Fireside With Cojack & Company

Interview date: 12-1-17

Corey "CoJack" Cahill: Lead Vocals

Danny Moreno: Lead Guitar

Dave Granado: Rhythm Guitar

Andy Celio: Bass

Nina Sullivan: Backing Vocals & Keys

Dan Pistello: Drums

Cojack & Company was kind enough to invite us out to their most recent show at the beginning of December to talk with them, share a beer, and catch an awesome set In Lansing,IL at the One Trick Pony Brewery. We gathered ‘round the warm and freshly lit fire, starting off what will now be known as the first “Fireside With Cojack”. We suspect this might not be the last time you see this phrase come up! #FiresideWithCojack

In our opinion, they are definitely a talented local group that should have your attention and support. They command the stage with high energy, catchy hooks and a mix of both meaningful and fun songs. What are you waiting for? Pop on their tunes and read what they had to share!

How Did Cojack & Company come to be?

Dave: So Cojack was looking to mix in some live instrumentation to hip hop for a battle of bands that we were scheduled to play. He got in contact with us and asked us “ Hey are you guys interested in doing live music...live sets to some of my music.”

Cojack: It started off as covering my solo work.

Dave: At first It was just a project. Live instrumentation to his music and that’s when we kinda started and…

Cojack: We won the battle! We had so much fun jamming! We were high school friends and now were in a band together. It was just four of us at the the time. Dave, myself, Andy and “P-Man”. Then Danny Boy came to a couple practices after we wrote a few originals and he fit in perfect. Nina came a year and a half later and we’ve just been keeping the ball rolling.

Dave: Cojack, resourced his highschool homies, who he thought were the best musicians he knew. He always says “ These are the best musicians we know and were like dude you gotta get better musician friends.”

All: Laughing

Cojack&Co-33.jpg — "What we try to do is sound like nobody else. The classification?
Is what we’re not trying to go for."

- Dave Granado

Do you have a Specific Genre?

Cojack: We can call it “Indie Hip-Hop” cuz these guys all came from different backgrounds. I mean “Indie” means independent. People call anything “Indie Hip-Hop” that’s independent but, I mean it more like “Indie-Rock” with Hip-Hop. These guys came from punk backgrounds and they love the classics. They love Classic Rock, Punk, Hardcore, and they’ve been in all sorts of bands while we were friends all through high school. We didn’t get together ‘till I was twenty-seven, like four years ago. I just watched them do awesome music. I was doing solo rap while they were doing different music. It just took us way too long to actually try to blend it but I’ve never really come up with a clean name or genre.

Dave: Yeah, If I can add to that, it's genre bending with multiple genres. You can hear styles from classical, punk with fast drum upbeats, and even fingerpicking in certain songs. What we try to do is sound like nobody else. The classification? Is what we’re not trying to go for.

Cojack: It’s too Rap for Rock people and too Rock for Rap people. *Laughing*

Dave: Absolutely, I would agree! What we’re trying to do is something completely different and take all of our musical backgrounds and mesh this up and somehow it works!

Cojack: We get compared to whatever rap band people know; So if all you’ve heard of is Limp Bizkit I’ve been told that before. Hence I don’t wear a lot of backwards hats at shows. We’ve been told we sound like Rage Against The Machine, Linkin Park , etc. It all depends on who their first opinion of “Rap Rock” is but “Rap Rock” sounds so cliche like it’s Nu-Metaly type stuff.

What Inspires You to make music?

Cojack: One huge thing that Dave reminded me of the other night, cuz I went on one of my introspective rants, bitching about what we would’ve, could’ve, should’ve of done. He’s like bro, “ The main thing is we get to play music with our best friends and create.” That’s number one, after that I’m like, “Yeah I’ll save my bitching for my other songs.” We all Sacrifice time from our lives, and I always say “ Working class cats, have jobs to go to in the morning.” We’ve got different jobs to juggle, we’ve all got family, significant others, and so on. So It’s an Active Sacrifice, which we all willingly make, to make it happen. You could fall by the way-side and never do it.

Dave: I feel like the camaraderie of us, cuz we’ve known each other for so long. This is what we do. If we’re not doing it we’re empty, this is what we do. Friday night practices, hanging out or Saturday morning. When ever we get together writing and creating. What inspires us to do what we do is the camaraderie, the constant push of each other! I feel like an underrated point, is that we push each other so much and in probably the worst way but the most creative way too! We push each other to be better musicians and we’ve been in this game for a long time and I couldn’t walk away from the camaraderie with my best friends. We have the best times whenever we play big shows, little shows, shows in breweries, whatever! The Best thing about that is coming together as six friends who consider each other family and the way we feed off of each other musically.

Cojack&Co-66.jpg — "I just loved the idea of creating but I could never really sing that much...I wanted to perform, be out there and put my ideas out there."

