WEHM All Access - Great South Bay Music Festival - The Space Turtles

In this episode, Harry hangs with Nick and Adam of the Space Turtles, a Long Island trio whose punk‑leaning sound  grew out of COVID jam sessions and a baking‑show joke that became their band name. They talk about shifting from covers to originals, why tempo and crowd reaction shape their live sets, and how teaching music influences their approach. With a new EP, a wild “Minesweeper” video, and a reputation for turning tattoo parlors into mosh pits, the Space Turtles are ready to bring their high‑octane tempo to the Jambalaya Stage at this year’s Great South Bay Music Festival.

@The.Space.Turtles

@GreatSouthBayMusicFestival 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It is EHM All Access, the Great South Bay Music Festival. Using this opportunity to sit down with a whole bunch of bands at this year's festival, Shorefront Park in Patchog. It's uh July 23rd through the 26th. And one of the bands that's performing on that Sunday, the 26th. First of all, I love their name when I first saw it. They're performing at the uh Jebel Eye stage. Uh the Space Turtles. And welcome to the virtual studio. Uh Nick and Adam for the band. How are you guys?

SPEAKER_01 0:24

We're good. We're good, buddy. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Thank you for doing this. We appreciate it. And a good chance to kind of sit down and get to know uh a lot of the bands that are performing at this year's festival. And I guess I'll start with how long have you guys been a band? And first, I love the name. Where did it come from? What's the the origin story?

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Okay, so uh we've been together for about five years, and honestly, the name came from like a baking show that I was work watching during COVID. There's a woman who made a cake that looked like outer space, and then inside of it were space turtles, and I was like, that's a band name. And we all liked it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

We were walking around like the development um that I live in, and it just came up, and I didn't know that that was what he was thinking about before that. And I was like, dude, we both like who doesn't like turtles and outer space, and our music has changed a little since then, but that's like that's how I thought it started, and then later I found out that's not really how it started. But it's we like it, it's cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Well, it is cool, and uh, I like the fact that you guys uh are working, I guess you said five years you've been as a band. Did you guys start it in COVID? Is it kind of when this project began?

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Pretty much, yeah. We were jamming as a cover band, um, like almost acoustically, and then I was like, Nick, you gotta come to my house where I have a full drum set, and then it just took off after that, and we stopped doing the covers almost.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Yeah, we pretty much went right into once we started writing original music, that was uh I mean we do do covers, but when we play covers, they're mashups now. They're very they're they're they're not your typical cover, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Is that from a band perspective? Um, because that is a change to just to make that conscious decision to say, hey, we're not gonna do this anymore. Is that tough? And do you guys already have kind of a pool of songs you've been working on that haven't been shown yet or seen the light of day? How does it work to to make that decision to do original songs?

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Yeah, well, I think COVID kind of gave us that opportunity to experiment because there weren't any gigs really happening. Everything was online, everyone was trapped at home, just waiting to get out. So it was our opportunity to kind of, I guess, look within and decide, hey, you know what, this is this is really worth it. I think also just the the um the way that everyone was thinking, like the the world is just so hectic. I think that just kind of put us in the mode of like, why wait to do this? Let's do this now. We love doing this. So that's I think the reason why drove us, and we just love doing it. We're constantly writing songs, we're writing songs now, we're constantly arranging them and working on things together. So we're a very creative bunch that just loves doing it and we love the people in the community.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

You're in the you've got some.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

As far as like yeah, the process itself. I mean, I guess I guess it kind of goes like if you've ever been in a band or or or done something, kind of like probably even like this radio show, right? You know, we'll sit on something, we'll work on it, and then when it's like ready, it'll be aired. But we're not like 10 songs away from releasing like one. Like we have a couple that are are on the way, and we've been playing them at shows, but we're not like they're not recording ready yet. Yeah, like that's kind of like the process. We gotta get a little batch going. We see how they do, and then we're like, all right, now it's time to record these and see, you know, how to take them even further.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

You're in that Long Island Punk scene. What what what kind of part of that scene and those bands that have kind of shaped your sounds that you've you kind of grew up watching and going to shows and have influenced where are you sitting that kind of space right now?

SPEAKER_02 3:52

You know what's so funny is like we didn't consider ourselves punk at all. Like we we were just like playing in what we thought was just like a rock, like an eclectic rock scene. And when we started releasing music, people are like, You're punk. And every time we released it, yeah, we we were still like, are we really? Are we really punk music? But um, yeah, that's just kind of like what we were lumped in without uh deciding that.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Um what did you guys do?

