Darnestown Rd

That's the worst part, man. You made him egged, bro. He's gonna make us try it no longer. He's eating that seabird side of shit. He's gonna start levitating down to the fucking drum set. But I guess to kick this off, you guys are Cooney, but names, you know, positions, which instruments y'all play. If you wanna go first. My name's Franklin, and I play the bass guitar. Play the bass guitar? That's fucking... Oh, actually, I've heard you play. I've heard all y'all play before. That's fucking sick. Your name is? My name's Aaron. I'm the lead guitarist in the band. Aaron Millicent, if you want my full government name. Social Security number as well, if you wanna throw that in there. Oh, look who decides to show up. I'll watch the shit. Just say that you play drums or something. Say you hit things. All right, now, don't boss me around. If you would like to say you wanna hit things, go ahead. I'll be sitting right here, all right? I don't know. Your name is, man? I'm Jared, point guard. Nice jump shot. Straight shooter. Uh-huh. I sing and play guitar. Fucking sick. How long have y'all been together? That's a loaded question. That's a loaded question? How long has the band Cooney been around? As a band, two and a half years, maybe. Gotcha, gotcha. And then I remember reading y'all are on the whole emo scene and all that. What, you know, besides the regular emotional shit, what made you really dive into that genre for you guys? I was just really sad. Yeah, I get that. And angry. I couldn't stop writing riffs. Shit, I mean, that's creativity right there, though, man. For me, I've been in a lot of weird online music circles that introduced me to a lot of shit. I don't know if you remember the app iFight. Oh, hell yeah, bro. I was on music circles there. I'm not gonna go into it, but it's a bunch of weirdos in them niche music communities. I discovered a lot of bands like At The Drive-In, Tall Troy, more relevant, Sunny Day Real Estate, just like everything that led me to where I am today. I just started playing like I'm a grown ass. Yeah, that shit, yeah. We bonded over that a lot. I mean, me and Jared, we've been playing in school bands and jazz bands and everything, but it really took off when me and him started gigging in September 2021. And we only just got the full band in 2022, the start of that year. And since then, we've had a four-piece. And we added on our drummer, Lucas, around the middle of 2022. It was around May. Gotcha. And so since then, it's just been us four, and it's been solid since then. Sick, man. I mean, awesome. That makes it like a full two years. Yeah, a full two years. Good 700 and something days. Yeah. Fucking sick shit. It's been a lot. It's been quite the journey. To kind of expand on them, before it became full band, I saw them at Pi Shop back... Was it like September of 2021? That was like gig three or four. Yeah. Like my friend, our mutual friend, Brent, he went to high school with them. And he just hit me up one night. He was like, yo, this dude I went to high school with, he's playing a show. He sent me his music. He didn't, of course, turn out to be Jared. But, yeah, no. Would have guessed. Yeah. If I had said no to that show, no to going to that show, my life would be very different now. DIY has taken me places I would not go with a gun. If you want, you can put that in the manuscript. As long as I got your permission, man. Yeah. So I've listened to a couple of y'all's songs. Tim Pines is honestly one of my favorites. I also love the fucking feel between you guys on Spotify versus you guys live. Where you go from very... If you're listening to it on Spotify, it's much more emotional, like... What am I trying to say here? It's a lot more, not subtle emotional, but it's a lot more sad than it is rage. Yeah. I mean, that's obviously intentional. So what makes you bring, I guess, the rage to the live action set versus your recorded songs, which are usually a lot more, I guess, sad? Less angry sad, just more depressed sad. So, I'd say... Well, there's only one song on Spotify with all of us. Which is already pretty angry compared to the EP that I put out by myself during COVID. And that was kind of just like... I was kind of isolated or whatever because of quarantine. And I decided I had all these songs and I always wanted to put something out on Spotify. And then I kind of finished it in the early end of the pandemic. So I had kind of no one telling me what else to do. So I decided that I wanted to be like a New Order cover band. Yeah. But then I went outside and people were like, this is cool, but what if it was angry? And literally like... So shortly after that show, I've been following him for a little bit. I sent him to his DMs about something completely unrelated. And he asked me, yo, you know any drummers? I was like, fuck yeah, I know drummers. He was another guitarist. And he was like, do you know how to tap? Do you know how to do alternate tuning? And I was like, fuck yeah, put me in the band. And he put me in the band. I think going to a full band has made things very different in terms of how I play. I don't know. Lucas likes to play very technically. So it makes me want to do stuff that's a little more... I don't know. I drum funnier now. I strum funnier now. I sing funnier now. I just... We have a part where we kind of just rip off Dead Peasants and get angry. But yeah, I think just one voice and one head on the dragon kind of like... You can do like a Kim Pine and stuff like that. But then when you have like four, it's a lot different. You can add a lot more variability