A Working Model – “III” CD Release Party Interview

“A Working Model“, the ever-evolving and transforming rock band from Ann Arbor, MI, has released their third album entitled “III“. We caught up with Kenny Mis (guitar), Rob Logan (drums) and Tim Lawrence (bass) at the Blind Pig a couple hours before they took the stage at their CD release party. Over a couple pitchers of cheap draught, we kick back in the Green Room before the show and talk about the new album, the way the band has evolved over the years, the struggles of doing it all yourselves, and much more. Kenny tells it like it is, Rob fills in the details and even the reserved Tim periodically throws his two cents in. Grab your own cheap brew and join us for the Street Team Interview with A Working Model.

STI: I’m here with three-quarters of A Working Model. I’m here with Kenny Mis, Rob Logan and Tim Lawrence. Where’s Chris [Lawrence, singer/guitarist]?

Kenny Mis: Taking a nap.

Rob Logan: Yeah, he’s taking a nap right now.

KM: That pre-show nap.

RL: He gets into this — a lot of times, Chris has to go into his own zone, you know, so we just let that happen.

KM: We just tell everybody that he’s a huge alcoholic.

RL: Don’t… don’t put that in the interview. [everyone laughs]

STI: Who’s responsible for forming A Working Model?

KM: We kind of came out of two bands.

RL: Yeah. Basically, what happened was, me and Kenny had been playing together since we were 15. Obviously, Tim and Chris are brothers and they were in a band with some High School friends. We were in a few bands that weren’t really working out. I don’t know where the idea started to kind of start a band but it was originally just going to be sort of a side project thing where we were all just able to write some music and it sort of went from there. That was a few years ago, a number of years ago.

Tim Lawrence: [To Kenny] Didn’t it kind of start out with you and Chris talking?

KM: Yeah, it actually started out with me and Chris just kind of shooting the shit. You know, it was a couple years after High School that you don’t really hang out with all the same people then you actually do start hanging out some of those people. So I started hanging out with Chris again and he had his band, Hybrid, and me and Rob were kicking around — we just ended one band and we were kicking around the idea for another band. Never had a name, never had a singer. But we were really excited about it and we just kind of kicked around this idea. “Yeah, we should get together and put our two bands together” and we did. We started out as a side project and eventually, me and Rob’s other project just kind of fizzled out. We didn’t know what to do with it and A Working Model became a full-time gig.

STI: How long ago was that?

RL: 2002, I think.

KM: That was when we went full time.

RL: When we started really writing music I think was October. Well, when we first started to get together was, like, October of 2001 but we weren’t really like a band until 2002, early 2002. And then, our first recording came out a year after that. The EP, which nobody — maybe like 50 people — have, maybe, and that’s the last 50 people on Earth who will ever have it. It will never be online.

STI: What was that called?

RL: It was just called “EP”. A Working Model: EP. For what it is, it was recorded on an 8 track Alesis ADAT tape and in Chris and Tim’s basement and, you know, we were learning how to record. Chris does all the recording for the band. He still does. We’re learning a little bit more. Each member is, but, you know, it was songs we had written — some stuff was with what Kenny had come up with on guitar and me and him had worked out in a garage  — like, an unheated garage — a year previous which was probably our lowest point.

KM: Dark, dark days. [laughs]

RL: We were paying these very nice people… man, what were their names? Uh, Bruce and uh, Cherie or something. They were very nice people but, they were letting us play in there for, like, $25 a month or something like that. There was no heat and the cops would come all the time but we got some cool riffs out of it. A couple songs on the EP are from that and then just some stuff that we wrote. And then, put that out ourselves completely D.I.Y. Didn’t get that mastered and then handed them out for free. We didn’t charge for those.

KM: I’m kind of glad that that EP kind of died because, I mean, granted, those songs are our first songs, but it was what me and Rob were doing and what Chris and Tim were doing and it was basically meeting in the middle ground. And it took a little while to actually do that. Took us a while to get, like, five songs and they were pretty, like… you know, sounded a certain way. We’ve deviated from that sound so much and I don’t want to go back to that sound ever again.

RL: I think that’s kind of the way we all feel about it and also, it was one of those things where we would write beyond our means. That’s something that sort of haunted us on the next record, if you want to transition to that.

STI: When did the sound actually come together. When did you slap that label on and go, “Ok, now we’re really a band because we’re all cohesive enough to make that one sound we want?”

KM: Well, I mean, that was there from the EP. This band has never… never had a set sound. The EP sounds it’s own way and then “An End” came out years after the EP and that sounds it’s own way. And then this release is coming out and it sound totally different. There’s a few tracks on this release that you can, you know, tie around the previous record, but it doesn’t sound anything like that. That’s kind of what this band does.

RL: Yeah, we evolved. I mean, the whole idea was, like, even in the name, A Working Model, which love it or leave it, we’re kind of stuck with at this point, but it’s the whole “its just what it is at the time.” We evolve our sound. We all love music and we get influenced by different things. That kind of shows up in what we do and we’re always kind of adapting and changing and that’s– You know, sometimes its hard to get a substantial following that way, but you get bored of playing the same type of stuff all the time. It’s mostly because, if we didn’t like music so much it wouldn’t be such — maybe it wouldn’t be a problem, you know?

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