Hockey Brings Me Sunshine

Hockey, the four piece band hailing from Portland, Oregon, is nothing short of being the quintessential hipster band of 2010. The hype surrounding them is thick and rightfully so. Hipsters Eat For Free has been trying to get a hold of Hockey since they were last in Philadelphia and when we finally did it brought sunshine to my rainy day, unfortunately only metaphorically.

Although singer Ben Grubin and I were worlds away from each other (he was in London) we each were feeling the bitter chill, relentless winds and icy rain; him more so than me. I spoke with the front man of Hockey while he wandered around London in the rain. “How’s the weather there?” “It’s freezing rain and stuff. I’m walking with literally my entire family. My sister just got married and moved here. I am walking to the tube, but I should have a few minutes before I have to go down into it.” While I was comfortable at my desk, I could hear the drops of rain and the distant conversations of the people around him as Ben and I chatted about his music.

Hockey is a prime example of an indie band. They produced Mind Chaos on their own and walked away from a deal with Columbia records. “We were just a two piece then…It was way too tense trying to write singles with producers. It just wasn’t cool.” Ben reveals that rejecting Columbia was mostly due to the fact that they lacked the confidence as a band and simply were “not ready for anything.” While most bands in the same place as Hockey would have jumped at the chance to belong to Columbia, Ben realized they just weren’t good enough yet… yet.

That’s when Ben and Jeremy (Jerm) Reynolds decided they needed some additions to the band in order to make the music they were striving to make. Drummer, Anthony Stassi, and guitarist, Brian White, were the missing ingredients for success. The new members added to their sound and provided the lacking confidence. But Columbia was still out of the picture.

Instead, the colorful quartet wrote and self-produced Mind Chaos. No big shots telling them what’s what and all the control in their hands. “It was a cool and simple process. It was good for us at that time. We could do what we wanted, control the board.” From the short ten minutes I spoke with Ben Grubin I got the vague impression that he is a perfectionist, which is a great thing to be when making music and an even better thing when you have all the say.

Grubin did most of the writing for Mind Chaos. “Others added, we arranged it together, added solos etc” Hockey is in the very beginning stages of creating a new album, Grubin tells me. They only have two new songs so far but that is enough to get the storm going. This is one storm I can’t wait to weather. With the added members of Hockey the writing process has become more collaborative; hopefully we can expect a new and exciting sound from their album in the distant future.

Hockey, although it has its own unique sound, has been compared to bands like MGMT and The Strokes. In the music world it is nearly impossible to break free from being compared to someone else. “It doesn’t bother me. It’s inevitable and there is some truth in it. It puts music on the map…Where music is right now everyone is a combination of past and present. I’d like to escape it but I don’t think we’ve done that yet.” I see the likeness in musicality between Hockey and other indie dance bands out there today, but their intellectual take on dance/pop music is what will distinguish them from the others.

Most of the tracks on Mind Chaos have the killer combination of infectious dance beats and witty, thoughtful lyrics. These are songs you can listen to while dancing at The Barbary or at home while writing a blog post. I asked Ben one final question as his family urged him to get a move on, “What do you want listeners to take away from Mind Chaos?” “A dynamic ride and lyrics… Whatever I can do I’ll do it.” And I like what he is doing. As Gruibin descended to the tube, I turned up the volume to “Curse This City” and danced the storm away.