into it. At first I was kind of apprehensive of it. Mostly just because like, oh, I wrote this song. I'm very precious with it. But I think letting other people take it and kind of do what they want was very productive. Yeah, you're also in a sense like letting your baby be shared basically. You're letting that egg hatch to everyone else. I mean, I assume it's not an easy thing to do. Kind of letting go of your pride and joy in a sense. I mean, the song's got like three stepdads now basically. We're the guys that stepped up. You're there, man. I don't know. I think... It's just the way that the music translates. Now we're having a full band. It's just how each of us have different playing styles and how it comes out when we're practicing. And then when we're in the live set, how it actually sounds and comes out from each of our different playing styles. Like you said, he let us mess around and add a little complexity here and there in the songs and stuff. So it sounded great. We all have very different but similar tastes in music. We all bring our influences to the forefront, I guess. And somehow it all works. Somehow it works together. That's the best part of it, though. And then I remember you mentioned the pandemic. Everyone's always got to ask this question because that's just the way the world is now. But did that play any part in getting you guys together and getting you guys further into your music careers? Frank has always been my bassist since, I don't know, 4th grade. All the way back. We'd go to his college dorm and stuff and see what he has cooking up. He had his piano, he had his guitar and everything. And I'd see the inception of World War II to come and everything. We'd have little demos that he'd show us and everything. He had a Scooby-Doo cover and stuff like that. Still has that. Especially that shit goes hard. Yeah, exactly. Just humble beginnings. And then after the pandemic, or during the pandemic time, when it really started to kick off and everything. And him especially being part of the radio show at the University of Maryland. UMD helped. Very important to Cooney's formation. I was at the radio station when I was in college. And you get to see a lot of live bands do their sets at the radio station. And I kind of just watched a bunch of them. And I was like, I want to do that. One of the first ones I saw was String Silver that played at UMD. And I was like, this is exactly what I want to do. And I did it. I think in terms of what the pandemic has done to kind of make the music career thing happen. I don't know if it really adds to the career or whatever. But because after the pandemic, a lot of people were kind of scrambling to do gigs again. That's kind of a good time for us to start doing stuff. Because I feel like there was a soft reset in the scene after the pandemic. Yeah, I guess you would get some windows of opportunity type shit. Yeah. We're coming in during a boom. I mean, it's waned a little bit since then. But we're still very much in a boom period for bands across the board. Yeah. Once kind of shows started happening again, a lot more people want to start forming bands. And a lot of people obviously made music in the pandemic. They want a place to do and perform it. And I think it was just a matter of time before it kind of popped. And I guess we're lucky that it popped with it. I mean, shit, that's usually how it goes, though. Everyone always thinks it's luck. But honestly, it's just working and working until it works out. And you guys got there at the perfect moment, which is awesome. I mean, it's luck in the sense that it's like knowing when it's the right time to do something. And I guess, I don't know if you knew going in, but it's just like taking that leap of faith. Like, all right, I'm going to go out. I'm going to perform music. I'm going to write music. Da-da-da-da. Me and Frank had no idea there was even a scene until we started playing shows. Oh, yeah. Oh, shit. We had no idea going into this, like all the DC venues that we like now play a lot of times now. It's like, wow. We were there the proper day, yeah. Exactly. When were they? When we were in college and shit. Like, what the heck? Yeah, like I've been tangentially aware of stuff. Like, I've had, I guess, friends or acquaintances who have been involved with the hardcore scene and shit like that before, but I've always been a bit too scared to get involved with it. But like, finding this band, getting into it, it's given me a lot. It's given me an aim, and it's given me a lot more confidence to be an active part of the scene. Mm-hmm. Girls' House just gave the shit out there. Yeah. It's like, so many good situations. Yeah. Mm-hmm. How much, when would that go out? At what point do you get over that edge of just like, this is too fucking much? This is, I have no energy left. We are constantly pushing that. We're like, okay. I mean, we all go through different stages of burnout. Yeah. It's just like, it's a roller coaster, you know? You never know when you'll get there, but it happens, unfortunately. Mm-hmm. I think just when it's, oh, we got like this many things, and then it gets in your head that like, oh, we're playing too much. Oh, yeah, you start thinking about it too much. Yeah, and especially because, like, radiuses and everything, which, blessing and a curse, I think. Yeah. Radius clauses, but you kind of just have to learn to know how to enjoy things, and then no moderation, because you don't want to overextend yourself, and then it's like, okay, great. Yeah. I've played all this time, and it is just like, I get