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Chris Jones, Josh Govier, Devin Gilbert and Jeb Polstein, all Hastings residents, found each other at various stages of their school days and have developed a musical bond and band over the last several years.
"We had all been friends for a many years," said Jones, a vocalist and guitarist. "Devin and Jeb have been friends since pre-school. I met them in elementary school and we all met Josh in middle school. By seventh-grade we had all started to learn our respective instruments and it just sort of happened."
Influenced by the Pixies, Pavement, The Who, the Beatles and Bob Dylan, Primate House developed its musical style playing local venues. Polstein drives the beat as the band's drummer, Gilbert adds vocals and plays guitar, while Govier sets the rhythms on bass.
"At first we were not very serious, but by the time we were freshmen in high school we were practicing regularly and played at the monthly open mic nights," Jones said. "We describe our genre as rock. We like to keep the category general so all of our songs don’t end up sounding the same. We value honest lyrics and try to write about things that are relevant to us. We also try to make our music unique instrumentally."
House began performing in New York City clubs last year, playing the Knitting Factory and Arlene’s. Now seniors at Hastings High School, the House men have played at Santos Party House and the Bitter End among other smaller clubs . The members also run the high school’s open mic nights.
Primate House won "Battle of the Teen Bands" at the Purple Crayon in Hastings in early February, winning them the opportunity to record their music with producer Adel Hinawi, owner of the Purple Crayon.
"We recorded everything ourselves," Jones said. "Josh engineered all of the songs. The album consists of all original material. It will be called "Vomit Rock" because we are sort of barfing up these stories about high school in our songs. These songs were written mostly during our junior year."
Confident in their work together over the last few years as teens, Primate House hopes its first recording will impress producers and promoters and lead to success after high school.
For more on Primate House and the coming album release date, check out the band's Facebook page.
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