It’s been a joy watching Engine Summer grow over the past year. We first sat down with them in the winter of last year before their excellent album Indiana dropped, and now they’re a little older, a little wiser, and more eager than ever to get the word out. Before the holiday we met the trio at The Native in Logan Square to have a few brews and talk their new record Back-Street Boys, the fears of legal action, tour mishaps and gambling wins, and where they see 2020 taking their lust for rocking. Make sure to check out Back-Street Boys on all streaming services and hit Schubas this Saturday for their album release party as part of the ANCHR Magazine third anniversary showcase! Get your tix now before they’re gone!

JM: Jeremy Marsan (Guitar)
BK: Ben Kostecki (Bass)
RO: Ryan Ohm (Drums)

It’s been a year since we talked to Engine Summer. How was your 2019?

BK: I think it’s been our best year yet, that’s for sure. 
JM: We learned a lot. We got bed bugs. 
RO: In Jersey. We got those New Jersey bed bugs. 
JM: Saw a lot of the world. 
BK: Learned we should have paid that extra twenty dollars for a better motel. 
JM: Had some experiences. Like a broken bone on tour. 
RO: I got the bed bugs and the broken bone. Broke my arm skateboarding. 
JM: We also won our gas money at a casino. On roulette. 

In what state?

BK: It was at the edge of Iowa. 
JM: On the Iowa side of Omaha. Somehow there’s legal gambling there. We were going to go to a real poker table but it said $10 buy in, so I thought you could just put down $10, but that was the small blind. But we decided it was probably not a good idea to put down hundreds of the band fund.
BK: We were betting what we had earned so far. 
RO: The dwindling band fund. It was the end of tour.

But hey, you won your gas money.

JM: We won one fill up, but still...
RO: It felt good. 
JM: It felt amazing when it happened for sure.

So the broken bone, what happened?

RO: We were in Colorado on tour with Faux Furrs and we decided to go to a skatepark one day to kill some time before a show. 
JM: Well, you decided. 
RO: I had brought a skateboard on tour, cause I used to skate but I shouldn’t skate anymore, clearly. 
JM: Faux Furrs decided. 
RO: Yeah, the park had ten foot bowls and stuff, and I was fine for ten minutes. And not even in the park, a puddle, and I’m just skating, not even doing a trick and slam. 
BK: Wait, you weren’t even in the bowl…
RO: I was before.  
BK: The puddle wasn’t in the bowl…
RO: No. 
BK: Oh my god…
RO: Long story short, out in Colorado in urgent care they were like “it’s not broken, you can play a show, it’s just going to hurt, you’re not going to make it worse. So we finish out the two shows, it’s a little tough but we do it. 
JM: We have it all on video, minus the crash. From the moment after the fall, to the urgent care, to the show, is on Youtube. 

RO: Two weeks later I go to my doctor in Chicago who says “it’s totally broken. I don’t know what they did in urgent care” but it was broke. Healed really well though, knock on wood, was probably the best break I could have had. And the boys were really supportive through the whole thing. 
JM: Ryan was texting us from urgent care and we were talking about what songs he could do one handed. Ben and I were talking about the whole game plan. And then ten seconds into the first song, Ryan just pulls his other hand out and Ben and I both look back at him and are like “fuck yeah, ok.” 
RO: It was the beer. 

Beer will cure all.

RO: But all that mixed into a ball...pretty good year. We’ve just been trying to go upwards and explore the unknown. 
JM: We sold out a bit. We got our music in a snowboarding video. 
RO: A snowboarding film! 
BK: Still waiting to get paid though…
JM: A feature film...but we won’t say the name of it because they haven’t paid us yet. We won’t promote them. 
RO: You owe us $300 whoever you are?!
JM: Pay up Sean White...no…
BK: The US Olympic team… (all laugh) 
JM: It’s really the Russian Olympic committee that owes us a lot of money.

That’s why there’s pictures of you with that Soviet Union shirt on.

JM: That made it over, but the rest of the check didn’t.

So you put out Indiana this year. You have a good response?

