Radio Hey Ho!: Interview with Aspiga

Okay ur next section features an interview section with one of ur favorite band on earth, Aspiga. Yes me personally cant believe that we could make it up doing an interview with this Jersey based band. The band so far has produced 3 full lengths and plenty of splits and EPs released by various labels like Asian Man Records, Paper+Plastic, A-F Records, etc. To know more please kindly dig out the interview below.

01.Can you tell me how the band named as Aspiga??
The band name actually comes from the old Godzilla movies. I used to watch a lot of them growing up and they were always dubbed over into English. In Son of Godzilla, there is a giant spider monster that in the dubbed version was referred to as Spiga or Aspiga.

02.You guys been known for playing with bigger bands like Lawrence Arms or The Ataris. Could you tell me how that could happen??
We have been very fortunate over the years to get to play with some bands that we really enjoy and some that are highly influential to us. That Lawrence Arms show was definitely a bucket list show for us. For us, I think it was a matter of doing the work and being friendly. Most bands don't blow up overnight. Get out there, play the shows, be authentic, and be kind along the way. People will notice those things.

03.As the compilation album, Dragged Through Years, is put out by A-F Records, any news in the air about the new stuff from Aspiga?? Are you gonna stick up with A-F Records??
I'll say that I wrote and made demos for five new songs. I know that at some point over the last couple of years that Alec said he had a few new songs too. Everything is very loose right now. I hope to circle back to the batch of songs that I wrote and talk to the guys about trying to make another album. As for A-F, our relationship with them has been great. Neither party has really discussed what's next so we'll just have to approach it when that time comes.

04.Recomend me 3 most recomended dine in food in New Jersey??
Alright, well I'm definitely going to recommend Franco's Place. It's a few minutes from where I live and they make a food called a panzarotti. It's a local dish. It's basically a deep fried pizza bite, but way better haha. There's a place called Chick's deli in Cherry Hill, NJ that has one of the best cheese steaks that you'll ever have. Finally, if you are at the Jersey shore and you're looking for a good slice of pizza I would recommend Sam's Pizza Palace in Wildwood, NJ.

05.Do you guys believe in Jersey Devil?? Any of you heard the rumor about it??
I'll say that the Pine Barrens is a vast stretch of woods. It's a really strange area of New Jersey and certainly creepy at night. I wouldn't be surprised if it was out there.

06.So you once put out a split with By Suprise on Asian Man Records, could you tell me how that happens??
As previously both bands, as I could discover on the internet, never put out any records on Asian Man Records before.
This was another really big moment for our band. Asian Man Records is such an important staple in the realm of punk and underground music. I've ordered so many album from them over the years and they have impacted me in big ways. I sent Mike an email and basically said "Hey, if there's ever a chance to work with Asian Man on a release we would love the opportunity." I think Mike wrote back within a few hours and said "Yeah, let's do a split." That was it!! Bands/Artists/Everyone DON'T BE AFRAID TO ASK. Anyway, By Surprise are some of our best friends and both bands kind of started around the same time. It's been fun to watch each other grow and to see the different paths we've taken. We asked them if they wanted to do the split with us and they said yes. Our buddy Brian did the artwork for it and it features a bunch of South Jersey roadside attractions.

07.A question for Ray, do you know that there's a Counter Intuitive band called Insignificant Other without the 's' ?? Dont worry I prefer your band Ray lol.
Pretty sure that we gave Ray a heads up about this. The timing was uncanny. Unfortunately, I don't think Insignificant Others is an active band anymore.

08.Five reasons why for any band on the other side of the world of why they should play at The Fest.
The best part of Fest for a band like Aspiga is that it can bring your entire fan base together under one roof. We don't get to tour very often and we just don't get to the cities or towns that people ask us to come to. At Fest, people from Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Europe, Asia, etc can all see us. So if you're a band that doesn't tour all year round and travel around the world, it's a great opportunity to get in front of your fan base for a weekend.

09.Which one you prefer playing on a big festival stage or small bar/cafe??
I don't think we've played any big festival stages. I think it totally depends on the reaction from the crowd. The show we played with The Lawrence Arms was a 400+ capacity show but it was in a warehouse. So that's a big show for us. It was also good because people wanted to hear the music. A 50 person show in a dive bar can be just as energizing if people are engaged.

10.What makes New Jersey gets so many great bands like Lifetime, The Ergs, Night Birds, Full of Fancy?? Is it because its supporting community??
I think it has something to do with being overshadowed. For the longest time, it was New York, New York, New York. Recently, it's been Philadelphia. Maybe there is a feeling of always having something to prove? There is certainly a community aspect as well. For example, Asbury Park has a very blossoming music scene, you have places like New Brunswick that seem to quietly churn out great artists from their basement scene, the Mill Hill basement in Trenton and the entire community involved there all support each other endlessly, and then in my area you have the Gradwell House family tree. All of the bands that record at Gradwell and participate in the Arbor Christmas comp all support each other. It's nice to have that support system.

11.Is it such a shameful thing for recalling yourself as an 'Emo Band' ??
Not at all. We've certainly been tagged as emo and it doesn't bother me. It's funny because I feel like I've been seeing an uptick in conversations on social media regarding genre labels. I see so many people putting energy into this fight and it just feels like wasted time. Once you put your art out into the wild, people are going to tag it however they feel like it and you can't really control that aspect. If you're going out of your way to correct every person online that you feel is mislabeling your art you're probably going to burn out pretty quickly.

12.I know its a bit stupid for asking this question on the late row, how the band get formed??
Aspiga started as an acoustic project. My old band was on the verge of imploding so I started writing acoustic songs. At the time and even now, I find myself listening to a lot of music that is centered around acoustic guitars. So I started writing these songs and slowly started playing out. Eventually, I asked Ray to play and then like a few months later he moved to Los Angeles. We continued to stay in contact and everyone once in a while he would come home and we'd play some shows or record. A few years later, he moved back home and we started playing a lot more. I was working at Jump Start Records and got Alec's band Crucial Dudes signed up with the label. He also started interning at the label/print shop so the two of us were seeing each other a bunch. Aspiga was getting ready to go out on tour and our bassist bailed on us so Alec stepped in. From that point on, it was pretty much the three of us and the music started to change a bit. I feel like there's two different histories for the band. You've got the start of the band and up to our split with Hanalei. Then you have when Alec joins, the release of Every Last Piece, and up to today.

13.Could you tell me about the creative process of band's songwriting?? Do you usually write the songs together on the studio??
It varies. For a while, I was the only one writing songs. I'd basically come to practice with a whole song written, those guys would write their parts, offer some critiques, and that would be it. The writing process for What Happened to You? was a lot more collaborative and took a while. This was probably the time to that Alec started writing some songs. He has three songs on that album. Usually what happens is that Alec or I will come to the table with a song or some parts and we all start working on it together. After we get the music down, I'll start writing some lyrics.

14.So why you pull out all your music from other digital stores than Bandcamp??
I am not a fan of Spotify. I feel like it's just one step closer to tearing apart labels, albums, physical releases, etc. Basically, everything that I love about music. We asked Solidarity Recordings to take down Tense because it was ten years old at that point and we wanted full control of where people could stream it. Paper + Plastick took the lead on taking down Every Last Piece and What Happened to You?. I got an email saying that they were taking it down. So it all just kind of happened at the same time.

15.Last question, any plan for the band to come over to the other part of the world (asian places)???
We have zero plans for anything right now. Any talk of shows or travel will probably revolve around us writing some new music. So hopefully the timeline will look something like: get together to work on new music, record the new music, release the music, and then play some shows behind it.