Within their first few months at NYU, when most freshmen were struggling to turn off the snooze button, Carter Littel, Zolo Sindhu, Alex Carr-Engler, Miles Grossenbacher and Greg Tock formed a band and set to work producing songs and playing at venues. By the end of first semester, they’ve played at both NYU and Webster Hall Studio, as well as started work on an upcoming album. Meet Comrades Revolt!
HC NYU: Hi! So, tell me, how did all of you meet?
GT: In the beginning of the year, there was the FYRE Moonlight Cruise where Carter and I met. We were both in a situation where we weren’t really fond of our dates so we started talking about music.
CL: We had known each other a little bit because we’re all in the same program. We’re all in Music Tech together.
GT: So after, we said, hey, we should jam.
CL: Greg and I were talking about working on some stuff, and then Alex and I met up and listened to each other’s songs and we decided we wanted to work together.
HC NYU: And you all ended up having the same music interests?
GT: It definitely overlaps, but we don’t all have the same tastes.
HC NYU: Who are your musical influences? Any bands in particular? I read on your site that you like Artic Monkeys…
GT: Well, that’s just Carter.
MG: I would say Spoon and Dub Spirit are some of my favorite bands.
AC: Miles is from Austin, so….
CL: My favorites are Artic Monkeys, Twenty-One Pilots, and Pink Floyd.
GT: Mine are probably Animals as Leaders and Ben Folds.
ZS: I’ve been a big Muse fan for a long time, and I’m also very fond of Gallows, which is a hardcore punk band. Also, lots of post-punk like Interpol…
AC: We all like Interpol.
ZS: Yeah. What else…Kendrick, and classical music. Out-there, experimental 20th century composers such as Gloria Coates and Bela Bartok.
AC: I like post-punk stuff like Pavement, Deerhunter…spiritualized, psychedelic stuff.
HC NYU: Awesome. So where does your band name come from?
CL: I first texted this name to Greg as a joke, with other band names. We had a bunch of ideas on the table. I was listening to this band called Godspeed You! Black Emperor which has an exclamation point in it. I was just thinking of funny names and Comrades Revolt came to mind.
GT: I didn’t even know it was a joke, really. I just said, yeah, okay.
CL: And we threw an exclamation point at the end.
GT: Then we thought, hey, it’s kind of cool.
MG: What were band names that didn’t make the cut?
CL: Elephantine.
GT: Because that was taken.
CL: Greg’s an Alien.
HC NYU: Why was that shot down?
CL: I don’t know!
MG: Yeah, that was perfect.
ZS: [with a Spanish accent] Comrades Viva La Revolution.
MG: That’s when we go Spanish.
CL: When we do our Cuban tour.
HC NYU: Of course. You have to appeal to more groups. So I know all of your names, but you seem to have aliases. What’s the background around those?
MG: Those are joke names.
CL: That’s DJ Honeycomb [at Miles], and that’s all you need to know.
MG: For no reason.
CL: No, there’s definitely a reason!
HC NYU: What’s the story behind DJ Honeycomb?
MG: Well, one of my friends makes synth pads in the shapes of hexagons. It has buttons on it that make it look like a honeycomb.
CL: He was telling us that eventually, it might be called a Honeycomb Beatmaker. So, we were like, oh my god. DJ Honeycomb. Someday there will be a great ad for that.
MG: I don’t DJ at all, though.
CL: And he’s never worked with bees.
HC NYU: So, just to clarify, you’re not a DJ and not a beekeeper…then what does each of you do in the band?
MG: I play the keyboard, write some songs and sometimes sing.
AC: Wreak havoc…and I write, sing, play guitar.
GT: I play drums, and hopefully will do some backup singing.
CL: I’m a lead singer, and so is Alex. I also write songs.
ZS: I play the guitar.
MG: We usually write independently.
HC NYU: Who is singing in Teenage Mentality?
CL: That’s me. I also wrote it. I wrote this song around this time last year. It was really about me, growing up and getting out of your average high school life. One of my really good friends last year was struggling with depression and one of his friends committed suicide. There are a lot of references to that in the song. The whole time I was trying to be the mature one in my friendships. So I put myself in the viewpoint of that person, where I would…and this is something I’ve been doing a lot more when I write, where I’ll put myself in the point of view of that narrator. This is a guy who is struggling with lots of depression, and he’s trying to work through it. At the end, the lines go, “I’ll jump down, I’ll jump hard, I’ll crash into the nearest car I see.” Those lines are talking about suicide. The last line goes, “And this is me, trying to be more mature.” He’s thinking about the mature route to go down.
HC NYU: You wrote all the lyrics for that song?
CL: Yes.
GT: Musically, we all put our own blend into it, but he wrote the song. Chords, riffs, lyrics…
MG: Usually we write individually.
CL: But Alex and I have started writing together.
AC: And I’ll show Carter the things that I have been working on.
CL: We’ve gone back and forth like that. The past couple of weeks I’ve gone into Miles’ room and said, hey, I’ve been working on this.
MG: Which reminds me, I have a few songs to show you.
HC NYU: So it’s a more collaborative process now?
GT: The more time goes on, the more we are working in the song-writing process together.
You guys have been moving very quickly. You started in October, right? And you’ve already played at Webster Hall.
MG: Studio, hah. Webster Hall Studio.
HC NYU: That’s still very impressive. What was the process of getting in there?
GT: My friend’s band from home has been touring the country this past summer and they’ve been getting a good name for themselves. So they were headlining at Webster Hall…Studio. I was talking to the guitarist and I said, I don’t know if you guys are looking for opening bands but I’ve got this group. He said, all right, show me the music, I’ll show it to my booking agent. They passed it on, and liked it, so they passed it to Webster. Webster liked our music, and so that’s how it happened. We played and we ended up selling the most tickets. We brought the biggest crowd, so that was a great feeling.
HC NYU: Was that your first show?
GT: That was our first show, outside of Brittany Hall. Webster Hall Studio was our first real show.
HC NYU: What are you hoping to do in the future as a band?
CL: Play more shows.
GT: Release an album.
MG: We’re going to release an album soon. We have a lot of songs, but we just haven’t recorded them.
HC NYU: You guys are so productive. Have you been to shows around here? What are your favorite venues?
AC: I’m from here, so I’ve gone to a lot of shows in the city. Bowery Ballroom is awesome.
Is that your ideal place to play?
AC: That would be awesome. Also the main stage in Webster Hall. Music Hall of Williamsburg. But at this point, anywhere we can.
ZS: We’re playing the Cake Shop in the near future.
HC NYU: I’ve definitely got to keep an eye out for that. So since you all have the same major, do you have a lot of time together to work on band stuff?
GT: Yeah, we all hang out. Music Tech has to take 9 classes per semester, so finding time for band stuff is difficult sometimes, with the workload, but we do it.
MG: We also have our own lives.
GT: We have different friends—
AC: Sometimes…we hang out a lot.
MG: But we’ll do different things, like watch the first two Lord of the Rings all the way through.
CL: Extended cut.
MG: Eight straight hours. It was brutal. We watched it with a large group, though.
AC: That’s one cool thing about NYU. A bunch of our friends are helping us out. Our friends Sebastian and James have taken photos for us.
GT: Yeah, there’s so many resources available to us, all the time. Everyone’s doing it for their portfolios. They want to try new photography styles and we end up with great photos. So everyone wins. Everyone’s willing to collaborate, it’s great.
Check out Comrades Revolt’s music and follow them on social media to keep up with their future performances!