On September 7^th, bassist Jeremy Butler and lead vocalist/guitarist/pianist Ryan Kirkman of Between the Trees sat down for an interview at Baltimore’s Ottobar during their run on the AbsolutePunk.Net Next Favorite Band Tour.

PreachElectric: It’s only a few days into the tour, but how is it going so far?

Jeremy Butler: It’s going real good. Every place has been pretty cool; the kids have been really good and the weather’s been good. All the bands are really cool so obviously we can’t really expect anything more. Yeah, it’s been great.

Ryan Kirkman: It’s been good!

PE: How was the recording experience for Spain? Was it a lot different than or similar to recording The Story and the Song?

Jeremy: It was actually way different. We only had about six songs doing The Story and The Song. We had six songs finished and ready to go and then we went into the studio and we had to write six or seven more, or even eight more within a matter of like, three or four weeks. And we had never been forced to write like that. But for this record, we actually had you know, like, twenty to thirty songs already finished, ready to go, and we could just take our time in the studio. Recording Spain was just a lot more relaxed and chill and just kind of, whatever we got done, we got done, and if we were happy with it we’d keep it and if not we’d do it again.  It was a lot less rushed and more relaxed.

PE: What are some of the differences in sound between your albums?

Jeremy: I think [Spain] is a lot less synth-driven.  On this album, there’s actually… I think there’s five or six piano songs and the other half is just straight guitar, and on the last album there were two piano songs and mainly heavy guitars and synth, so I think it’s just a lot more mature, if you want to call it that, because obviously we’ve grown up. We wrote that when we were seventeen or eighteen and we’re twenty-one, twenty-two now so it’s definitely going to be different as we’ve toured and seen different musical styles. It’s definitely more mature, maybe a little bit more mainstream, maybe a little more appealing to a wider crowd than the last one.

PE: Where do you draw a lot of inspiration from, both musically and aside from music?

Jeremy: We always say we draw inspiration from life, and obviously everyday things. But we don’t usually tend to write about situations or things that we haven’t experienced ourselves because it’s hard to write an effective or good song that way.

Ryan: Third-party experiences.

Jeremy: Yeah, there have also been third-party experiences where we’ve talked to the person who’s been through it.

Ryan: We get close with that person.

Jeremy: Right. But as far as musical inspiration… I mean we love what’s out there now – stuff like The Fray, Copeland, All-American Rejects, stuff like that. We love those kinds of genres of music, but then we also love listening to Ryan Adams or The Beatles every once in a while, just to kind of get some old-school roots going. What else, what else? Some Buddy Holly…

Ryan: I really like… There’s a guy in Nashville named David Condos. He helped me a lot. I get a lot of inspiration from him, musically and vocally. When it came to recording the vocals for the album, it really inspired the way I sing my falsettos. We grew up on bands like Copeland…

Jeremy: Jimmy Eat World..

Ryan: Yeah, Jimmy Eat World. So falsettos, as far as Copeland goes, are really pretty, and you’re like, “Oh, it’s really great.” And it’s really cool and it’s a good falsetto but as far as sort of growing, David Condos has this voice that’s like a… I don’t know.

Jeremy: Angel?

Ryan: Jeff Buckley or, you know, something fierce [laughs]. Yeah, David Condos is who I’d put down as being an inspiration for me.

PE: How is your relationship with your fans?

Ryan: We’re like best friends.

Jeremy: Yeah, best friends. It’s pretty personal. I think we’ve always kind of prided ourselves on trying to do everything all the big bands don’t, I guess. And we’ll continue to do these as we gain a few more fans every once in a while. We try to respond to all of our MySpace messages. It doesn’t always happen because it starts to get overwhelming, but we definitely sit at the merch table until everyone’s gone and we always do that kind of stuff. I think it shows, in response, online when we ask people to promote something and it’s just an overwhelming response. I feel like we kind of give to the fans, and they give back. It’s a cool relationship.

PE: This is a really typical question, but what are some of the best and worst things about being in a band?

Jeremy: We’ll start with the best, which is pretty much…

Ryan: It’s a really cool job.

Jeremy: It’s a cool job. To get paid to play music is really sweet. You’re in a different city every night. I’ve seen a lot of the world, which is pretty cool and I’m still young and I think a lot of people can’t really say that so it’s pretty cool to have that.  I get to meet new people. All that stuff is cool and fun. And the worst parts, I mean, you’re away from home, away from family and friends. You don’t  really get to live a normal life, per se. You kind of lose friends, you leave them on the road and stop talking to people, and get back a month later and time doesn’t stop.

