Stoop Sessions: getting super up-close and personal with The Britanys

Story by Jackie Green | Photos by Cheryl Georgette

Over here at Alt Citizen we’ve shown The Britanys a lot of love. From karaoke nights to song premieres to interviews – we thought we had done it all. We were wrong. When we decided to sit the boys down for our very first Stoop Sesh – we decided to get closer. So close….too close….uncomfortably close. Jk, we love asking these guys stuff. See below (oh and here’s a new song too)

What is the first memory you have of picking up an instrument?

Lucas: When I was a little baby, my godfather bought me a ukelele and that was my favorite toy. I had a little electric travel guitar after that. I would write songs and I played an open mic when I was two and a half.

Steele: My dad gave me a pair of ringo drumsticks when I was two. He would put on Tears For Fears – their greatest hits album. He would put a piece of newspaper down on the ottoman chair Lucas is sitting on and I would play along. Then one time for Christmas my cousin bought me a toy electric guitar & you just pushed 1 button and it made a little riff. So I would play with that all day. I would scream and push it and make my babysitter make music videos of me. There’s a video where I go full Iggy Pop and take my pants down & my babysitter is struggling to pull my pants up and I’m fighting her to pull them down. I was like three.

Jake: I played piano when I was a kid & didn’t like it that much. I bought a guitar because I wanted to destroy it, I was watching Nirvana videos. My brother and I were like ‘let’s fucking do this.’ We did, we shredded the shit out of it, it lasted a couple years. We built it up to the point where my brother & I were having a low key jam and he swung it around and shattered it.

Steele: The thing I’ve learned Jake is you tell all these stories that sound so outrageous they couldn’t be true, but they all are. Talking to your brother, he’s like ‘oh yeah, yeah that.’

When you were growing up which musician did you want to be?

Jake: I wanted to be in 311. There were about 4 years where I saw 311 & Incubus. I saw Incubus maybe 8 times. I got really into String Cheese Incident & Widespread Panic. I wanted to be a drummer in a jam band and then I kind of grew up or something. 5:53

*Jake plays shreddiest riff*

Steele: When I was little I wanted to be a hardcore rockstar. I listened to heavy rock. “Dude Looks Like A Lady” was my favorite song. I wanted to be like a Steven Tyler.

Jake: Steele were you a GNR guy?

S: Well I was really into “Sweet Child of Mine.” One time I was playing that on the speakers in our house and my mom was like, ‘say what you will, but Slash plays a really good solo in this song.’ She was saying it to a friend, and right as the solo came on I was like ‘I’m tired of this song’ and I changed it from the other room. She was like ‘STEELE!!!’ It was one of the few times she ever yelled hard at me. But no, I wasn’t a huge GNR shredder – more Aerosmith. I liked Green Day. Simple Plan I fucked with. My favorite song 5^th & 6^th grade, Switchfoot “We Were Meant to Live.”

What do you write songs about? Your moms, girls, selves, fictional utopian societies, etc?

Lucas: I think it’s all pretty much from experience. It’s not really creating a fictional story. I think, at least the lyrics, a lot are from personal experience. Things that happened in the past, things that happened growing up, things happening now.

So it’s a re-telling?

Lucas: I guess yeah. They’re about being young and in 10 years they’ll be about being old.

How do you define achievement? What do you think success looks like?

Jake: My overall impression is it’s kind of useless and meaningless not to strive to be the biggest and best band in the entire world. Why would you aim to be anything else if you believe in the material that you’re doing and your live performances? Then in theory you have the raw material to build something fantastic. Why aim for anything lower than being the biggest band in the world?

Steele: For me being in a place where I can make music the way I want to make it and be able to be financially stable. To be able to raise a family and live comfortably while being recognized for what I’m making. That’s all I want in my life. I’ll be playing music regardless even if no one’s paying attention. For me success would be being able to raise a family on it. Specifically, for musical achievement – just to be remembered. Obviously not many people are but to have the type of thing when I’m in my 60s or when I die – people will look back and that band was good that guy was a good musician.

Lucas: I don’t think that I’ll ever reach a point where I’ll be like “Oh I’ve made it I’m cool now I can chill. It’s just not the person that I am. We get a good show, I’m like ‘alright that cool.’ It’s sick for an hour, then the hour passes then its like ‘well fuck, we need to do better than that, bigger than that, what’s going to be after that?’ I’m sure if we got to he point we’re selling out MSG that’s cool for a sec, but what’s next?

Steele: I agree I think you should never be…

Jake: …complacent.

What are your favorite live performances to watch online for inspiration or fun?

Steeles: Lucas has a lot of performances that get him jazzed.

Lucas: I definitely have my go-tos. I check out all the bands at the festivals. I have my Libertines Top of the Pops. I really like the jacket Pete’s wearing in it. The MTV Arctic Monkeys performance, I forget where it is, not in Sheffield.

Jake: I like Nirvana at Redding. It gets me wet. Esp because Kurt was really sick leading up to that, they almost canceled that show. That’s why they have that joke where he comes out in a wheelchair in the beginning and a hospital gown & he falls on the floor.

