The Stranded Q&A: Keep Me Conscious

Formerly known as Cherry S/T, now going by Keep Me Conscious, this Boston-based bandis a collective of 5 musicians that have all teetered on the line of commercial success and complete failure in some way or another. With a distinct brand of modern rock, soaring guitar riffs, chest-stomping bass and crushing drum work, Keep Me Conscious is on a mission, to create music that they love and believe in (Hopefully you will too). You can check them out at www.myspace.com/keepmeconscious.

1. Hailing from Boston makes us better than all those non-Boston bands because:

"Boston has a DIY, bust-your-ass-if-you-want-it-bad-enough mentality, but is also very down to earth. We are motivated and work hard, but are level headed, and 110% appreciative of everyone that supports us. We really try to be cool with our fans on a person to person level, not a band member to fan level..."

2. Name at least three bands that are still around and touring that you'd love to be on a bill with, and think it fits well:

"Lost Prophets, Story of The Year, 30 Seconds to Mars, Kill Hannah, and Deftones. We wouldn't fit on Deftones, but that would be a dream come true to share a stage with them."

3. Your favorite Boston Venue to perform in is:

"Harper's Ferry and Bill's Bar (R.I.P.)."

4. Are there any genres that influence your music conceptually, rather than sonically? (In that you can't hear from simply listening to the music, but from getting into the structure or mathematics of the song writing, etc).

"Yea, pretty much any genre that's well written. Finding influence from artists other than ones that you sound similar to is huge. It's about finding ideas from non-obvious places and applying them to your sound, your style. For me personally, stuff like Mutemath, Radiohead, the Police, Massive Attack, Royksopp, tons of others. Stuff that's not necessarily the same style as ours but can aid in sparking fresh ideas in our song writing."

5. Your favorite local bar to hit up when not doing the whole band deal is:

"Big City in Allston, hands down."

If you want to check out Keep Me Conscious live, you can catch them, at what is going to be a rockin' CD release show, at the Middle East on April 25th.

Here's a sample of what's to come from these guys:
Download: "Nightmares in 3D" [mp3]