The Black Sheep Interviews: Pomegranates

The Black Sheep Interviews: Pomegranates

Article by Jessica Sommers
|
October 26, 2010
Tweet

Pomegranates is the most popular band you’ve never heard of. Having toured with the likes of Islands, Blitzen Trapper, French Kicks and Spoon, they are about to become as in your face as all those pomegranate-flavored everything. But don’t worry, these sensible dudes stick to the more classic fruits, none of that pretentious Acai or Kumquat or what have you. Be sure to check out their latest album “One of Us”, dropping October 26^th.

The Black Sheep: How did you guys all meet and form the band?

Jacob Merritt: Issac and I used to be in different bands, we both wanted to do music so we decided to give it a go and we started to practice together. We had a mutual friend who knew Joey and told him that we were looking to start a band so he came over and that’s the first we met him, and we practiced and it all worked out. And then Dan just joined in January, and we kind of knew him from friends as well.

TBS: So tell us a little bit about your new album that is coming out October 26^th.

JM: Yeah, it’s called “One of Us.” It’s definitely the album we’re most proud of, like we feel better about this album now then we did at this point with our other albums. We had way more time to record, and we were able to record in a studio that we were really excited about. I mean, we like the situations we were in with the other albums but this one we had a lot of time we didn’t feel like we had to rush to finish recording.

TBS: You guys are in the middle of touring right now. What do you like more about touring, and what do you like least?

JM: We all definitely like playing our songs to people who enjoy them which, at this point in our bands history, people always seem to enjoy us, but seeing people who already know our songs, it’s a cool feeling. Knowing that you have people, in one way or another, who are already aware of who are you and what you are about, as apposed to trying to win someone over the whole time, which is fun, but it’s nice when you have people who are familiar with what’s going on.

Probably the least favorite thing about touring is the lack and quality of sleep. Everyone gets pretty warn out, and like right now all four of us are a little sick with some sort of head cold thing. Not getting a lot of sleep makes it hard to recover from that kind of thing.

TBS: Damn, sounds rough. Speaking of shitty situations, you guys got some shit stolen from your van? What the hell, right?

JM: Yeah… so it was on a Monday, and we left for tour on a Wednesday so it was two days before we left for tour. Our van was just parked outside of where some of us live in Cincinnati, which isn’t the most desirable of places; we should have been smarter and not left all of our gear there. But it was just funny because it was in the middle of the afternoon while we were home and there were people around. They broke open a window, stole some keyboards and guitars. It made leaving for tour stressful, to say the least.

TBS: It’s crazy to think they got away with stealing such big things in the middle of the day.

JM: Yeah, it turns out that we pretty much know who did it, it was like a 13-year-old kid who is like scared to death. SO hopefully we’ll get all of our stuff back, apparently we sold two guitars for $20 so he has like no idea of what he even has.

TBS: Damn. That’s crazy. So, uh, moving on… if you could work with any artist who would you want it to be?

JM: That’s really hard to say. I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone would agree on Brian Eno; Talking Heads, Roxy Music, U2.

TBS: Okay, last question. And I’m only asking this because the name of your band is Pomegranates… what is your favorite fruit?

JM: As a general everyday fruit, I’d say bananas because you can put them in a lot of stuff. Isaac really likes peaches. Dan says strawberries.

TBS: Classic fruits.

JM: Yeah. Joey also says peaches. So if you wanted to make us happy you could make a strawberry-banana-peach smoothie.

TBS: Yum, that’s what’s up right there. Well, enjoy the rest of your day!

JM: Alright, yeah we’re about to get some Chick-fil-a.

TBS: Oh yeah, you enjoy that.

JM: Good stuff. Maybe I’ll get a strawberry milkshake.