Ryan: It feels like it does.

Jeremy: Yeah. That kind of stuff sucks really bad. But other than that, it’s a pretty sweet job.

PE: Since you’re on tour all of the time, what are some of the best or most interesting places you’ve seen?

Jeremy: Oh, best or most interesting?

Ryan: The Gorge in Washington was awesome.

Jeremy: The Gorge in Washington. We got to see Stonehenge, or Stonehedge. I don’t know which one it is.

PE: Stonehenge? In England?

Jeremy: Hedge or hinge?

PE: Henge, like H-E-N-G-E.

Jeremy: Right, Stonehenge! Right, oh, that makes sense. I thought it was a hedge, like a hedge of bushes. But we saw that in England. I don’t know, what else is cool that we’ve seen?

Ryan: We’ve been to some historic places, other than Stonehenge, that were cool. Like, we played in the Beatles’ home venue. Our home venue is The Backbooth or The Social.

Jeremy: We didn’t play there.

Ryan: Or we didn’t get to play, we went there. We got to have a beer there, in Liverpool.

Jeremy: We see some pretty gnarly wrecks on the road, which is kind of…

Ryan: Scary.

Jeremy: Fun, but sad at the same time.

Ryan: And scary. We were driving once and there was a trailer and his back tire blew out and he went from the far left lane all the way across to the right and went into a ditch. It was pretty intense. It was like four cars in front of us.

Jeremy: It was pretty crazy.

Ryan: I don’t know, I think that’s it. I got to see snow for the first time when we went on tour. Yeah, stuff like that. It was fun.

PE: So opposite that, what are the best parts of your hometown?

Jeremy: I know where I’m at all the time, for the most part. Family’s there, I don’t know. You got anything?

Ryan: I mean, it’s home. Who wouldn’t like their home?

Jeremy: You got your own bed. I do like hotel beds, though.

Ryan: Well that’s why you bought one!

Jeremy: I did. Yeah, I kind of bought a similar bed to the hotel that we stayed at.

Ryan: Jeremy was recently married, and he had a bed that was handed down to him and it got snatched out from underneath him. So he and his wife had to go and get a new bed, so they chose to get one just like the Marriot ones we stay in on the road. And now he sleeps like a baby.

Jeremy: I do!

PE: Well, congratulations on your marriage!

Jeremy: Thank you, I appreciate it.

PE: You’re welcome. So, have you ever had any embarrassing moments on stage?

Ryan: We were at Cornerstone, or something like that, and it rained really, really bad so the stage was all wet. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen us live, but we move around a little bit, and at one point I was at the front of the stage and started to back up and I put my feet together to stop backing up and I just kept sliding and went straight down onto my knees. That was awesome. Not so awesome…

Jeremy: One of our old guitar players… I don’t know if you’re familiar with the first record… But we were playing “Words” and there’s a part that says, “falling down,” and surprisingly enough, he flipped backwards over his amp as we were playing, “falling down.”

Ryan: He went to back up and throw his guitar up in the air and he didn’t realize how close his amp was so he just hit it with his feet and…

Jeremy: Toppled backwards.

Ryan: He just toppled over.

Jeremy: That was embarrassing. Ryan’s called cities the wrong city before, I think, once or twice. I don’t talk, so I don’t have to do stuff like that.

Ryan: It was in… Where was it?

Jeremy: Detroit?

Ryan: It was in Detroit. And I called it…

Jeremy: That’s typical, though. There’s a commercial that does that. I don’t know what you called it, but you called it something different. That’s it.

Ryan: Nothing super-embarrassing. Yet.

PE: Your band is heavily involved in the organization To Write Love On Her Arms. How did you get so involved, and how has your journey with them been?

Ryan: I met Rene probably two years prior to any kind of To Write Love thing. Rene Yohe is who To Write Love was kind of started for and after about two years of kind of feeling like I was the only person who knew about her or knew what she was talking to me about and being the person that was carrying the burden, I felt like it got to be too much. So I talked to the guys and I talked to a couple of different other people that are friends of ours. We ended up deciding that she needed to go into rehab and when we got her into rehab, they told her that she had to detox for six days, I think it was, prior to going into rehab and while she was in detox one of the people we introduced her to was Jamie Tworkowski, who ended up writing To Write Love On Her Arms based upon those four days and getting to know her. So we’ve been there from the beginning and it’s been cool to be a part of all of the lives that have really been helped through it and a lot of the different organizations that have come on board with it and just to see the growth and see people we look up to helping out and getting behind it. It’s cool. I don’t think we get as much – which we’re fine with – recognition as the Switchfoots and the Paramores where everyone’s like, “They are so awesome, because they know all about To Write Love.” I think it’s just awesome that they use themselves as a billboard for it, which is really cool, because we’re still working at becoming billboards. We’ve been there from the beginning, but it’s cool to meet those people who have a common interest, a common goal.

