Everyone Is...with Jennifer Coronado
The intent of this show is to engage with all types of people and build an understanding that anyone who has any kind of success has achieved that success because they are creative thinkers. So whether you are an artist, a cook, a bottle washer, or an award-winning journalist, everyone has something to contribute to the human conversation.
Everyone Is...with Jennifer Coronado
The O'Connor Brothers Band: Only Six Instruments
Ever found yourself dreaming of a life filled with music? The O'Connor Brothers, Matt and Sean, join us to share their story, from the Colorado mountains to the heartbeat of the music scene. They open up about their classical trained musical roots, their leap into original compositions, and the creativity that fuels their artistic journey. It's not just about strumming chords and writing lyrics; it's a testament to the power of creative thinking and how it shapes the melodies of life, whether you're a musician, an artist, or simply someone who appreciates rhythm.
We hope that listening to their story inspires you to pursue your own musical journey and you can learn to play at least five instruments... if not six.
O'Connor Brothers Band Live on Songs from the Pond: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oFMzAQwpGc
Tour Schedule: https://oconnorbrothersband.com/
www.slightlyprod.com
In music school. They don't really touch on the side of music that we're in. Either you're trying to play in like large orchestras, or you're a jazz musician going through and you're trying to like gig your way up, or you're teaching, yeah, and it's like those are the three routes they give you. They don't really talk about what we're doing, you know, or you just kind of do your own thing and just scrap your way up.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to Everyone Is. I am your host, Jennifer Coronado. The intent of this show is to engage with all types of people and build an understanding that anyone who has any kind of success has achieved that success because they are a creative thinker. So, whether you are an artist or a cook or an award-winning journalist, everyone has something to contribute to the human conversation. And now, as they say on with the show, the O'Connor Brothers Band is an exciting new band out of Colorado and they have a bluesy alt-folk sound with incredible musicianship, and we are privileged to be able to talk to their two founding members, Matt and Sean O'Connor. Welcome, gentlemen, to Everyone Is.
Speaker 1:What's up? Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I want to start with the elephant in the room, which is the fact that you two are actual brothers. So, matt and Sean, which one is older?
Speaker 1:Matt.
Speaker 2:And which one is always right.
Speaker 1:Me all the time I like to defer to him.
Speaker 2:That's a nice way to put it, Sean. So you both grew up in Colorado, right?
Speaker 1:Yes, we both grew up in Silverthorne, silverthorne, colorado.
Speaker 2:So you're mountain men, mountain men.
Speaker 1:Born and raised yeah, we've been Summit County guys all the way through and then went off to college and the view was a lot better here, so we figured we'd enjoy it.
Speaker 2:And good skiing, I imagine.
Speaker 1:It's pretty good, not too shabby.
Speaker 2:Is your family musical in general, or was it just something you two discovered?
Speaker 1:We've got some musicians in the family. Our dad plays harmonica, but nothing crazy. Our mom's an artist and our dad is a tennis pro and other than that we kind of fell into it, both of us in middle school, because the school system made you pick an instrument or do the choir, so you had to like they forced you into it. I was like, oh, I'm going to play the trumpet, and I loved it. It was awesome. So I just got super into it. Sean played clarinet all the way through college and both he and I went to school on scholarship for that and then halfway through college kind of fell in love with writing music and playing the guitar and singing and doing that thing, because you know you can't really write music on a horn.
Speaker 2:No, because you can't sing at the same time. It's weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's nice to have some chords to go with it. It's weird. Yeah, yeah, it's nice to have some chords to go with it. So I started playing guitar and we just kind of started figuring like I don't know, I'm kind of good at this, let's kind of keep going with it. So I've been doing that ever since.
Speaker 2:So tell me, where did you two go to college?
Speaker 1:We were both Colorado State Rams.
Speaker 2:Were you both studying music there.
Speaker 1:Both. I was doing a ton of jazz, but I was also doing classical. I was doing a scholarship for clarinet, so it was a lot of classical, but I was gigging on saxophone the whole time. I just got a better scholarship on clarinet so I jumped into that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you guys both got scholarships for music then.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So did you always know that music was something that you wanted to do? It was like this is my thing, man. This is where I'm going.
Speaker 1:I think, since we probably started playing horns early on. Once we heard out of it it was like, oh, you can get into school for this. It was high up on the list. I feel like walking in like sixth grade I was like I want to go to college for music, I want to get into school for music and do that thing. But then it was funny because you know, you got halfway through, you know college and I'm like, yeah, I need to make money. I was like, all right, how are you going to do that? How do you do that?
