Keeps

Who’s Keeps?
josh: Myself [Josh Ramon] (guitar/lead vocals), Eric Parker (bass), and Marc Nelson (drums).
We may be working with some other people on future recordings, but its just been the three of us up to now.



How did you guys get came together and created this band?
josh: I had been sitting on a handful of songs I wanted to record in early 2010. I wrote a couple new songs
and started getting the itch to get into a studio. The three of us had worked together years ago so when I started
thinking of drums and bass it was a natural choice to get in touch with Marc and Eric.



What’s the story behind the band’s name?
josh: The name comes from a drawing my sister’s boyfriend did years ago. It had some pirate girl with a banner that
had “Keeps” on it. I wanted to use it for album artwork but by the time the band finally came together I had lost the drawing. i think it was probably for the best though. whatever that means



What are your music influences?
josh: Personally I listen to a little bit of everything. I’ve been around music enough to have fallen in love with everything at one time or another in the right setting. I’ve been really into mellower indie stuff lately like Plants & Animals, Animal Collective as well heavier instrumental bands like Mogwai and Pelican.

eric: Mostly music from the 60's and 70's and maybe a little metal on the side…

marc: Personally.. I’ll give pretty much anything a listening to, so I am inevitably influenced by everything I hear and happen to like, but lately the listening has included large quantities of, but not are not limited to: Russian Circles, This Town Needs Guns, Dead Signals, Maps and Atlases, The Felix Culpa, Silverchair, and Tool.



What’s your method at the time of writing a song?
josh: In the past I can’t say I’ve really had a songwriting process. It just sort of comes to me whenever it does and
hopefully I’m in a position to work through the idea and remember it long enough to share with someone else. Although,
with the newer stuff Eric and I have been spending hours jamming through riffs and worrying about lyrics and arrangements later.

marc: Most of the time.. I like to hear a riff that’s ready, and sort of ponder on it for as long as I can.. So, I have a chance to really ask myself where I hear the drums and percussion going. Yet, on the other hand. I’m never apposed to jamming new material as a whole band, then picking, and choosing from riffs later.



How was it to work with Shiraz Dada?
josh: Those were wild times. Not so much the time we spent with Shiraz, but recording that album was such a long process. Marc and I were living in a motel room together in Bloomington, Indiana and we kept trying to arrange time with Shiraz and other engineers, but he was busy with his band Maps & Atlases. I remember one time we drove half way to Chicago when we got the word that he had gotten the flu on tour in Mexico so we had to postpone again. If I remember correctly I had quit my job at the time to make sure I had enough time in Chicago to finish the vocals. When we finally did get to record it was a pretty quick and smooth process. He was really helpful and pushed me through some takes that I didn’t think I had in me. We talked about doing something together again, and I wouldn’t pass up the chance to work with him in any capacity. He’s definitely a talented guy.

marc: Working with Shiraz was probably the best idea we could have ever had while working on no bridges. After everything was said and done. He had done so much more than we had originally bargained for… It would be a real treat to work with him again someday.



How was it to performed at Warped Tour?
josh: That was another wild time, but in a completely different capacity. All I remember is way too much sunlight and rockstar energy drinks were free for bands so we got really jittery and probably played everything a little too fast. It was a good experience though. I’d do it again.

marc: Warped was really hot, but quite an experience. In all honesty I’d say, when it all went down, we might not have known what we had gotten ourselves into, as we did feel a bit out of place on arrival. It wasn’t until our set that it occurred to us that maybe someone there might actually like us.



What would you say are the difference between Theanti and Keeps?
josh: I guess the biggest difference could be the bass guitar. Although, Eric did play on a track or two in the early
recordings of Theanti. I think he emailed them in from Oregon and I synced it up in pro tools. that was like 10 years ago.
I think the main difference is experimentation. Theanti was really almost an aggressively experimental band. Even in our
most cohesive or coherent moments I remember thinking “just keep going, it’ll make sense later”. Keeps was really my most earnest attempt at conventional songwriting, at least initially.



You guys are working on a new EP. How was t - Vents Magazine

I’ve been a fan of Josh Ramon’s work since 2006, when I discovered his bands Theanti and Lamps on the label Inderma Music; I liked them so much that it appears I reviewed their Dot With a Dot in a Dot Dot Dot split EP twice. (I liked it more the second time, apparently.)

Ramon is back with one old and one new collaborator as Keeps, and the band’s sophomore album No Bridges has been keeping me off-guard for the last few weeks. Ramon and co. are comfortable playing both improvised indie-rock and the traditional, song-based variety, and Keeps is the latter: The arrangements are comparatively tight and song lengths hover around four minutes. The big difference from then to now is the weight of the songs.

The band still has elements of their erratic, spontaneous self of old, but No Bridges incorporates those elements into thoughtful songwriting and deft atmosphere control. Excellent use of abrupt entries and exits makes opener “Cantland” and closer “Arkansas Blackbird” into the highlights they are: sections roil and churn in guitar sludge, only to snap into wiry riffs before blasting off to more sections of rock. The forlorn guitars/distant vocals/pounding drums outro of “Arkansas Blackbird” is one of the more haunting ends to an album I’ve heard this year, especially since it appears suddenly.

