We’re back with a new Music Interview Marathon and we start with American pop-punk band exPorter. They share how the pop-punk bands of the 2000s inspired their music and their ultimate dream is to be signed by a record label.
Band Name: exPorter
Members: Alec Cavazos (Guitar, Vocals), Destin Cavazos (Bass, Vocals) & Henry Kish (Drums)
Genre: Pop-Punk, Emo, Alt
Founded: October 2019
Originated From: Santa Barbara, California, USA
Discography: Hidden City Sessions (Demos recorded under “Porter” name, 2017), Nightmare (Single, 2019), Bored (EP, 2019), Carisck “19” (Single, 2020) & NoBrakesNoBrakesNoBrakes (Album, 2022)
How would you describe your music?
exPorter is straight-up 90s pop-punk meets emo meets alt-rock – a couple of brothers and their friend ready for the Warp tour to come back. Alec and Destin grew up going to Warped Tour every summer, and Dewstin thinks that influence is really clear on a lot of our music; that sort of rough-edged radio rock is really the core of our sound.
We have songs with some pretty good melodies, semi-clever lyrics that maybe aren’t too clever and guitars, bass and drums with just enough angst to keep people pissed off.
What is your musical creative process like?
For almost all of our songs, the process has been Destin and Alec writing something, usually out on our own and then together we work them out. Sometimes it’s just parts or an idea, maybe it’s close to a whole song and then we play them for each other.
We might add tweaks to each other’s ideas and we end up with a song we like. When it’s close to something we really like we’ll track it on a computer and then send it over to Henry so he can start thinking out drum parts.
We share more ideas on it, maybe tweak it and then we rehearse it and take it into the studio. I don’t know if it’s a set formula but I think it’s pretty close. Lots of collaborating, which I think helps make our songs a bit more accessible maybe.
How did the band form?
Well all of us have been playing music for a bit, since we were kids. Being brothers, Alec and Destin would practice all the time together and we really liked jamming. Destin was in a couple of bands and Alec did this band camp one year with one of our friends playing the drums, so pretty soon we figured out that we had the makings of a band. Our original drummer was our dear friend and pseudo-cousin Jessica Lord and we were called adj. (pronounced adjective) using our initials.
When Jess left to focus on getting into college, Alec and Destin still wanted to be in a band. We brought in another drummer (Owen Dawson) but he also left for school. We had this show booked and no drummer and Alec remembered this kid he played baseball with played drums. That was Mr. Henry Kish and it’s been that lineup ever since.
Henry’s first show with us was his first time playing in front of people, which is pretty rock and roll right there. He was great with like a week to learn songs. Classic.
How did you come up with your band name?
So we were adj. with Jess but when she left and Owen joined the initial thing didn’t really work out so we had to find a new name. We started calling ourselves “Porter” after The Smiths’ first producer and it was the name of this college Destin got kicked out of. Porter was cool and we started to build a brand around that name.
But when Henry came on board and we decided we wanted to record and release stuff we found out there was another band already called Porter out of Mexico. They were actually touring with Morrissey (obviously of the Smiths), which we always found ironic.
Anyway, we’re huge fans of Blink-182 and knew the legal hassles they went through with their name so we decided to change ours before we got sued. We had a couple we messed around with but we really liked Porter and the stuff we created around that brand so we went with “exPorter”. Technically, we all were “ex” members of this band called Porter so it worked.
Who influenced you within the music industry?
Oh wow, there are way too many bands to list here. Growing up in south California there were a ton of bands we listened to. We listened to a lot of KROQ and KJEE, which are these two awesome alt-rock stations in California and there are just so many great bands on there that we know had to influence us.
But as a pop-punk band, I think more than anything our sound is inspired by 90s, early 2000s pop-punk for sure. Bands like Blink-182 and New Found Glory, earlier Green Day, those guys were huge influences on us.
We also listened to a lot of other 80s and 90s stuff too – The Smiths, Smoking Popes, the Cure and Crowded House.
