Photo by Rory Cronin
Written by Gemma Marshall
Earlier this year, we had the pleasure of meeting with Jonah Feintuck, frontman of New England experimental hardcore band Inconvenience Store. We got to talk a little bit about the old, the new, and what’s to come from them in the future!
Gemma Marshall: If you could start by introducing yourself and your position in the band, talking about the other members and Inconvenience Store as a whole.
Jonah Feintuck: I’m Jonah, I do vocals, I also write a little bit on guitar and I’ve also played guitar in the band for a little bit too. I also do the samples and noise electronics, [as well as] most of our art.
There’s our bassist Paul, he plays… bass, and he also plays a little bit of didgeridoo. [Paul] has also done some programming on our EPs. Then there’s our drummer, his name’s Will, but we call him Funnels, he also does a lot of programming and he produces a lot of our stuff.
To describe us as a band is really tricky, the way I view the band is that it’s endlessly mutating. It’s almost like the Otherworld from Silent Hill, like you put a bunch of people in a band together and each member's influence brings something different to the sound. we’re always reinventing ourselves over and over again. It’s experimental, noisy metalcore, hardcore… It's dark, heavy music that’s weird.
GM: I recently saw that you guys have been a band for 10 years as of a few months ago. Firstly, congratulations! What has this journey been like for you guys and what kind of growth and improvements have you made since forming back in 2012?
JF: We’ve done a lot of things that I didn’t think we’d [ever] do as a band. The growth is definitely [shown with] people knowing our name now and getting it out there more. This is definitely one of my bands that has gone somewhere.
One of the biggest achievements, for me at least, was when we opened for Drain back in 2019. Things like that really cement it for me, like “Wow, we’re really going somewhere with this.”
In the beginning, we were in high school. We just wanted to have fun and play for friends and family sometimes. [After a short hiatus,] in 2018 we played [the] festival Burning Cam.
We got a new lineup, we’ve had several lineup changes over the years, [we had] new songs, new merch, everything was new. So during 2018 was when I realized that we could make something substantial out of this. We realized we didn’t have to just play to our friends a couple of times a year but we could play multiple shows. That kind of journey just shows how much growth is involved.
GM: How do you feel about some of your earlier work a decade later?
JF: Our drummer and I don’t like our earlier pieces. We started our discography in 2016, the stuff from 2013 has pretty much been expunged from the internet completely.
We did a demo/EP of covers with an improv song in 2015 that I don’t even think I have anymore. 2016 was when we finally got in a studio, we recorded with Zach Weeks, who’s the Audio Engineer for World is a Beautiful Place. So yeah, that’s how we feel about the early stuff. (laughs)
GM: For those who may not have heard of the band, tell us a bit about the “experimental hardcore” music you make; Who are some of your influences as a band, and how does that reflect in the music you release?
JF: Definitely, like Code Orange, Converge, Glass Jaw, The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Residents, and The Body… I can’t forget The Body. I know our drummer isn’t too big into hardcore as much, I know he likes bands like Run the Jewels and Tame Impala, stuff like that.
Our bassist is big into grindcore and power balances and stuff. When it comes to our sound, it’s like a mixture of modern metalcore, hardcore with avant-garde influences, and found sounds and field recordings.
Also just straight-up harsh noise. I don’t want to play just hardcore that’s only breakdowns and mosh parts - I love mosh parts, but I feel like bands can add different layers of heaviness by incorporating different influences and elements to their music.
I guess metaphorically, you can paint with a full pallet but come out with the same things every time. There [are] a lot of different ways to be heavy, that’s how I feel.
GM: How has 2022 been for you guys so far? Any plans for live performances on the horizon?
JF: 2022 for us has been lowkey tricky because we’re trying to get back into practicing and writing again. During the pandemic, we came up with a couple of EPs, and they were pretty good like electronic/industrial EPs that we did mostly remote.
Now it’s really about getting back into a room and writing material in person to play live, which has been difficult. We all have jobs, some of us are in other bands, and our drummer does Twitch so there are little elements here and there that make being in a band pretty hard at times.
As far as live performances go, hopefully, we’ll play live soon, I’d like to. We haven’t played live since 2019, so we’re definitely just trying to get back into that. We don’t really know what the future holds but in the near future I really hope to play live again.
GM: Your most recent release was a single titled “Life Didn’t Have to Be This Way” put out back in 2021. What was the process behind those three songs? Do you plan on coming out with a full-length record at some point?
JF: That was something that branched off of our 2020 EP “If I Was a Morgue, No One Would Die”, which was also basically all remote. The process behind that is I wanted to take that previous sound and tweak it.
I wanted to do something different like making some of the songs longer, [with] no drums, and a lot more obscure samples. I basically did all my parts on FL Studio to put the whole thing together. There was a little bit of didgeridoo and our drummer sent me some beats that he came up with and I would manipulate them in FL Studio. There were also some demos from high school that I sampled and manipulated. So basically we just took a lot of the same influences but tweaked them all a little bit.
We definitely do want to do a full length at some point, that’s just a matter of the stars aligning. We had been writing and wanted to come out with a full length back in 2019 but it just didn’t end up working out, which was kind of a good thing.
I feel like at that point in the band, it wasn’t good. It feels like if we had come out with a full-length back then, we probably would’ve just broken up right after. We just wanna make sure it’s a really awesome full-length before we do it.
GM: Looking into the future, what is your vision for Inconvenience Store?
JF: I feel like this will only ever really end if we’re dead or if we run out of things to say or do. Our drummer and I formed this band and we’re the only original members left, we’ve had so many different people come in and out of the band.
I feel like [Will is] so important to me that it would be hard thinking about doing this without him. Going forward, whatever happens with lineups happens and I just want to keep doing this band with him, I love him to death, I love this band.
The vision is to just keep reinventing ourselves and keep finding new ways to be heavier, and darker, and just keep standing out. I want to be a band that really makes a mark. As for 2022, getting our social media out there, writing, maybe recording, and definitely going back to shows.
GM: Anything else you’d like to add before we wrap up?
JF: Just a shout out to Shortest Life, Trauma Kit, Ghost Fame, Kilohurtz Records from Philly, they put out “If I Was a Morgue” which was awesome.
Shout out to all the venues who have booked us. Shout out to Scalp the Pioneer, just a bunch of great hardcore bands from New England, there’s a lot. Definitely shout out Adrienne as well.
Their music is available to stream on all music services. Make sure you stay up to date by following Inconvenience Store on Twitter @ISBAND781!
Let us know who you want to. see us interview next by tweeting us @lgndsoftmrw!
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