Bands that push themselves and think outside the box automatically earn a warm place in my heart. A lot of bands don’t have to, and in my opinion, the Toms River-born Creeptones, don’t need to push themselves. Listen to their song ‘Soul Fire’ and you’ll be floored with just how beautiful and Beatles-eque the track is. Off the bat one would think, ‘Man, all these guys have to do is create more songlike that and they’ll be on the road to making it.’ But, they don’t. They challenge themselves, they embrace technology, they push themselves beyond their comfort zone — in short, they never seem satisfied. And this lack of satisfaction is where greatness comes from. Tonight, the band returns to the stage of the Wonder Bar in Asbury Park, New Jersey to take part in their third Dark City Entertainment tribute show.
How is a tribute show challenging you may ask? Well, when you decide to tackle the soaring vocals of Freddie Mercury, the face-melting guitar work of Brian May and the epic song composition of Queen, that’s a challenge in my mind. So we caught up with Carmine Stoppiello to talk about the band’s use of Twitch, new music and performing as Queen.
Creeptones Are (Band Members & Instruments They Play): Carmine Stoppiello – Rhythm Guitar, Keys, and Vocals, Will Hernandez – Bass and Vocals, Johnny Vines – Lead Guitar, Keys, and Vocals, Tom Cirillo – Drums, Anthony Hildebrandt- Keys and Vocals Nicola Lucido – Art Direction, Lyrics, and Aesthetic.
Year we formed in: 2010
We’re based out of: Toms River
You’ve Seen us before in other bands: Myself (Carmine) and our guitarist Johnny Vines had a band in high school called the Elites, which was the humble beginning of what is now a 10+ year musical friendship.
Any New Music: After our gig at the Wonder Bar as Queen, we are going to finish recordings for our next album. Hopefully and most likely to be released before the end of this year. Ideally, we would to get it out before September. Depending on how some of the other ventures we are working on turn out, the album will be released accordingly. Some of the tracks are finished completely, but most of the plans for the rest of the album are laid out already. It has been a work in progress, but also mostly a waiting game.
Our sound has been likened to: Our influences draw from a good variation of genres and bands. The most common comparison we receive is The Beatles, and as big fans of the Beatles ourselves, it is more than a compliment to us. Radiohead comes up sometimes as well, and they are also a group we are fond of.We are happy that our favorite bands sometimes shine through in the music we create.
The Creeptones are doing a lot of live streaming of their performances via Twitch. Why did you make that decision (since it’s something I haven’t heard a lot of bands doing), and do you feel it’s heightened the fan experience or has impacted you guys as performers?
This new adventure through streaming has definitely the most fun we’ve had as a group in the five years of playing together. We’ve been wanting to try it for sometime, but lacked the equipment necessary to make it work and sound the way we wanted it to. In our first week, we connected with almost 150 followers. As a whole, we are surprised that we were one of the first bands on Twitch, the platform that has allowed us to stream. It seemed like a no-brain-er. It’s free, we can reach anyone, at anytime. It doesn’t cost anything for people to watch. We don’t have to lug gear around to play to people, and the venues max capacity is infinite. With the way Twitch’s chat feature functions, it’s been the most engaged we’ve ever with people listening to us. At a live show, in person- people might be shy and not always approach and artist that they enjoy. On the internet, the filter goes away, and people speak what’s really on their mind. It makes the connection that much, because we are really saying what’s on our mind. We aren’t trying to put up a front, because it would be extremely difficult to keep up a facade like that six nights a week. We can”t wait to see how it grows in the coming months.
You’ve been a staple at The Dark City tribute shows – you’ve performed as The Beatles and as Rage Against the Machine, now you’ll be performing as Queen. Those are some crazy different bands you’ve performed as. Do you take on these varied parts as a challenge or do you feel your style lends itself to the styles of all these bands?