SPEAKER_01 4:19

I did not grow up on I grew up on like Zeppelin, classic rock. Um I don't know, like something I would never I I don't consider tool in the Mars Volta, like maybe the Mars Volta, but that's it. Like, I mean Rage or Slave is not punk, you know, like that's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

I listened to a lot of grunge growing up, like a lot of it from the 90s, and a lot of the alt rock stuff from the 90s. So uh and there was like, you know, of course, you have a lot of pop punk from the 2000s and stuff that I listened to. So I mean it kind of makes sense with the culmination of all our influences that we uh that we pop these kind of songs out like this.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Walk me through the uh the the song because you I love the fact that you guys talked about you're always writing songs, you're always doing things and kind of putting things together. Uh walk me through kind of how a song begins and how long does it take for the average song to kind of become become something that you want to want to play on the stage?

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Like a finished product or just okay. Well, that's so it's a couple of different ways. Um oftentimes, uh Nick is a great songwriter. He will just come to us with like something that he's like 90% done with, and then we will finish it, like collectively, like because he doesn't know what the funnel the final drum or bass part is gonna be. The way he's or sometimes he even he has an idea, and then we kind of we run with that. Yeah, um, but we're I'm better at drums than Nick is, and Andrew is better at the bass than me and Nick are, so we kind of it kind of evolves from there when we put our own little like sprinkles on it. Um I think yeah, it's a beautiful part.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

It's synergy, right? Yeah, it's like the synergy of it. Like sometimes we're all inspired by some subject, and I'll write a melody and lyrics and block chords, and then we'll be like, okay, what do we do to make this song come alive? Um and I think we kind of do that more and more generally.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

And we'll sit on it for like a couple of weeks too, because then we'll be like, now that we're familiar with it, can we make the bridge better? Yeah, is the verse a little too long? Is it dragging? Are people losing interest at yeah at the show? Like, we'll kind of do that, but it probably takes about four rehearsals at maybe the most to really mold it into what it's probably mostly gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Yeah. I I think the most interesting development as far as the writing goes is that content, creating content for it, uh the visual artwork for it, and just the social element live when we perform it, that's become a big part of our thought process as we're writing and creating the arrangement, too. But it's definitely synergy 100% because Andrew is a fantastic bass player. He actually went to school for classical guitar. So he's always turning around and he's like, hey, try doing these chords, Nick, because that's boring. And so, you know, and then we kind of like we tie it all together, and Adam has these great ideas for keeping the feel and the beat of it. We just kind of we would just work really well.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

That's like the general mold. Like it's I wouldn't say every time, because like we wrote the system based on um that was like I took I took a rush idea. Uh, they have this song called Driven, and I took the time signature arrangement and I showed Nick beats based on that, and then that song started out as drums. Yeah. And then we went from there. But generally, yeah, generally Nick has this great idea and we just build it, even sometimes we jam, and then you know, we just get an idea going in the moment, and then if if we like where that's going, and then that can be a song too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

You had said that uh the band kind of changed a little bit uh sonically in the beginning. I think I I heard you guys talk about. Is there a certain song in your catalog that kind of changed the direction for the band creatively? Or that you can kind of point to it.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Um I was gonna say maybe let it go.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

That's where we've really started. Yeah, I think we really found like what our sound when we released our last EP. And the song Let It Go that we released. I think that's still play it. We still play it live. A lot of people still really like that song a lot. And uh I think that was the song where we were like, okay, we like this energy, we like this vibe, we like what's happening in front of us when we play it live. Let's try to find more energy like this in our songs, and I think that that influenced us in in so many ways.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Well, yeah, yeah, the tempo, um, for sure, right? Because you can have a cool song at like 90 or 100, but for whatever reason, I mean, obviously, well, not obviously, but most people, if you don't know, like the radio, generally play songs like 120-ish. That's like normal. We've noticed that people are rocking at 140, 150, though. That seems to be, it's not too fast, but it's not 200 or 180, where it's like, okay, you know, like the core note feels good and there's energy, but there's not way too much energy. So yeah, that's a big part of it too. Is uh tempo, at least based on what we're seeing at shows, like the fan reaction.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

We want people to have a good time at our shows, even if they don't know our music. We want people to be able to dance and move around and hang out with their friends and have a good time and feel like they're part of it too. And they do. We see it. We're seeing it. I think we see that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

That that makes a lot of sense. And you talked about um it's not just the music now, it's kind of the visual and trying to figure out how to promote it on social, the different videos um that you put together. What's that been like to kind of craft the uh the live show? Um, you mentioned that you know there's a lot of things that go into it. Do you have a plan? Like as far as the Great South Bay Music Festival performance coming up, how do you kind of craft that show? And I'm sure you have a plan for the set list and kind of the visuals as well.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

