Without a label or even a specific genre to define them, Authentic Pines is truly unique in what they’re doing. Their sound is very rock, almost emo, and floating somewhere around pop-punk, but not quite landing in any category in particular. What I can say definitively is that they are absolutely incredible. Between the cleverly written lyrics, the clear and addictive vocals, and the sincere and palpable friendship between the band members, Authentic Pines is certainly a band destined for greatness. On March 7, 2021, I had the opportunity to sit down over Zoom and have an honest conversation with Authentic Pines’ frontman Joel, guitarist Nate, and drummer Vince.
Q: How did you all meet and decide you wanted to form a band?
Vince: Nate and I have known each other since we were kids and he and I were in a band before Authentic Pines called Hazing. That also had Charlie on guitar and then we met Joel through Charlie.
Joel: I’ve known Charlie also since childhood- we were born a day apart in the same hospital so it was meant to be! But I started a band and we came up with the name Authentic Pines back in 2017 and after some changes and absorbing Vince and Nate, we came to be what we are now. I think it’s turned out pretty well.
Nate: There used to be a completely different lineup actually. It was Joel, Charlie, and then another Charlie, and this other guy Cash. And then they were looking for a drummer. Vince got in and I was like “Hey guys… what about me? Can’t I somehow play a part in this?” And then I weaseled my way in.
Joel: I sacrificed my guitar-playing on stage to be a full-time frontman/vocalist.
Nate: And we also picked up a new bass player, DJ, so that’s pretty chill.
Q: How did you come up with the name Authentic Pines?
Joel: So, back in the early days, it was around Christmastime, we were thinking about decorating our practice space and one of our friends had an old synthetic Christmas tree that their mom was going to throw out and they suggested decorating the studio with that. But we declined that offer because we do not f*ck with synthetic trees. We only ride with the authentic pines and it sort of clicked that that should be our band name!
Q: What sets you apart from other bands?
Nate: I feel like mainstream bands are kind of a dying thing. We kind of just try and stay authentic to ourselves (no pun intended). We’re not really worried about what’s popular and what will sell. It’s more just kind of what we like and what we want to do.
Joel: Yeah, I’ll intercept that. I guess we’re not really different from other bands. We’re another Chicago band and the way I look at it, if people latch on to what we have to say and how we say it and have a good time listening to us jam out, then that’s great! We make music for us and for fun, but we are very enthusiastic that people have decided to latch onto it and dance along.
Nate: I do think it’s interesting, though, because I don’t hear a lot of bands doing what we’re doing. Not that we’re totally an oddball thing, but I’ve always kind of felt like we’re in our own lane. We’re not necessarily a pop-punk band, we’re not necessarily an emo band, I feel like we kind of just float.
Vince: Our songs sound cohesive within our EPs, I feel like, but when someone asks me “Oh what kind of bands are similar to you?”, I’m like, “I don’t really know.” I kind of struggle to find similar bands that we could compare ourselves to. But at the same time, I don’t feel like we’re doing anything totally ground-breaking or complex.
Joel: Since we’re in Chicago, we kind of have been swept into the Midwest emo scene, just by geography.
Nate: Which is kind of cool, because there’s a good amount of people that like that kind of stuff, so we’re happy.
Q: Who are your biggest influences musically?
Nate: Well, for me, mine has always been the Beatles, Green Day, and Foo Fighters, Rise Against, stuff like that.
Vince: Yeah, I’m super big into Zeppelin and then I listen to a lot more heavy stuff, like Counterparts, Gideon, bands like that. But then I also like more of the modern grunge kind of sound like Balance and Composure, Citizen, Basement, for sure.
Joel: Yeah, um… I listen to some weird stuff sometimes. Right now, I guess, classically I have a lot of influences like Vince and Nate, but I’ve sort of wandered into uncharted territory for me; into groups like Lightning Bolt and Hella and just the more experimental side of music and pushing it to its logical extreme. I don’t know, I just got kind of tired of regular music. I love PUP, Metz, Modern Baseball, a lot of the midwest emo classics. Yeah, I’m kind of all over the place.
Nate: Yeah, our taste in music is honestly just all over the place.
Q: If you could collab with any band or artist, who would it be?
Vince: I want to do a collab with Kali Masi.
