Originally, for this weeks interview, I was going to interview just one of these talented siblings. But then I had a thought; Why would I interview one, when I could get all three? So that’s exactly what I did. With the help of Grady, I coordinated this epic interview with The Britts. Listen and Learn.
Charlie – Okay, so can you each just give me a little bit of your background in art and music, what you did throughout your childhood to what you’re doing now.
Jack – So my musical background is that I played saxophone. I don’t even know what years like, middle school, early high school. And then my junior year of high school, I started taking guitar lessons and learning music production, and then went to college [Fredonia!] for guitar and music production, joined a band, and now I live in Buffalo. The band is called Relentless Moisture if you haven’t heard of it. I play bass now, I’m classically guitar trained, but Relentless Moisture had two really good guitarists already. So I was like, I will play bass. Yeah, so I work at the Rec Room in Buffalo, doing live sound, and I produce bands in the studio in my basement in Rochester. [Find Jack here!]
Grady – Alright, so I started around a similar time frame. I was just doing, like, percussion in school. I sort of knew how to play drum set pretty young, but nothing crazy. It was just simple, AC/DC songs played pretty roughly. And then after a while, once Jack started playing guitar, I kind of got really into drum set, and I started studying jazz junior year of high school, and then now I’m at school [Fredonia!] for jazz, and I’m still taking lessons and playing all the time. I’m in a band called Bone Machine and I also play with a group called Jasmine Comet. They’re kind of like an acid jazz group. It’s been a lot of fun. And I play with, you know, people here and there, type, yeah. [Find Grady here!]
Owen – I also played instruments, but I did not go into music as a career. I am currently a painting and drawing major at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Cleveland, Ohio. So I left New York for this. But as a child, I also played instruments. I was a trombone player from fourth till ninth [in grade school], and then I decided that bass was much cooler. And around the same time I started playing bass, I got more into art. My childhood dream was to be an artist, which I’ve accomplished, which is weird to say, because like, accomplishing your childhood dream by 18 is kind of sad, but also cool. I’ve aged more than that, but, yeah, I don’t know, like, I’ve always been into art, and I just kind of kept going, and at some point I just got serious about it and pushed myself to do better. Yeah. [Find Owen here!]
Charlie – So through visiting your home over this past winter break, I learned that you come from a very music and art driven family. What was that like growing up? Did you feel any pressures or expectations to go into these certain fields?
Owen – No shade to, uh, las familia, but, we as children, we were kind of, we weren’t pressured, but we were put into like, music lessons. Our parents are music teachers. They weren’t gonna not let us play instruments, which, like at the time, we were all grumpy as children, and we still are grumpy, but, like, we kind of all hated that.
Grady – I think it just kind of felt more like school than anything else.
Jack – Because it wasn’t really a choice, I think so, yeah, just kids were like, we don’t really want to do music. And then I quit music for a bit.
Grady – I like, I was not into it at all for a couple years. And then once we kind of rediscovered it on our own, then it was kind of like a full circle of like, when I was really young, I wanted to be a professional drummer, and then all the just playing in school wasn’t so fun, and then rediscovering it was kind of like the childhood dream, like Owen was saying. And now here we are.
Owen – Yeah, and then, like, it kind of just opened up the gateway of relieving the pressure and just the idea that music isn’t something you should go into, like, we didn’t have any of that, because that would be kind of insane for our parents, who are both musicians to not help us.
Jack – But we even dabbled with, like, band stuff too, I think we were really little. I had a mini guitar, and I definitely learned like, a couple songs when I was really young. I think they [the Britts parents] kind of pushed us towards big band stuff, like with sax. So then I was like, “Oh, I want to do music production in college.” You have to play an instrument too [in tandem with the major of Sound Recording Technology] and I was like, “Oh, I always thought guitar was cool.” So then that’s kind of where I started back up.
Grady – It was definitely always around. I think it was just like, once we figured out what we kind of wanted out of it, then it became like, real, and it became super beneficial having them there to help us out. And just like, also for some people, having parents that aren’t musicians, they [those parents] can tend to not understand the career path. Or, they think like, “What are you doing?” But the fact that they’ve been so supportive of the whole thing is really awesome. I always feel very lucky about that. And also their constructive criticism, like not being biased towards us. I think that’s really good too.
