Finch Interview

An Interview with Nate Barcalow of FINCH

- by Nikki Neil

“I can’t tour without clean, brand new socks,” says Nate Barcalow, vocalist for Finch. Most people would think Nate is joking, but he’s actually serious. He also means it when he states that his next goal is to be a guest on Conan O’Brien. “I know it kind of sounds ridiculous, but I’d like to be on Conan one day. I’m an avid Conan watcher.”

Formed in the late 90’s, Finch’s music resonates with years of finely tuned development and maturity. But it wasn’t until guitarist Randy Strohmeyer joined the fold that the inventive outfit comprised of Nate, Randy, Alex Linares (guitar), Derek Doherty (bass), and Alex Pappas (drums) unknowingly discovered their own distinct musical voice. “We all like a lot of different stuff, but we all like a lot of the same stuff at the same time,” Nate points out. “We factor all different styles of music into what we play.”

Finch hails from a little town in California called Temecula, basically referred to B.F.E. by us L.A. folk. There is not much to do out there (except maybe watch re-runs of Conan) and, according to Nate, the town’s music scene is basically non-existent. “There are no venues to play at. That area just can’t handle shows. It’s really not that kind of town. We played a couple of shows, but they never went over well and were usually stopped by the police.”

Generating a label contract was a matter of circumstance for the energetic bunch. When Randy was about thirteen-years-old he wrote a fan letter to the folks at Drive-Thru records. He stayed in touch with the label’s owners, Richard & Stefanie Reines, and when Finch had everything in place he invited the brother and sister team to one of the band’s rehearsals. Richard and Stefanie immediately realized that Finch was a band with big rock ideas and they signed the group on the spot.

Confident in their versatility, Finch effortlessly takes on variety of musical genres on their full-length debut, What It Is To Burn. The album touches upon punk, emo, metal, noise, and hardcore, yet the quintet never wears a particular style for long. For Nate, the most exciting part of making the record was having the opportunity to share the microphone with one of his heroes - Daryl Palumbo of Glassjaw. “Glassjaw is one of my favorite bands,” he gushes. “It was a dream come true to have [Daryl] on the album. I still can’t believe he is on the record.”

For more information, check out their website at finch.com

Photo compliments of finch.com