Words & Interview by Stephanie Smith
Cole: This dude named Kevin was listening to Life In General [by MxPx] on the school bus one morning on his Walkman and had me give it a listen. I was in 7th grade. Music like that was completely foreign to me. It was so fun, fast, and leaves the listener feeling understood. I guess we tried to take those elements of pop punk and use them in our own songwriting for Sparrow and Friends Start A Band. It’s fast, fun, and relates to preschoolers.
Lockhart: There was a girl in my 7th grade class that gave me two Green Day CDs (Dookie and Insomniac) that she stole from her older brother. It was around the same time I was getting into MxPx and Blink-182. Although my musical taste has broadened over the years, pop punk has always been a huge part of it since that was what really got me into my love for music. That spark is what I want to be able to pass down to the next generation.
What was the inspiration to take Sparrow Sleeps from lullabies to pop punk for kids? (And has Sparrow heard any of the new songs? Does she approve?)
C: Taking the jump from lullabies to kid’s music was the logical step for us. Sparrow Lucille just turned 3 and was beginning to immerse herself in educational television and media. She went through the Wiggles phase, the Yo Gabba Gabba phase. Currently, she can’t get enough of Doc McStuffins. Music is such a common tool used to educate kids at this young age, so we figured, “Hey, let’s give it a go.”
H: How did the process of making Sparrow and Friends Start A Band differ from that of prior Sparrow Sleeps albums? Were there any unforeseen challenges?
C: It was a completely different process. The lullaby albums are created and recorded from a room in my house. This is the first release we’ve done that involved actual guitars and drums. We traveled up near Chicago to record with Seth Henderson (Real Friends, Knuckle Puck), and had Gabriel Stonerock take care of drums/bass/guitar on every song. The guy is an animal. The project management involved in this album was more than we expected. There were 13 guest vocalists all recorded at different times in different places. Everything went smooth, but there were times where Peter and I were stressing out about delivery and worrying if this was actually going to come together.
L: There were a lot more hands on deck for the Start a Band album. The lullaby albums are created and released by Casey and I on our own schedule. With this album, we had studio musicians, guest vocalists, our producer, our audio engineer, etc. that made the management and scheduling aspect much heavier.
Were there any lessons or concepts you considered including on Sparrow and Friends but left out? How did you end up narrowing it down to the final ones you created songs about?
C: There are tons of lessons and topics that we didn’t get to use on this album that will find a home on future releases.
L: We actually have some other songs demoed and others in rough idea form that didn’t make that cut, but may get released in the future. We knew from the start roughly how many songs we wanted on the album, so we were okay with leaving a few off for a future release. Part of the deciding factor of which ones didn’t make the cut was finding the best match-ups between the song style of the songs we demoed before hitting the studio and the guest vocalists that we had lined up to sing on the album.
How do you see Sparrow Sleeps continuing to evolve in terms of creating music aimed toward specific age groups? Do you foresee other extensions in addition to lullabies for infants and Sparrow and Friends for 3-5-year-olds?
C: We haven’t really thought that far ahead. I’m still trying to wrap my head around this release. Though the evolution of Sparrow Sleeps looks like it will follow Sparrow as she grows older. In ten years, we’ll probably be writing pop-punk musicals called “Don’t Do Drugs” for DARE assemblies. Who knows?
What have you each learned from pop punk, or punk music in general? Do you feel a responsibility to give back to the music scene that has shaped you in such a way, and if so, how does that responsibility drive your art?
L: Absolutely. I think there are two aspects here that we try to “give back” to: the fans of punk and the bands themselves. We love hearing from Sparrow Sleeps supporters about how excited they are to be able to share their love of punk with their newborns through the lullaby covers we’ve released. For the bands, it feels great every time we get to send out royalty checks to them. It’s a little extra income to send their way based on getting to release covers of their music that have had such a big impact on our lives. Last year, we also took the opportunity to donate all proceeds from sales from our website for a week to The Spill Canvas after their trailer was broken into on tour and around $20,000 worth of gear was stolen.
