Sepiachord had a chance to shoot some interview questions to Seattle street folk band, The Mongrel Jews.
Behold the results!
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Sepiachord: So, how the hell are ya?
Sa: Brokenhearted, and thus primed to write some awesome songs.
AH: As fuzzy as a basket of kittens.
Aa: Pretty toasty, all things considered.
SC: Who all makes up the Mongrel Jews?
Sa: Sarah Shay, vocalist and hitter of objects including but not limited to washboard. I play mandolin when Annie lets me.
Aa: This is Aaron J. Shay, ukulele-player, idiot banjoist, and gentleman snow-shoer.
AH: Annie Hughes, mandolin-player, squeezeboxer, harmonicaist, belter extraordinaire.
SC: When did the band get together?
Aa: It was all Sarah's idea. She tells it better than I do.
Sa: I was tired of wanting to be in a band and not doing anything about it, so I put an ad in the Stranger. After a few flakey interviews, I figured why not start a band with my own brother, who is stupid talented anyway? Then I met Annie through a mutual friend and we ended up busking together that same day. She played an early version of "Like Bread" for me and I asked her to join the band right away.
AH: At a taco stand, and what Sarah said.
SC: You call your sound "street folk". How do you define street folk?
Sa: Folk music that's not in a museum, on a pedestal, but in the streets with real people. Preservationist folk is all well and good, but it's not for us. Folk music and punk have more in common than people realize: one's just in the basement and the other's on the porch.
AH: Folk is for the people. It is blues, punk, funk, whatever you want it to be. Think Depression-era with out all of the depression.
Aa: Music you'd expect to hear from some people on the street. Loud, fast, catchy.
SC: There's only three of you in the band and one of you is about to leave Seattle for Portland. How does the band plan on continuing?
Aa: Very distantly. But also very diligently!
Sa: We won't be able to do as many free gigs or last-minute shows, but we also get to expand and play around Portland and have a built-in place to crash! We intend to use this newfangled Internet thing to keep in touch and collaborate remotely.
AH: Skype is always nice, and what Sarah said, and also, we'll be meeting up every few weeks.
SC: Ok, so what's with the name?
Aa: Early on, we were performing some of our stuff for a group of friends at the Ravenna Kibbutz, a Jewish co-op in Seattle, and we didn't have a name. Conversation came around to talking about where our respective folks came from, like England, France, Russia, the nation of Georgia, et cetera, and finally we just said, "You know, your basic Jew mongrel." And somebody in this group of young, creative Jews, thought this was a great idea for our name. We didn't even realize the possible offensiveness of it until later on.
Sa: Actually it was nationally-known slam poet Morris Stegosaurus who suggested it. It's interesting how it seems all controversial and punk rock, and we have embraced that, but it wasn't even a thought initially. We were in a room full of Jews and everyone just thought it was a great name. The best part is that we've driven the white power blogs off the first two pages of Google results for "mongrel jews", which is a bit of a feather in our cap.
SC: Where's your favorite place to play in Seattle?
Aa: The Beery House. There's never been a more open, excited, fun audience in the world. Someday, people are gonna be writing books about the scene they're helping to foster.
Sa: The Beerys are wonderful, and there's no better, warmer, or more forgiving venue for your first show. The Can Can is probably our second favorite. I mean, it's this swanky, subterranean cabaret, and on top of that they're really nice people. One time, they made us pasta.
Aa: Twice, now, they have. Gets me hungry just thinking of it.
SC: Have you played out of town much?
Aa: Being bereft of a car limits that kind of opportunity. But we're open to it. Touring is our dream.
Sa: Our only non-Seattle gig has been a co-op grocery in Mount Vernon, and we had to borrow our mom's car for that one. Touring is definitely the dream, though. We've talked about going to the UK, since we know a handful of folks over there.
Aa: We're developing connections on the West Coast as we can. And Annie knows a guy with a car powered by used vegetable oil. So that's a start.
SC: You have any funny road stories to share?
Aa: We once played a co-op in Mount Vernon.
Sa: We were on top of a cooler, playing to a bunch of small-town hippies shopping for flaxseed and organic beer. Then we went to Whidbey, got kicked out of a bar, and almost got matching tattoos. Imagine what would happen if we left the state!
SC: Who are some musicians you've been thrilled to play shows with?
Aa: I know I can speak for the band when I say that we love sharing the stage with Princess Seismograph. They are our spirit animals and our symbiotic mentors.
Sa: The Princess is top of that list, no question. We've also loved playing with Bat Country and God's Favorite Beefcake, and I can't believe we actually got to open for Corpus Callosum. I hadn't heard them before we played, and once they started their first song I became retroactively nervous about opening for them. They are just amazing performers.
SC: Is it hard to be family members in the same band?
Aa: It is kind of awkward when all of the groupies are hitting on my sister and not me. But I'm pretty mature, I can handle it.
Sa: Don't even joke about that. The truth is that all the groupies want Aaron and Annie, yet I'm the single one. To be honest, though, Annie has become an honorary family member. She comes to family dinners and Mom sends her home with leftover kugel. And Aaron is my baby brother but he's also my favorite collaborator; we busked together a few times before the Mongrels got together, and I love his songwriting.
Aa: Aw, shucks.
AH: Sometimes it can be difficult, but I tiff with them like they wererelated to me.
SC: How soon can we expect a new full length from you all?
Aa: Depends on the alignments of the planets, really.
Sa: That's crazy musician talk for: soon, hopefully. We want to record a live album, but we need to Kickstart the funds first.
AH: Whenever someone want to help us record it, we will.
SC: Any words of advice for the young people of today?
Sa: If you like making music, don't let anything stop you: work, inexperience, even lack of talent. Just play as much and as often as you can: busk at the farmer's markets, play at open mics, jam with friends. Just do it.
AH: When people tell you "no" or that you "can't" do something, do it anyway, you might surprise more than yourself. I was told that I couldn't sing, that because of my background I wasn't going to go anywhere, and now I am doing what I want to do because I surrounded myself with people who wanted to create, wanted more out of life. If you are an artist and there isn't a project happening that you can get in on, make up one yourself. You have to create your own work.
Aa: Eat vegetables. Read books. Learn to juggle. Not all at once.
