A couple of weeks ago Joe Boynton (lead singer of Transit) was nice enough to answer some questions regarding his new side project, Long Lost. JoeB discussed how this band was formed and what plans they have for the future. Keep a look out for Long Lost playing shows, even while Transit is on tour. Also, expect some recordings from them to be put out in the next couple of months!
1. You’ve been the front man of Transit for years and your band schedule only seems to get busier. What influenced you to start this side project when you’re constantly touring and writing music with Transit?
Long Lost started as just a handful of songs written by Vinny Comeau and I during Transit’s downtime. I’m always writing new lyrics and melodies so if anything, having two bands at once is helping my writing progress and also giving me breathing room to explore new possibilities in sound. Transit will always be my main priority.
2. How did you meet guitarists Vinny Comeau and John Pohlmeyer? Who approached who when discussing the formation of Long Lost?
I’ve been good friends with Vinny since high school and John for the last 2/3 years now. Vinny and I met at local shows through mutual friends. Almost every time we hung out, it seemed like we were writing songs. We decided to test some of our songs at open mics and house shows, but felt that the overall sound of the songs weren’t as full as they sounded when we demoed them. Vinny suggested John would be a good fit as the second guitarist.
3. Do you plan to keep Long Lost as a three piece acoustic based band? Any ideas on expanding the band and adding a bassist and drummer to your lineup?
For now its just two guitars and two dueling vocals. On recordings we’re going to add minimal drums, piano, xylophone to add some layers here and there.
Since this is just a fun project we plan on keeping the sound pretty open and changing with each release.
4. Describe the writing process of your songs. Do you guys collaborate entirely or do you each write the basic form of a song and bring your material to the table so that the others can add their parts?
We all collaborate on each song together, either by email or in my living room writing on the spot and recording rough demos with garage band. It’s all been very relaxed and simple process, some of these songs have taken a few weeks to finish and others have only taken a few hours.
5. When writing lyrics and vocal melodies do you try and differentiate them from sounding like your style in Transit or do you use the same approach as you would when writing for Transit?
The structure for Long Lost songs are pretty simple and straight forward. The lyrics drive the overall song. We don’t really have a set style or genre in mind when we write the songs. If it sounds cool to us, we hope that others will like it as well. I feel like my voice is somewhat distinct, and in that aspect, maybe some people will think the songs sound like Transit. However, musically Transit and Long Lost are completely different genres really.
6. Can you name any similar influences that you and the rest of the band may have when creating Long Lost songs?
We’re all have pretty different influences, for me it would probably be Death Cab For Cutie, Alkaline Trio, The Get Up Kids, and Tim Kasher.
7. You guys played a couple of shows so far. Any shows coming up that we should be informed about?
We’re really down to play anywhere in the New England for now and then branch out from there. We’ll be playing a lot more often after Vinny finishes with his degree in the fall. While Transit’s on tour, Long Lost will still be playing shows without me. Vinny will be singing all the vocals while I’m away. He has such a unique voice so I have faith in him to carry on without me from time to time.
8. Any plans for touring or playing shows out of MA in the future?
Whatever we can get really! We’re just playing it by ear for now. If the opportunity for tour arises, we’re game for sure.
9. Tim from Transit recently signed to Rise Records with his side project Misser. Have you considered putting out an EP anytime soon on a label? Do you guys have any demos of your songs recorded so far?
All of that is still up in the air, I really like the new Misser record, Tim and Brad killed it. Long Lost recently recorded a 6 song EP. It’s in the process of getting mixed and mastered at the moment. We’ll be putting it out for free once it’s done. It’d be cool for a label to put out the EP, but like i mentioned before, all of that is still up in the air.
10. What bands would you love to play with with Long Lost?
For me it would be Rocky Votolato, Tim Kasher, Frank Turner and Into It Over It.
11. Anything else left to say?
Thanks for interviewing us. To anyone reading this, thank you for your time, look out for some new music by us soon. In the meantime, come check us out live!
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