Lucas: There’s also a really cool video of Jimi Hendrix it’s an acoustic and it’s him in a room somewhere and a bunch of people sitting around.

Steele: Tame impala live versions gets me going.

Lucas: I just watched a video of Pete Doherty with Elton John and they covered Marc Bolan. Pete looked really out of it he forgot all the words. Also, The Strokes MTV “$2 Bill” video. Where they’re on that lit up stage at the bottom. It’s the 360.

Steele: There are two records I listen to and they don’t really make sense “Dream for Lightyears in the Belly of a Mountain” by Sparklehorse I put on a lot and it gets me pumped and also anything Nick Drake. Not before playing a show, but if I’m going to be playing guitar and thinking about something I’ll put on Nick Drake and be like ‘whoa.’

Is there any song or album that makes you cry every time?

Steele: I have never cried while listening to a record or watching a movie. Things that get me emotional? “With Arms Wide Open” by Creed. Another Sparklehorse song, “Morning Hollow.” It’s about his dog dying. It’s very sort of human and sad.

Best advice you’ve gotten from your parents?

Lucas: My mom was always big about me doing what I wanted to do. Don’t take a job if that’s not what you want. Do what you love to do – life’s too short to not be doing what you love to do. I feel like that’s definitely kind of influenced things. It’s a very tough thing to say ‘I’m gonna be a musician’ but that’s definitely translated a lot.

Steele: Treat others the way you want to be treated. Lead through example and treat everyone you meet with compassion. Everyone has flaws and shit going on in their life and everyone’s human.

Lucas: There’s something to be said for being the nice guy, especially in the music industry, It’s such a small circuit. No one wants to work with the assholes.

“The Shooting” A Personal Narrative told by Lucas & Steele of The Britanys

Lucas: We were playing Savannah stopover. We played our set. Jake and our roommate Ed disappeared. They didn’t come back to our hotel. Me and Steele were responsible for getting all our gear.

Steele: Me and lucas we were both kind of drunk we had all our gear, drum kit, hardware – when we had to load out none of us could drive. So Lucas went to the front desk and asked for a luggage cart and asked if he could take it to the venue we were playing at a block or 3 blocks away.

Lucas: She receptionist said no. I was also really drunk and hot and sweating at the hot desk and like ‘can I take a luggage cart?’ I could tell she was really scared of me because she could tell I was really fucked up and I was like ‘I swear I need to take the luggage cart to get our gear.’ She said ask the valet, but no one was there so I just took it anyway.

Steele: So he brought it to the venue and I was like ‘oh sweet you got it’ so we loaded up this luggage cart with tons of gear, stacked to the top. We had 2 people pulling and 1 person spotting. In Savannah there aren’t laws on drinking in public. If you put it in a clear cup, you’re good to go. So everyone on the street is drunk. We’re trudging along with this giant car with tons of gear, bring it back to our room. I realized I left my phone so I ran back to the venue to grab my phone which was miraculously still there and when I came back there were these 2 guys peeing on a church and a security guard.

Steele: The security guard who worked at a parking lot was like ‘don’t be pissing on this church this is disrespectful I’m religious you can’t be pissing on a church this offends me’ and they were like ‘fuck you man you ain’t the law’ and he was like ‘well I’m a security guard and I am the authority here.’ They were like ‘naw we’re gonna get the law here and they’re gonna arrest you.’ So he was like “naw u fucked up now – I’ll be back.” He walks away and the guys are still hanging out by the church and he comes back with a friend of his and they’re getting in each others’ faces. By this point Lucas and Caleb had come down from the hotel room. I was like ‘shit is about to get real I just saw some guys get in a fight and he’s about to come back, let’s go.’

Lucas: The guys were bigger than him.

Steele: The security guard walked away when his friend got there and the friend got in the guys’ faces. We were watching about 30 feet away, we were pretty close. They started arguing. I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying but they must’ve said something really bad because the guy socks someone in the temple. He goes to the ground instantly, bleeding from his head and before the other guys can do anything he knocks another guy out with one punch, then the 3^rd guy out with one punch and they’re all on the ground all 3 of them bleeding from their heads. I was watching and I was like ‘that’s pretty bad ass.’

Lucas: I was standing behind Steele.

Steele: But then one of the guys gets up (the first one he punched down) then he came too and started running after the guy who had knocked them all out. He shuffled a few steps back and then starts running away from the guy who started chasing him. Then he pulls out a gun and we were like ‘oh this guy is gonna use his gun.’

Lucas: It was a silver gun. A silver pistol.

Steele: He pulls it out and points it right at the guy. We were like “uh let’s not look” so we all turned our heads and we don’t know where he got him, but everybody on the street started sprinting.

Steele: We don’t know exactly where he shot him. So we sprinted and were like ‘whoa that was intense’ everyone on the street was running. I think he lived.

Lucas: When we went back later there were bloodstains on the ground.

Steele: There was a blood stain right in front of the hotel.