Jack – Yeah, they’re definitely very like helpful in just growing as musicians and artists in general.
Owen – Yeah, and especially like going outside of music into a separate art career. They’re very supportive, like, they don’t know what to tell me or how to do any of it but they referred me to the right guy. Shout out, Mr. Stahl, my high school AP art teacher. He’s the reason I’m here right now doing what I’m doing, basically.
Charlie – How different do you think it would have been if your parents weren’t as supportive or weren’t in the same field? Do you think you’d still be doing the things that you’re doing?
Owen – I think I would be a finance bro.
Jack – It’s kind of hard to say, because it’s like, that’s all I know, yeah, kind of stuff they taught us.
Grady – It’s kind of natural for all of us. Yeah, that definitely comes down to the fact that they’re musicians. Just like the environment also.
Owen – They just played a lot of music, yeah, it was a lot of different music.
Jack – That’s why we do like [so many different genres]. I’m in like a heavier metal sort of rock band, and you’re [Grady] in a jazz band, and then a shoegaze band, yeah. Like, we all do like different things, you know.
Owen – I remember distinctly, like, Mom would put on, like, “Mess Around” and “Hit the Road Jack” when we were kids.
Jack – She likes P!nk too. She loves P!nk.
Owen – But like, just like old soul music. And we would just dance in the living room. Music was just like, ever present and, it’s weird to think about having a childhood without that, because it was so prevalent.
Charlie – Yeah, makes sense. I was kind of aiming for, like, a nature versus nurture thing with that one.
Owen – [Jokingly] It’s all nature. Naturals, yeah, all around.
Charlie – It’s genetic! It’s gotta be. There’s no way you’re all so good at what you do just by circumstance.
Owen – We have a great aunt who was an artist.
Grady – I mean, our grandpa was a jazz guitarist, and he did paintings.
Owen – Our grandma was, like, constantly doing crafts and stuff. Like, we have a couple cousins who are artists.
Jack – It was Great Aunt Doris, yeah, it even goes back and multiple generations.
Owen – We’ve got a long standing family tradition of being in the arts.
Grady – The creativity has been flowing for a while. Yeah, yeah, generations even, yeah.
Charlie – Was there any conflict or competition between you all growing up?
Grady – I think for me, specifically, just, being the younger brother. It was kind of like, you know, trying to not be annoying and stuff, just in general. And then as far as the music, when Jack started playing and I started getting into it a lot [guitar, specifically], we were butting heads, definitely, for a little bit. It just seemed like he didn’t want his younger brother in the band. And it was just kind of a lot of that. And eventually we came around, because it works out better if you got some good musical chemistry with your brother.
Jack – Turns out a lot of famous musicians are related, like AC/DC.
Grady – Yeah, just being the youngest in the whole family, really, and having like, Jack be such a good guitar player, and my dad’s a drummer and guitar player, it’s kind of like always trying to step up to the plate and, like, prove myself and almost play catch up. So that was good motivation, but it was definitely a time of frustration for me, where it was like trying to prove to Jack that I could do it.
Jack – I think the problem was I was just like, when you’re that young, a couple of years of age difference is a lot. So I was like, “Oh, I want to start a band with my friends.” But then none of them were into it. And I was like, “Oh, well, I don’t want my brothers in my band.” So I think it was just like, just jerk teenager vibes going on. Us all being siblings,we just kind of butted heads sometimes. But I think, like you were saying, eventually we realized that it’s actually way more beneficial to have, like, grown up together and learned music together, essentially.
Owen – I had some, like, weird feelings about all of it, because I was not as serious as Jack and Grady, like, especially Jack. I was just more of, like, I want to just play this instrument with my brothers. I don’t care about being famous or making songs, I want to just have fun. So I kind of was like butting heads. Like it wasn’t an initiated thing, but it just kind of happened. I was constantly sick of playing the same shit that we were playing. It was fun when we were writing stuff, and I kind of just wanted that to keep happening; like, write something, never played again, have fun. Because I just, I have a different creative style a
Jack – And I’m kind of a perfectionist too. So –
Owen – Yeah, you get that from dad.
Jack – So I was kind of like, oh, let’s rehearse these.
