This article originally appeared on Boston Band Crush ).
TAB the Band sat down with BBC for a few moments to answer a few questions about their past, their influences, and what they’re working on now:
Tell me about the band name, was there any inspiration from TaB the soda? Or totally unrelated?
The band name was not inspired by the diet drink, despite what folks may think. Tony and I had a very loosey-goosey project called “TnA” (yes, we are good when it comes to names). We wrote rap songs about colonial America. It was pretty great. But we decided to get going with some rock and Tony invited his friend Ben to lay down some drum tracks. So TnA added a B and, well….an incredibly literal band name was born. We added “the band” because we thought it had a nice ring to it. And to avoid confusion of course.
You guys have been around a while; how did you all meet and form the band?
I met Tony when he was born because he is my brother. Tony has been buddies with Lou since junior high and Ben since high school, so I got to know them both because they were part of his posse. Tony and I would mess around in the studio, and as I said, produce rap songs expounding on the greatness that was colonial America (“kickin’ it colonial”). Lou was a part of that scene. Ben and Tony had their own thing, playing in a pretty sweet-ass Rage Against the Machine cover band. When Tony and I were thinking about doing some rock, Ben was a natural choice for drums since they had played together a lot. We were trio for a while until it was time to tour with STP and BRMC in August ’08 and we decided we needed to get real and add some more firepower. Firepower in the form of Lou. Now we are four.
TAB has a big ’70s ROCK sound – what are some of your favorite bands that influence your style?
We all have many influences, so we’ll get down to brass tacks and name some of the ones that matter (it’ll still be too many). I love the Beatles, The Who, ’70s glam (T. Rex, Queen, Bowie, Slade), proto-punk (Cheap Trick, the Dolls, Television), Wilco, Malkmus, early Stones, Lou Reed/Velvet Underground, Oasis, Beck, Motown, P-funk, disco… Tony likes AC/DC, anything Jack White does, The Beach Boys, The XX, Vampire Weekend, The Sword, Curtis Mayfield, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Cool Kids, and Sly & the Family Stone. Lou likes The Zombies, The Kinks, The Black Keys, Of Montreal, and Pop Levi. Ben likes Led Zeppelin, Tower of Power, Queens of the Stone Age, (early) Green Day, and the Mars Volta.
You’re working on some new singles and a full-length album, what can we expect from this album?
This new record is very diverse and will showcase a lot of the band’s influences. We took the gloves off. It’s an album with a lot of variety, with songs ranging from tight, glammed-out power pop, to lonely road, down-and-dirty blues-rock, with even a few singalong acoustic campfire numbers to boot. It’ll be a fun listen I think, and show folks what we can do.
TAB the Band are playing The Middle East Downstairs on Friday, Oct. 16th with Art Brut and Princeton.