Sam Carlson Photos
“Is there a doctor in the house?” Max Loignon shouts in the opening line of the song “Fire in a Theatre,” off the EP of the same name, but he sounds more revved up than in need of resuscitation on the latest release from local rock revelers The Right Offs. The EP includes three songs from three musicians — Loignon on vocals and guitar, Than Rolnick on bass and vocals, and Bob Breychak on drums — who know how to pack maximum impact into a minimal amount of time, and how to make the introspective sound expansive.
“A lot of these songs, the seeds of them, came while we were looking for Bob” in January 2017, said Loignon, “and when we first got him and that transition. That’s when I started getting motivated.”
“It’s my first recording with them,” added Breychak. “They haven’t released any new material in two years. We’re kind of refreshing everyone’s minds. We’re not just a live band. We actually have songs that are recorded and have that available.”
“And these are slightly different kinds of songs,” Loignon said.
“Definitely,” said Breychak.
“It’s been a lot of work and a lot of fun,” added Rolnick.
Loignon and Rolnick added Breychak to the group in 2017 and played throughout New Haven regularly that year, continuing to play selections from their first album but also adding in new songs here and there. Recording began on the very last day of 2017 with the band then slowing down its live show schedule to focus on it.
“We did have a good little stretch in New Haven a while back, but we were only playing the old album, playing the same ten songs, and I was like, ‘guys, people are going to start getting a little bored of this,’” said Loignon. “Then we started looking elsewhere, other places in CT, and then recording really hit high gears.”
Recording began on the day of New Year’s Eve last year, according to Breychak. “That was the first day of drum tracking. We didn’t do it every day. Sometimes it was once a week, sometimes even less than that. We broke it up quite a bit. Plus there was just a lot of material at once, 18 songs total. There was actually more than that, but we whittled it down to 18.”
The band ended up at Birdseye Studios in West Haven with Jon Conine engineering, recording and mixing all of them. They chose three for an EP that were then mastered at Sans Serif Recording by Sam Carlson.
“We had a good chunk of time to write songs,” said Loignon when asked about the large number of songs Breychak had mentioned. “I just gave them everything and said ‘here you go guys!’ and they went with it.”
Loignon also talked more about his own writing process and how the band interacts with that and each other when bringing their songs to completion.
“It basically started with Max giving us demos,” said Breychak.
“Skeletons, as I call them,” said Loignon.
“And then we figure out how to play them as a band together,” said Breychak.
“Generally 95 percent of them are me and guitar. I think there were two that I got a little crappy drum loop into,” Loignon said with a laugh.
“Which was very helpful, by the way,” added Breychak with a smile.
“It helped me a lot, kept me in time, but yeah 95 percent is guitar and voice and sometimes full stretches of lyrics. Sometimes it’s just sort of mumbling rhythmic or melodic mumbling. It’s like half and half, words and that. I write all the lyrics. In the skeletons I’ll just come up with the framework of it, then once we figure it all out as a band and when we say, ‘ok we like the framework,’ then I’ll go back and add to it.”
Was there a theme to Loignon’s songs this time around?
“I find that I just sort of let stuff tumble out of me, and then I sort of make sense of it later on. So I’m doing my mumbles and my little spots of words on the spot,” he said. “Sometimes spontaneously I’ll sort of make sense of it, then leave it alone for a while, and then just sort of chew on it. When it’s time to properly come back to it then I’ll have a framework of this song. Does it feel like this mood? Should this be in it? Is it clear enough?”
Sam Carlson Photos
“We’ve got a couple of different styles of songs in this big batch so there wasn’t one specific way,” Loignon continued. “Maybe with these three songs there’s a little bit more of a theme. I’m thinking more of the whole of the songs, what it would feel like to listen to all of them, so to me it’s more of a big picture. What do the 18 songs mean to me as opposed to the individual songs…. If I’m a listener, if I’m listening from start to finish, what does it feel like finished?”
