Redefine Magazine: The first question is going to be like the first-day-of-school style. Names, instruments, and uh… favorite candy.
Brien: Favorite candy?
Neal: Favorite candy?
Morgan: Nice.
Chris: My name’s Chris and I play trumpet and guitar, and my favorite candy is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
Morgan: What’s your full name? She might need that.
Chris: Christian Swartz.
Brien: Why are you looking at the tape recorder? You’re like talking to the tape recorder.
Morgan: I’m Morgan; I play the drums. Sorry, Morgan Hooshaugen is my full name; you probably won’t be able to spell that.
RM: That’s okay, we’ll just do it by sound (his name is really Morgan Hushagen).
Morgan: Alright. I play the drums and my favorite candy would probably have to be Gobstoppers.
RM: Everlasting ones?
Morgan: Everlasting.
Neal: Not chewy?
Morgan: Not the chewy ones. The regular ones. I can just chew right through the chewy ones. There’s no real excitement.
Neal: My name is Neal Martin. I play the guitar and I sing. I lately have been enjoying Sour Skittles.
Brien: Brien Beebe and I play trombone. Sour Patch Kids is my favorite candy.
Bryce: Bryce Glifford. I play the bass. I like those Reese’s Pieces. Not the Cups.
Neal: Bryce is the newest member of the band.
RM: When did you join?
Bryce: What, three months ago? Two months ago.
Morgan: Right about that, yeah. Long-time fan.
Brien: He ran our website forever.
Neal: Long-time fan and friend.
Brien: And roommate.
Chris: He’s coming right along on bass.
Neal: And he’s the internet king.

RM: So how did you guys get started? I heard you guys were uh… band geeks.
Brien: I wasn’t, dude. They talk shit.
Chris: Who told you that?
RM: I don’t know, a little blue bird.
Neal: Orchestra geek.
Morgan: Neal was in orchestra… Chris and I were in band. Brien was in band in a different school, but we won’t talk about that. But yeah, Neal and I started playing together at the end of Junior High, and throughout High School, we added horns to our band, which is Chris and Brien here.
Chris: We picked up and lost a couple members along the way.
Morgan: Yeah, but pretty much when the horns joined the band was when we started writing the music we’re playing now. So I’d say that was how many years ago?
Brien: Five?
Morgan: Six years ago. 98’ was our Junior year…
[Insert some random squabbling about years of inception and junk]
Neal: We’re trying to figure it out for ourselves, so…
RM: So were the horns just a random add-in? Were you guys saying, “Hey, this guy knows how to play, so let’s add him!” or?
Neal: Actually, it started off with a keyboard. Morgan played, and we were getting into our ska sound, so we started writing our own little songs. Most of the horns were done on the keyboard.
Morgan: Yeah, all of them were done on the keyboard. Til’ we actually had the real ones, and it was just a world of difference.
Neal: We really wanted a trombone but we didn’t have one. Then, by the grace of God, Brien walked into our lives.
Brien: I walked into their lives. I went to this girl who went to their High School and she kept telling me about this band and I played trombone. She called me in because they didn’t have a trombone player, so she talked to Scott, our old bass player, and then called back the next day. I went to practice with them, and yup.
Chris: He’s still on the trial basis.
Neal: Still not really a member of the band.
Chris: We’re waiting to see how it works out.

RM: If you each had to pick a word to describe your music, what would you say?
Chris: Energy.
RM: Or five words, if it’s too limited.
Chris: I’d call it “rock with horns.”
Morgan: Yeah, horny rock.
Brien: Whoa now.
Morgan: Okay, I was going to say the same thing Chris just said. Rock with horns. Three word description.
Chris: High energy rock with horns.
Neal: Epic. Powerful. Fierce.
Chris: These are all words that describe the sound of Instant Winner.
RM: Like a movie.
Bryce: I made a whole list. Brotherhood.
Brien: And not like… white brotherhood. Not like that, right?
Chris: Sure…!


