Your name:
Ashkan
Karimi.
Where are you
from?
We're all
originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma - I have been one to move around and I moved away but
eventually ended up back here, home.
Name of band:
Aftermidnight.
Who else is in
your band?
Ben Blount,
Austin Donoho and Patrick O'Meilia.
How would you
describe yourselves?
We all like to
have fun, and play music of course. On a more personal level, I kind of tend to
reflect and observe a lot what goes on around me...I'm a people watcher, but
then again I write most of the lyrics to our music - it all tends to come from
me observing what's going on around. I met Austin a while back and as we have
continued to get to know each other I've discovered between him and Ben that
they're the energy of the band...they know how to have fun and joke
around...It's good, it keeps things light, keeps me form getting too deep or
being serious all the time. Patrick is our newest member, he's a good friend of
us all that we have known for a while. We're both similar in the fact that
we're thinkers and kinda dig deeper than the surface level of things. He's a
super practical guy, good about keeping our focus on what the next step is
which is good cause we can get so caught up on the big picture we forget what's
next to get there...Outside of that..We all love to play music. It's something
that resonates with us, we all seem to get a healing or 'therapy' out of it, we
have a ton of fun at shows!
Who are your
main influences musically?
Our musical
influences are pretty wide. The four of us are all so different in our musical
upbringing but one thing we can all agree on is the classic, older music that
we all tend to have our roots in. Some of the older bands we like are Miles
Davis, John Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Police, U2....and then
kinda moving into the newer bands we're into Radiohead, Mutemath, Switchfoot,
Coldplay, Civil Twilight, The Rocketboys, Jeff Buckley, Kings Of Leon, and
lately been really digging some of the more electronic/rock bands like James
Blake, Walk The Moon, Alt-J, Boat Club, Metronomy...however that is always
changing.
What do you hope
to achieve in music?
I think it's all
somewhat different for the four of us personally, but we all agree that we want to
create great music that everyone likes to listen to. We all want to play big
shows, and make a career out of it. It's something that we all take seriously
as a profession while at the same time having fun with it too. We are really
about creating music that is relatable to the listener and music that could
even help listeners through hard and tough times. Times seem to get tougher
as life goes on and we all have to learn to grow above it, so if we can even
encourage people to hold on and push through whatever it is their dealing with
we would consider that a success.
Personally I'm
big into also getting people a cause to help people in poverty stricken areas
around the world, and providing ways out of the mess they're in. My family is
from Iran and seeing the limited amount of rights both women and
the men have there while I'm here in America living 'the life'
really pushes me to give back and currently have been working on different
solutions to help aid them...as unpopular as that may
be for an American to do since the majority of culture in America is kinda
against Iran...I just think if I have a level of freedom that I could use to
help others who have very limited freedoms than it should be used.
What has been
the highlight of your career so far, and why?
I would say the
more recent shows we have played. We had the opportunity over the past year to
play two different shows where we were able to open for some major musical
influences, both Civil Twilight and The Rocketboys! It was a lot of fun both
playing before them and getting to chat with them afterwards, and pretty
awesome to see some dreams come true. We recently got to represent our city by
playing Tulsa's first annual Center Of The Universe Festival which was pretty
epic and we're looking forward to playing it again in the future!
And what’s the moment
you want to forget?
As a whole we
would all have to say every awkward moment we have had on stage in-between
songs due to having to tune my guitar. I was playing a guitar for a while that
just wouldn't hold a tune and was constantly having to tune up after each
song...kinda ridiculous.
If you had to
choose just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and
why?
So hard to say
but one song that kind of set us on a course towards the sound we're producing
sonically right now would have to be our songCurrents. Since then we
have written music that is different but that song in particular seems to
resonate with us all...it's kinda of like coming home. Another song we would
probably say would be our song Scales which is more of a
straight forward rock song.
Where can we
listen to it?
You can listen
to both of them on soundcloud : https://soundcloud.com/aftermidnightam
Where can we
find out more about your music?
As far as us and
our music goes you can find more info on our website, facebook, twitter and
iTunes! Also if you signup for our e-news you can get a free download of one of
our tracks you can do so right here -> http://bit.ly/10ro685
official site: http://weareaftermidnight.com
facebook: http://facebook.com/aftermidnightam
twitter: http://twitter.com/aftermidnightam
Anything else
you’d like to say that I forgot to ask?
Thanks for
taking the time to talk to us. Also be on the lookout for new songs! We're
currently working in the studio on our newest music and we're stoked about it.
It's something we've been looking forward to doing for awhile and now that
we're working on it we're already getting excited about what is coming out of
our time in the studio! Be on the lookout and be sure to connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.
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