There are some songs of both sides of the spectrum: “Midwest Urn” is a raging rocker that makes me think of the thoughtful anger of late ’90s and early 2000s post-hardcore. But even that song has a slow section toward the end before picking up for the conclusion. “Someone Wanted More” is a pensive, acoustic-led post-rock-type piece, albeit with some distortion and dissonance thrown in to keep the vibe going.

No Bridges works better as a whole album, like the aforementioned late ’90s post-hardcore and similar-era math rock. I didn’t really listen to music in theose genres for particular songs: I listened for how the music felt and made me feel. (This is the argument Chuck Klosterman makes for ’80s metal, and, by extension, pretty much all music in Fargo Rock City.) Post-hardcore’s aesthetic of getting the emotion down instead of being technically perfect is big here as well; Ramon’s oft-desperate, impassioned voice is a great emotive vehicle. He ekes out some memorable melodies (“Arkansas Blackbird”), but the more important thing is that it all sounds slightly unhinged (the ironically titled “Stayble,” “Old Tangled”). Whether leading with an acoustic guitar melody, an erratic guitar line or churning distortion, No Bridges seems teetering over the edge of something.

Keeps’ No Bridges reminds of the early 2000s, when dark, heavy, thoughtful rock was trying to maintain artistic integrity by staving off those who would turn it into emotionally abrasive hardcore, simplify it into pop-punk, or become whatever Brand New is now. But the “everybody else” sides of the sound won, leaving pretty much only Thursday to carry the flag for thoughtful, aesthetically-refined rockers. Keeps does not sound like Thursday, nor does Keeps have a telegraphed political bent. However, the aesthetic ideals seem correlated, and it’s really encouraging to hear Keeps go to bat for loud, intricate, thoughtful rock without pretension, irony or coat-tailing in some other genre. Highly recommended. - Independentclauses.com

I’ve been a fan of Josh Ramon’s work since 2006, when I discovered his bands Theanti and Lamps on the label Inderma Music; I liked them so much that it appears I reviewed their Dot With a Dot in a Dot Dot Dot split EP twice. (I liked it more the second time, apparently.)

Ramon is back with one old and one new collaborator as Keeps, and the band’s sophomore album No Bridges has been keeping me off-guard for the last few weeks. Ramon and co. are comfortable playing both improvised indie-rock and the traditional, song-based variety, and Keeps is the latter: The arrangements are comparatively tight and song lengths hover around four minutes. The big difference from then to now is the weight of the songs.

The band still has elements of their erratic, spontaneous self of old, but No Bridges incorporates those elements into thoughtful songwriting and deft atmosphere control. Excellent use of abrupt entries and exits makes opener “Cantland” and closer “Arkansas Blackbird” into the highlights they are: sections roil and churn in guitar sludge, only to snap into wiry riffs before blasting off to more sections of rock. The forlorn guitars/distant vocals/pounding drums outro of “Arkansas Blackbird” is one of the more haunting ends to an album I’ve heard this year, especially since it appears suddenly.

There are some songs of both sides of the spectrum: “Midwest Urn” is a raging rocker that makes me think of the thoughtful anger of late ’90s and early 2000s post-hardcore. But even that song has a slow section toward the end before picking up for the conclusion. “Someone Wanted More” is a pensive, acoustic-led post-rock-type piece, albeit with some distortion and dissonance thrown in to keep the vibe going.

No Bridges works better as a whole album, like the aforementioned late ’90s post-hardcore and similar-era math rock. I didn’t really listen to music in theose genres for particular songs: I listened for how the music felt and made me feel. (This is the argument Chuck Klosterman makes for ’80s metal, and, by extension, pretty much all music in Fargo Rock City.) Post-hardcore’s aesthetic of getting the emotion down instead of being technically perfect is big here as well; Ramon’s oft-desperate, impassioned voice is a great emotive vehicle. He ekes out some memorable melodies (“Arkansas Blackbird”), but the more important thing is that it all sounds slightly unhinged (the ironically titled “Stayble,” “Old Tangled”). Whether leading with an acoustic guitar melody, an erratic guitar line or churning distortion, No Bridges seems teetering over the edge of something.

Keeps’ No Bridges reminds of the early 2000s, when dark, heavy, thoughtful rock was trying to maintain artistic integrity by staving off those who would turn it into emotionally abrasive hardcore, simplify it into pop-punk, or become whatever Brand New is now. But the “everybody else” sides of the sound won, leaving pretty much only Thursday to carry the flag for thoughtful, aesthetically-refined rockers. Keeps does not sound like Thursday, nor does Keeps have a telegraphed political bent. However, the aesthetic ideals seem correlated, and it’s really encouraging to hear Keeps go to bat for loud, intricate, thoughtful rock without pretension, irony or coat-tailing in some other genre. Highly recommended. - Independentclauses.com