To celebrate the coming of the first ever Lost City Music Festival, we decided it might be nice to sit down with some of the performers playing at the festival. Today, we got the chance to speak with Ben Gucciardi of Milwaukee band Sat. Nite Duets. Catch Sat. Nite Duets Saturday, July 7th @ the Rigby.
MAM (Corey Murphy): Sat. Nite Duets is often compared to 90’s grunge pop bands like Pavement. Would you say Pavement is an influence? What other bands do you guys like to listen to or cite as inspiration?
SND (Ben Gucciardi): Pavement is an influence but so is Jimmy Buffet. Lately we’ve been listening to a lot of Ty Segall. Also there’s this LA band called Peter Pants that I like a lot. They seem a lot like us, but girls.
MAM: You guys seem to be picking up some buzz both regionally and nationally. What contributes to that? How do you reach distant crowds?
SND: I don’t know. The internet is obviously big. We try really hard to network and promote our brand. Just kidding.
MAM: You’ve recently released a full length. How has it been received?
SND: Pretty well. I think the people who would like it did. We’re still waiting to hear from the majors, though. Also just kidding.
MAM: What is your favorite Sat. Nite tune to play live? Which one are you most proud of?
SND: I like “Way Behind My Age Group,” because I get to shred. Steve also has a new song called “The Last Summer,” where I also get to shred. Basically, any song where I get to shred.
MAM: I’ve only seen the name Sat. Nite Duets with the abbreviated version of Saturday. Is this the official title? Any particular reason? Why did you chose the name?
SND: Sat. Nite Duets is the official title. It’s an anagram for United States. We chose the name because our original choice, “Suburban Legends,” is already a moderately successful ska band. The internet anagram server is a great resource for people looking for original, unpredictable band names. For example, “Deaf Soda Nuns” was another option.
MAM: It seems that everyone in the group is a singer at some point in the set. People tend to fall in to different camps when it comes to multiple singers-some like the variety and others feel that it makes it difficult to identify with the band. What complications have you run into?
SND: We like the decentralization, and I think the people who like us like it too. It’s how we’ve always worked. The only complications come when we forget to tell sound guys that there are three lead singers and they turn mics off and leave to smoke.
MAM: Who does most of the song writing? Is it a group effort?
SND: Group effort. Egalitarian. Everyone’s a front-man.
MAM: What is your favorite snack food?
SND: We’ve been hitting the seeds (sunflower seeds) pretty hard this tour. We recently made a combo bag of ranch and BBQ flavors. Other than that, I quit smoking, so I’ve been eating a lot of nicotine gum.
Mine All Mine Records 