And from the 00s, we love Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, Jimmy Eat World – all those eyeliner-type rock stars with sensitive souls.
Also Riot Girl era and female-led rock bands like Garbage, No Doubt, Blondie etc to more recent ones like Charly Bliss, Snail Mail and Cherry Glazerr.
Plus, we love The Who, Tumstile, Fleet Foxes and Tom DeLonge.
See? It’s a lot of bands! And there are probably more to come but we are always soaking in stuff from bands we hear, which helps give us songs with some added depth.
Have you performed live much and what was your favourite gig to play at?
We love playing live and will get out to play for just about anyone that will have us. It’s just so cool to be on stage performing and then having people come up after the show and tell us they liked a song or two. It’s pretty surreal and humbling.
As far as a favourite gig, any show where the people are having a good time is a great show. But if we had to pick one so far it would probably be a show from our last tour. We’re just starting out so it was really cool to play a spot like The Casbah (San Diego) or Strummers (Fresno) where it has had some great bands that have played those stages.
Also, the shows we did at the Milk Bar (San Francisco) have been great. It’s actually been the last venue on our last couple of tours and the crowd has been great and our sets were good, great energy.
After our last show there, someone came up and told us we reminded him of early Green Day when they were first coming up in the bay area….too cool to hear something like that.
Another show that stands out was last year’s Halloween haunt where we had to play three hours. As this band we’d played live once with Henry, rehearsed a couple of times and now we only have to come up with three hours??? But we did it. We did three sets and repeated some songs but we still think of that as one of our most awesome shows. For the last set, we had these painter suits and Henry was totally into wearing them. That’s when we knew that this was the band. In the end, all these people kept asking for more, and we were like, “Uh, we just played three hours and had to re-use songs”, we didn’t have anything more, but it felt like real rock and roll.
We also got asked to open for Hinds. They’re a great band and we were stoked to be opening for them. Henry was out of state so we had to fly him back for the show. There was another band on the bill called Hearty Har, which had John Fogerty’s son in the audience. It was pretty cool to be playing in front of a legend and with these great bands and we had an awesome set to boot. All of the bands had great sets and all of them were so cool to us the whole time. A highlight for sure.
What is the best thing about being in a band?
Just being able to play music for people. If they’re listening and having a good time then we are doing our job right. Writing songs and recording is awesome too.
What’s the biggest problem you’ve had to overcome so far as a musician(s)?
The hardest part is just getting people to notice us and to find out about our band. We were told early on that this is a business and we get that and will do the work, but it’s hard getting out there. Since we’ve been in this band we’ve dealt with school and jobs and we have done a good job of making that work, but it’s tough to get folks to notice us. We know a lot of that’s on us and we’re trying but there are a ton of bands out there.
It’s also tough with the way streaming and online music works. It’s great to be able to get our songs on Spotify but then think about how many songs there are. We also don’t get paid really off those streams but someone’s making money off them.
We’re just this small band out of Santa Barbara trying to make a living. We’re a real band with real people writing our own stuff and sometimes it just feels like we get lost among all this manufactured trendy stuff.
What plans have you got coming up this year?
We’re still promoting our debut album NoBrakes. It’s only been out since May 2022 so we have a bit of work to keep promoting it. Our feature single was Your Boyfriend and it did great but now we have to plan out the next single.
What is your ultimate dream as a band/musician?
As a band, we’ve been pretty lucky so far and have got to play some great stages. We’ve had some great advice from people in the industry so we just keep trying to stick to that. We know we’re the ones that have to make this happen and it needs a lot of luck too, so we just want to keep playing and putting stuff out.
Ultimately, we’d love to get signed to a label so we can get some support and hopefully make a real living at this. So far we haven’t lost money on our tours and we have sold some merch but it would be cool if that was paying all our bills.
You can find out more about exPorter by visiting their website.
If you’re in a band or a musician and would like to appear on this blog, please contact me and I’ll forward you an interview template.
Also, check out my other Music Interview roundups from 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 & 2022.