Speaker 1:And there's a couple of different ways as a musician to find your way. And in music school I don't really touch on the side of music that we're in Either you're a guy trying to play in large orchestras and make your way that way and doing the audition process, or or you're a, or you're a jazz musician going through and you're trying to like gig your way up, move to new york and you know, sky me your way up. Or you're teaching, yeah, and that's like those are the three routes they give you. They don't really talk about what we're doing, you know. Or you just kind of do your own thing and just scrap your way up through the underbelly of the music society.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about your roles in the O'Connor Brothers band. I'm assuming that it's named after yourself, since you are the O'Connor Brothers. What are your roles in the band? Maybe we'll start with you, sean.
Speaker 1:I play saxophones, and I play alto saxophone, baritone saxophone, a little bit of percussion here and there and then background vocals. Yeah, and I play a bunch of different guitars and lap steel like slide guitar, and I'm the lead singer. I do all the writing too, so that's a big, big part of that too.
Speaker 2:That's the hugest part, that's the foundation right. So how many instruments do each of you play?
Speaker 1:I'm up there. I got a lot In dabble music school. They kind of teach you how to get around on piano. So I'm like piano, guitar, lap steel, you count that Vocals, trumpet. I did that for a while. I mean I play ukulele, I can get around that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, quite a bit I play six. Oh, okay, that's it Just six. I'm barely getting past. You know Ode to Joy on my viola, but you guys play six. That's fine. So tell me about the rest of the members of your band. How many people are in the band?
Speaker 1:We got three others Bass player, Brendan O'Donohue, we got Pierce Murphy on the guitar like more lead guitar kind of vibe and then Colin Sitgreaves on the drums and that's the rest of the boys.
Speaker 2:How'd you all come together?
Speaker 1:Met Colin through jazz in college. He was the drummer for Jazz One right when I was like getting in and he was kind of getting out. So we crossed paths and we played and then he went off and did kind of a cruise ship gig out of college. So kind of lost touch at least didn't wasn't seeing him around because he was off doing things and we were playing with a couple other cats from school and then I ended up hurting my voice and we kind of took a break as a band and and everyone kind of scattered. And then my voice got better and ended up calling up Colin because he was in town. He was down in Denver and he introduced us to the rest of the guys and it's been great ever since.
Speaker 2:I see you define your music as new roots in rock. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about what that sound is. I think about bands like, for me, Morphine or Black Crows. But what do you define as your influences?
Speaker 1:As far as bands go, I mean both Sean and I grew up just hardcore Neil Young bands Like I'm a huge. Both he and I live and breathe all of his music. It's like I think that's the coolest thing and the way he writes. But he's so unique it's hard to you know, it's almost hard to replicate or hard to do anything with. He's. He's cool in that way. The reason why I picked up the lap steel is definitely because of Ben Harper. He plays the same lap steel guitar and and I thought that was just about the coolest thing I'd ever seen. So that's like been a huge part of our sound. You know around Dave Matthews band and a bunch of like jazz man like going through school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of jazz man, like all the guys in our in our in the band. They're all jazz guys kind of the beginning and I think and still, like all three of our other members are still play jazz shows too. Man, I just got heavy into that. Like George Harrison is one of my favorite sax players. Yeah, Kermit Ruff.
Speaker 1:Kermit Ruff 11-year-old me was way into that. When it comes to both your approach to get a groove and get a tangible thing. A lot of writing is the challenge of getting that intangible thing out in the ethos to actually present itself in real life. So that's kind of the easiest way to do that and then once that's going, it's like we're both kind of spitballing it back and forth until we get something that we dig. Once we kind of have the roadmap, we put lyrics on that fit.
Speaker 2:How many EPs do you guys have now?
Speaker 1:We have one full album that we put out in 2020. Yeah, and right now we're about halfway done recording and producing our own second album.
Speaker 1:What are the things that, when it came to you having to record and produce an album, the things that you were like, oh, we have to do that it's cool because right now the way things are for us because we're not like pumping out a bunch of records, sean and I, and we write a lot like I'm kind of a habitual writer so there's always like we have a build-up of songs that like it's just like a stockpile man, like we haven't. So it's cool, we don't have to like write for our album, like currently we're halfway done with writing for another album after the one we're producing right now. So like that's cool because we don't have to worry about that. But then once, like now, it's getting everything together, it's getting all the pieces to kind of fall in place and it's like to me it feels like this big overload of information right at the beginning, but you kind of just keep chipping away and it falls together.