Nate: Yeah, they’re a local Chicago band. They’re considered small, they’re probably around our size. Honestly, they’ve just been releasing some new songs. Their last LP was phenomenal and the new stuff they’re releasing is just insane. I’d say that’s pretty groundbreaking.
Joel: I’d say Kali Masi or Heart Attack Man. Heart Attack Man would be sick. If you don’t listen to Heart Attack Man, definitely listen to them as soon as we finish this. Definitely follow them on Twitter.
Nate: They’re very entertaining on Twitter
Joel: I think it would be interesting if we tried to get maybe a west-coast punk band in the studio with us. That’s a dream for me; I like a lot of west-coast punk.
Nate: There’s this band from the west coast called Sitting on Stacy that I’ve recently stumbled upon and they are really cool. So that would be another cool collaboration I’d say.
Vince: Any band that’s kind of something that we all jam to. And then someone that’s a little further ahead than us would be nice. So that we could kind of learn from them.
Nate: You know what would also be sick? If we’re talking like big names, right now. Machine Gun Kelly. That could get us some street cred!
Vince: I’m gonna veto that. [laughing]
Q: If you could open for/go on tour with any band, dead or alive, who would that be?
Vince: Counterparts.
Nate: I would say for the headliner, Basement. Whoever’s right below them, Knuckle Puck. And then us. I would say that would be pretty sick.
Joel: I would say Tool. Then we’d have Machine Gun Kelly… [laughing]. Nah, I would really like to play a show with Tool. Maybe get Rise Against on there. That’d be a fun show. Then us. And then the Wiggles? [laughing]
Q: Where is one place that you would love to perform someday?
Nate: Aragon Ballroom. I saw Green Day there in 2016. Such a cool venue, awesome show, and ever since then, that’s been my goal. I would really love to play there. Or Riot Fest. Riot Fest is a big goal.
Joel: I would say packing the Vic for me. With all of our homegrown Chicagoans in there, crowd surfing would be a pretty spectacular time. I’ve had a lot of good experiences at the Vic. I also want to give a shoutout to Chicago Independent Venue League. Save our stages!
Q: How have you guys been affected by the pandemic as a band?
Joel: Well it’s been over a year since we’ve played a show, which sucks. But we’ve been working here and there to try to start writing new music. We have some stuff in the works right now. But honestly lately it’s been kind of on the slow side, just everyone’s lives have been kind of crazy lately. So we’ve kind of broken away from our normal practice routine. We’re starting to get back into the swing of things. But it’s tricky because, you would think that with all this extra time on your hands, with not working for three months or whatever, that we’d have all this time to write music and work on it, but I think the fact that nobody’s out doing anything just leads to a lack of inspiration. So, it’s been hard.
Nate: When this first started, we probably didn’t get together for three or four months in the beginning of it. And then, we started trying to get together every once in a while. And then luckily, I was able to stay working. Vince, he was out of work for three months and then stuff came back. Joel’s… just kind of hanging out.
Joel: I have a job! I have a job! [laughing]
Nate: But, yeah, it just kind of threw everything for a loop, especially because I think, right before it happened, we were starting to play some decent shows. We played one sold-out show and then we got on one with our friends in Fredo Disco. And it felt like things were starting to pick up and we were starting to get some good gigs, make some ground, and then Covid happened and it just kind of threw us for a loop. But, you know, we’re still kicking. We’re still working on things.
Vince: Definitely optimistic about summertime.
Joel: Yeah, I have a lot of hope for this upcoming summer. Even though our momentum kind of got killed, I think we’ll pick it up. We got the attitude and I think we have the work ethic.
Vince: And I’m sure, once people are able to go out again and stuff, people are going to be itching to see some live music so I’m hoping that’s going to be the case.
Q: What has been your favorite song you’ve ever recorded?
Nate: I’m gonna say, for me, it’s gotta be Waiting For You. I think that’s my favorite just because I like the way it turned out. And it was fun. The process was fun. But I was very happy with the result.
Vince: Yeah, I think Waiting For You is probably the same one for me. Especially when we were tracking guitar solos in the studio, that was probably one of my favorites. Like obviously I love tracking drums and everything, but when we were watching Charlie rip solos in the big live room with two piping hot amps and a bunch of mics and stuff, that was pretty sweet. That was probably my favorite moment.