- Cojack

When did everyone start playing/making music?

Cojack: I started writing goofy poetry, probably about 4th or 5th grade, so I just always loved that. I remember sitting at the house being that dorky kid playing Tom Petty’s Greatest Hits that my parents had. Lip Syncing in the mirror to “Free Fallin'” with sunglasses on. My parents weren’t very musical, but that was one of the best albums they had. I just loved the idea of creating but I could never really sing that much, and I was too lazy to learn an instrument. Then I fell into hip-hop, freestyling with buddies and writing goofy little raps. Some people liked to freestyle and get high, and some people stuck with it. I also learned from my bandmates, seeing them playing as a bands in high school, and going to basement shows. I didn’t have the confidence at that time, to get beats and start doing it, but in hindsight I wanted to do what they were doing. I wanted to perform, be out there and put my ideas out there.

Dave: I started playing at 12 years old and come from a musical family. So I grew up in the musical scene. I picked up bass quick, got bored and picked up guitar. Totally self-taught, sitting there listening to Minor Threat, AFI, and all these four or five chord songs. That was my childhood, sitting in my room learning five chords and I thought I was badass. As I got older I realized the intricacies of music, and progressed musically. I think all of us in the band, we’re still that 13 year old just learning. We’re all still learning, we’ve figured each other out but there’s always more we can do. That’s what captures us and we’re always asking what can we do better?

Danny: I’ve been playing for about 17 years and I started playing guitar when I was about 12 years old. My dad had brought a guitar out from our garage, that belonged to my great grandpa. It was an old Epiphone semi-hollow electric guitar and I started playing on that. My dad’s not a musician by any means but he encouraged me to start playing. So I started playing anything I could. At that point, I was into Black Sabbath & Metallica and I jumped on the internet found some tabs and started playing. I learned all the basics like "War Pigs", "Paranoid", and any Metallica song I could. I always tell people I started playing Metallica on Acoustic.

Dan: I grew up in a musical family. My grandfather played drums in a polka band and I inherited his drums. So I’ve always had a drum kit and was pounding away in the basement. My dad played harmonica and sung in a blues band. They would practice in our basement, so I would go down there hang out with them. They let me go on the drums when I was little and it stuck! Then I did bands throughout high school and it just grew from there.

Andy: When I was in grammar school I used to play the bells for about a year or so. I tried to pick up the acoustic guitar when I was really young and I just didn’t keep going. Then I finally got a drum set and met Dan. He used to live right across the alley from me. He taught me a basic beat and he was just like, “Work on the basic beat, it will help you build timing and things like that.” After that I moved to bass and played guitar for a little while as well. Once I started playing with Cojack I got back onto the bass.

**Can We Expect The Same Carefully Curated Music As Your Solo Album “Ups & Downs”?**

Cojack: It’s still me writing the lyrics, but I might get a little more weird/experimental with the content now that I have this badass music backing. I feed off their energy and tweak it out and play with different shit. Now there’s also influence by five other badasses. So writing with these guys and bouncing my ideas of them is different than me just sitting alone writing all the songs by myself.

Dave: I feel that our music is more intricate & way more thought out. When you see us, we have a song called Tick Tock. Which is one of my favorite songs that we have written together. There’s a linear story to it and Cojack has linear stories in Ups & Downs as well, which I love and this is why we’re so confident in our music. To have that same kind of energy in what we do, I feel it’s so thought out. Two weeks ago we added much more to make the live experience more interesting. Honestly as goofy as we are it’s very, very calculated.

Is there a Process behind your song writing and Who Does Most of The Writing?

Cojack: I write the lyrics but I don’t really have too much say in the music. Sometimes I have a lyric song idea, like Tick Tock I had the lyrics but no music and the music was created later. Sometimes the music is created first and foremost.

Dave: It’s kind of a mixed bag. Sometimes Cojack has his lyrics and we write to it and other times me and Danny will come up with a song.

Danny: Yeah, Cojack will send us a sound byte of him rapping a chorus or verse. Saying I have this idea, let’s write a guitar riff to it or sometimes there’s a guitar riff that Cojack is like hey I have this set of lyrics let’s see if we can fit it in. Other times it could be Dan and Andy jamming out on the drums and bass and everyone will jump in.

Is There More New Music In the Works?

Dave: We have two new songs we filmed in South Bend, IN with UpState, called "Problems" and "Locked Room"

Video Via Facebook by UpState

Danny: We’re always writing new music. It’s just whether it’s done or not, or if we decide to play it at as a jam at a show. We’ve also incorporated some electronic Korg into a couple of our songs. Which is something we didn’t do for the first EP. So we’re trying to push our boundaries with new music.

Dave: There’s definitely a new record in the mix! We’re gonna take some time to finance the record, and smooth everything out to make sure its perfect before we go to the studio.