RM: Okay! So are you guys working on a new album now, or new songs?
Neal: When we disbanded, we had like three or four new songs ready to be included on a full-length, but we ended up just putting them on an EP because we wanted to get them out to people. Now, we’re interested in finishing a full-length using those songs.
[Brien’s dad walks in and asks us if we want to use one of their cameras for taking photos. We politely declined because photos had already been taken.]
Neal: [His dad walking in] will be the key part.
Brien: That guy actually flew to San Francisco to surprise us during one of our shows.
Neal: That guy? You mean your dad?
Bryce: Your father.
Neal: Dedication.
Bryce: We’re all about brotherhood.
RM: Do you guys have fans in San Francisco?
Brien: Yeah, sort of.
Chris: You could sort of say that.
Neal: Just because we’re been down there so the kids we play in front of buy our CD’s.
Brien: And that’s about it.
Neal: Well, occasionally people will find you on the internet in other parts of the country. We were on tour and we showed up in Salt Lake City. There were actually kids who were ready to hear us - kids who found us on the internet and found out we were coming to their town. It was really weird, because it was our first time ever there.

RM: Do you guys think it’s hard to make an impact in Seattle because there’s so many bands here?
Neal: Seattle’s a really tough city. I feel like ever since the grunge explosion in the early 90’s, everybody has their eyes on Seattle, so everybody within Seattle has to try keep up with those expectations of having a music scene. It almost becomes elitist. It’s very difficult. A lot of bands are kids who grew up during the Nirvana years, who wanted to be in bands and became bands. We’re part of it. Nirvana influenced us a lot. There’s tons of bands. So all we can do is play our own unique style and not get into what everybody else is doing.
RM: What are your other influences?
Chris: We have a lot of them.
Morgan: Almost too many to name. We have tons.
Chris: 311.
Bryce: Incubus.
Morgan: Incubus, for sure.
Brien: Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.
Neal: Well, we initially came up on Nirvana, Silverchair, Bush, and the prime grunge bands.
Chris: Like when alternative got really huge.
Neal: And then at a point I think it evolved into the ska-punk thing. When Rancid, Goldfinger, and those kind of bands started to come out to the mainstream in 95’, we were opened up to that a little bit. Our sound started changing.
RM: So would you guys call yourself a ska band?
Morgan: No, we don’t consider ourselves ska at all anymore. Our first CD was very ska, because that was the kind of band we were.
Brien: Even our second CD was a little.
Morgan: Yeah, it was kind of ska, but…
Neal: I’d say that there are definitely ska influences, but there is definitely a huge difference between being influenced and being a ska band. To be a ska band, you have to play Caribbean-influenced upbeats.
Brien: And the labels too. If you have horns, people just automatically assume you’re a ska band. I’ve had so many people come up to me and say, “You guys are a ska band. You have horns.”
Neal: That’s just because we play in a post-third-wave ska punk rock music scene.
Brien: Yeah. Your question about how it’s hard to make an impact in Seattle…
Neal: It’s hard.
Brien: It’s really fucking hard.
Neal: We’re not only fighting to get our own unique sound, but we’re fighting against all those people who disregard us right off the bat because we have horns. But it also opens up the fact that the real music fans will enjoy it, because they’re willing to accept the music for what it is, and not just because it’s a certain scene or it’s cool to be at their shows. It’s more of a genuine audience.

RM: Between each of your albums, there has been a big difference. Are the upcoming songs different from those or?
Brien: Not too much.
Neal: I’d say it’s really easy to follow the progression of our music. The first green CD was very much ska, and there’s maybe just one or two very slight tastes of what would be to come, which is the metal incorporated with the horns, with the blasting type sound. And the “Cease & Desist” record is definitely right in-between. There were some ska songs, some rock with horns songs, and some in-between. And by “Free For All,” we’d pretty much found our sound. And those are pretty much the songs we play live, for the most part. The newer songs are just better songwriting and still trying to explore new paths to be creative and make new sounds, using the horns in new ways.
Chris: A little more technical.
RM: [turns to Bryce, who’s spoken the least out of everyone] Do you have anything to add since you haven’t spoken?
Bryce: I don’t know. Not really.
Chris: Bryce is new. He doesn’t really have a speaking position yet.
Brien: As soon as you leave, we’re going to start whipping him for even talking at all. Yeah, that's a brotherhood statement.

