They ended up being really shy and quiet people at first, but the more I got to know the members, the more personable they became. They also got out a bit more from their Lansdale bubble and ended up traveling around the region.
When plans were being put together for what became the “Miscommunication” EP I wanted to try doing a dual format thing, as I had never pressed anything on more than either CD or vinyl at that point. I once again wanted to try doing a promotional thing for Hanging Like a Hex zine, as well as the band so two of the songs from “Miscommunication” were pressed onto a 7” and a few hundred copies were added as a bonus to issue #15. The rest were sold individually, and given to the band. I remember spending a considerable amount to have the CD pressed between it being the first tri-fold insert I’d ever done, the recording costs (the band recorded with Brian McTerrnan at Salad Days), and CDs just cost more to press back then. So I tried as much as I could to save money on the seven inch pressing any way I could. One of those ways was when the covers were made I asked for them not to be glued, just printed flat, and I would take care of that part. It somehow saved me around $100 I think. However, I spend so much time with a hot glue gun gluing those stupid covers together. Plus, seven inches were a little tougher to sell when you had a CD version of something. But that’s why it was more of a promotional item. The CD itself had 5 tracks on it. The 7” had two. I was still kind of new at this, so logic wasn’t always my strong point. Whatever the case, it worked out pretty well in the end.
By the time the record was released the band played a record release hometown show that I traveled down for. The record had been out for about a week or something and the show they played was pretty stacked. I think Drowningman and All Else Failed played as well, which was a pretty great pairing when Inkling is added. I distinctly remember them playing “Drawing Conclusions”, the first song on the record and near the end there’s a little pause where they yell, “Never call you again!” and I swear that every voice of the couple hundred people packed into the VFW hall yelled it in unison. Not only was I surprised that so many people already knew all the words, but I really felt like I wasn’t just putting out records because I enjoyed them. There were a ton of other people who were into them as well. That was a pretty good feeling.
"Drawing Conclusions" live from Inkling's reunion show in 2012 in Lansdale
In the years that have passed I have managed to stay in touch with most of the guys in some way or another. Their bassist, Eric Haag, would go on to help me create a Hex Records website and play in Ladder Devils years later with Tim and Brian. Guitarist Tim Leo became a close personal friend and became my go-to for a crash pad whenever I would find myself in Philly. Him, Chris, and Medlin also played in the Minor Times together, who obviously went on to do quite a bit more. And their other guitarist, Chris Mascotti, was my primary contact for the band for their whole existence. Plus, he was always hilarious to be around. He now lives in the Denver area and has gone the whole family and kids route. But he still keeps an ear to the ground for new music. We caught up about the making of the CD and accompanying 7” for their lone Hex Records outing “Miscommunication”.
R: Talk about Lansdale, PA. Everyone in the band grew up there. No one really thinks about it, but it has a bit of a history with some fairly established bands and it’s own scene right?
C: Yeah, for sure. More recently Brian Schmutz (vocalist of Inkling) was in The Starting Line. That Wonder Years band came out of Lansdale. They’re more in that pop-punk sort of thing, whatever. But as far as more legit hardcore bands there were a ton of local bands. I’m not sure if any of them made it nationally. But it seems like at any show there would be like 400 kids there. This one time Boy Sets Fire came through and there were around 400 kids there. And they asked if it was because of them, if they were the draw. But it was just because there were always that many kids at shows. I had Drowningman come through and Darkest Hour, and a ton of different bands, and it didn’t matter who was playing, a ton of kids would show up. It’s definitely pocketed within a bunch of cities, ya know. I don’t know what to say, it’s Northeast suburbia?
R: I remember meeting those guys from Wonder Years once before they got really huge and they were just hanging out at a show in Rochester, NY, not playing, and they had mentioned that your band was a huge influence on them. And I thought, ‘you sound nothing like them!’
C: I guess Inkling had people locally who loved us. Not many people knew Inkling much outside of our local scene, and several other towns that we played a bunch. But I was talking to Tim (Leo, guitarist) about this the other day that as much as we don’t want to admit it, we probably fit in with bands like Poison the Well and Hopesfall and all those bands that did the singing-screaming thing. But, of course, we thought we did it better. Everyone thinks that. But that’s what drew people to us for sure- having those sing-along parts or whatever. For fun, in either 2011 or 2012, we did an Inkling reunion show in Lansdale. Did you hear about that?
R: I did. I heard about it.
C: And once again, like 400 kids showed up. It was if nothing had changed. So I could see those Wonder Years kids being influenced by maybe what was happening at the time, but not really by what we sounded like entirely.
R: How did Inkling start? You all have known each other for a long time correct?