tired. Yeah, no, there have been, when we were like really in our let's get every fucking week era, we had some months where we were like playing five shows in a month, sometimes three shows in a week. Mm-hmm. Holy. Which, I mean, I don't know. For like a touring band, yeah, I guess. Yeah. Kind of. But it was all in D.C. Yeah, imagine like going on tour in your own state, tour city. Driving 30 minutes every fucking day type shit. Yeah. But we were on that at one point. That was like a big thing. Would you say that, like, I guess social, this plays into it, but like social life now versus then, are you guys able to have more of a social life now, and like how does it play into the whole shit? I think I definitely have a more active social life now that I'm involved with music, because I've met so many friends and people I'm close with through music. One thing led to another. For sure, I'd say. So, like, you know, all these people, like, you know, that we also weren't aware of are also here. Yeah. Everyone's suffering at the same rate type shit. Yeah, exactly. So, like, we found, like, people that are also interested in the same music, same, like, bands and stuff, and, like, you know, all that kind of, like, meshed together. And, like, now we have the, you know, Cooney, like, groupies now, you know. Following you everywhere. Don't quote us on that. Don't quote us on that. We more charitably like to call it the Cooney extended universe. Extended universe, there we go. Yeah, we're just like, oh, we have, it's like, oh, you want to help us, like, blow stuff up? That's cool. You're such a great band. You know, I think that the people that have been around with us a lot because of, like, going to shows and everything have become, like, very close friends, and, like, they're, like, I mean, you started a band and, like. Yeah. You get to just, like, kind of. I've joined bands and then summarily left them. But, like. And then joined another band and that one actually worked out. I think it's just getting to know a lot of people and it's like making friends in, like, school again. Yeah. Where you try to, you know, hang around and the people you stick around end up being very important. In a kind of productive way, I'm like, is this what it was like to be popular in high school? I don't think. We're still getting put on lockers, I think. Oh, it's good music now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I don't know. I think we've all kind of, like, blossomed from doing stuff and kind of being a part of a greater scene and everything. Like, I don't know. Yeah, no, that makes sense. I guess one of my last few music-related questions would be, this is just for people who haven't listened to you guys before. If you had to recommend songs to dive into Daikuni discography, where should they start? Album-wise, song-wise, however you want to answer it. Listen to Didymus, like, six times. Six times in a row, just back to back to back to back. I feel like... Wait for our new music. Yeah, which, I don't know. We're trying to put out a single in June. Yeah, that should be sick. Music video in the works. Awesome, man, yeah. Yeah, I think it depends. I think a lot more representative of... Obviously, Didymus is, like, the one that's, like, it's a full band type thing. But the energy of kind of, like, I don't know. There was a song before that called Ashes that was kind of the halfway point between me doing, like, softer solo stuff and me doing angrier stuff. I think my favorite non... I guess when Kool-Aid was a solo project song, it would probably be Rings, because that was the song I... It has a crazy-ass tapping part in the beginning, and when I saw them play it, I was like, okay. Yeah, no. These are my people. Yeah, so I think, like, Didymus Ashes, Rings are pretty good. Kip Fine is cool if you want, like, a poppier one. Yeah. And it's very, like, kidsy and authentic, too. It also has a pretty cool tapping riff, so yeah. And then I guess that's where we're at right now. Yeah, I guess the last question would be... Grace told me to ask this. It's a gambling-related question, actually. Oh, my God. So I guess one of them is mine, which is how much would you gamble, and on what game would you risk all that gambling on? I don't know shit about gambling. You don't need to know shit about gambling. I just thought it was awesome. Roulette? How far would you go in letting... in risking things in roulette, though? Like, what's the... I'm going in 100. If I make those 100 back, I'm out of it. Double or nothing, I like it, I like it. I know we had, like, a big conversation about it the last time we were here. I may or may not have done that. It paid off, though? It paid off? Yeah, it paid off. Like, I don't know. I think the skee-ball count? Probably, I mean, it's all gambling. I'd put a couple of bands in skee-ball. And by bands, I mean, like, 20 bucks. I think, yeah, something cute like that. I don't know if I can do slots. Your lady gambling shit? I also don't know how to play poker. Mahjong, my family goes crazy, but not me. I didn't learn it. They ask you to play just so they can win something off of you. Or just, like, they want to interact with their family. People don't do that, man. Like, if I could use mahjong as a way to circle back to my roots, which is just Filipinos who like playing mahjong, then, yeah, sure. I'd throw in a couple of bands. Lucas, would you gamble anything? Yeah. I'd probably put all my money on craps. On craps? That's an original, man. You can't go wrong with that. Bullshit. Bullshit, guys. Thank you so much for...