Sometimes, trying to get a band/artist nailed down for an interview can be akin to pulling teeth. It can literally involve weeks or even months of myspace messaging and playing “e-mail tag” just to get a few basic questions answered. Luckily, this was not the case with Alabama-based ambient/electronic/spoken-word duo Matt Finney and Randy Yerkes, aka Finneyerkes. After receiving an e-mail from Matt, I was pleasantly surprised to check out Finneyerkes’ music and discover a sort of dark, dreamy, narcotic beat poetry, like Lustmord collaborating with the late William S. Burroughs in a smokey dive bar. Finding that the twosome were more than eager to answer my queries, the following interrogation was conducted via e-mail.
Sonic Frontiers: For those who might not be familiar, tell our readers a little bit about how you two met and formed Finneyerkes.
Finneyerkes: we met in high school in an environmental science class. we sat next to each other and bonded over our love for growing absurd facial hair, modest mouse, and the electric six. our friendship was cemented after matt when to to randy and his brothers band, Franklin and the Neato’s, first basement show. randy moved away shortly after that but we kept in touch for a while through AIM, email, and myspace. the formation of Finneyerkes came when randy was recording his first Moosejaw album Glada. it was mostly him doing ambient/electronica with samples thrown in. matt approached randy with the idea of recording some of his poems that he had been writing and using them as vocals for the songs. we stuck with the idea and here we are.