This listener felt something refreshing yet powerful when listening to the three songs, with “Fire in a Theatre” igniting all the air in the room right out of the box — a perfect example of how the band grabs your attention immediately and doesn’t let up even when it quiets down a bit. Which it does with the second song, “Don’t Want That Around You,” a more traditional rock ‘n’ roll get-on-the-dance-floor-with-someone-you-love tune that would be anyone’s first choice to spend her quarter on in an old-fashioned jukebox, if there were any of those left around. The final of the three, “Spread the Money,” is as melodic and jangly as a pocketful of change, but then gets downright gritty as Loignon pleads and persists with lyrics like “I don’t wanna be forgiven / I don’t wanna be forgot / Nail it to the blackboard / nail it to the spot.” By the time it’s over you have had a satisfying bite of what the band has brought to the table while being left with anticipation for the year — and 15 other songs — ahead.
“I think we do want to do a full-length after this EP,” said Loignon. “We probably will throw out a couple of singles too.”
And then there are those live shows — three of which are scheduled before the end of 2018, including Dec. 15 at Three Sheets and Dec. 28 at Cafe Nine.
“I think we’ve gotten some great responses playing live and to me I enjoy playing live as much as possible,” said Breychak. “This December we’ve got a couple in New Haven but are trying to spread it around, maybe even revisit the same city in a couple of months and even get on the road and outside of CT in 2019.”
Loignon expressed an eagerness to get on stage right now.
“After a little while, yeah, I get antsy, I go through either wanting to be in my room writing stuff or on stage, and currently I want to be on stage and I’m gonna be feeling like that for a while. I mean, I had plenty of time to be holed away and just sort of writing stuff, so now it’s time to be out.”
Rolnick agreed. “I think people are going to like the stuff, I like it. The songs are going to be a lot of fun to play. It was never really like that before I was in this band. I always liked playing live, but I never really was anxious to do it until I was in this band.”
Breychak agreed as well, adding his gratitude to be part of the Right Offs and the local scene.
“There are a lot of great bands in New Haven,” he said. “There have always been a lot of great bands in New Haven. There has never been a shortage of talent around here. I think sometimes it ebbs and flows with venues and people going to shows, but there always been a lot of great bands in this city.”
He also expressed his pride about the new music.“This EP is representative of some of the sounds that are going to be on the album too, I think. There’s going to be a more rock sound and more subdued stuff. I felt like, as being the last person to join this band, it seemed like there was a lot more variation going on overall.”
Loignon agreed. “We’re not punk. We’re not folky. We just kinda rock ‘n’ roll, but we throw some weird sort of stuff in there from several different kinds of worlds.”
“Especially with the newer stuff,” added Breychak.
“I guess I’m speaking to you about an album you haven’t heard,” said Loignon with a smile. “I’ve been thinking about these songs for a year.”
That doesn’t mean the Right Offs aren’t looking ahead to 2019 including more live shows and touring, that album they mentioned, and possibly a video or two. Loignon also has a goal of his own.
“I hope that by the end of the year we can play a show, and the crowd knows the words to one of our songs,” he said.
“That’s pretty ambitious,” Breychak responded.
“That’s why it’s a goal,” Loignon said.
“Our goals are not that exotic,” Rolnick said. “We just want to play and get as many people to hear it as possible because we like it and were proud of it.”
“We’ve all had our own personal things going on, and I think it’s reflective in the production and I think it’s something that’s been really meaningful to me,” Breychak said. “I’m so grateful to finally be able to release some of the material and have it come out and there’s a lot of meaning there for me, and I think for all of us collectively. There are a lot of people who have been supportive of us throughout the whole process that we really should thank a lot. We couldn’t have done it without them, and we could not have done it without each other. This comes from my heart. I’m really thankful to be a part of this band and a part of this. I kind of came into it randomly, and I’m really thankful that I did. I can’t wait for everybody to hear it. We just want to keep playing music, sharing it with people, play new places, and whatever response we get, I think we’re going to just keep on playing.”
Loignon made it unanimous. “Keep on keeping on,” he said.
Fire in a Theater is available on Bandcamp. The band plays Three Sheets on Dec. 15 and Cafe Nine on Dec. 28.