PE: What are your ambitions for the band?

Ryan: I want it to stay my career. It is now, but I want it to be a successful career. Have families…

Jeremy: We would love to get to the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth record, for sure. Have families, play in big places with lots of people.

Ryan: Do reunion tours in twenty years.

Jeremy: Yeah, stuff like that. I don’t want to have to go get a normal job ever, ever, ever, ever again.

Ryan: That’s an easy question. You could answer that one. “What are your goals?” I just want to stay right about here [laughs]. I wanna struggle, I wanna struggle badly.

PE: All right, do you want to do some ‘Would You Rathers…’?

Ryan: I would love to.

PE: Would you rather be 4’1” or 7’9”?

Both: 7’9”.

PE: Would you rather eat a bar of soap or drink a bottle of dishwashing liquid?

Jeremy: Drink a bottle of dishwashing liquid.

Ryan: Eat a bottle of soap. I’ll eat a bottle of soap [laughs].

Jeremy: I think it would be tough to chew, where if I opened my throat and just swallowed the dishwashing liquid…

Ryan: Just let it go! Wait, how big of a bottle is it?

Jeremy: A small bottle, right?

PE: I don’t know. Equivalent to the size of a bar of soap.

Ryan: Oh, okay. I’ll do that then. I immediately thought it was like, the humongous bottle.

Jeremy: But if you’ve ever seen Little Rascals, you get to burp bubbles.

Ryan: It’s true. You do get to burp bubbles.

PE: Would you rather have a beautiful home and an ugly car or an ugly home and a beautiful car?

Both: Beautiful home.

PE: Would you rather find true love or one million dollars?

Both: True love.

PE: Would you rather have sand in your shorts or water in your ear?

Jeremy: Water in my ear.

Ryan: Sand in my shorts. Because sand in my shorts I can definitely wash out. Water in the ear is permanent.

Jeremy: She didn’t say it was permanent.

Ryan: Is it permanent?

Jeremy: Yes. Say yes.

PE: I don’t know. Yes.

Ryan: Oh. Water in the ear. But that affects our ears, which we need for our careers, which rhymes.

Jeremy: But sand affects other things…

Ryan: But she said sand in your shorts. That doesn’t mean it’s in every little crevice! Why don’t you just take your shorts off? She didn’t say sand on your skin.

Jeremy: That’s true.

Ryan: Ha! Sand in the shorts. It can be in the pockets [laughs]!

Jeremy: You got me.

PE: Would you rather forget your sunscreen or forget your sunglasses?

Ryan: I’d rather forget my sunscreen.

Jeremy: You’d be burnt to a… Do we have umbrellas?

PE: No.

Ryan: You can always find shade.

Jeremy: Yeah, that’s true. I’m forgettin’ my sunscreen. I don’t wear it, anyway!

Ryan: Exactly!

PE: Would you rather run a mile or give a speech?

Ryan: Run a mile.

Jeremy: How many people are there?

Ryan: We’re so ridiculous. She doesn’t want these details and we’re like, “Hmm.” Yeah, we can run a mile. I wanna do both at the same time.

Jeremy: What [laughs]? Give a speech while you run a mile?

Ryan: The crowd has to follow me, that’s the only catch. You just stop doing the speech halfway through because they’re all like, [imitates people breathing heavily]. I actually had stage fright for the first year and a half, two years. I never looked at one person in the crowd.

Jeremy: We had to carry extra sets of underwear and jeans because he would just…

Ryan: [laughing] You’re such a liar!

Jeremy: We’d have to stop midway and change.

Ryan: Musical break, guys, musical break!

PE: Would you rather be an actor or a director?

Jeremy: [points to Ryan] Actor. [points to himself] Director. Done.

PE: Would you rather skip Christmas for a year or skip your birthday for a year?

Both: Birthday.

Ryan: At Christmas you get more presents.

Jeremy: My birthday is Christmas. I was born like a week before, so they usually get combined. So I get more presents on Christmas, and more expensive ones. What about you?

Ryan: I just would rather skip my birthday.

PE: Is there anything else you want to add?

Ryan: We just won the MTV2 Freshman… Sorry, MTVu. What we won was MTV2.

Jeremy: Make sure you go buy the record, please come to the tour.

Ryan: Please buy our record!

Photo and interview by Kaitlin Higgins