Speaker 2:I found songs from the pond session that you guys did at the Salt Lake and it reminded me a bit of a tiny desk concert.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:How do you prepare for that? How does something like that come together?
Speaker 1:It was a real hip thing to do. Right out of quarantine we ended up going in and I mean we just rolled in there with the boys and it was like one take. Yeah, one take everything.
Speaker 2:It looked like a very cool space to like film and record it.
Speaker 1:It was like a hundred degrees down in Denver. You know, we go down there, we meet up with the guys it's like piping hot out there and we go into these like random strangers basement.
Speaker 2:They were all wonderful, but we had never met them before and, uh, you know, we just roll into their, their studio, and it was like a pretty rad little studio down downstairs but it was just hotter than blazes man you released a song in 2019 called 20 to life and recently a song called in the confusion, and I feel like the earlier song was a little more Ben Harper style all rock and the sound on your new song leans more into the jazz side of your brains. Do you think that's kind of a fair assessment?
Speaker 1:For sure. They just kind of turned out that way due to the nature of the song, so it was like the feel of in the confusion is definitely right it ended up turning into much more of a jazzy operation. We were bouncing between maybe more of a harder sound and then, in between the verses, the chorus. It was a jazz club vibe yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:I felt that you know how do you think of your music. Does the audience influence how you transition your music or do you just you're like here's my music audience. I want you to accept it.
Speaker 1:It's a both yeah, yeah, yeah. If the audience is fired up, you want to, you're trying to work them a little bit. That's like the live show. Art is like still something. It's something to be. That's a beautiful thing, like the people who are truly great are truly great and like, as far as the writing goes, you got to keep the audience in mind for sure. Not a lot is up to us where it's like we're not choosing to write these songs. Yeah, they're just popping up.
Speaker 2:It's just interesting because, you know, one of the things you have to think about as an artist and a musician is oh, think about as an artist and a musician is oh, now I gotta package myself. What is the sound that I'm trying to package and what am I trying to get somebody to buy off on so that I can keep doing the thing I love doing?
Speaker 1:we're shooting for something that no one is. As we progress in this next album developing, we're trying to, you know, push the weirdness like breaking some actual rather than fitting into a, into a style or which is like something we've always like.
Speaker 1:from day one, we've struggled with promotion wise as a band, what we are like. A lot of bands will just like slide right down the pipeline of one thing and it's really easy for them to get these shows opening for other artists or playing shows with other artists that are in that same pipeline and we're just not like pipeline at all.
Speaker 2:It's interesting that you say that. Think about that when films are made or when music is made, everything has to originate from somewhere. So when you're constantly just trying to rehash the same thing over and, over and over again, you're not finding that next thing that's going to originate, the next pipeline, as you were saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I find it so weird because we're you know we have songs that reach in such distant directions. You know we have like really down songs and that's the cool. One of my favorite parts about our shows is that we like you know, I love our band because we pump like really hard at shows.
Speaker 2:It's got to feel good when you get that, when you write a lyric that you know is right oh yeah happens so rarely, right. But when you find it you're like yes, that's the it is.
Speaker 1:It's as big of a high, I find, as as playing a show for a bunch of people and, like you know, that's a different high. But man, you like writing is definitely an addictive thing. It's a high, you know.
Speaker 2:You get that feeling um, well, how personal would you say your music is to you from a lyric standpoint? Is that? Are there songs that feel more distant from your experience and ones that feel closer to your experience?
Speaker 1:for sure.
Speaker 1:I mean like all of the above, like there are things that are purely like stories, if not, like you said, 20 lives like that's a. That's not, that's a story, that's like a. You know, it was created. We had a friend that had a little run-in with all the men in blue but that that definitely, you know, inspired the idea. And then some songs are like, very personal, especially this upcoming album. Like the further and further we get along, the easier it is for us to be more personal with things. Yeah, it's hard, hard as a beginning writer to write about yourself so much easier to write about someone else.
Speaker 2:You gotta be comfortable with yourself, you know yeah, or or uncomfortable, and putting it out there. Has there ever been a song that you've gone pretty far down a path with and you suddenly go, oh, this is not going to work. And then what do you do then?
Speaker 1:I mean, we've got songs that we used to play and we don't play anymore. We've totally, you know, tossed.
Speaker 2:What happens when you and your bandmates disagree on an approach to a song? How do you resolve that?
