Satellites Fall's Mark Charron Discusses the Band and the New EP -- Lines on the Road.
by George Dow

It was a clash of cultures when I met Mark Charron, guitarist and lead vocalist for Satellites Fall at Pedro’s in Billerica. We were two guys just getting off work at our day jobs selling software, in order to talk about our true passion—music.

It’s not often that our lives in corporate America intersect our musical lives. Oddly, this is not the story you might expect—two guys trudging through mindless day jobs pining for their big break; one becoming a rock n roll star, the other a feature writer for Rolling Stone Magazine. Nope, this story goes a little differently. “I love my job,” Mark beams across the cocktail table while Flamenco music blares in the background. “It’s challenging, satisfying work. I work with great people too. Not to mention the fact that I get paid well for the work I do.” My sentiments exactly, but not very rock n roll. “But don’t get me wrong,” Mark adds. “When the opportunity comes—to do the national tour, to play on the big stage, I’m there.”

Over a decidedly un-rock n roll dinner of Pierna de Baby (braised pork) and Buenos Tiempos (boneless beef short ribs), we get into the history of Satellites Fall. “Davey (Moore, guitar) was in a pretty successful Boston hardcore band in the nineties—Fall From Grace. I was trained as a classical pianist as a kid, but I didn’t like classical music back then. I wanted to be Billy Joel or Bruce Hornsby so I started learning more pop stuff. I joined a punk band in high school and taught myself to play guitar.”

“Davey and I have been playing together forever. We met in college. We were actually suite-mates. Davey hated me at first. I was a loud, obnoxious jock (I’m still loud and obnoxious). He just couldn’t stand me."

Charron continues, "I was walking by his door one day. He was just learning how to play guitar. Davey has this unique way of just making the guitar hum and he was doing this even when he was just learning. So I approached him and was like, Hey, you play guitar?’ And he was kind of taken aback that I was even talking to him. From there we developed this great friendship. We learned how to play together. We learned how to write music together. We used to record on this little crappy 4-track. We made a makeshift studio in my room. It was the funniest thing—we had a tee shirt on a hanger that we hung from the ceiling, in front of the microphone, as a pop guard. Oddly, recording on that 4-track made us better musicians. You have to play perfectly for that one take. It’s not like with Pro Tools where you can go in and fix just one note."

“We never really did anything with any of that (music)," states Charron. "We both graduated from college. Fast forward a couple of years and Davey calls me up. ‘I just listened to some of our old stuff,’ he said. ‘We… we had… we had some STUFF,’ he says to me. Now, the stuff wasn’t good. It was terrible. Trust me.

"But fast forward another couple of years and we start giving this a try. Now Davey buys an electric guitar and an amp and he can just make this thing sing. And I said then, ‘I have to be in a band with this guy.’ His guitar sound is really a cornerstone to our sound," says Charron.

Our discussion about Davey’s very specific guitar style leads to a more thorough examination of their debut EP, Lines On The Road. I mention the dense layers that are a key feature of the EP. “Yeah, it’s interesting, we’ve been learning how to record. And we really want to use technology—not as a crutch, but to support what we do. We insert a lot of strings and loops and things like that. It’s just a way of expressing ourselves in a way that we can’t with just one instrument. If you look at the way Radiohead does things—we want to borrow from influences like that.”

Since Lines On The Road has a poppier sound than most of their live performances, I wondered whether it’s an intentional direction that they’re moving in, or a function of the recording process itself. “As a band member, when you’re forced to listen to the same song over and over again it starts to lose some its sex appeal, but then you start to really understand the tone of the song," states Charron. "And what we really started disliking were some of the grittier tones that we were getting out of the guitar. We’ve switched away from that a little bit. The way this album started taking shape—we noticed that we were getting much better melodies when we had a lot of synths and layered sound in there."

“There’s a funny story about the song, ‘Perfect Weather’. It may be the first song that Davey and I ever wrote together. It sounded nothing like it does now. We were actually about to throw it out. We didn’t really like it. It was initially called ‘Western Expansion’. It was so tacky—a song by two kids, who had at that point never been to the west coast. But, somehow, we’d come up with something that sounded like something cowboys would sing," Charron muses. "So, in the studio, I sat down and tried to come up with something to save this stupid song that I didn’t even like. Suddenly the strings came in and it gave a whole new life to the song. We took out a whole load of guitar riffs. That’s one of the things we noticed in the recording process. We pulled back on a lot of things. Instead of adding more and more, a lot of the time it was, ‘What can we take away?’ It reminds me of Lisa Simpson on The Simpsons when she’s trying to get Bart to listen to jazz. Bart’s going, ‘This is crap. What is this?’ and Lisa says, ‘Don’t listen to the notes he’s playing, listen to the notes he’s not playing.’ So that became kind of a joke we had amongst ourselves."