C: Yeah. All of us started meeting around the same time in our teenage years. I met Tim when I was around 13, but we didn’t start hanging out more and playing together until a few years later. I met Tim through his brother Matt, who ended up being in the Minor Times with us together later on. Before that I met Brian Medlin (drummer) when I was around 15 or 16. Me and my brother both knew a bunch of kids who knew each other, all named Brian it seemed. There were, like 17 Brians. That’s how I met Schmutz (Brain, vocalist) too. Medlin and Schmutz had already been playing together since they were really young teenagers, just jamming Nirvana covers at Brian’s house. That’s why we played “Scentless Apprentice” at that one Halloween show you saw us at where every band was supposed to cover The Misfits and we were like, ‘yeah, no.’ So anyway, when Medlin started playing drums with us Brian (Schmutz) came along with him to do vocals. Actually, before Medlin was playing drums my brother was playing drums and, in a crappy way, I told my brother ‘Medlin’s going to play drums for now on because he’s better’ and my brother played bass instead for awhile. I don’t think you knew us back then. That was when we first started. But then he got into hip-hop and stuff and went away to college so then we got Eric. Eric Haag was our bassist after that and we had known him since high school too. So, for a short answer, yeah, we all knew each other since high school. The writing started with me and Tim riffing in each other’s rooms.
R: You did your first full length through a local PA label. Talk a bit about that record. The recording was done in several different sessions, correct?
C: There was a demo before that, it was like an eight song demo.
R: Yeah, that was probably the longest demo I ever heard. It was like a full length.
C: I don’t know why we thought we needed to put eight songs on a demo! So, anyway, “Minute” was all recorded in the same place, but at different times. It was recorded at Signal Sound Studios in Quakertown, like half an hour from us. The dude who recorded us was Dana from Weston. He’s a great dude and he did a great job. But what happened was we would record some of the record and then take a break, and the next day Dana wouldn’t be working. But the guy who owned the studio, Pete, would come in and… it was a mess. So we had to try and mix it ourselves and we had no idea what we were doing! We recorded those songs probably over the course of a year, at different times. The first couple songs were recorded in one session. And then “Surfacing” was recorded at a different session, and the next couple were recorded at another time. And each time some of our set up would change a bit. I’d have a different pedal, or a different guitar, or a different head. Medlin had a different drum set. It made the record sound like a compilation of seven inches. And we also did record a seven inch with our friend Schwa with this band called Charlie Brown Gets a Valentine on Spoiled Records. It was all a mish-mash for sure.
R: Between “Minute” being released and the record you did on Hex what did you all learn about being in a band, recording, songwriting, etc?
C: We definitely had a bit more experience and how to prepare for recording. So by the time we were ready to do the EP with you we felt better. And we recorded with Brian McTerrnan, so that was a bit more serious. I guess he’s sort of a genius, but kind of an asshole too. He kind of helped us out though. We knew we wanted our record to sound cohesive, but sometimes we were just sort of throwing darts at a wall. But with “Miscommunication” we were ready to go, we packed up all our gear, and drove down to Maryland for a week. We were like, ‘Alright, we’re going to do this. We paid all this money to do this the right way, at this time, we’re going to get it done and we’re going to be spending time together and stay focused, and no one’s going to go home for a minute’. That helped too. We were there the whole time together. McTerrnan is a good engineer. He had just recorded Snapcase and they had a piccolo snare, and he hates piccolo snares. So we show up and Medlin had a piccolo snare and McTerrnan was like ‘no’. So we said, ‘what do you mean ‘no’?’ So he gave us a snare to use. When that dude puts his name on something he wants it to sound like something he did. So that helped a bit too. We were really tight at that point too. It was the last thing we did so I guess we were at our tightest and most cohesive as a band. We were playing every weekend, constantly, at that point. We knew what we wanted to do and we didn’t use a lot of effects on things. We kept it kind of raw. The whole experience with McTerrnan was pretty great overall honestly. So much so that we went back when we started the Minor Times and did that EP with him as well.
R: Talk a bit a bout recording “Miscommunication”. You all really stepped it up in terms of production and so on. Why didn’t you just do a full length? Or did you have plans for an LP further down the line?
C: We were planning on doing a full length. But then Brian (Schmutz) quit and we became The Minor Times. And the music you hear from that band is sort of where we were headed anyway. So really the writing process for “Miscommunication” and the first Minor Times EP were pretty much back-to-back. Tim pushed things in a bit more angular, or noise-rock direction. I was the one who wrote the more melodic stuff. I would be like, ‘hey, I want to write Deftones parts, but in a more hardcore sort of way’. I think, essentially, we just wanted release a record with you and we had this EP worth of stuff and we just wanted to do it and not wait. The next step would have been to write an LP, but Brian cut that short. It just felt right.