BK: It got a good response, but after we put it out we already had a whole batch of new songs that we wanted to record and perfect. We put out Indiana and almost immediately started working on the new stuff, which we have been putting out and will put out the whole thing: Back - Street Boys...
RO: In early Jan. 
BK: We’ve been trying a lot of things to promote and have been finding out that some of the Indiana tunes have been getting a lot more traction than we thought. 
RO: Yeah, we put it out, did a tour and then moved on. 
BK: Exactly, went into recording again. 
JM: One of the songs was getting tons of plays in Mexico. Weirdly enough, because we don’t see tons of stats, but we signed up to see our stats from Apple Music and we had tons of shazams from Mexico. We found out a radio station in Mexico City was playing our stuff, and people were shazaming it from there. 
RO: They have a big, awesome music scene in Mexico City. We learned about it from that. Through an Instagram pal. There’s a big rock scene down there. 
JM: We would love to play a show there. But I’m not sure how we’d do it. 
RO: If you’re reading this…

You just need passports, man…

JM: We would need to buy the plane tickets.

Plane ticket? You can just drive to Mexico. Tour down through Texas and into Mexico.

RO: This might be an interesting tidbit, Jer don’t you own some land in Mexico now? 
JM: Well, my girlfriend’s father does. He owns a farm and a pool hall in Mexico.

Is the pool hall on the farm?

JM: No no no.
RO: That’d be sick…
JM: The pool hall is in town, the farm is outside of town.

So you got some traction from Indiana and now you’re putting out Back-Street Boys?

BK: I feel like for legality sake we really have to put the emphasis on the hyphen. 
RO: Technically it’s Backstreet Boys but legally it’s Back hyphen Street Boys.
JM: It’s named after a street in Cincinnati, called Back Street. We drove by once, and it was incredible, a very interesting street. 
RO: On the outskirts of Cincy. 
JM: Then we found out later there might have been a band that had the same name but they were spelled a little differently, so I think we’re fine. I’ve never head of them. 
RO: I have, big fan of Millennium. But very excited about the new project. We’re calling it a project but technically it’s an EP, but we’re calling it our new record. 
JM: It’s twenty minutes, seven songs. 

Any punk band would call that a record.

JM: That’s the confusing thing, I know. Where’s the line. 
RO: Is this four minute Black Flag record an LP, EP, or single? 
JM: But there’s seventeen tracks! I don’t know what to make of it…
(all laugh) 

So you’re doing an album release through an ANCHR magazine Anniversary showcase?

BK: Originally we were looking at a December release, but Rachel reached out and we thought why don’t we just combine both.
RO: It’s an honor to headline their anniversary showcase. 
BK: Last year Slow Pulp headlined, and they’re doing good. 
JM: We were at last years show, and it was an incredible vibe with great bands. So it’s great to get to headline this year. 

You did several tours this year?

JM: One was to New York and back with several shows on the way and the other was to Colorado and back with shows on the way. And we played three shows while we were in Colorado. It was just the two trips. 
RO: It was a dozen or so shows between the two, so from a no-budg tour thing, it still collectively felt like we did a lot of road tripping...sticker slapped a couple of random desert signs. 
JM: The gem of New York was Staten Island. We had an amazing time on Staten Island. We got an incredible sandwich. 
BK: At an old school Italian deli. 
RO: The wild turkeys! 
JM: There were turkeys all over the place. It was romantic on the peer...we have a whole video of Staten Island as well. 
RO: That’s true. 

Speaking of videos, you have any plans for videos from the new project?

BK: We do. 
JM: Our song called “Under the Sea” we have a video for, and it’s coming out in late January, early February.

Is it Little Mermaid themed?

RO: Let’s just say there may be some vintage Disney involved.

You guys are going to get so fucking sued…you’re going to get sued by the Backstreet Boys and Disney…

RO: And Jane Byrne from our first album. We’ve got a lot of lawsuits cooking right now…
JM: We have no idea if our current album cover is going to make it onto Spotify. 
RO: Wait, why? 
JM: Because our last one got pulled down because of the Jane Byrne thing. 
RO: But this one is just our faces…
JM: Remember that boy band that we discovered that had the same name…
RO: I think words have a little more wiggle room. We could get sued by John Crowley for using his book title as our band name. 
JM: That’s a very good point.