“With us it’s not the Mark show or the Davey show, or the Luke (Riskalla, drums) or Brian (Bardsley, rhythm guitar) show. It’s the Satellites Fall show. When it’s your turn to shine, it’s your time to shine, but it’s because the music calls for it. Not just because it’s your turn. That’s one of the things that we’ve tried to borrow from bands like Radiohead."

During the recording of Lines On The Road, Satellites Fall hired a new drummer. We talked a bit about the process of bringing someone new into the band. “One of the troubles we have when it comes to the drummer is that we lean on technology so much to help fill a room. We have some many layers to our music. We don’t want to become Arcade Fire—who we love very much—we just don’t want to have 30 people on stage with us. Luke is one of the first drummers we’ve found that can play to a click. When we play live we have lots of backing tracks playing that you just can’t reproduce with 4 guys on stage. But if we go off time, we’re just screwed. There are so many amazing drummers out there but it’s very hard to find one that can play live to a click and not make it sound mechanical. That’s something that he’s really great at."

With this level of meticulousness, I wonder aloud how they ever get to a point that they feel something is ready to be released. “Well it’s kind of like a painting. You can always paint one more blade of grass. You can always paint one more seagull. You can always add one more little happy cloud." Charron continues, "At some point, we feel like we have the bones, we have the blueprint. You always feel rushed though. We could have worked on this EP another 3 months. There was one song that we decided, ‘It’s just not ready.’ So that’s on a back burner.

“You can always tinker just a little more but we got to the point where we were very happy with 90 percent of it. At some point we just—this is not very rock n roll of us—we just set ourselves a deadline. I think we captured what we wanted to. It’s not perfect but I think any artist is going to tell you that.”

And that’s, I think, exactly what you get with Lines On The Road. Satellites Fall has released the blueprint for things to come. An exceptionally produced example of what happens when a group of serious and professional minded guys follow their hearts into the recording studio. Five tracks that sound a bit like a cage match between Radiohead, Coldplay and the Foo Fighters in which the quirkiness of Radiohead and the pop sensibilities of Coldplay come out on top.

Feeling Cheeky
by Kati Mennett

Red lipstick, auburn curls, and a silhouette from a 1950’s pinup. Christina Watka, lead singer of The Cheeks stands on the side of the stage watching as her bandmates take their positions. The fuzzy loudness of the crowd begins to hush as the five men in black suits take hold of their golden instruments, sticks, strings and piano keys. A rhythm fills the air that takes one back to a decade when rock and roll was humming on the radios and dirty dancing was on the verge of getting dirtier.

After opening instrumentals, the tiny silhouette of Watka, 25, takes the stage in a sparkling tight gold dress; and it’s a surprise to hear a voice that is reminiscent of Aretha, Tina, and Janis. Everyone in the room begins tapping their feet, twisting and shouting, and singing along.

The Cheeks’ cast includes Andrew Halchak, 23, on Tenor Saxophone, Maciej Lewandowski, 23, on Bass Guitar, Jon Kenney, on Trombone, Henrique Eisenmann, 23, on keys and Alejandro Santiago, 23, on drums. These six musicians have such a natural chemistry together it oozes out of their pores and into the music.

The Cheeks perform original music interspersed with well-chosen songs by Little Richard and James Brown. Their soulful sexy blend of brass, beats and piano solos is refreshing to hear at a time when pornographic pop music is impossible to escape.

Deli: How did all six of you come together to form this band?

Andrew: In the fall of 2010 Sam Woodbury and I started talking about a group like this. We didn't want to re-invent the wheel or try really hard to be the next big thing, we just wanted to perform quality music for people to get down to, have a good time, and get paid. Done

Christina: Sam Woodbury and Andrew were roommates last year. I am sure a lot of really late table talks and beers induced the idea. Thank God for that. This music is where Sam's heart is...so much that he left Boston for New Orleans and we found Henrique.

Deli: What’s your creative process like?

Alex: Our process is like a steady stream, nice and easy flowing. We don't spend too much time talking, the music speaks for itself and shit just happens.

Jon: our creative process comes from each member of the group. Every rehearsal, a different member will bring in charts for a new song, or even just ideas about what tunes to pursue. When we are playing, a lot of the interpretation is left up to the members of the group so that we all have our own personal identity within the ensemble.