Nate: The vibes were just there. What about you, Joel?
Joel: I would say for me, Dirty Shoes was kind of a new page in my songwriting process and just in the process of how I write songs, I would say that was an interesting process. Basically like watching a movie and then writing up a story for two characters in my head and trying out different creative processes to help get myself inspired and get past writer’s block.
Nate: Yeah, that was a really fun one to put together too. That’s probably my number two.
Q: What is your songwriting process like?
Nate: Lately, because of Covid, like our new stuff, it’s been mostly independent. So like I’ll come up with an idea or Joel will come up with an idea and then we’ll all get together in our basement, that’s where we have our little practice set-up/demo studio, and we’ll just kind of hash it out. But the last EP, Mother Naysayer, that one was basically all of us together just kind of, somebody has an idea, we bring it to practice and then we would all hash it out.
Vince: Yeah I think that everyone had a good amount of input on that one as far as the writing process. Not just writing everybody’s parts individually, but like everybody having some input on the compositions as a whole.
Joel: Yeah on Better Broken, that was more just a collection of songs that had already been written between Hazing and Authentic Pines and so we had just kind of brought those together and picked the songs like let’s record this and get it out there. But Mother Naysayer was more of an eclectic group effort, you know really being involved in the songwriting process together.
Nate: And that’s how we’re trying to keep it.
Q: What can we expect from you guys in the future?
Nate: Music. [laughing]. No, I don’t know. Right now, the future is kind of bleak, I would say, just because you don’t really know what’s going to happen. But, behind the scenes, we’re working on music, our plan is to get in the studio and record some stuff this year. Hopefully, release some music this year. It just kind of all depends on what happens with the whole pandemic scenario and also our work lives. But, yeah, we are itching to play shows, we are itching to release some stuff.
Joel: Yeah, I’d say we’re definitely working to write new music. Like Nate said, we do have some stuff in the works now. We want to get in the studio and record. Time frames are just the only thing that we never really know about. We do everything ourselves, we’re not signed to a label or anything, we don’t have anyone breathing down the backs of our necks trying to get our record done on like a time constraint. It’s kind of a blessing and a curse though ‘cause we just kind of go at it at our own pace which is usually kind of slow. We got some stuff up our sleeves though.
Q: What is a recommendation you would give to musicians who are just starting out?
Vince: Definitely practice. I know it’s so vague, but especially if you’re like a younger dude or still in high school, just spend as much time as you can learning your instrument and listening to other music and just playing along with your favorite records. ‘Cause, that’s how I got started. I didn’t take formal lessons until later on. But just developing that passion by playing to music that you like. In my case, playing drums, I didn’t learn by getting a practice pad and playing rudiments for hours on end. It was, I wanted to play music and learn actual songs. And that just, for me at least, develops an interest early on and then you can learn all that technical stuff later on.
Nate: I’ll get people who ask me like “how do you write a song?” or “how do you put it together?” and honestly, you just have to do it. You just have to sit down and, as unhelpful as it seems, you just have to kind of figure it out. Like, the way I do it, I’ll just listen to music and kind of figure out how to format a song, how to pick out what I like, and then use it that way.
Joel: Or you could just use the Authentic Pines template, which is “verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, half time.” I would say my advice for songwriters is just write stuff and don’t worry about whether it’s good or not while you’re writing it. Save that for afterwards because it really is just about getting that creative energy out. Inspiration is kind of like a muscle, you have to work to keep it there. If you don’t look for things that’ll get you inspired, you won’t find it. Write a lot of sh*tty songs. Just write a lot.
Nate: And do as little covers as possible.
Joel: Unless you do something cool with it.
Vince: Write as much as you can and a lot of them are going to suck. It definitely will be way more productive than overthinking and overthinking and then being too much of a perfectionist where you never end up doing anything.
Nate: And make sure you’re in a band with people you like. It’ll make it a lot easier.
In this interview, Authentic Pines gave us a lot of fun moments, interesting facts about them, and some great advice at the end! They were just a delight to talk to and I hope you love their music as much as I do. Please support your local music venues during these difficult times and make sure to add Authentic Pines to your list of bands to see when live music can come back safely!