Interview with The Sweet Release

There is an act from up I-95 in North Attleboro, Mass., that has straight up astounded people in the Providence music scene for the last year and a half or so. The Sweet Release is a mix of hardcore punk, garage rock and a little bit of blues accented by a charisma and flair that mirrors the styles of vintage Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger. This all equates to a high energy experience. On March 1 they’ll release a new single titled “Whether Or Not,” and recently I had a chat with crazy frontman Austin Sheridan, bassist Jimmy James and rhythm guitarist Mike Marchand about all sorts of things.

Rob Duguay: The Sweet Release really loves to get in people’s faces on stage with a electrifying mix of two kinds of punk rock and a touch of blues. You have that old school style punk sound in the vein of The Stooges, but when Austin gets on the mic he brings a hardcore vibe with a bunch of growls and ridiculous theatrics. What do you call The Sweet Release’s music? Feel free to make up a name.

Austin Sheridan: It’s junk.

RD: So you’ll call it junk rock?

AS: Just junk, but that could be a cool way to put it.

RD: Well there’s punk rock and you guys got junk rock, that’s pretty crazy. Now you guys have this single coming out called “Whether Or Not,” and it’s getting premiered March 1. Who recorded it? Who produced it? Where can people listen to it?

Jimmy James: It was recorded by Jim Schultz at Turbulent Studios, who is also a rad drummer in AdapterAdapter. It also got mixed and mastered by Jim; it’s coming out beautifully and we’re all really excited about it. We’ve been playing “Whether Or Not” a lot live during our shows along with a lot of other new material. You can find it on our BandCamp and on our website at TheSweetReleaseHQ.com when it’s released this Sunday.

RD: Despite being from North Attleboro, it’s pretty safe to say that The Sweet Release is a Providence band now. There are a lot of kickass bands coming out of the Attleboro area. We have you guys, Neutrinos, Pals, Jetty, Lame Genie and AdapterAdapter really leading the charge when it comes to southern Massachusetts bands making a home for themselves in Providence. Before you started playing in Providence, what did you think about coming to the city to play a show? Was Providence always a place that you guys envisioned The Sweet Release starting out in?

JJ: Playing Providence was our next step because we were only playing open mics in North Attleboro, which really wasn’t the end result for us but only a place to start out at because that’s what was available.

RD: Do you guys like being grouped with other bands that are from the same area?

AS: Dude, it’s awesome.

Mike Marchand: A lot of these guys are our friends, so it’s nice to be able to play shows with them.

JJ: We all have a lot of mutual friends along with meeting a lot of new friends who are also mutual friends of mutual friends, which just makes everything awesome.

AS: I grew up with Lewis Davis and Pat Keister from Pals since we were little kids and playing football, so playing shows with them now in Providence is pretty cool.

RD: When I came here most of the acts in Providence were either from here or some other part of Rhode Island while there were only a couple bands coming from Southern Massachusetts. Now it’s amazing to see how many talented bands are coming from the Attleboro area when before you would have seen these bands play at Fusion 5 in Foxboro. Providence people know a bunch of bands from Boston, but it seems when a band from Attleboro comes to town they have a bigger following.

Now I can ask everyone in the band this question because you all seem very angry when you get on stage. What fuels it? Austin can drop 25 F-bombs in one song and he’ll be pissed off at the world. What are you all so angry about? It just seems that you all want to punch the world in the face.

JJ: But in the meantime, it’s all in good fun.

AS: I think it’s just like all of us have been pent up for so long, we’ve all been in one way or another put down in some way throughout our whole lives. We don’t like authority from our parents ever since we were young, and we don’t like authority from anyone else on the planet.

RD: So you’re all a bunch of misfit kids who love rock ‘n’ roll.

AS: Yea, that’s pretty Hollywood, but it’s pretty true. We honestly all are our own people. We don’t even look like we belong together.

RD: You’re the only one who’s wearing a hat right now.

AS: We’re just a bunch of different people who are different from each other and different from everybody else, but we have a mutual understanding of love and passion for one another.

RD: What music have you kids been listening to lately?

AS: Oh god, some stuff would be a little embarrassing.

RD: Anything you would think is an influence to The Sweet Release’s sound. Let’s go around between you three, and each of you name a few bands.

MM: Probably for me, anything from The Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin to Black Sabbath. Tony Iommi, a lot of riffs are inspired by him. I’m a huge Jack White fan and the blend of blues rock that he brings is definitely spot-on for today’s style.

AS: My heart and soul in a sense, especially on stage, is for Mick Jagger, Prince and John Lennon. Those are the three people who I need everything from, everything they have from their head and put it into my head and absorb it all.

RD: How about you, Jimmy?

JJ: I’m all over the place. For recent influences it’s Jack White’s Lazaretto, all the melodies to that and all the guitar parts I just want to play on bass. It’s like what Jaco Pastorius said, if you want to learn songs, if you want to learn music, you learn every part to the song and playing every part to Jack White’s stuff is amazing. It made me such a better player and honestly, playing with these guys has as well. Our influence just comes from ourselves, really. The more we play together it just builds and builds. I guess it does come from background influences too, but I play off of what everybody likes so I’m all over the place when it comes to playing in The Sweet Release.

RD: I got one last question, and it’s very simple. What can we expect from The Sweet Release after the single invades our eardrums?

JJ: Well, for shows we can’t really announce anything yet.

RD: What do you want to do this summer as a band?

JJ: Definitely get on a few festivals.

AS: Opening for a national act would be cool.

JJ: Other than that, it would be playing more kickass shows and playing in other cities. We’ve played three years straight in Providence and we’ve made a name for ourselves so far, but we want to play more shows outside the city and also make a full-length album.