Long Winters
Indie Rock / Alternative
My name is John Roderick and I am the songwriter and guitarist in the Long Winters. I grew up in Anchorage, AK, which is a drowsy little city, perched on the very lip of the civilized world. Like most small American towns, Anchorage is a conservative and insular little shithole, but because it’s surrounded on all sides by Alaska it has the good fortune to be a jumping-off point for every kind of maniac and outlaw, and it was from these salty characters that I learned all the truly important life-lessons: keep your powder dry, know a good Audi mechanic, and never feed your dogs first. As an American teenager I was only dimly aware of how stupid I was until I got out into the world and saw it for myself.
I love making records and playing music—it’s a pretty good life for a person like me—and I’m lucky to have played with some great musicians. I’m a little bit of a dictator, maybe, and I have a sharp tongue, but to balance it out I’m also paranoid and greedy. Still, there are so many people in the world, (6.4 billion) that even an unlikable and grouchy little Napoleon like me is able to find plenty of talented musicians to be in his band.
Eric Corson grew up in Kent, WA and joined the Long Winters in 2001, after the recording of The Worst You Can Do is Harm, and has been with the band through all our subsequent adventures. He showed up to his first audition fresh off an Alaskan fishing boat, having learned all our songs on a five-string acoustic guitar. He was really young looking and super-quiet, so we immediately began subjecting him to the constant harassment and intimidation that is our trademark, calculated to either break his spirit or forge him into an iron-willed bass-warrior. Over the last few years he’s been hardened by touring and by the constant verbal firestorm, becoming a sarcastic and wiry bastard who can sleep standing up in a corner and who could play bass under sustained machine-gun fire. Even better, Eric’s become a great harmony vocalist, surprising everyone with his excellent singing and dramatic seizing of the moment. Basically, Eric is the heart and soul of the band and, although he was a little under-done when he was 25, he’s now a complete badass.
Mike Squires grew up in the rural backwater of Granite Falls, WA and is a longtime Seattle musician who has played guitar and bass in a variety of bands including the Nevada Bachelors, hippy-jazzoids Romadrosis, and Duff McKeagan’s Loaded. Recently returned from a two-year stint delivering coffee in Portland, OR, Mike brings to the Long Winters his Vegas-style showmanship and his crack Marine Corps typing-pool discipline. Mike’s association with the Long Winters goes back to the very start, when he recorded both the guitar and bass parts on the song “Scent of Lime”, but because of the extremely strict conditions of his parole he was unable to tour with the band before now. A born collector, Mike “wows” them at parties with his lengthy discourses about Iron Maiden and Pedro the Lion vinyl, and he will also ramble incoherently about the merits of various vintage chorus effects pedals until even the most die-hard guitar wanker loses the feeling in his hands.
Nabil Ayers, from Salt Lake City, UT is the newest member of the Long Winters but has played in many Seattle bands over the years including the Lemons, Micro Mini, and Alien Crime Syndicate. Nabil is also co-owner of Sonic Boom Records, a hipster music chain that hires a lot of cool kids who silently judge you while you shop, and he puts out records himself on his Control Group record label. He’s a great drummer and promises to be a calming and stabilizing presence in the band, mostly because he’s so busy sending emails on his Blackberry that he completely misses most of the conversation and ends up agreeing with everyone. Nabil has been called the “nicest man in Seattle rock”, which should tell you what a kiss-ass, suck-up he is, but in a band that has featured as many disagreeable sons-a-bitches as the Long Winters, it’s nice to finally have a smoothie.
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