Our Interview with Common Loon: The gunshot wound seems more appealing than the tat

I chose Common Loon to be our Bandcamp artist this week (see related links below) because I love distinguished sounding names and Illinoisians. They also happen to make some pretty damn good music; music that will resonate in your loins; music that tweak your nipplers.

I caught up with Matt and sent him some questions and he got back to me with the answers he typed in to a smart phone. No auto-corrects or nothing. Impressive! His dexterous fingers must drive the ladies crazy.

SYFFAL: From what I understand, Common Loon is made up of two beefy kielbasas who wear too much Preferred Stock Cologne. Is this information accurate? What are your names and what are your roles in the music?

Common Loon: Robert is the guitarist/bassist/vocalist, Matt is the drummer/keyboardist/vocalist, and the thought of a cologne-scented sausage is nauseating. Before you call us humorless killjoys, we want to remind you - there is no such thing as olfactory irony.

SYFFAL: Please don't upstage me with your fancy vocabulary. I read that you guys met in kindergarten while finger painting penises and have since cultivated your relationship like two pea peas in a pod. When did you first realize that you both were interested in playing music?

Common Loon: We were early teenagers, and Alice In Chains covers of very little distinction were bouncing around the walls of the garage in which we played. Hopefully we were thinking there had to be something better than that, but it's doubtful. We've been "serious" about making music together for only about 7 or 8 years, but it seems like it's been much longer.

SYFFAL: This is how I describe your sound to my friends: Imagine that The Radio Dept. Brendan Benson and a couple of guys from Sparklehorse formed a super musical sperm at a lab in Roswell New Mexico. AND this special recipe was implanted into the eggs of a female alien, who 9 months later, birthed out Common Loon. (Edit: I left out The Eels; there also Eels in the sperm)

Common Loon: Your description is as ambitious as any we've heard.

SYFFAL: How would you describe your sound... in haiku form:

Common Loon: We've no idea
How to describe our sound with
Or without haiku

or

We haven't a clue
How to describe this strange thing
So we make music

SYFFAL: Your first full length album, The Long Dream of Birds (TLDOB), came out in 2010. What do you think birds dream about? I didn't know that birds slept; those creepy germ transporters always seem to be watching me.

Common Loon: The neighborhood hawk likely dreams of getting its talons into one of the hens that live in Matt's back yard. As for other birds, who knows, though we like to think they dream of riding never-ending air currents far above the maze of concrete and glass.

SYFFAL: shit, I have digressed. Do you have another album in the works?

Common Loon: We're approximately halfway done with tracking on nearly 15 songs, most of which we expect to appear on the album.

SYFFAL: When does it come out? Sonically, what can your fans expect to hear that is new and fresh?

Common Loon: When does it come out? Your guess is as good as ours. We work very slowly. Here's to hoping we can be finished by the end of this year. Sonically, there might be a few surprises for anyone who pegs us as an alien mesh of The Radio Dept., Brendan Benson, and Sparklehorse.

SYFFAL: Are you subtly insulting my music comparison skillz? If I may make a recommendation: The first song on TLDOB, Dinosaur vs. Early Man (DVEM) gave me a feeling that I could only compare to an extended version of the post poop shivers. Those harmonies swirl around me like a booby tassels in the wind. I encourage you to aim for this feeling again. And why do you need to use so many words in your song/album titles? I also recommend that you shorten all titles to two words max so that I don't have to parenthesize acronyms in future write-ups.

Common Loon: From now on, our only aim is to torture you and others with impossibly long titles.

SYFFAL: You SUNUVABITCH, but I'll forgive you because we both reside in the great state of Illinois. Where can I catch some of your live shows? Do you have any future plans to venture outside the Midwest and visit places where people call pop 'soda' and are generally rude assholes?

Common Loon: We play most often in Champaign-Urbana, Chicago, and Milwaukee. We've toured outside the Midwest several times, and -- work schedules willing -- we'd love to do it again.

SYFFAL: You were our Bandcamp artist of the week. This is a shpecial honor that only few bands receive. Do you recommend that we check out any other bands via this shpectacular website?

Common Loon: We wish to point you in the direction of two of our Champaign-Urbana brethren

Evil Tents

Deathtram

SYFFAL: Okay, enough about the music. We want to get to know you on a personal level. The following answers to the questions below will say a lot about your characters (or lack of):

If a 300 lb. Hawaiian in an Ed Hardy shirt held you at gun point and forced you to get a tramp stamp; what type of design would you choose?

Common Loon: The gunshot wound seems more appealing than the tat.

SYFFAL: Who is the better 90's teen rap group? Kris Kross or ABC?

Common Loon: ABC, because its use of the snake charmer melody is the most effective in the history of pop music.

SYFFAL: True dat! If you were to start a religion, what kind of ludicrous rule (like 'no-meat Fridays') would you enforce? I'd make a 'no-brassier Thursday' rule to correspond with my other Thursday rule: Thou shalt turn up thy air conditioning.

Common Loon: Rather than start our own religion, we'd prefer to move to Nashville and become a CCM act.

SYFFAL: Who of the following would you take for a month long stay on a deserted island and why? Metta World Peace, Gilbert Gottfried, or Syffal's Joel Frieders? Warning Joel has exclusively talked about his sore balls for the last two weeks.

Common Loon: World B. Free. He's exhibited fewer behavioral issues than Metta.

SYFFAL: Will you tell Joel to quit his bitchin' for me and passive aggressively insult him? Don't worry he has thick skin (and this also explains the permanent pit stainz on his shirtz).

Common Loon: Don't worry, Joel; someone will finish you off sooner or later.

SYFFAL: Haha...that is funny because his balls were sore from a vasectomy, but we will pretend that they were blue. You loons are the bestest. Thank you for taking some time to shoot the shit with us. Plug whatever you like below:

Common Loon: Thanks for the recognition! We want to plug Harry Dean Stanton.