicy food.
Can you talk about the wildest/craziest thing that’s ever happened at a Yetis show?
We just recently played at a high school dance where they were playing our music video on the announcements weeks before the dance and had posters of us in the halls. During that show was the first time we ever heard girls screaming over our music, which felt amazing.
What Do You Love About Being In the Yetis?
We love the feeling we get when we play music together. It can be pretty emotional at times to play music with your best friends and give it everything you’ve got. We love the challenge of creating the best art we can possibly create and we just love how much fun we have together. Being in a band is the best thing in the world.
If someone has never heard your music before – what song would you recommend to them in order for them to fully understand what The Yetis is all about?
I’d recommend they check out “Where You Goin'” — it’s fun pop music with some attitude and heart.
What do you have planned for the rest of 2015?
We’re working on some new songs and everything that goes into the promotion of those songs and the songs we have! We hope to play on the West Coast!
The Yetis will perform at the Hop Sauce Festival on Saturday May 30, click here for tickets.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/167999590″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
=====================================================================================================
Bill Bodkin is the Owner, Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Pop-Break. Most importantly, however, he is the proud father of a beautiful daughter, Sophie. He is beyond excited that Pop-Break will be six years old in 2015 as this site has come a long, long way from the day he launched in it in his bachelor pad at the Jersey Shore. He can be read every Monday for the Happy Mondays Interview Series as well as his weekly reviews on Law & Order: SVU, Mad Men and Hannibal. His goal, once again, is to write 500 stories this year (a goal he accomplished in 2014). He is a graduate of Rutgers University with a degree in Journalism & English. Follow him on Twitter: @PopBreakDotCom
=====================================================================================================
