Sister Helen is Brooklyn, New York’s top indie-progressive-rock contortionist act and we managed to get them to stay out of their strange playing positions long enough to give us an interview.
Reading this one should be quite fun.
To start, let’s tell everyone who you are, where you are from, what type of music you play.
Eva: We’re Sister Helen, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. Actually, Chris is from Hell’s Kitchen in midtown Manhattan, but we consider him one of our own. We call our music progressive rock, not to be confused with prog-rock.
Nathan: We used to play ghost-rock with a spook-core twist and now we play depressed proggy crazy rock.
Chris: We play anything and everything.
Clint: It’s just Rock music in odd time signatures
I have to ask…why the name Sister Helen?
Eva: Sister Helen was the principal at the pre-school Clint and I went to. When we were a little younger the band name was cute, now we relish in making devil music under a nun’s name.
Nathan: Alternatively, “Helen” because our music is beautiful and starts fights, “Sister” because our music is disciplined and god-fearing.
How did you all come together?
Clint: I think they call it divine intervention… We all met at government funded and private institutions throughout Manhattan. And Brooklyn.
Eva: Clint and I met in pre-school and started the first incarnation of this band in the 6th grade. We played covers for a while but had some trouble with original material because every singer we played with was a zit-faced goon just entering middle school and therefore very embarrassed about writing lyrics. That all changed when Nathan joined in 8th grade. He had very few zits and almost no shame. He had heard I was in a band and asked for a “pity gig.” Chris joined our sophomore year of high school after we had several line-up changes. Before that he was singing and playing guitar in his own band and I wanted desperately for him to be in ours.
Chris: I joined because their rhythm guitar player was going college. Then their original lead guitar player left to pursue solo projects and that just left me!
From any member of the band.. What is the strangest shape you have contorted yourself into?
Nathan: As the frontman, I do a lot of the onstage kama sutra. I like facing away from the crowd, bending over backwards, and singing at them with your upside-down head.
Crowd-surfing results in some pretty odd body positions because you’re basically crowd-sourcing your skeleton. And nobody wants to be the butt-holder so you’re always caving in towards the middle.
I’m kidding. Everyone wants to be my butt-holder.
Clint: I’m like An octopus that had 4 limbs amputated due to hypersexuality.
Do you take these odd shapes while performing? How does that affect the musicianship?
Nathan: Is it harder to sing while flipping out like a caffeinated goblin? Yes. But easier to rock.
Chris: It’s funny really. Clint, Eva and I tend to all face each other while playing, in some sort of progressive triangle, so it’s very appropriate.
Clint: It only affects me when Nathan takes his clothes off and the audience does the same. It takes it to a whole new level of unity and sexuality in the music.
In your words, describe Brooklyn’s independent music scene.
Nathan: I cannot describe the independent music scene of the national capital of independent music. I can say that the people we’ve played with, those in our little corner of the scene, have shown great problem-solving approaches to the ever-increasing problem of being under-21 in a city that can’t afford to cater to you. Venues like Shea Stadium and 9 Bleecker have been developed & sustained through the efforts of people who love live music, and credit is due to them. Going to these shows is like initiation into high school, which in New York is kind of when you officially become a city kid and New York is your apple for the first time. We’ve been in this band since we hit that tender age. Back then, it was way more common for all-ages bands to play the well-known “legit” venues like Cake Shop, Public Assembly, the Knitting Factory, places like that. These days it takes a little more inventiveness.
What other musicians, bands or producers do you guys work with?
Eva: The guys at Mama Coco’s Funky Kitchen are doing some great things, holding shows and releasing records for a slew of great local bands. That whole collective operates under the watchful eye of Oliver Ignatius. We played not too long ago with a trio called Depths that I thought was great. They played some very heavy music that was a refreshing change from a lot of the indie/poppy stuff (great though it sometimes is) that gets played in every club from Williamsburg all the way to East Williamsburg. Two weeks ago I saw Phony Ppl play. We haven’t played a show with them in years because they’ve sprouted into a very successful syndicate of musicians but if you’ve never checked them out, I highly recommend them.
Chris: Not Blood, Paint.
Nathan: No Shoes and Basal Gang are worth bringing up because they play a sort of mix of alt-rock and prog like we do, although they sound totally different. I have a lot of friends in the Epoch Art Collective (Bellows, Sharpless, Random Child) who we used to play with in the good old days before everybody grew beards and moved to weird corners of the country. The bands managed by Mavy Entertainment (SHAPES with their legendary Personality Crisis, Viva Mayday, S’Natra) have also been consistently fun to play with.
How has the Internet and Social Media helped (or hurt) you in marketing your music and connecting with fans?
Nathan: Facebook has been invaluable for promoting our shows and getting in touch with bands that we’ve met casually by playing with them on a mixed bill. Sometimes, whole scenes have been forged, at least perceptively, largely by people talking about themselves on Facebook.
I will say, though, that in terms of selling CDs, the hard copy has moved much faster than the digital product on iTunes and Bandcamp.
Eva: Our Facebook page also lets us connect with fans who would maybe be more reticent to speak to any of us personally. And it helps to some extent with expanding and maintaining a fan base that’s unable to come out and see us play. We have a lot of Facebook fans in Vietnam. Not sure how that started, but we’re happy they’re on board!
Also, Bandcamp has helped us sell our album to people who would never be able to access it otherwise while allowing us to retain all the money.
Do you guys have any insight for up and coming acts that you wish someone had shared with you in the beginning?
Eva: Respect other bands that you share bills with even when you don’t like them. Even though it may seem like you are in direct competition with each other you totally aren’t. It’s good to always have a demo on hand, but don’t rush into making your first LP. Play some shows first. No one wants to hear some garbage you kind of wrote, rehearsed once and then threw a bunch of reverb and drum sounds on. Never turn down a show, you will almost always learn something and there’s no stage (or lack thereof) that you’re too good for. When you’re on stage, people like watching you cry and laugh and tear off your clothes and you will not have that opportunity in many other settings, so take advantage. Diversify your personal talents as much as possible. Every band wants to stand out against the mass of other bands. You can start by gaining some kind of fluency on your own instrument and really cultivating your own sound.
Nathan: The most influential thing my father ever told me was before my first show. He said, “When you get up on stage, you’re not just gonna stand there and sing, are you?”
Also, if you’re under 21, you’re with everybody else who’s in this situation with you. Reach out, share bills. Also: New York City is a small town. And if you’re somewhere that isn’t NYC, that’s a REALLY small town.
Is there an album out? Where can people find you?
Eva: Our third full-length LP, Hope to Leave No Harm is available on bandcamp and itunes along with some of our other releases. We play around NYC pretty regularly and our Facebook page is, as of now, the best way to stay up to date with shows and new releases (or if you’d just like to say hello.) We’re hoping to release a new single in the next few months.
Any last words or shout outs?
Nathan: Fuck Mike Bloomberg?
Go check out their album on Bandcamp or connect on Facebook.
