Styrofoam Winos are radically equal in that there is no set lead singer, guitarist, drummer or bassist. It’s unusual, but it works. Each song on their new album Real Time has a different perspective and voice, but the beauty is the harmony they all create as one.
They are currently on tour with MJ Lenderman, playing in Ryan Davis’ Roadhouse Band, and will be playing Nashville on January 25 at Brooklyn Bowl.
Justin Barney: Can you just go around and this would be fun? Can you say your first name, your last name and what you do in the band?
Trevor Nikrant: I’m Trevor Nikrant and I play all the instruments and sing.
Joe Kenkel: Hey, I’m Joe Kenkel. I play all the instruments and sing as well.
Lou Turner: Hey, Lou Turner. I do the same thing.
JB: How did the band form, the year?
TN: Was 2016. We had all been writing songs for a long time. None of us had bands. And so we kind of became each other’s band.
JK: There were shows that each of us played that were billed as our first name and Styrofoam Winos and then eventually became more fun to just play songs that belonged to all of us as a group and to write together as well.
JB: Why is the album called Real Time?
LT: So there’s a song called “Don’t Mind Me” on the record and it has a lyric, “I want to be your real time good friend.” And we were talking about names for the record, and we were like, “real time good friend,” and then, all at the same time, we said “Real Time.”
The record deals a lot with being present and being with people you love and time and space as not a fixed or a linear thing. It’s something you have to access together. And that’s something we’re trying to do in our band.
TN: There’s another lyric that’s like, “I got a million ways to waste my stinkin’ time,” and I’m sure we can all infer technologically what those probably are. So it’s a feeling of being pulled towards clearer, true self stuff.
JK: There’s a lot of anxiety around how you spend time if you’re wasting time getting older, you know? And I think there’s a real concept of intentionally being with each other, leading to something that’s more real than what we get really anxious about.
On “Don’t Mind Me”
JB: I remember hearing y’all do “Don’t Mind Me” when you opened for MJ Lenderman. The tempo change in that song is just like, so much fun. It’s such a surprise. How did that moment come to be?
TN: That was a very fun one to develop because it was kind of over several years as probably the oldest song on the album. We started off by playing the whole song in the fast mode, and then for one show, we slowed it down to half time. So then there were two versions depending on the vibe of the show. Then at some point we discovered that we could glue them together [and it] would be this big blast off.
On working with MJ Lenderman
JB: It was cool to see you on the MJ Lenderman track for the live album. How did that all happen?
LT: Well, Jake Lenderman, as he’s known on the streets, and Trevor both have solo albums on Dear Life records and they met through the South By Southwest showcase. And then just became friends and kept in touch. He reached out and asked if we wanted to do a few dates with them last summer and we did not know that the tapes were rolling. We were having a great time just having a ball. Trevor was ripping on the trombone. Our friend Ross Collier was there and he joined as well. He and I are singing wildly out of tune and it’s very joyful.
JB: Where was that recorded?
JK: It was at Lincoln Hall in Chicago. I heard a lot of the show was not usable because the mic in the room just so happened to be next to a very loud fan who was who was loudly singing the entire album.
On “Master of Time”
TN: I wrote the bulk of the song the day after my birthday. I had a weird day on my birthday. I was feeling reflective and thinking about if marking the passage of time is even important and stuff like that. The day after I was feeling like I should have been having more fun on my birthday or something, or doing all the things I wanted to do. The next day I was kind of reflecting and thinking that, “I don’t really need to feel all those pressures, actually. I can just make up my own sense of time.”
On “Don’t Know What”
LT: I was sitting on my bed in me and Trevor’s room, strumming my guitar that my grandpa gave me, his Gibson, and just thinking about simple songs and how does it need to be complicated.
JB: Was your grandpa a musician?
LT: He just enjoyed playing guitar. He played in the church band a little bit. He played bass. His name is Big Dad. He played in church in New Braunfels, Texas. We jammed a lot growing up. He would play bass and I’d play guitar and we’d sing hymns and stuff. Willie Nelson songs.
On “Found Round”
JB: Is there any song on the album that we should know something about?
LT: I think “Found Round” could be fun. “Found Round” is a song that we all improvised together.
JK: The coolest thing about “Found Round” is that it reflects what we sound like when we’re just in a room.
TN: Trying to make each other laugh with little lyrical interjections. That’s us.