You could be neck deep in lawsuits.

RO: To summarize the finale of the video, we’re very excited to put it out. Jer found an excellent animator from the East Coast and he helped us realize Jer’s vision. 
BK: It’s got a little Osmosis Jones thing going on. 
RO: It’s like Bill Murray goes into the booger zone, but Engine style. And we’re excited for the world to see it.

Where’d you record Back-Street Boys?

RO: At Treehouse Records with a long buddy Barrett Guzaldo who mixed, straight to tape, and it was a long, fun weekend. We did it all live. 
JM: We went in expecting to just get the instrumentals and do the vocals ourselves, which is how we did it before; but we ended up nailing it the first night. 
BK: Then we had a whole day left to do vocals. But working with Barrett, he just knows what to do. It was all very natural. Us being prepared, and then his expertise made it a painless process. 
RO: And he only made fun of us once, which was nice. People usually make fun of us a bunch. Jer did a lot of the mixing as he’s done in the past, and did a great job as usual.

Who have you all discovered in Chicago in 2019?

JM: Pleasures is a great band. I forget where we saw them but Ben introduced us to them. 
BK: Yeah, at the Litter Box. I’m going to play drums for them for awhile because they need a drummer. Why not? I’ll try something different. 
JM: Now that just sounds like self promotion. 
RO: I would say Sick Day. They’ve been around but we played with them at Sub-T and we hadn’t played with them before, and that’s Steph and a couple folks we met at that show, and they ended up on the ANCHR showcase lineup. Which is dope. 
JM: We played a couple shows with Bat Zupple in Pittsburgh. Really heavy psychedelic stuff. 
RO: Yeah, a little Parquet Courts, but fucking heavy.
JM: We played with them in Pittsburgh and they played here. 
RO: I think they’re come back soon. 
BK: Moon Type. They’re really cool. Saw them at Sleeping Village.

What’s up in 2020 for Engine Summer?

JM: We’re in a transitionary phase because for the first time we’re working with a PR company, which is not very DIY of us; and we’re in the process of finding a booking agency to work with. We’ve been doing everything ourselves for the last three years and it’s time to talk with some people. 
RO: We’re ready for the next step, so let's try and get some pros in the bag. 
BK: Getting the right people to put you in touch. 
RO: Try and get on a leg of a tour. 

You’ve got great tunes, a catchy name, and there’s only three of you, which is cost-effective incentive.

JM: And no ties. There’s not ties in voting when there is only three of you. 
RO: When we were on tour with Faux Furrs, one of our favorite bands, they have five people…
JM: Everyone had a unique diet. We all eat the same garbage, we have the same drinking habits. 
RO: Yeah, we fight over whether to eat Wendys or Burger King or drink Coors or Bush. 
JM: It would be difficult if we didn’t all eat the same stuff. 
BK: If one of us was vegetarian or vegan, can you imagine? 
RO: So the moral is, it’s easier to be a three piece. But we’re trying to go further this year to promote this record and give it a fair shot. As Ben mentioned, with Indiana we were so stoked about these new songs, we pushed the hell out of it, but we were pretty quick to move on to new stuff. Now we do have more new stuff written but it’s a big goal to give this record a fair shot. To make sure we spend the time and energy to make sure if someone wants to hear it, they’ll hear it. 
BK: We all really believe in it. So we’re going to do as much as we can for it. 
JM: When you’re an indie band, you’re a small fish and there’s an enormous pond; and you can go your whole life and zero point one percent of the people that like your genre of music are going to hear your band. It’s on you to increase that number. To play your music in front of more people.
RO: Let it be heard: “We are Engine Summer. And we want you to listen to our new record.” 
JM: And to share it. 
RO: As an informed hipster, that’s your job. Hipster Sam says so.