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Far in the Maples
Regina Conroy & Reshy P. |
Turning the celebrated, swingin’ sound of the Jersey Shore inside out, “poetic pop” duo Far In The Maples is poised to cast a new seaside musical legacy built upon the nuances of internal emotion with unexpected soundscapes, unforgettable melodies and the sweetly understated vocals.
They recently released their album Skywork that showcases song-oriented music that’s both honest and contemporary with a classic timelessness, from an infectious new band driven by songbird Regina Conroy and multi-instrumentalist Reshy P.
Regina Conroy is here to tell us all about it, take it away Regina!
MS: Hey Regina nice to meet you, your musical style is so sophisticated. How did coming from the Jersey Shore influence it?
RC: Living at the Jersey Shore? I grew up around music all the time with my family. my Dad was a musician and so was my older brother. So when I was younger my Dad and my brother would play shows, or we would go to concerts, there was always stuff happening on the boardwalk, all these local shows that I would get to go to. I've loved to sing since I was five years old, anything that was playing in our kitchen when my Dad would turn on the radio...of course growing up on the Jersey Shore people are like: "Ohhhhh, you know Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi?" It's like, yes of course I've seen them both at stores and places like that. Maybe their music influenced me subconsciously, but I'm not a die hard fan because they live twenty minutes away from me. (laughs)
MS: To me your music, lyrically has a Bob Dylan vibe.
RC: My Mom is obsessed with Bob Dylan we always had his CD's in the car, I love him. Writing poetry is a passion of mine, I took a poetry class as an after school type thing. My poetry instructor told my Mom at the time: "Wow, she's really good for her age."
MS: How old were you?
RC: I was eight when I started writing poetry. As I got older I used my poetry as a means to write lyrics. When I was fifteen I got my first guitar so I started teaching myself and molding all of the scales together and started writing music.
MS: You really started from a young age.
RC: Definitely, I really did a lot of self teaching. I listened to all different types of music, would read the lyric books that came with all of the CD's. My influence was anything I could get my hands on. Some people go to school to learn to perform music or how to play it...for me it was just having it all around me all those years and picking up on all of the different influences.
MS: You and your band mate Reshy P. really know how to blend them well.
RC: It interesting, we both have different musical influences but we are able to find that balance of a little bit of mine, a little bit of his and make it into our own.
MS: The fact that you guys do pop music, yet are still artistic is great, a lot of people have lost a sense of that.
RC: I know, I know, it's hard to put a name on it, boil it down when people ask us: "Who do you think you guys sound like?" I don't know.There's lots of pop on the radio, but most of it is repetitive and one line. It's very dance kind of stuff, ours is a little more poetic. It's still pop, but there is a lot to be said and thought about in it.
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| Regina & Reshy |
MS: So do you always write the lyrics and Reshy always writes it to music?
RC: For the most part. We started writing together in November of 2013. Basically the first time that we met I brought everything I had as far as things that I was working on lyrically and musically, and some were just lyrics. So we kind of worked from some of my little pieces that I had worked on before meeting Reshy and brought them to music. Basically I bring the lyrics and we work on them together but mostly it's ninety percent my words.
MS: What inspires your poetry?
RC: To inspire myself I put myself in a different place. Go somewhere, tap into how I feel in the moment. Most of it has been putting myself outside my comfort zone for inspiration. Much of what I write about is relationships. But I think the focus of that is writing about the journey of finding yourself. It's very reflective and very personal.
MS: You guys took the band name Far in the Maples from a Robert Frost poem. What is it you like about his work?
RC: I really haven't read a ton of poetry myself. I just kind of read stuff here and there, or people will show me something, and I'll say: "Hey I really like this!" Reshy actually showed me that poem and it stuck with us. The visualization of far in the maples...it's a beautiful poem. I'm not particularly a Robert Frost fan, but I'm not, not a fan either. (laughs)
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