By Odeisel

What happens when you pour your blood, sweat and tears into your art and it finally pays off? You’re getting the accolades and attention for your work, but you find out that success isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The band that was your engine is grumbling. The climate around the crew is becoming poisonous and it’s making you sick just to show up to practice.  With everything looking up businesswise, you decide to bail, possibly risking losing all of your momentum.

That’s the situation faced by Jason Abrishami, whose previous group, the Twees was gaining major steam when he decided to call it quits. His new group, Lazyeyes features a starkly different musical style and according to Jason, a radically different and more palatable energy as a group. We caught up with Jason to talk the past, the present, the future…and Gynecomastia.

Planet Ill: The Twees music was a lot more aggressive and driving. We ran “Tempermental Health” (sic) a few months ago and the track got a lot of positive feedback. Why the change?

Jason Abrishami: Indeed there was a lot of positive feedback from The Twees latest release, but behind that there was a ton of negative energy within the band. Even getting together to practice once a week or even a month became the hardest task. I used to love writing songs with poppy hooks and aggressive melodies, that’s why The Twees sounded the way they did. But it came to a point that I realized my heart wasn’t fully into writing songs like that anymore. That’s why I started Lazyeyes which is still poppy, but way toned down and more lo-fi.

Planet Ill: As a musician, how does that feel when your release becomes a prison?

Jason Abrishami: It’s not the best feeling. Especially when you’re getting offered fully paid tours overseas as well as tours in the US. The Twees music started popping up on major television shows, as well as a Chevrolet recap of the 2012 Olympics and Carson Daily (twice). Working with people that have the same determination and drive as you will prevent any future incidents of ever getting into that specific “prison” you’ve mentioned. I’ve learned a lot about being in a band from my past experiences & what to avoid, if at all, any conflict.

Planet Ill: How do the powers that be respond to you outside of that original context? Is it still, “Hey that’s still Jason” or is it, “Fuck you, where are the Twees?”

Jason Abrishami: Honestly, it’s funny saying this but people seem more excited by Lazyeyes than The Twees. We’ve already been featured on a Sirus XMU station, and various other radio stations throughout the world. I think people are going to overall respond better to the new band/music than previously (I can only hope so!).

Planet Ill: So what is the concept behind Lazyeyes? How does it differ from the Twees in spirit?

Jason Abrishami: We all write the songs together, demo them, and have positive energy. With The Twees, I generally wrote a majority of the songs (minus Fan Fiction on the “These Girls” EP, which Jon did & I wrote the lead Guitar part), and we ended up finding ourselves performing the same set list for over a year and a half, things can go dull fast. With Lazyeyes we’re constantly writing and demoing new music, making things exciting and experimenting with different effects. For some weird reason the guys in The Twees didn’t think that me using a delay pedal was necessary. Now with Lazyeyes it’s constantly on when we perform. It makes things sound more dynamic in my opinion.

Planet Ill: So where do we go from here? Are those same opportunities available or is it brand-building 101?

Jason Abrishami: Well, we’re currently recording our debut EP at the moment & will hopefully be releasing it within the next month or two. Those opportunities are still on the table, seeing that I have all the connections that I previously held. We’ve been building buzz at the moment and want to concentrate on continuously writing and releasing music. We will be at this year’s CMJ music festival in October and so far have 4 showcases set up (one being at Webster Hall).

Planet Ill: If music was medicine what would the Lazyeyes cure?

Jason Abrishami: Lazyeyes would be the cure for Gynecomastia [For the uninformed, that’s man boobs –OD]

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