Speaker 1:I mean, it doesn't happen that often. You know, I think Matt is kind of the end of the line, which is nice to have in a band dynamic, but I don't know, it hasn't, you know, knock on wood, that hasn't happened that much. Yeah, we got really lucky with the guys. We got, like Shawnee's, played with a ton of different groups and just kind of been down this one. So you know, I'm lucky enough to just only have like a bunch of good friends and like we get along very well. So it's cool because we have a bunch of different outlooks on the music and it's always interesting because it turns out a lot different sometimes than I picture it for pitching a song to the guys. So I got this picture in my head and I'm like, well, let's just play this thing, see what happens. Sometimes it sounds exactly like that picture in my head and then sometimes it is vastly different.
Speaker 1:A certain pitch was tuned to the rest of the guys, to the rest of the band, and all the listeners will realize like all right, this isn't working. It's funny. Somehow it's been consistently a thing every time other guys have had to come in and be like all right, here's something new. That was the ingredient we needed. It's definitely worked out for the best. Open to like all five of us I'm probably the least creatively open of all of us because I feel like I have like at least a picture of what things are going to be, because you need that. Someone's got it. But I love the idea of of letting things happen organically, and I think all the guys do. It's cool because it just it'll happen and if we know when it happens, and then if it's not happening, we just keep stabbing into the abyss until we hit something.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, creative people are never done. And well, the other question I want to go back to Sean, something you said about Matt being the end of the line. How did that develop? When was that decision made? Was it just a natural sort of he's a decisive person, or how did that come about?
Speaker 1:you know, it's nice to have, it's nice to have a man in charge. I think it comes from having been in a lot of bands that have been run different ways. Personally, I've always felt that it's good to have somebody. That's the end of the line.
Speaker 1:I don't think o'connor brothers band has ever like it's really never come down to that, but I've been in a lot of situations in other groups where it should have happened. It should have been the how things are decided and it was so it helps. That's kind of how we started the bait, and when we initially started it, our old drummer, keller paulson, was like yeah, it kind of helps to have it this way, and it was cool to have another guy outside the two of two of us to be like yeah, you guys, just if you don't like it, you're the one in charge at the two of us. To be like, yeah, you guys, just if you don't like it, you're the one in charge at the end of the day, and you're not wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how does that responsibility feel, matt?
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's a lot. I feel like when I make the decision, I don't have to make any hard decisions. I've yet to have to make like a musically a tough decision because I just I rely on everyone more than they probably even would think. I don't feel like I'm making decisions because I just honestly am not.
Speaker 2:Because you're working so well together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like I just don't have to. So if that day comes, it'll it'll be a thing, and I don't think it'll be a problem. But it's cool because it musically forces things out of us that maybe wasn't there to begin with. So it's a good tool, but I don't.
Speaker 2:I prefer not to use it you know you talked about being from colorado and grounded in colorado and in the colorado music scene, and I know you guys were recently in la playing, so you're you're branching out a little bit. How does that feel?
Speaker 1:awesome. I'm going out there and going further and further. Uh, you know, I don't know. It's cool because for us, a couple years ago, playing shows down in denver for sean and I wasn't a thing. We were doing all the time. So playing and starting to play with, you know, our other three members like they're all denver guys that play all around there all the time. You know, if for them it probably wasn't any, it definitely wasn't anything crazy, but uh, for us it was like yeah, let's freaking go the big city man you're like we're the mountain guys and we've been allowed in the hell.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, it's so cool. It's been really cool, though, to figure out how to uh exist. La was a whole la was like it's. That was exciting. It was so cool though. We had such a fun time, yeah, and hopefully we just keep going and going.
Speaker 2:That's great. What are your favorite types of venues to play?
Speaker 1:Favorite venues. It's like if I was playing Red Rocks, I'd be telling you Red Rocks is my favorite. Yeah, yeah, I'm playing Red Rocks. We've gotten to play Dillon Amphitheater, which is, you know, becoming a very cool venue and it's right down. It's where we grew up and so we were lucky enough to be able to headline the Dillon Amphitheater last summer and that was insane. It felt amazing to play at a venue of that size, and other ones down in Denver were playing at Globe Hall a lot, which is a smaller venue, and that's really fun. Uh, you know, to have a chance to like try to sell that out when we're playing it. But, yeah, man, it's fun playing a small club too. I mean, even the hotel cafe we played in in la was like that was just a great show, you know, and I even if, like you know, I can't imagine being a one of those cats oh, they're playing like stadiums, you know, and the feeling of playing a small little venue like that would probably be a distant thing for them, you know, I'm sure they would.
