A Troop of Echoes jam a lot of different influences and styles into their brand of “saxophone and snarly guitar-driven instrumental rock.”
“Having totally schizophrenic tastes in music helps our writing, actually,” says drummer and UMass grad Dan Moriarty. “We try to avoid any of our songs sounding the same, and we try to avoid sounding too much like any music already out there. Having a huge pool of influences to pull from is very enabling. We’ve been writing songs for five years, and haven’t had any plaguing cases of writer’s block—knock on wood.”
“What we do have in common is that we like bands that are experimental and aren’t afraid to cut loose but know how to write good songs,” adds saxophonist Peter Gilli.
Bassist Harry Hartley explains how the band, rounded out by guitarist Nick Cooper, come together to create their sound: “Sometimes it’s based around jams we do in practice, where we hit a collective feel or pattern and base things around that. Other times one of us brings in an idea for a melody or maybe a chord progression. It’s about 50-50 right now. Both approaches have their advantages—when someone brings in a part you can get to work right away, but it can be fun to reach one of those inspiring moments making things up together and not knowing where it might lead.”
The group’s dream bill, enumerated by Hartley, reflects their disparate musical loves. “Battles, Queens Of The Stone Age, John Coltrane playing an improvisation set with Thurston Moore, The Flaming Lips and Mission Of Burma all in the middle of the woods, or on an island.”
The band just finished recording their debut full-length, Days in Automation, which they plan on releasing themselves on CD and digitally in the next few weeks before shopping around for proper labels to handle vinyl and wider distribution.
Where does the album’s title come from?
“It refers to the routine that people find themselves trapped in,” says Moriarty. “Eat, sleep, work, repeat.”
“The title is a reference to the struggle each person goes through in trying to both make a living and not lose what makes their experience authentic,” adds Gilli. “For us, music itself is a way out of this dilemma—we don’t want to play to join a scene or for the peripheral things that accompany being in a band. We want to make music because it’s beautiful, or vicious, or sad. We want to make something that can’t be quantified in a quarterly report.”
The quartet enjoyed time in the studio, but is excited to get back onstage for a “blast of shows” this summer. “The virtue of the live setting is the spontaneity of the situation and the energy in the room,” Gilli says. “We love the risk of being onstage and not knowing exactly what’s going to happen. There’s also just something really inspiring that happens whenever you get a bunch of people together to see music they’re excited about.”
A Troop of Echoes are currently based in nearby Providence, but maintain strong ties to the Western Mass. scene. They return for a gig with friends and Amherst rockers Hadoken at the Iron Horse April 17. For more information, visit www.atroopofechoes.com.
