5 Questions with Maker Guitarist Eric Soucy

Welcome to the newest addition to The Clock's A&E section, "5 Questions." Each week, I'll be asking (you guessed it!) 5 questions to a member of a band I personally believe in that might not be as big as some of the other bands covered in this newspaper. It's a chance for me to highlight some smaller bands I really care about and give you the chance to see what they're all about. Hopefully you'll give them a listen.

First up is Eric Soucy from Massachusetts' own Maker. Maker are an up and coming band of epic proportions: big choruses, crunchy guitars, heartfelt lyrics and everything else you love about rock and roll in 2011. I'd like to thank Eric for agreeing to be my guinea pig, and I suggest you all check out their debut album, "Mirrors," out now on 6131 Records. It's a great album made by cool people, and it's more than worth your time to head over to www.myspace.com/thisismaker and give them a try.

1.) Please give us a brief history of MAKER

    Maker started in November of 2007 as a side project for singer Dave Carter and drummer Raffi Santourian. It was originally just a way to play music with friends and have fun. At the time, no one was really doing the pop/punk/indie thing so it was refreshing from the hardcore scene. Bass player Mike Coyle and I soon joined with ex guitar player Tyler Ochs and wrote a 10-song CD called "A Place To Call Home". We have just been touring hard and writing a lot of music for the past few years. We just released our first full-length CD "Mirrors" on 6131 records. We are really proud of it, because a lot of work went into it. A lot of things happened to us while writing it too. Dave went to jail for 3 months, Tyler quit, and many other things happened as well. We are leaving for tour in 2 days, though, and things could not be better.

2.) Ever had a brush with death on tour?

We have actually had a lot of serious things happen to us on the road and off. We have been involved in a few serious situations involving stabbings of our friends and hospitalizations of our friends and other people. And like once a day we almost die in the van, other drivers are crazy.

3.) Who are your favorite bands to play with, and who have you not been able to play with yet that you'd like to?

Our favorite bands to play with are probably Such Gold, Transit, Crucial Dudes, Receivers, Downpresser, Avely, Washington Square Park and The Greenery. There are a lot of bands we love to play with. Bands we wish we could play with are Saves The Day, The Movielife, Brand New, ACDC, AFI, Lifetime. There is a big list there as well.

4.)  One of the things that "Mirrors" does so well is genre hop. You have these anthemic rockers, an acoustic song and some badass emo singalongs all on one record without ever committing to a genre. Is it important for MAKER to be a band that can't be pinned down by category? How do you show your influences without pigeonholing yourselves?

We just write songs, and if they work well for the band and we like how they sound, then we use it. Some songs can be slower and some songs can be faster. A lot of bands, all their songs sound the same these days. We just have been having fun writing songs, and "Mirrors" is what came of it.

5.)  What bands were you listening to growing up that made you want to make music?

I got my first Saves The Day CD in 5th or 6th grade. My older brother gave me "Through Being Cool". From there, I really liked other bands like Brand New, Taking Back Sunday and Bayside. I always really loved all kinds of music, though. I love hardcore music. And I also love bands like Third Eye Blind, Oasis, Hootie and the Blowfish, etc. Music is endless.