Speaker 2:All all those guys would just reminisce about that and love it because it's the cool vibe too one thing I don't think people talk about enough and we talked about a little bit, but it's the cool vibe too. One thing I don't think people talk about enough and we talked about a little bit but it's the hustle and the commitment that it takes to put a band together and keep it together. And what are your approaches to finding ways to record to be heard? And I thought about this too, as it related to the pipeline you were talking about, because when we look for things now, it's so algorithmic and it wants to categorize you so much, so how do you guys find your way?
Speaker 1:right now we're trying to. You know, we're trying to tour. I think that's our our next thing, we want to tour a little bit more and more. As far as the grind goes, we play all around colorado all the time and, uh, now we just got to keep going in bigger circles and spread the uh. Yeah, I think it's a lot of work where you got to hustle and hustle consistently for little result and then when you get results, it's like, oh my God, that actually worked, it worked. You know, that feels good. We're actually seeing growth. You know what I mean. And we've kind of been lucky enough to have maybe palpable growth throughout our, you know, especially the last couple of years, even during COVID. We're just trying to grow all the time.
Speaker 2:I wish that for you for sure. If you could give any advice to anyone about being a musician, what would you say?
Speaker 1:Sing. Learn how to sing Like. If you're talking about actually being turning into a musician. Learn how to freaking sing, man. If you can do that, you can do anything. It helps everything.
Speaker 2:Now, this is a question that I think I know the answer to this one If you could ask any musician for advice, who would it be and what would you want to ask them?
Speaker 1:That's a great question Any musician?
Speaker 2:Alive or dead.
Speaker 1:I'm going to make it worse. Louis Armstrong, oh, that'd be heavy, that'd be sick That'd be sick. That'd be really cool. What would you ask? You know, I would just ask him for wisdom and see what he said, what you just asked us. Do you have any advice for a musician? I think I'd ask Ben Harper something. I'd ask him something about writing. I think he's a truly great writer. I think he's got a gift in that world, yeah, so I'd probably ask him how he approaches his writing.
Speaker 2:That's great. So do you guys want to play a song today? We would love that. What do you want to play?
Speaker 1:A single called In the Confusion that you were talking about earlier, and we figured we could play that and do like an acoustic version of it. Just the two of us. It's kind of an interesting version, pretty different from the record, you know. So it's cool. We got all that production on it. We figured it'd be kind of cool to just strip it down.
Speaker 2:We'd love to hear it. So here we are within the confusion.
Speaker 4:I lost my head now. I said there's no more running from it. Yeah, with my legs, I lay with the hand. I cannot fly high, no more. Yeah, I cannot fly high, no more. Yeah, with your rope around my neck, I cannot keep on, keeping on, keep on, keeping on, keep on, keeping on, keep on, keeping on. Lord, you're gonna break my back, baby. Ask me why that I can't tell you. It's a declaration of war. Na why I cannot love you in the eye. Keep on screaming. Oh, I can't hear y'all anymore. No retribution.
Speaker 4:Come on For the blood already spilled.
Speaker 4:Just a bloody execution, lord of the love that we had built. Come on, good God, you cannot take back, no more, all the shots across my bar. But you can hold on to hold on to your other man. But you, watch me walk in high, watch me walk in. Watch me walk in, get it up, get it up, get it up, get it up. Yeah, ask me, why did I can't tell you it's a declaration, it's a declaration. No, no. Ask me why I cannot love you in the eye. Yeah, keep on screaming. Oh, I can't hear y'all anymore guitar solo.
Speaker 2:Before we go to dance, I just want to ask you guys where can people hear your music and where can they see you next?
Speaker 1:Let's see what are we playing next. We're playing a couple of shows up in Breckenridge, up in the mountains here, and then we're playing down in Denver.
Speaker 2:And you can be found on Spotify and Apple Music.
Speaker 1:Name it. Hopefully we're on there.
Speaker 2:Well, we sincerely appreciate you hanging out with us today and letting us pry into your life.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, that was so fun.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to Everyone Is. Everyone Is is produced and edited by Chris Hawkinson, executive producer is Aaron Dussault, music by Doug Infinite. Our logo and graphic design is by Harrison Parker and I am Jen Coronado. Everyone Is is a slightly disappointed Productions production Dropping every other Thursday, beginning Thursday April 11th 2024,. Wherever, wherever podcasts are available, make sure to rate and review, and maybe even like and subscribe. Thank you for listening.
