Rebels Eat Apples’ Body Popular is a great release. In the past week I’ve had it, I’ve listened to some tracks nearly twenty times, forsaking other assignments just to squeeze out that rush of serotonin that hits when the weird keyboard solo kicks in on “Tropical Pepperoni” and trying to discern the lyrics to the blown out portions of “The Many Moys.” Body Popular makes me want to do things like rip the headphones from people’s head and force them to listen until they are dancing drunk on the pop explosions in their ear drums.

Attempts to find more about this band led me to the Ourselves Collective, one of a handful of donation based record labels releasing quality digital files for their acts asking that you pay what you will. Emailing the label for contact info I was able to get in contact with Matt Saporito, the man behind Rebels Eat Apples, to pose some questions for him.


Can you tell me a little bit about your musical past? Did you come from a musical family?
My dad is a drummer and his dad was a drummer. I started playing drums in high school, but I never took any lessons. I would say drums are my main instrument. I didn’t start playing guitar until my senior year of college.

What sort of music did your dad and grandfather make? Were they in bands as well?
My dad was in a band called the bookends, named after the ‘68 Simon and Garfunkel album. His father was in a jazz band way back in the day. Really cool old timey stuff, I imagine. I haven’t heard any recordings.

What bands inspired you to start making music? How did you start?
At the time I was drumming in a band called A Passing Feeling. We were young and so unbelievably hungry. My bandmate, Bryan Miltenberg (Unremarkable People, Ourselves), wrote all of the songs, it was his brainchild. I’ve always been crazy about music, but I never really knew about songwriting until I started playing with Bryan. I started by exploring melodies on a mini Casio keyboard. I can’t stop. Ever.

Have you been in bands before Rebels Eat Apples?
When we were in A Passing Feeling we were 19 and 20 and 21 and we were so into being in a band, it was all for one, one for all in the truest sense. We did so much stupid shit. I started working on the Rebels Eat Apples EP as APF was in its final stages.

What was the imputes for Rebels Eat Apples? How did it come about?
George Costanza. At one point he inspired every decision in my life.

Who does what in the band?
I write everything and I record all of the demos. Basically, going into the studio, the lyrics, leads and melodies are fully formed. Body Popular pretty much sounds like a bigger version of my demos. When recording the album, I played drums and Bo played bass. I’m not very tight on the guitar so my friends Bo (ex-Wonderful Spells) and J (Pretty & Nice) shredded most of the leads. J took some liberties with the solos on “So Radical” and “Oh, Goldie.” I’m glad he did.

For our live show I’m fortunate enough to play with some really talented musicians. Johnny Jannetty on drums, Miguel De Braganca. on lead guitar, Andrew Melvin Zizik on bass and Bo on rhythm guitar. Those guys all live in Boston, so we only practice the day before or day of a show.

I refuse to play live unless it’s going to be fun and stress free for everyone involved. I made a sincere party album and I want to be sincerely partying when we play.

In listening to the EP Caged Heat everything collapses beneath the weight of the lo-fidelity affectation, and the lyrics are nearly undecipherable. This is most obvious in the different versions of “The Many Moys.” Can you talk a little bit about the why and hows of the total damage on Caged Heat?
Every single demo I have ever done on my own, even today, is done using a mic I borrowed (and never returned) from my ex-girlfriend’s college roommate. It’s a Labtec NCAT AM-242. Bo calls it the thin white duke. I think it looks like a robot’s penis.
This review from Amazon.com pretty much says it all, “This is an excellent mic for the money. I use mine primarily for voice chat, telephony, and net conferencing and it rocks hard.”

I also use Cool Edit Pro as my recording platform. The mic is very hot, especially if you aren’t careful with it. I’ve made some surprisingly clean recordings with it, but also, as you mentioned, some indecipherable songs. I don’t seem myself changing how I do business until I upgrade computers (not soon).

I don’t know why, but I never would have thought to record with a cheapo gaming microphone. I’m curious what kind of sound people would get just screaming at a laptop.
Haha. I probably wouldn’t be the same person if I didn’t have the duke.

As a lot of the damage seems added in after the fact, do you attempt to replicate it live?
It’s really interesting the way the full length happened. J Mendicino produced the album. He’s a musical genius, seriously, a brilliant man. In fact, we were on a very different page during the recording process. He was the man on the moon, I wanted to be the monkey in the woods throwing poop with my friends. He has a real ear for things that don’t exist, like frequency. The raw tracks from the recording sessions, and J’s mixes have a really interesting sound to them. Really low bass, loud drums, low vocals and thin guitars. It’s definitely a fucking cool sound, but it wasn’t my vision for the album. I wanted the vocals and the lead melodies to sit on top of everything.

I took the files home and bought Pro Tools for this really old Mac desktop I have. I dumped the files onto the computer and mixed the songs myself. I had never used pro-tools so it was a learning experience. It took a lot of work to get the mixes where I could start bobbing my head and really feel it in my loins. A lot of the noise WAS added in after the fact, but I found that I had to put SO much gain on everything to compete with the cymbals, which were really loud and sharp to begin with. It may have gotten out of hand at one point. I truly feel that the record needs all of the trash for the songs to come across the way I wanted.

For the record, I love over-driven music. I think it has balls and it can really shake me. But also love clean albums. I love them. When we play live we just try to play as tight as we can, while managing a really thick buzz. No other stuff.

What aspect of your music are you most proud? When people listen to Rebels Eat Apples, what do you want them to take away?
Um, I think it’s pretty catchy. I want people to enjoy themselves when listening to it.

Is there anyone making music right now that you particularly enjoy? Are there any artists who push you to make yourself better?
Oh yes, Bryan Miltenberg, first and foremost. He is making sick records at a dangerous pace. Unremarkable People is a hell of a project. I can’t wait for their EP this month. I can’t say enough about this guy’s music. Fucking badass. I also love, love Pretty & Nice. They’re such freaks.

Lately, though, I’ve been listening to classic stuff. I’ve been playing old Beatles and Beach Boys songs and trying to become a better writer.

What’s next for Rebels Eat Apples? New releases? Next Show?
I spent a lot of last year working on a kid’s album. Bo and I are both contributing. It’s going to be a freak show, truly bizarre stuff. I love it. That will be out in the near future. I’ve just started working on the next Rebels Eat Apples album. I have a little bit done. It’s hard to say where it’s going. The next show will probably be sometime in July, whatever is going to be the most fun for everyone involved.

Can you tell me more about the kids album? Is that along the same lines as Rebels Eat Apples or are you going in a different direction for that?
The kid’s album is fucking insane. It’s NOTHING like Rebels Eat Apples. I’ve never gotten sounds like this. And, yes, I’m releasing what I’ve recorded with the labtec. It’s not just inane kids music like “peanut butter jelly time” or whatever, it’s for adults, too. It’s really special. I can’t wait to finish it. We’ve got big plans for the release. That’s all I can say for now about that.

What’s the last album you loved?
Right now it’s Harry Nilsson’s Greatest Hits.

When you’ve taken over the world, what’s the first law you would enact as dictator?
Infinite money for education.

You can pick up the Rebels Eat Apples Body Popular here. Matt and his crew will be performing again live coming up, as soon as I have details I’ll let you all know. Thank you to Matt and thank you to Bryan for this interview.

Category : interview