R: Inkling never toured very much, but you did weekends and stuff like that. Was there any reason, or hesitation, about getting on the road for a long stretch?
C: Yeah, it wasn’t so much hesitation. We wanted to tour, we just didn’t know what we were doing. We did a tour with Charlie Brown Gets a Valentine, that was like a week and a half. All the stuff we did as Inkling was always just East Coast and Midwest. We went down to Florida and then did a Midwest thing for 8 or 9 days, and it was just tagging along with bands we knew. If someone had asked us if we wanted to go on tour for a month we would have been like, ‘fuck yeah’. I just don’t think we really knew how to reach out to others, or to network yet. You need someone like that in a band. We didn’t have a booking agent. Schmutz would organize some stuff, Medlin would organize some stuff, every once in awhile I would, it was really just whatever we could grab. I could talk to you about shows in Syracuse, or upstate, but that’s it really.
R: A few guys in the band were very design-oriented. How did you all come up with who would do layouts and stuff like that? Was there any competing ideas around that sort of thing?
C: It was a bit of a competition sometimes! I went to school for design. Eric went to school for design. I don’t use my degree at all. Tim was kind of self-trained. That dude just has raw talent when it comes to that sort of stuff. His stuff just looked cool, and he was able to use it since he ended up working for Relapse Records for awhile doing design. We would just rotate when it came to things, like making flyers for our shows. I’d make a flyer for our show and the next time we played we’d pass it and Tim would make the flyer, or Eric. With record artwork we would collaborate. With our demo and our full length the guy who put that stuff out- this guy named Mitch Martinez, he had all these design programs so we sort of art-directed him. With “Miscommunication” Eric did the artwork for it. He had a lot of updated design programs and that was more of his style. Everyone would put their ideas in and have input, but that would boil down to each of us saying, ‘I don’t like that’. We were poor critics. It would just be ‘I don’t like it.’ ‘Well, why don’t you like it?’ ‘I just don’t like it’. We also had this guy Mark Price design some stuff for us and he’s made a career out of his art at this point. But anyway, our design process would get a little competitive, and sometimes a bit of a sore spot occasionally, but it usually worked out pretty good, and we had fun with it mostly.
R: What led to Inkling splitting up?
C: We have all played in other projects with Brian (Schmutz) over the years so there’s no bad blood or anything. He just didn’t want to do stuff like that anymore. When he quit I believe he stated that he wanted to do something that sounded more like Weezer. But Brian was always more pop-oriented than us. That’s why The Starting Line was such a good fit for him later on. He wanted to push things more in the direction of when we had those singing parts in our songs. And myself and Tim, Tim especially, just wanted to go heavy. Everything we listened to at that point was just heavy. We wanted a really heavy direction. Back then I might have said I wanted to go in a math-rock direction. But honestly, just heavy. That’s what I wanted to do. Medlin too. I think he wanted to go heavier as well. So we all did Minor Times after that with our friend Brendan singing and this guy Justin, who was actually the bass player right at the end of Inkling and as we started Minor Times.
R: What’s your favorite thing you remember from being in Inkling? What’s the least favorite?
C: The best thing was being in a band and traveling with my best friends. No doubt about it. Absolutely. We were very tight knit. People outside our group could see it, they knew we were all close friends. It was so much to the point that it would be like, ‘I can’t date you if you don’t like Tim’. It didn’t happen. We were each others best friends. We had been writing together since we were teenagers. And then we just all got in a van and it was awesome. The worst thing about it? I don’t know. Maybe it was that we delayed our lives to do this? So maybe it was a concern at the time, but then you look back at it and you figure out how to be adults. We didn’t care. We figured it out later on. I guess also being that close to each other and being around each other that much could have been kind of crappy occasionally. There were definitely some rough times where Tim and Brian got in some pretty heated arguments. It’s like being married to 4 other people. At that point we would practice three times a week, play out every weekend, we were in the Northeast so everything was close and we would play something lie 5 or 6 shows a month, do long weekends, sleeping in the same place, we would have jobs together all the time too. In any relationship where you see people that much can get a bit tiring. But the good outweighs the bad for sure.
R: Do you still keep in touch with the band? What are people currently engaged in with music/life/etc?
C: Everyone is still out in the Philly area except me. I’m sure if I still lived there we would be playing music together. Tim and Medlin are doing a band together now called Desperate Living. Before that Tim had Ladder Devils, and I was a part of that early on before I moved. We get older and have our differences, but we still get along. If I was there I could go hang with Brian and write some melodic, slow thing. And then go over and jam with Tim and Medlin playing some crazy noisy thing. We figured it out on a casual level that didn’t involve touring anymore. But I don’t have much time for that since I have a full time job, and I’m adult, and I have three kids. It kind of slows things down ya know? But it’s great. I’d probably be bored without them!
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