I think all of it is a constant development. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna bring our best for Great South Bay, and we're gonna be trying to get people dancing and moving and singing as much as possible, and we want to put on a lot of energy and a great show for people. So, to be honest with you, like it's a culmination of everything that we're doing, and every show that we do, like we just played last show we played was at a tattoo parlor, and we brought our all there too, and we had everyone dancing in tattoo parlor, and and we had some like a small mosh pit in there. So, I mean, honestly, every single show we're bringing our our best and we're trying to give as much as we can to the audience.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

There's that, and and I just want to jump up jump on that too. Um very much like I guess to some degree like acting, right? It's it's the entertainment industry. It's not just how well can you say this line, you know, like that's how it makes, I don't know, John Hamm, John Ham. You know, it's how well can you get into character. And we do that live too, because we're not just sitting there like this playing, and I'm not like some rigid dude. As far as I go, like I take my shirt off and I have a random hat that I wear, and that's the visual is cool, but it's entertaining because I'm not someone that is all show and then cannot actually back it up. Like I'm playing my parts well, I'm practicing all the time, still just because I'm not gonna be like, yeah, okay. No, I don't settle. So we you get the visual part too, which you mentioned, but it's like it's not just moving around, which we've also done more of we're definitely less rigid than when we started by a lot, but now it's it's also like what you're seeing as far as how we're dressing and and the movements and all that stuff. And if we got a mosh bit going for a song that we never thought we'd get an awash pit going. So like it's just it's been fun, you know. It's it's a lot, it's not just the music only.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

What did you guys do before this band? Were you, I'd imagine, other bands uh as as well before this project came together?

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Yeah, and and also I was songwriting for other people too. Oh wow. Because I'm curious, because is we're also both music teachers too. We're both so we're we're like all we do is music day in and day out. We teach it and we perform it.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Can I ask you what you guys teach?

SPEAKER_02 11:52

We teach privately through our own studio.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Oh, very nice.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

I think that I teach at some stores too, but I'm mostly private as well, you know, 100%. And uh it's actually it's really funny. Me and Nick went to the same high school and we didn't really like we just we coexisted. We didn't really know a lot about the other person until we met at a music store, and then we became like much better friends like after that. We've actually known each other for like 20 years ago. We connected through music for sure.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

All of us did. We all connected through music.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

How did it because it sounds like I'm curious, were you guys performing live before this band happened? You you had that experience already. Um before you got together with it before this this uh particular project, excuse me. Um what was it like creating the what's the difference now from when you first started to and you mentioned changing the look. What's the most noticeable thing that you guys have changed over the past couple of years uh for your live performance?

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Oh um, I was trying to get it better. I don't think we've really changed just like so much. Yeah, like we when we started, I'm sure in high school, you know, we've we've we're smarter now. It's that's really the basic thing. Like when you're in your when you're teen you're in your teens, even if you're smart, you really don't know anything. So, you know, we have a different eye as far as writing, and we know more about the business behind the business, and all that goes into putting on a good show too. Like I don't know, with everything you can think of. Like when I was 15 or whatever, 16, I didn't really care about the crowd too much. I just wanted there to be one, but I wasn't thinking about making sure they're moving or if you know how well my parts fit. Yeah, oh, we're in 4-4 and you're in 4-4, and our ones line up, it's fine. Now it's like we need to make sure every part is gelling to go for.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

I think after after the excitement of just like playing for people subsides and you start actually looking out there and seeing how people are reacting and responding to what you're doing, I think that that's become like our focus, just kind of like seeing seeing what happens as we're having a good time on stage, seeing if people are like, yeah, let's do that too. Or if they're like, ah, look at the time, I can go out of there, you know. So some songs definitely just naturally vibe. Some songs just always make people move in the room, and uh, and we are trying to hone in more and more on songs that do that.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Yeah, like if you if you take someone that has never heard tool to a tool concert, they're just gonna be like, yeah, like they're just gonna be like, oh, look at the time, or they're gonna be maybe tapping their foot until it changes. And they're like, well, now I don't know this meter, or I'm I'm lost. So we don't want that anymore. Or we don't we don't really want anything like that at all. Maybe once in a while we'll throw in some crazy eye meters on like one off on an album that we're probably not gonna play live because we don't want to kill the audience in the vibe that we have. Um, but generally, yeah, we're we're doing stuff that we're thinking more about the crowd.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

We're definitely doing what we want to do, but we're factoring in their consideration like to connecting with people, you know, just connecting with them on a real human-to-human way.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Tell me about this our latest EP that you guys put. I think it was back in uh I think it was March or early spring. Um that's out there now. I know it's on all the platforms for the Space Turtles. And I'm wondering, uh you mentioned there there's also a music video for it too. How is this? It sounds like this EP um is kind of not saying a fresh start for you guys, but it sounds like a lot you've been kind of working towards this.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