Owen – We’re all perfectionists. It’s just in different areas like it happens. I think at some point in the future, I’d love to, like, get back into playing more, and play with you guys, but with me going to a different college than you guys, it, you know, things stop happening for a little while. We’ll see if we all get back to it.
Charlie – What is the weirdest thing that you guys have worked on? Like, is there anything just super freaky, all done together that’s just like, “What were we doing?”
Jack – I feel like, the only thing artistically that we worked on was just like a couple recordings from high school, of songs we wrote, but none of them were, like, super weird. It was just like us trying to make music in our basement. I feel like this poster, honestly, is the weirdest thing we’ve done. ,
Owen – And even that is very on brand. Yeah, I guess it’s weird. I don’t know. It’s hard to differentiate weird from not, since, like, weird music is always best. Like, all the good music is weird as shit.
Charlie – Recently, there’s been a little bit of collaboration between the three of you, specifically between Owen and Jack, as Relentless Moisture is going on a tour [find dates and poster here!], and Owen made the tour poster, which is so super sick. Bone Machine is also playing on the last date of that tour. Speak on that aspect of collaboration a little bit. What was that like? Would you ever consider collaborating on an even bigger project?
Owen – I would love to collaborate on a bigger project. It was definitely interesting. It was the first time I did anything like that and like working out all the different ways of asking for what I needed, and, like, getting that kind of stuff. It was fun.
Jack – I was gonna say this. I almost forgot. We’ve been trying to work together for a long time. It just never went through. But then this time I texted Owen, I was like, “I want a poster”. And then I think we just started brainstorming, like, ideas, and then it didn’t even take that long. It probably took about a week, yeah, just a week, a couple back and forths like, minor changes. Like, we had some green goo before, now it’s pink and purple. It was pretty easy flowing, like, we kind of just brainstormed an idea, and Owen’s a great artist.
Owen – I can interact with the music, and I know the sound and like vibe to go for. Like, a while ago, Grady, with Bone Machine, asked me to do an album cover, and I started doing a bunch of that, and it ended up not happening.
Grady – We never released any of that stuff, and that’s okay.
Owen – We had some, like, earlier, minor collaborative stuff going on, but, like, this was the first serious one.
Charlie – So do you all have any favorite pieces of art or music that you’ve seen from each other?
Jack – I mean, yeah, there’s, like, that one black painting that’s always stuck with me. That one is one of my favorites. And then you did, like, a giant painting of Rochester. I’m a big fan of your big paintings. I like big paintings, and they’re very detailed. They’re good.
Grady – For me, I really like the big paintings too. Like we have some hung up all over our house. There’s the one in our living room with the flowers. It’s mostly black and white, and it’s got the pop of color. I think that’s really cool. Then the one of the deer, of the people, that one’s pretty amazing is that, how big is that?
Owen –That one is 40 inches by 50 inches, I think, if I can remember, right, pretty sizable, pretty sizeable.
Grady – I like all of his art, though, really there’s, it’s hard to pick a favorite. And then same thing for Jack, just like the way he plays guitar, I find it fascinating. And bass, like the Moisture, bass tone, the bass lines and just like also the production stuff, it always sounds really good. And like he mixed and mastered the song we have released for Bone Machine, and that totally, just like changed the song entirely the way he did all that.
Owen – Brain Jar, in the clapping section with the base, the tone is incredible. It’s super meaty. And like, it just, like, kicks you in the throat every time. And it’s incredible.
Jack – Do you notice it’s in the left ear?
Owen – I haven’t gone that deep. I’m not a real fan. I actually hate Relentless Moisture. Keep that in! [No problem Owen, now everyone knows where you really stand with Moisture!] But yeah, just like, a lot of the bass work on there is incredible. And, like, there’s been some stuff you’ve written on guitar a while ago that I remember really liking. And then Grady at, I don’t know what concert it was, but it was at the end of the concert [jazz recital], they were playing this one really cool song where Grady was kind of the spotlight. He had a lot of cool, weird solos and like, it was the end of the concert, and he got a standing ovation. And to be quite vulnerable, I began tearing up at that, because I was very proud and just impressed. And, yeah, it was incredible.
Jack – I feel like, such a proud older brother to see that we’re all like, successfully doing what we want to do, kind of right now.