For The Beatles show, we performed Abbey Road. It was definitely relate able to our sound. It also happened to be a tremendous challenge. We needed six people to do it the way we wanted, which was as close to source as possible, For Rage, we wanted to jump outside of our comfort zone. That show was really one of the best times we had playing live. We had such an explosive energy and were glad we picked them over something that might have been a bit easier for us. With Queen, we took both of those aspects of why we chose the first two bands, and melded them together.
Performing as Queen is not easily, particularly with the vocals. How have you been performing for this gig? Have you modified any of the songs, or can people expect a pretty straight-forward musical interpretation of Queen?
Practice, Practice, Pizza, Practice. Besides taking the time out for this interview, it is basically all we’ve been doing. By all means, if you are trying to replicate Queen, it is not an easy task. There were times where we felt like we bit off more than we could chew. Freddie Mercury’s vocals alone were such a challenge, not even including yet, the harmonies. For certain songs there were six-part harmonies, and we had to decide what we thought would sound the best with four people. Bohemian Rhapsodies vocals alone took at least 16 hours to learn and perfect (we hope?) while playing an instrument at the same time. With the stream in mind, it’s provided people with an inside at the process of learning and rehearsing something so difficult. We hope we can do it justice, as through this time we’ve gained an even deeper appreciation for how great these songs really are.
Also, are there any Queen hidden gems you’ll be pulling out for the show? Also, which of your personal favorite Queen songs will you be performing?
When you only have 30 minutes to put on the best show you possibly can, to us, it makes the most sense to play the hits. If we had an hour, people might getting something a little bit off-kilter. 30 minutes has proven to be quite long enough when considering how long it’s taken us to learn the songs we will be playing. If you know the songs, sing along. We could use a couple extra harmonies.
You’re currently recording new material — how do you feel it stands out from the rest of your catalog?
Our new album is more or less a patchwork of songs and ideas we’ve been working on for the past three years. Due to forces outside of our control, we had no choice but to wait to release new music. If you put the new music against the songs from our first album, you can definitely tell that over time we learned and grew as people and musicians adapting to less than favorable situations. Without getting into too much detail, we’ve stuck around so long as a band, because for a long time, we felt like we had something different to offer. The excitement in what we had the potential to do, far outweighed the mistakes that led us into the position of having to wait.
If someone wanted to check you guys out for the first time, what song would you recommend for them in order to fully understand what you guys are all about?
‘Soul Fire‘ is a good representation of us as a whole. Driving rhythm, yearning melody, playful guitars, and three-part harmony.
There are a lot of bands in the Asbury scene right now, how do you feel The Creeptones stand out from everyone else?
This is something we are happy about. The last time we looked at another band as competition was when we played for the Jersey Shows Battle of the Bands as the Elites in 2007. We quickly learned that a strong music community is important for any musician that wishes to be a part of one. Aside from a different style of rock that wanders between modern and a retro sound, we might not stand out from all the other musicians in Asbury Park right now. There are so many different local bands that the scene itself is just really fun to be around. Everyone stands out. Everybody is doing something different. No matter if it’s a Monday, or any day, there’s something to do. We love that. The most unique thing we are doing right now is the stream. Last night we played to over 100 people from all around the world. We spoke personally with each one of them. They had never met each other before, but before the end of the night the audience was chatting and making conversation between themselves. These are things that just don’t happen at a normal live show. Streaming is just such wholly different interpretation of live performance that is completely new and untapped. Every we don’t know what to expect. It is always different. It is exciting.
What’s on the horizon for The Creeptones in 2015?
Two albums and growing our stream into a fully interactive experience that changes the way people experience music.
Creeptones perform as Queen, tonight at Dark City Entertainment’s 70s Summer Show at The Wonder Bar in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Also on the bill is Amy Malkoff & The Moonshines (as Led Zeppelin), Lowlight (as Bob Dylan), King Mosquito (as Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers) and Feathers in the Shade performing a 1970-1979 medley.
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