RM: So how come you guys are unsigned? Is it a choice?
Chris: Pursuing a label is very hard. We’ve sent in a couple of things, but other than that, we just kind of do our own thing. It’s worked really well for us to put out our own records.
Neal: There might be labels out there that are willing to work with us, but it comes to the point where you either do the same amount of work for yourself and keep all the money for yourself, or you could share it all with somebody else and get the same amount of stuff accomplished. Sometimes you just get taken advantage of. We’re at the point where we want to work on our own and do as much as we possibly can. We’ve come to where we are by ourselves. We know we’re capable of it, but if we can get to the point where the labels will benefit us and not just use us… We have to work ourselves up to be enough of a commodity where someone will want to work with us and we will both benefit enough from that. I think in the distant future. It’s pretty essential in the industry these days. It’s really tough for an independent band to even get the attention of the radio. Everyone’s so cookie-cutter and they want to talk to your label; they don’t want to talk to you.
RM: [To Neal] Does your working at 107.7 The End (a local radio station) help you guys out? Do you have any influence at getting yourselves played?
Neal: We’ve gotten a little bit of airplay, but it really had nothing to do with me working there. It was just because we had a new CD and there was a local show, so they started playing it. I don’t know; I guess it could help us a little bit.
Brien: They started playing it before you even started working there.
Neal: I was probably an intern or something, but it’s not like I knew John Richards or the local shows. We had the Sugarcult and Sum 41 shows, and I kind of helped with those because I was there, but not really. I don’t necessarily run around going, “Hey, this is my band! Look at me!” and try and get the radio station to build up my band, because honestly, the radio station is my job.

RM: Who is the most exciting band you guys have played with?
Brien: Static X.
Neal: For me, it was Goldfinger when I saw them at Rock Candy back in the day, it was one of the first punk shows I ever saw, and it basically changed my life. It made me want to be in a band to play punk shows. I wanted to play at Rock Candy that day. That was my goal in life after I saw Reel Big Fish and Goldfinger play. We actually got the opportunity to open for Goldfinger at the Graceland, and we were so excited.
Chris: I thought H2O was a pretty good show. Millencolin.
Brien: Good show.
Neal: The Sum 41 show, though, was one of the biggest adrenaline rushes ever. It was a sold-out show, and it was a Penny Pincher, so it was $1.07. At the Graceland, they only hold so many people, and the line was wrapped around the whole building and went way down the street. By the time they packed everybody in there, it was just chaos. The kids were so wired and ready for the bands that all it took was for us to rip into our first chord, and the whole place just erupted. Kids were flying around on top of the crowd, and it was just awesome.
Brien: Sugarcult was a pretty good show.
Neal: Sugarcult was probably the biggest show we’ve ever played. I think the Jackass show at the Premier will probably be a little bigger and end up being our biggest show.
Morgan: The Sum 41 show was probably our most exciting show, but not necessarily the most exciting band.
Neal: It was fun when we played the KGRG Benefit Show and we had a bunch of bras thrown at us.
Chris: That was a highlight.

RM: Our magazine has a color theme every month, and the next month is red. What does that make you guys think of?
Brien: Our new t-shirts? Cherries?
Morgan: Makes me think of a red balloon. Like the children’s book. Or the movie.
Neal: Makes me think of Clifford the Dog.
Bryce: A reindeer’s nose.
Brien: Rudolph.

RM: I’m out of questions. Do you guys have anything to add?
Neal: Morgan, where do you see yourself in 25 years?
Brien: In the gutter.
Morgan: I’ll be 48. I don’t know. That’s a really weird question.
Neal: Well, as soon as Morgan answers, we’ll be done.
RM: Do you guys have any goals for the band?
Neal: We all want to be famous and rich.
RM: And on MTV?
Neal: Uh huh, and on Cribs. And we’re going to bring them into this motorhome.
Brien: I don’t know, play a few shows every now and then?
Neal: Right now, we’re all pretty busy just trying to pay rent and live in Seattle so we can’t just drop everything right away and tour the world, trying to become famous. But we’ll work as hard as we can locally, be smart, and do as much as we can. If within the next year we can get label support and focus more time on the music… well, everything is up in the air. Just like life.
Bryce: Write good songs. That’s all I want to do.
Neal: We can do that.
Brien: Have a good time.
Neal: Have fun.


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