Christina: We all have songs that we bring to the table. Some songs just fit. We work through original tunes really naturally. Luckily, the style we play either hits you hard or it doesn't. We only keep the ones that hit hard. Others aren't worth it.

Deli: A couple of the members have art backgrounds, how does this influence the music, process, and live performance?

Alex: In my opinion, I honestly don't see it influencing the process or music. However, as far as the live performance goes, our bella cantante brings the people, helps get their assess moving, and makes sure we look good.

Christina: Art is it for me. I love it. As a full time installation artist, I pour myself into it, just like I do with The Cheeks. I finally feel like I have a balance between my two loves: art and music. We are all passionate about the stuff we do. That's what influences our sound. PASSION.

Andrew: Everything affects the music. The painting you saw that day, the conversation you just had, the girls you see dancing, the Hennessy people are bringing up to you.

Deli: What are the main inspirations for your music?

Alex: Soul.

Christina: I just want to give as much to the shows as James Brown did. That man worked his ass off. Seriously, though? The inspirations are endless...Kandinsky's lines and rhythm, to Snoop Dogg's music, to my dad's dancing, to Tina Turner and the way she introduces "Proud Mary" in this one live version I watch all the time.

Andrew: see previous answer.

Jon: My main inspirations come from my musical family of friends who inspire me to push my own musicality and continue to make great music.

Deli: How do you want your music to affect people?

Alex: All I want our music to do is to make people dance and send them home so turned on that they fuck all night long. If that doesn't happen then we're not doing our job.

Christina: We want to be appealing to everyone--musicians and non-musicians alike. That's the best music...the stuff that can be appreciated by everybody. We are out there to have a good time, but we can because we work really hard and put in the time to give a really spectacular show.

Jon: With this group I really would like the music to get people absolutely pumped up and dancing.

Andrew: Hopefully people will dance. Hopefully people will have a good time. If we're really in the shit, if we're really deep inside the music, after playing for 2 and a half hours straight, when we're all tired and the place is still filling up, when we are too exhausted to bullshit, that's when it happens. That's when Alex plays some fucked up groove that will trip people up and still make em shake their asses. That's when Maciej will start playing some rumblin earthquakes in the bass. That's when Jon and I will mix in all the bebop, all the hard learned history of our horns. That's when Henrique will mix in the Brazilian shit, the samba Carnival party. That's when Christina will shoot to the upper register and wail. And I can guarantee that we won't be trying to do any of that. It just creeps in. The only thing we're trying to do is keep those hips grinding, the people streaming in and the drinks pouring.

Q&A with the deli's Artist of the Month in February: Eric Ott
by Chrissy Prisco

The Deli: How did the band start?

Eric Ott: I was in a few bands before going solo. My last band album was with Mercuryhat. We made a couple albums that did ok and got some nice reviews. We had so many people coming and going within the band I decided it was kind of a joke to keep the name Mercuryhat. So going solo, I could release anything I wanted to and have anybody play with me. It really gives me the freedom to do anything I want as a writer.

What are your biggest musical influences?

70’s Singer/Songwriters, R.E.M., Jeff Tweedy, Radiohead

What artists (local, national and/or international) are you currently listening to?

Tan Vampires, Beirut, First-Aid, Vetiver

What's the first concert that you ever attended and first album that you ever bought?

Concert: Def Leppard  Record: The Knack, Get the Knack

What do you love about New Englands music scene?

There are some great places to play in such a small area. You can cover a huge area within a few hours of driving.

What would you like to see change in the local music scene?

I would like to see the extinction of Cover Bands.

What are your plans for the upcoming year?

Promote Letter Box with small regional tours, release my full band record in June then maybe another album in the Fall. I also have a new album coming out with Nate Laban (Former Brickhouse Singer).

What was your most memorable live show?

Hackmatack Theater in 2010. It was a sold out show. I was warming up for Martin England and it was the first time I played with Cellist Kristen Miller. Pretty much the first time I played solo. It was either going to fail miserably or go really well. It went so well I decided to make a record with cello.

Is there someone who has helped your band grow through support?

Joe Simes. I would have to say without him, I would have quit a long time ago.

Is there a piece of equipment you couldn't live without and why?

My Demo station. (Mac) I write and record demos a lot! I may demo a song 15 times before I record it for release. It has helped me learn how to write. It has also helped me realize that I should not press record when drinking vodka.

Why do you read The Deli?

If I stopped writing/playing music tomorrow I would still be a happy man. There is so much great music out there. The Deli gives me the opportunity to read about and listen to some amazing bands in the area. The Deli is truly an independent resource for great indie music. Also a great resource for indie bands.