Yeah, with uh yeah, we put a lot of effort into that EP. It was about over a year of like writing and recording, and we we wrote a ton of songs, we chucked a ton of songs, and these were our favorites. These are the ones that we saw uh responded well live. Sam, Sam. And then after that, we out of those songs, I think it's six of them, we said, okay, Minesweeper is the one that everybody is like, I love that song, I love that song. So we uh we did a music video on like a very snow, crazy hectic, snowy day. Um, and that I think that was one one of the reasons probably why we got into Great South Bay, aside from aside from you know the people that Adam know, but um uh I think just this development and people in the scene kind of just recognizing us more and us being more serious about it, um, it's just culminating.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

And they'll tell you, like, if if you if you've played a show and you do a good job, like your friends will probably tell you they did a good job because they're even if you didn't, they're not gonna tell you that. But people that don't know you, they just go up to you out of the boo, like, dude, that song is a banger. Like, that's no one asked for that, so it you can't say like we're fishing for compliments, like you didn't have to even come over here. So we took stuff like that into consideration, and uh Mind Super itself, I you know, it started out as like a movie dick type riff, and then we're like, this is too good to just have like we're gonna play it for a minute, and then we're gonna give our drummer a solo for X amount of time. We'll organize that. We're like, no, we're gonna this is awesome by itself. Let's take this somewhere. And that's kind of how that song started. It was almost a joke even.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

Yeah, like sometimes even songs start as a joke, and we get like a little snippet of something, and we're like, yeah, let's go, let's go, let's do more of this.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Yeah, it sounds like you want to shoot more music videos too. Uh it sounds like a lot, you had a lot of fun doing that.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

Absolutely. You know, like I think at first, like we're we're all kind of more like old school. We just want like at first we want to just release music and be done with it kind of thing. But now as we dive more into visual things like music videos and content and stuff like that, we it's since especially because we get along together, it's a lot of fun. We had an absolute blast making the music video. So, whoever's listening, check out the Space Turtles Minesweeper on YouTube. It's a freaking blast. We had a great time doing it, and uh, we're getting good reactions from people. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

The guy shooting it, uh Ang, he said that it was like we're it was the most fun he'd had. At least doing a video. He's like, dude, you guys are finding your goofballs. We like to have fun.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Yeah, we like to have fun. That's that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

How do you yeah, no? It's been the kind of the core three of you guys for most of this project, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:53

Yeah, definitely, yeah. We did have another member in the very beginning. He was a fantastic uh synthesizer keyboard player, also a music teacher. Also a music teacher, but um unfortunately Bill had to move, and then that's when Space Turtles had to find its own a different voice, and that's uh that's when we started you know really messing with the sound a lot.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Yeah, we had to cover well. Bill played keyboards, so he was a big part of us literally going to space, and we had to figure out how to cover that voice.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

I love that phrase, yes. Um it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Well, he wasn't on plug, some of our stuff is is really very spacey, like it it's more polygonic now, but it was very space, it's mostly 4-4, but it was it was definitely out there right back then, but we had to cover that element. So that was when he left because Indiana's not exactly close. Yeah, we kind of had to, like Nick said, it had to like evolve and and figure out how to go without that.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

As music teachers, what do you kind of tell the uh the younger musician that's looking to kind of get into a band? So do you have any advice for them? Because you guys have seen it. And it's also an interesting time because it's as you mentioned, it's not just about the music anymore. It's about the branding, it's about marketing, it's about the social media content. Uh what would what would you say to your students that are looking to do this?

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Oh man, do it. Get into a band. Start pick up a guitar, pick up drums, just start doing it. Yeah, we have a lot of kids. We have a lot of students that are doing this, and yeah, this is the craziest thing. Like, funny enough, about a month ago, we played a smaller festival in Port Jeff called Off the Rails. It's uh put together by some students from like the Port Jeff's at Talkat area. Yeah, and uh we were playing with kids from high school and college, and they were just having the time of their lives. It's nice to see young kids wanting to write music and just be out there and bring their friends together and have a good time. Appreciate the classics too.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

They're gonna say my conference teacher.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

And there's also a lot of just like young and upcoming bands that are just like fresh and they have a lot of inspiration from the past. So it's really cool to see that.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Well, thank you for what you're doing with the uh the youth, so to speak, and teaching. That's very cool to see. And I love what you're doing with this project. The Space Turtles on the stage Sunday, uh kicking off the Jambalaya stage on Sunday, July twenty sixth, Shorefront Park in Patchog. Uh and uh we will see you there. Thank you for sitting down. I really appreciate getting to know you guys. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Thank you, thank you.