Cigar Exclusive: Interview with Open Till Midnight

04/07/09 - "I thought I'd been through it all/ Seen the Twin Towers fall but I'm still just standing/ Beneath the lights of a city/That kept persevering when there wasn't any hope at all."If these lyrics resonate with you-good, that was the purpose. The lyrics are part of the song "This is Our Youth," written and performed by the band Open Till Midnight, and this is just one of the songs showcased on the band's MySpace Web site. Five others are listed, and all are worth taking a listen to.

Open Till Midnight, composed of five guys in their mid-20s, is hitting the bar scene in New York and making a lot of noise.

The band has been through "several roster changes" says pianist and bassist Keith Gooberman, but the band is "completely confident in and committed to [its] present lineup."

So who is in that present lineup one might ask? Gooberman names his four bandmates as guitarist Mike Cook, guitarist Ross Deutsch, singer Matt Ballinger, and drummer Jonathan Chamberlain.

When asked what was so great about being a band together, the band's response was, "Believing in the same mission as all your best friends."

While only one of the five members, Chamberlain, majored in music, all have spent a majority of their life around music. Gooberman writes that "Mike started playing when he was 14," "[I] started playing piano at 5 and bass at 17," "Ross started playing guitar at 9," "Jon was 11," and Ballinger says, "I started singing as soon as I heard music for the first time. I would just sing to anything."

According to the band, Open Till Midnight played its first show together at a high school talent show in 2000. "Both the room and audience were small and the gig had many technical malfunctions. "Wrong notes got mixed into our performance like Oreos in a McFlurry," wrote Gooberman in an e-mail interview on March 25.

It appears the band has moved on up since its 2000 talent show gig, as it now plays in New York City bars such as the Annex and The Bitter End. Its latest show at the Annex, Gooberman writes was "overall flawless," and that they "had over a hundred fans in attendance."

So why New York City bars, and not a nationwide tour yet? The boys say that the best part about playing in New York City is that "We know we have a following in NYC, and we are confident that when we take the stage we are going to have a nice audience, one that really cares about our music."

However, the band "looks forward to new challenges," and says that "there is something intriguing about traveling to play a show and knowing that the majority of the crowd hasn't heard of you or listened to your music."

With that in mind, the band hopes to go on tour this coming summer, writes Gooberman: "Right now it is really all about gaining fans.We are all very excited about the prospect of touring and playing to a different crowd in a different city every night."

According to the band, they have about 300 people on its mailing list from New York City alone, but its Web site gauges fans from all over the world. The band writes, "OTM has somehow gone international, baby, and we love it!"

It's obvious that the fans love them because songs on Open Till Midnight's Web site have thousands of plays.

Among these songs is "This is Our Youth." Cook wrote this song and a majority of the songs on the album. Cook, who wrote about Sept. 11, in "This is Our Youth" remembers September 11, 2001, and will "never forget it."

Cook, who grew up in Manhattan, writes, "Many people lost friends and family. I remember wanting to get even and part of me wanted to sign up for the military that day." Cook "considers that to be the last day of [his] childhood," hence the title, "and I think many kids from the city share that sentiment."

Cook continues, "New York came together in a remarkable way and once the anger and fear turned into optimism and faith, well the song just kind of wrote itself."

Cook uses personal experiences, like that of Sept. 11 to write all his and the band's songs. "I believe all songs will be intuitively created eventually," Cook says, "Some people listen and the songs seem to find those people. I think I am fortunate to be one of those people."

And the band is fortunate to have one of those people with them as the songs can be clearly identified with by fans as songs like "Stay on Me" plays out with the lyrics, "There are casualties in being alone."

When the band describes the sound of its music they refer to it as "different," but not a bad different. Their sound can be referred to as "rock fused with pop and an occasional alternative/hip-hop influence." Put simply, the band has it all-and the fusion of all of it sounds great together, especially on its song "Side Effects of Sipping on Sunshine." This also happens to be the band's favorite song to perform live, according to Open Till Midnight. The band writes that they "love how the song builds and the groove is really contagious."

The members of Open Till Midnight, who have all been inspired by the likes of Tom Petty, Led Zepplin, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Beach Boys, The Clash, Dr. Dre, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and Tupac, wrote in their interview that if they could open for one band it would be the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Ballinger writes that his choice song for Karaoke would even be "Otherside" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

When asked what the other band members would like to sing karaoke to their answers were a mixed bag including, Elvis's "Jailhouse Rock" for Cook, Nine Inch Nails "Closer" for Gooberman, Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry" for Deutsch, and the Police's "Roxanne" for Chamberlain.

The band even gave up its secret obsessions, so if fans are looking for gifts to throw on stage, stick to sharks for Cook who writes that "When Shark Week comes around I'm not to be disturbed." Ballinger admitted being obsessed with chocolate milk, Chamberlain with Clif Bars, Deutch with his Fender strat, and Gooberman with his "Johnny Walker Green Label."